In Toronto we'd like to think our multiculturalism has made us culturally rich. What other city provides such opportunities for tasting the world -- as when crossing Toronto? Yet, at the same time, in the very midst of Toronto's unrivaled multicultural diversity, we feel culturally deprived. We say, repeatedly, that Toronto lives in no one's imagination. The Globe & Mail said it. The Toronto Star said it. Toronto Life said it (twice). We say so as a matter of fact. We mention it as we might snow in winter or puddles after rain.

It’s puzzling, though. Why would we feel culturally starved by the banquet of Toronto multiculturalism? What is culture, after all, but shared experience and tradition – including culinary tradition? And, since we share such diverse experience and tradition in Toronto – how could we possibly feel culturally starved here?

It’s totally puzzling so long as we believe shared experience to be the source of culture. It isn’t, though. Came to me a couple years back – while lecturing, of all things. Very much in passing, I’d said that culture doesn’t come from shared experience. At lecture’s end, one of the course directors demanded I reveal where culture does come from – if not from shared experience. I tried not answering. With the tide of almost 200 students fidgeting to leave, I tried laughing it off. Said that was another lecture – for another day. But she insisted. Vehemently. And the students had stopped fidgeting. Tide halted mid-stride. As if they actually wanted to know. What to do? Had to say something. So I said culture comes from shared principle. I said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Which it was, after I’d said it. But, regardless how obvious now, I haven’t forgotten that moment. Mostly due to her shocked reaction. Dramatic expressing that the very notion of culture emerging from shared principle rather than experience not only flies in the face of materialism – but gives it a spectacular shiner to boot.

Why we starve for culture surrounded by such diversity of experience as Toronto offers can’t cease puzzling while we believe culture emerges merely from shared experience. Fact is, shared experience is to culture as the visible tip of an iceberg is to the glacial sheet from which icebergs shear. Culture is tectonic. It is shared interpreting the significance of experience – regardless whether the experience itself be shared, orally told or posted on YouTube. Culture is shared signification in light of common principles. Culture is shared meaning. Far beneath and beyond ways of people coinciding, it is the very identity of peoples. Culture is who we are and what we stand for. It is the nation building mortar of common thought – and the often devastating bondage of common thinking.

Total fiction – culture emerging merely from shared experience. Yet, for Toronto, it has proven a highly useful and convenient fiction. For seating diversity, Toronto is front row centre. Progressive as it gets in terms of multicultural diversity. All that and more. While elsewhere, far less spectacular diversity has been feared to cause trouble. Like, pretty much everywhere in the world. Thing is, we don’t fear such trouble in Toronto. Got nothing to fear here. We’re culturally rich and fear no culture clashing – that’s how progressive we are in Toronto.

Hardly. We’re multi-culturally diverse – not culturally rich. Culturally, we’re starved. Toronto lives in no one’s imagination. Being Torontonian means having nothing to declare. What’s there to declare? So long as we maintain culture as nothing but shared experience, habits and traditions, there’s nothing to declare. Were we to admit culture as identity signifying shared principles, there’d be plenty to declare. Our cultural – maybe even personal – principles. But, while only we keep from admitting it, we reduce culture to shared experience fictions. Including culinary shared experience. Like taste-testing each other – instead of declaring who we are and what we stand for. As if who we are were reducible to what, when and how we eat. As if it came down to what’s in our spice-racks. As if. Yet, thereby, we may continue congratulating ourselves on spice variety in Toronto life. As if spice variety sufficed making us culturally rich – not just multi-culturally diverse.

Very convenient fiction – culture as merely shared experience. Enables our believing variety of experience available sharing in Toronto makes us culturally rich. Perhaps more importantly, it encourages our illegitimating those persisting declaring themselves. Since there’s nothing to declare. Right? Maintaining culture as shared experience, we look very far down our noses at them going on about who they are and what they stand for. Wan’na get included in legitimate cultural exchange? Shut up and stop declaring. No faster way getting disqualified from Toronto life than walking the streets declaring who you are. Shut up, stop declaring and open a restaurant.

More than just convenient – our fiction of culture as shared experience. Safety measure, too. The more diverse we become, the more hazardous should too many of us start running the streets declaring ourselves. Declaring who we are, where we stand, what we run the streets for. Because, if too diverse many of us run streets declaring inevitably contradictory principles – well, sure, it might lead to culturally enriching discourse. It might get us thinking a little more about who we ought and might yet be. But far more likely, if we run the streets declaring ourselves, it’ll just get us clashing cultural principles right there in the streets. And most of us would rather avoid that. Much rather. Most of us escaped here to get away from the consequences of precisely that.

