Single matrix, or cultural diversity?

"Cultural exception" was a rather poor, legally-inspired concept, that is now almost universally rejected, except in France. On its ruins another concept has been hastily rebuilt: that of "cultural diversity", which is supposed to be positive where cultural exception was merely defensive. Yet if cultural diversity isn't to die as quickly and miserably as cultural exception, it would be a good idea to give real content to this concept, which aims at being "likeable" and universal, but which has much to gain from moving beyond being commonsensical and well-meaning. For while no one is ready to be "against cultural diversity" and everybody, on the contrary, is willing to endorse this new credo, this is not enough to guarantee a firm intellectual foundation and political dignity, and to guarantee it will last. In this respect, the interest shown by bodies as diverse as UNESCO and the Organisation intergouvernementale de la Francophonie (1) is welcome: it may help cultural diversity it move beyond mere moralising.

In a few words, what is at stake?

First, let us remember that globalisation is, first and foremost, the law of economics that imposes itself (or tries to impose itself) above everything else, ignoring borders, nature or quality. It is an absolute, undivided primate, which from the point of view of economics implies total domination, whether this domination looks "friendly" or brutal. It is therefore useful to delude oneself over globalisation's ability to help encourage and develop diversity (whether social, educational or cultural) without external pressure. In fact, economic globalisation offers a single model, that of industrialisation, to culture and education, with principles and modes of operation that are similar or identical in every field: higher education, vocational training, cinema, museums, book publishing, live shows, music, and so on. All it can offer culture and education is so-called "good management", which means good management of its own interests. This is "optimised" management (from a financial point of view) of its own investment, like a wise family man, the head of the household (oikos) which our planet has become, on whom everything depends, to whom everything must return to, and whose law is oikonomia (household management).

Globalisation has only one thing to offer to culture: a matrix, in this word's different meanings. The first meaning is technical: it is the matrix where a million records can be made, instead than a thousand. For what economic advantage is there in making and distributing a thousand copies of a thousand different records (the busy work of independent labels), instead of a million copies of a single record (the expertise of the "majors")?

The second meaning of matrix is the original one: its is the mother, the womb where conception takes place. For globalisation aims at being the mother of all "good projects", that give birth to "high performance products": she wants to conceive them and raise them in order to reap their rewards. But she is an immoral mother: she wants to breed only successful, hugely profitable products - she picks and chooses among her offspring… She is a possessive, self-interested mother: she doesn’t share, and expects her children to keep her in luxury.

The truth is that all globalisation has to offer is management, "third-party management" as private bankers say, where the third party is neither the citizen, nor the state, nor the common interest. One should go one more step and question the very nature of this contribution: can a "product" industrialised on a global level (such as a film, a record, a book…) still be described as "cultural"? Shouldn't these cultural "products" (and their "by-products", which can include food and drink) be renamed to reflect the fact they are no longer related to "culture", except in a commercial, ritual way? That they are, to misquote Clausewitz one more time, only the continuation of economic relations with other selling arguments and through other media, as illustrated by the Générale des Eaux group morphing into Vivendi Universal through its acquisition of Canal+ and Universal Studios, to become a distributor of film, TV or Internet "content", instead of water, or waste disposal?

This is what I call the "economics of the matrix", economics from which it is vain to expect anything other than its own raison d'être, which is the financial "optimisation" of any activity it gets hold of. Trying to change this state of affairs while remaining on economics' own ground is only a dream. Trying to change the course of this globalising economy while accepting its principles and rules would be plain naivety. This is why I suggest to change standpoints and return to the political ground – or, more precisely, to the ground of globalisations.

For there to be a world, and for this a world to be "common", politics is necessary. Otherwise there are only autarkic households, villages and cities, indifferent or even hostile to what is "alien", whatever form this takes. To have what can be named "culture" there first needs to be a world, where an ensemble of local cultures (arts, customs, traditions) find their meaning, and which politics reveals to be cultures to the common world. But for that "world culture" itself to find a meaning, to let it acquire such dignity, other worlds must exist too, a variety of worlds to be discovered, to be known, to serve as inspiration without being destroyed – unlike what happened, for instance, when the Americas were colonised. For "culture" to really exist, for it to be able to grow and last, "cultural diversity" needs to be experienced in all its dimensions: historical, geographical, sociological, artistic.

In parallel with the ongoing industrial and financial globalisation, this globalisation of cultures is also in progress, with hugely varied forms and results: for they produce the opposite of uniformity. The globalisation of cultures means European audiences discovering Colombian, Taiwanese or Iranian films, and turning them into great successes. It means being able to read Clarin, La Nacion, O Estado de Sao Paulo and Le Devoir of Montreal on the Internet, on the same day they are published, whether the reader is in Dakar, Bombay or Helsinki.

The globalisation of cultures also means being able to freely exchange MP3 music tracks from all over the world, whether they have already been published or not, despite the outcome of the Napster court case and the political and legal attacks from the "majors". It includes, at the Parc de la Villette in Paris, events dedicated to Chinese artists previously unknown in Europe, to South Indian arts or to the art de vivre of Mali (which tells us a lot about our own art de vivre: it is only one of globalisation's many functions to put things into perspective).

The globalisation of cultures is an infinite variety of ongoing processes that have in common a desire for discovery, exchange and sharing, and which do not submit to the idolisation of economic globalisation and to the privatisation of the world that economic globalisation gives birth to.

The flagship of cultural globalisation is diversity, without which cultural globalisation would be meaningless, and which is the only thing capable of advancing it in a way that is acceptable by all. Like economic globalisation, cultural diversity must therefore become a project, a resolutely cosmopolitan project.


1 Intergovernmental organisation of the French world.




(On the same problem or on connected issues we recommend the following articles in French by the same author : Economie de la matrice, cosmopolitique de la diversité, Privatisation ou partage des identités et de la diversité culturelles?)