richard-day-gramsci-is-dead

Postmarxism and the New Social Movements 79terms, could only be considered a ‘deficient’ mode of recognitionassociated with the master–slave relationship: a recognition thatHegel describes in the Phenomenology as ‘one-sided and unequal’,since one partner (the master) is ‘only recognized’, and the other(the slave) is ‘only recognizing’ (Hegel 1977/1807: 113, 116). The keyhere is that recognition is not mutual or, as Bakhtin puts it, there isno ‘affirmation of the other’s consciousness as a full-fledged subject’(1984: 7). Shifting the emphasis in the quote from Taylor cited above,we can see how a one-way motion takes place: ‘that we not onlyrecognize them, but acknowledge their equal worth’. Although hehas recently castigated those who are ‘still so used to functioningpolitically among themselves’ that they continue to ‘speak, think,and act politically in terms of us and them’ (1998: 146) it wouldseem that Taylor’s own theory of recognition is deeply immersed inthis mode. Recognition is something that ‘we’ may or may not wishto bestow upon ‘them’, depending upon whether ‘we’ judge ‘their’particular claim to be valid. Again, a similar operation is carried outby Kymlicka: ‘I will discuss whether immigrant groups should be giventhe rights and resources necessary to sustain a distinct societal culture’(1995: 76; italics added). Or: ‘If people have a deep bond with theirown culture ... should we not allow immigrants to re-create their ownsocietal cultures?’ (95; italics added).On the theory that individuals attempt to express their true identitiesin dialogue with others, it would be fair to ask how statements suchas these might be motivated. That is, what is the nature of the‘objective’ point of view from which a system of empirically-guidedrecognition and differentiated citizenship rights could be formulated?This question is easy to answer in the case of Taylor, who clearlyrelies upon a model of the nation-state which he associates with‘North Atlantic civilization’ (1992: 71). But with Kymlicka it’s notso easy, since he doesn’t position his theory in this way. He does,however, argue that ‘the crucial question facing ... any ... multinationstate is how to reconcile ... competing nationalisms within a singlestate’ (1998: 127). He also has a tendency to cast any non-universalidentity-building project as a ‘minority nationalism’ giving rise to‘disintegrating effects’ (132). Kymlicka’s point of identification, itseems, is not with a particular ethnic group, category of citizenship, oreven with an elusive, non-exclusive nationalism, but with the systemof states itself. From this ‘privileged empty point of universality’ (Žižek1997: 44) that presumes to stand outside the realm of ethnoculturalidentification, all other positions can be categorized according to