So we’re mostly agreed. Culture is just shared experience. We require nothing but multicultural diversity to enrich us culturally. Nothing cold about Toronto but occasional weather. We aren’t culturally starved here. Most of all, we don’t hold with all that declaring. We’ve got nothing to declare here. Far as we’re concerned, too much declaring illegitimates culture. Yet more personally – too much declaring illegitimates character.

It has worked well for us. Though impoverished culturally, we’ve enjoyed unrivalled multicultural diversity – without fearing cultures clashing. It’s really something, how much we don’t make the (bad) news when it comes to cultures clashing. But we’re running into trouble now. In her February 8th Globe&Mail article (Do ethnic enclaves impede integration?) – Marina Jimenez warns: “Canada’s famed multicultural mosaic has morphed into a series of monocultural neighbourhoods. And she cites some shocking statistics. Apparently, in 1981, there were only six “ethnic enclaves” in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. By 2001, however, there were 254.

Sure sounds like trouble. But what sort? Should we look to a future when all our neighbourhoods become so thoroughly and pervasively monocultural that they proclaim independence and demand sovereignty association – or worse? Of course not. Neighbourhoods can’t secede. Trouble is, though, that they can – and increasingly seem to – withdraw into monocultural enclaves. Which, taken to eventual extremes suggested by Marina Jimenez, would mean irretrievable cultural fragmentation. City and country wide cultural fragmentation. In other words, an end to viable continuity across city and country – to be replaced by culturally segregated communities regarding one another with increasing suspicion and through increasing mutual alienation. Finally, there would be hostility – cultures clashing in the streets.

But it’s not that monocultural enclaves impede integration. That’s not at the root of this trouble. No. It’s that we’ve gone too far maintaining the culture as merely shared experience fiction. We’ve culturally impoverished ourselves too much in Toronto, Canada. We’ve starved ourselves to the point where there’s no culture remaining to integrate with, other than the kind of multiculturalism we encounter at food festivals, festivals that leave us hungry because their sustenance only a shadow of a meal. In Toronto, Canada we’ve lost all clue who we are and what we stand for. Thus, it’s only natural for those who retain some however residual identity in former cultural principles to seek each other out. Yes, they have come here searching better lives. Yes, they have materially improved their lives coming here. But not culturally. Much as 'they' might wish to join with 'us' culturally – there’s nothing here for them to join. So why should they impoverish themselves as we have?

We must figure out who we are and what we stand for. Not so that our cultural principles preclude or even occlude those of newer arrivals. Precisely not that. To the contrary. It’s about finding such mortar as will preserve our cultural mosaic from fragmenting entirely. We must figure out what it means to be Canadian – and Torontonian. We must so that those arriving will at least have something declarable to integrate with – beyond recipe sharing.

To be concluded next week with a positive proposal for cultural (re)discovery. (Part I may be read here).

[Peter Fruchter teaches in Humanities at York University and writes about the nature of truth (and truths of nature). North America is his third continent.]

[Cultural mosaic image by Jose Ongpin and used via a Creative Commons license.]

1. Huh? This all sounds based on the idea that multiculturalism is exactly the same as shared experience. So we must already have shared experience. So shared experience must not be culture.

   But multiculturalism is pretty different than shared experience. Multiculturalism neither guarantees nor prevents shared experience—it’s simply a different thing. Multiculturalism is what we do have. Shared experience is what we don’t have. It’s what we need.

   Posted by  on  02/20  at  10:24 PM

2. Confused? Try this.

   Multiculturalism is like a mosaic with lots of different size, shape & colour tiles in it. Provides wonderful opportunities experiencing different tiles.

   Culture is like cement/grout binding different sorts of tiles together. This grout is made not just from arbitrary conventions. Made especially from sharing principles which entail/inform fundamental values.

   What’s happening now is tiles are falling out of the mosaic. And the fellow hired to repair the mosaic, he doesn’t believe in grout. Thinks what ought to hold the mosaic together is all the pretty colours. Instead of grouting, he’s putting tiles into buckets. A different bucket for every kind of tile. Then, he goes around to all the different buckets and talks to them. Tells them how nice it is to be part of the mosaic.

   The tiles aren’t getting back into the mosaic, though. Every day, there’s more tiles in separate buckets and fewer tiles in the mosaic. Not because tiles got anything against mosaics. Mostly they actually agree—it is very nice. But without grout to hold the mosaic together, tiles got no confidence in it. No sufficient reason, inspiration and motivation to try finding a place in the mosaic.

