ABSTRACT
Like it or not, techniques of repression of, and concession to, various forms of dissent operate most elegantly in liberal democracies; in return for gaining entry into the economic and political mainstream of liberal, free-market democracies (what many commentators simply refer to as “modernity”), peoples from all over the globe have had to ensure that their differences relative to the dominant group are largely internalized and practiced only within the confines of their hearts and minds—as the old saying goes—finding limited public expression in their so-called “ethnic” cuisines and their colorful “ethnic” costumes. For instance, whenever the topic of school prayer is raised in the US, as is often the case in the US south (where I happen to live and work), there is never any thought that promoting prayers once again in publicly funded schools might mean the appearance of a young student on his knees facing Mecca several times throughout the course of the school day, let alone the various other human behaviors quite reasonably classified as “prayer.” (A point made also by Martin Marty [1995].) While most everyone in the US knows that it is a pluralistic state, this pluralism is somehow thought only to comprise the symbolic behaviors of minority group members (evidence of the useful split of theory from practice), who put it into practice only in a ritual fashion behind the closed doors of various sorts of domestic and voluntary associations. Difference thus resides in the private self and is manifested in such disembodied, symbolic behavior as cuisine or style of dress, while conformity of practice rules in all public affairs. For only dominant groups get to engage in praxis. In fact, when it comes to the members of dominant groups, “[w]hoever restricts himself to thinking but does not get involved is [seen by their peers as] weak, cowardly, and virtually a traitor” (Adorno 2002, 199); yet members of marginal groups who have little choice but to act differently than they profess to believe (e.g., Mormons professing to believe that multiple marriages for men are mandated by God yet recognizing that they are illegal under US law) are applauded by members of dominant classes for their integrity and principled behavior.
