Cultural conflicts: a deflationary approach

This paper will provide a preliminary and indirect contribution to the debate between multiculturalism and interculturalism by focusing on a dimension of diversity which is usually overlooked and calls for specific interventions and social engagement. Instead of considering diversity from the point of view of doctrinal incompatibility, this paper suggests to start from the frictions in daily interactions between the society’s majority and minority groups. In this case, at stake there are conventions and social norms that are instruments of social cooperation rather than conceptions of the good or comprehensive doctrines. The merging of social norms and the redesigning of social cooperation is complicated and insidious in its own way. The analysis will first illustrate what social standards are, and explain why they are so crucial in social interactions, and, second, will connect social standards with a specific virtue, civility. Civility, will be argued, is put under stress by the upsetting of social standards by newcomers. Finally, various solutions to the conflicts produced by the encounter of different social standards will be considered both on the institutional side and on the social relations side.