   Rough metaphor. Hope it helps.

   Posted by  on  02/21  at  08:59 AM

3. You’re still confusing “multiculturalism” with “shared experience”. They’re totally different things, though.

   The problem with your mosaic metaphor is that it assumes there’s some omniscient character out there to gaze upon it all. Problem is, we’re the tiles, not the gazer. And the tiles are mostly arranged right now into a series of single-colour patches. Many patches, to be sure—but whether they spend their time in single-colour buckets or in single-colour patches, the tiles don’t experience much different.

   As for Maria Jimenez’s piece, by the way, I wouldn’t put too much stock in it—it purports to tell a story about increasingly ghettoized communities, but relies on statistics that pay attention only to “race”, a sociologically irrelevant category to the story she wants to tell insofar as it misses most ethnic communities as they existed over the course of her timeline. Statcan’s fault, not totally hers—they’ve lapsed into an increasingly dubious racialization of the Canadian popoulation in recent years—but in concluding there are ethnic enclaves where once there were few, she clearly does not understand much about the data set she is using.

   Posted by  on  02/21  at  11:48 PM

4. Ahh, so you’re disagreeing—not just confused. That wasn’t apparent in your first comment. Intentionally not?

   No matter. Let me help you disagree, then.

   My argument is we’ve been neglecting—perhaps even eradicating—culture. I.e., metaphorically, the grout. Consequently, tiles fall off the wall into their original
   buckets. So to speak. Metaphorically. Thus our mosaic—i.e., multiculturalism—falls apart.

   That’s all. Doesn’t matter who the tiles are, who the watchers are or who the buckets are. See? If you believe our mosaic/multiculturalism = good thing, then
   mosaic falling apart = good thing falling apart = eventually no more good thing = no good = bad.

   Like to disagree? Lots of options for you. Any of: mosaic is bad—we don’t need no mosaic;
   there’s plenty of grout, but that’s not why mosaic falls apart—it’s a conspiracy, that’s why;
   there’s no grout but mosaic isn’t falling apart—we don’t need no grout;
   there’s no grout and mosaic is falling apart but mosaic isn’t falling apart because there’s no grout…..

   Were you trying to argue there’s no mosaic (“And the tiles are mostly arranged right now into a series of single-colour patches.”)?
   Maybe you were. If so, denying existence of Toronto multiculturalism might qualify as disagreeing—but not worth responding to.

   Plenty coherent options for your disagreeing. Not only as per above listed.

   Posted by  on  02/22  at  01:42 AM

5. Shared experience is great, as far as it goes—which isn’t very far.

   How many Torontonians watch the same television shows? Drive the same highways? Shop at the same supermarkets? Are these things shard experience? In a dim way, yes. Do they help us understand one another? Apart from the rude hand gestures, not very much.

   We try to elevate shared experiences by sharing them in physical proximity to one another. We cavort at Caribana, pack water pistols at Pride, and suck down souvlaki on the Danforth. Does attending these festivals help us understand one another? Only until the calypso gives you a headache, or there’s a gay marriage bill in parliament, or an outbreak of food poisoning. Then we’re back to square one.

   Square one is kind of like one of the tiles Peter Fruchter refers to. And as we all know (from shared experience, right?) tiles are often slippery, not to mention brittle, and the grout between them tends to fill up with gunk.

   But we persist with tiles because, well, they’re ubiquitous, easy to fit together, and pretty. It’s keeping them that way that’s the challenge. Kind of like culture, no?

   The trick with tiles is knowing how to care for them. Same thing with culture. That means knowing how much weight a particular tile will take, being careful to separate tiles that might break when rubbing against other ones, and remembering how pretty tiles are when they’re not obscured with the dust of culture.

   Sure, we can know this through experience. Hard experience. A lot of broken tiles along the way. But people have been using tiles for thousands of years, and we don’t seem to have gotten any better at it. Some would say we’ve gotten worse.

   But what if we could do something other than throwing a bunch of tiles together and hoping for the best? What if we could find a way to keep them from breaking? Or at least know why (and where) they tend to be brittle?

   Well, that would mean knowing something about what they’re really made of, probing into their deepest character. It would require a kind of honesty we tend to shy away from. A kind of recognition of the foundational principles of tiles and mosaic-building.

   But you know, there’s no telling what kind of book we could write with that knowledge, or what kind of beautiful mosaic we could build on a solid foundation.

   That’s what Peter Fruchter is getting at.

   Posted by Amy Lavender Harris  on  02/22  at  09:24 AM

6. Heh. Of course, that’s assuming culture can be reduced to tiles, or that shared experience—or even shared principle—can be reduced to grout. Not to mention that it’s difficult to know when, whether, or how something is shared at all. That’s why I wrote this.

