Cultures have cannons, but a multicultural society or people cannot have cannon. A culture is a complex set of shared beliefs and values, and concepts which enables a group to make sense of its life and which provides it with directions for how to live. We live in a culture and culture is written into us in a process of internalisation. Australia is a melting pot of races, cultures and beliefs. This country was built by people from many different national backgrounds, and has followed an active policy of multiculturalism.
If Australia were have a multicultural canon it would be very complicated due to cultures accommodate a variety of values and beliefs, and if we could manage to have a multicultural canon there would be conflict about what value is better or which belief should we go by, disagreements will be involved and it will be very difficult to come to a conclusion, hence I agree with the statement that culture have cannons, but a multicultural society or people cannot have cannon.
A canon is a rule or body of rules and principles that are generally established as valid and fundamental in a field. My argument, is we cannot have a multicultural society or people due to all the disagreement and conflict that may occur which will turn into chaos. Hegel suggests there could be a multicultural society, which involves a clash between cultures-conflict and synthesis, however Plato suggests that a perfect ideal exists in which only some can reach that point.
Hegel and Plato both oppose my argument, they are for- there could be a multicultural canon but Hegel’s form is that people may argue for instance two people come up with two different ideas and in the end they combine and come up with a conclusion but form that conclusion another idea is inserted and it continues like a triangle, I agree with Hegel in that area but I don’t believe that we could conclude with a multicultural canon it will keep going and will never stop.
On page 230 “Philosophy and Ethics” the first pink box provides us with an aesthetic concept about an artwork that could be good because it is pleasurable during the 20th centaury, but pleasure has been replace by a perceived need to see some cognitive, moral or political benefit in art for it to be good, these benefits are good but are these part of aesthetic appreciation of art? This concept relates the issue of establishing a cultural canon in a multicultural context. A cultural canon s decided by individuals or the way they have been taught up, their values and beliefs apply to them in a good way but if you place their values and beliefs in a multicultural context it will not blend well because there are many values and beliefs that goes the same with the artwork if you replace it will cognitive, moral or political benefit into the context it will not blend because those benefits has nothing to do with how the artwork looks, an artwork is suppose to be pleasure to yourself not because of cognitive, more or political benefits but the way it looks.
This debate relates to the concept of judgment of taste by saying because of cognitive, moral or political benefit this artwork can be viewed in a pleasurable way but really that is not true, that is only a judgment of the values but not the artwork itself therefore just an unfair judgment that people agree to. After I read “Studying culture” and “how we see” I realized how this text adds complexity to the idea of having a national canon in a multicultural society.
One issue that adds complexity is that culture can be seen from three different angles: anthropology study of human culture), sociology (human actions) and literary theory (deals with the text). These three approaches bring out difficulty in all the areas or making a multicultural society because we have to view this from all the perspectives to make everyone happy and that is impossible due to everyone has different values and beliefs.
Another issue is how do we see a culture will often depend on our own background and the influences that we have been exposed to example some people may cricket may not be part of them due to the way they have been taught while growing up. The third issue is ideology it is like a lens which we view the world and this lens distorts the way we see and understand the world and events around us therefore it will be hard to get everyone’s view of the world and to make it into one.
In the end we all have the freedom to choose what we believe in and how we see things therefore it should not be one major canon in which we all have to agree to and most people would not want a multicultural canon due to these types of implications. The symbols and concepts communicated across cultures are what sports we are interested in, what we like to eat and how to dress ect. Fays ideas about culture and interpreting culture effect how we think about cultural canons and multicultural canons.
Fay says “a culture is a complex set of shared beliefs and values and concepts which enables to a group to make sense of its like and which provides it with directions of how we live” I agree with Fays explication because culture is complex. Fay also says that process of internalising the belief system gives us the basis of our own identity because identity is not something we can have in complete isolation forms other humans and that what makes us different.
He uses the example about learning a language, which languages can be modified over time example English back in the days it had a different dialect but after time we change that is the same with culture, cultures are always modified. Interpretation depends how you understand a situation or how you read it therefore Fays ideas effect how we think in a way that a multicultural canon would never be created due to the way we see things and how we see it and that over time all things change.
