Social Integration in Culturally Differentiated Societies —What Does Bauman Has in Common with Marquand? Plural and Pluralism-Interculturalism vs Multiculturalism in Western Complex Societies

Abstract

In complex Western modern polyethnic and democratic societies, the idea that integration, social cohesion, and civic equality require cultural homogeneity is difficult to sustain. And if in an era of super-diversity, the assimilationist idea of cultural homologation is unsustainable, the multiculturalist idea of separation among cultural groups that are in the same social space is problematic too. In other words, it is unrealistic to think that a new positive coexistence, social integration, and cohesion between us and them can derive from the salad bowl model or the procedural functionalist model of the multiculturalist project of making society. Indeed, Multiculturalism is a philosophical and not a sociological model. The solution to the fear of nihilist danger that frightens detractors of polytheism cannot reside in what can be considered an anachronistic leap back. In these conceptual terms, even Bauman understands Multiculturalism. In this regard, his reference to Odo Marquand is significant. Pluralism and, above all, Interculturalism are preferable.