   Posted by Amy Lavender Harris  on  02/22  at  09:40 AM
8. Peter: I'm afraid I can't take up any of the forms of disagreement you deem acceptable. I think you're wrong that mosaic is bad. I think you're wrong that mosaic is falling apart (and that there's a conspiracy to make it so(!)). I think you're wrong that mosaic isn't falling apart. I think you're wrong that there's no mosaic. But, mostly, I think you're wrong on two more important points. First, that there's some separate mosaic which we omniscient city dwellers can behold and evaluate. We are the mosaic. There is no "out there". That's the problem with the metaphor. But it's also the problem with the thinking behind the metaphor. Second, a metaphor just ain't black and white. There's no mosaic-is or mosaic-isn't. For you, either there is a wonderfully multicolour mosaic which you observe at some dispassionate vantage point, or there is none at all ("Were you trying to argue there’s no mosaic (“And the tiles are mostly arranged right now into a series of single-colour patches.”)?). But if we're going to talk about mosaics, we're going to have to attend to their actual form, too. And, yeah, the extent of our shared experience -- the extent to which a single path of said mosaic is multicolour and multiform -- is limited. That, at least, is a key part of your initial argument, with all the leaning on and lamenting of "monocultural enclaves". Amy, you start out by explaining that many Torontonians share a limited set of experiences re: television shows and highways and supermarkets, but that that doesn't count for very much. I'm pretty sure you're overstating the case as to the TV shows and highways and supermarkets we share -- that's sort of the point of the monocultural enclaves which Statistics Canada claims to have finally detected. And it's, of course, poignant that you list a bunch of experiences which are for the most part individual: enclosed in cars, enclosed in living rooms, and (the less individual, but more neighbourhood-specific) rushing through the aisles along with those with whom we live in close proximity. But, sure, such things are limited. We agree. I agree with you, too, that once lived experience is bottled up into a brittle, two-dimensional metaphor of tiles then, sure, it doesn't much match the way we'd like life to be. Life is not two-dimensional. But as to knowing something about what each other is really made of, and being honest with each other -- well, that is the sort of thing people with shared pasts and histories and cultures do. We get honest with each other once we know each other a little bit. Don't get me wrong. I have nothing against the uniquely north-European form of togetherness that Peter advocates, in which we all earnestly get together and talk it all out. But whatever forms of inclusive shared culture we develop are going to involve attending to the micro-interactions of Torontonians of all stripes and shapes, from all over the city. That's very much the point of public space. It's about creating an infrastructure in which placemaking can happen. It would no doubt be more rationalistic and more trackable and so forth to book a room and stage a grand old debate and decide on foundational principles and building rules and so on. But put me on the side of placemaking as the result of thousand incremental and chance encounters that build on shared space, take fruit and lead to joint ventures, shared endeavours, and all the other wonderful things that happen. Don't get me wrong -- I've visited some exquisitely-planned and -maintained royal gardens, and they are truly lovely. Still, I think there's something to be said for wildlife gardening. Especially when we wildlife have got so much to show!
   
   Posted by  on  {comment_date format=’%m/%d’}  at  {comment_date format=’%h:%i %A’}
Posted by  on  02/25  at  02:15 PM
10. Disparishun, you talk about the need for interaction -- shared experience -- prior to engaging in talk about shared principles. No disagreement there -- as long as conversation turns, at some point, to principle. Otherwise it's just so much talk about the weather. You add, "But as to knowing something about what each other is really made of, and being honest with each other—well, that is the sort of thing people with shared pasts and histories and cultures do. We get honest with each other once we know each other a little bit." You suggest honesty is something that follows shared experience? What precedes it? Dishonesty? How do we get to know each other without at least a little honesty? How do we set the terms -- dare I say principles? -- for getting acquainted? If we apply your own standards, Disparishun, we're never going to get to talking about anything more than the weather. Not even here in this particular public space. Why? Because while (by your standards) we're having a shared experience here in this public space, there's no way to get beyond it. No way to get to the honesty you suggest should follow upon shared experience. You see, you already know who Peter Fruchter is, who I am, and what Reading Toronto is all about. But you've chosen the cover of a pseudonym. Nobody can fault you for that -- it's your choice. But that choice doesn't offer much to build shared experience on, let alone shared principle. In fact, it suggests a desire for the opposite. And you know, I'm tired of talking about the weather.
    
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Posted by Amy Lavender Harris  on  02/25  at  06:11 PM

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