Equality, Diversity and Difference Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Equality, Diversity and Difference - Essay Example This paper illustrates that Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaims that, â€Å"All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.† However, as this definition does not relate to any law, various nations across the globe have put a legal standpoint to the definition of equality. ‘Equality’ (or ‘equal’) signifies correspondence between a group of different objects, persons, processes or circumstances that have the same qualities in at least one respect, but not all respects, i.e., regarding one specific feature, with differences in other features. Therefore, striving to achieve equality is generally defined as â€Å"the incorporation of Equal Opportunities issues into all actions, programmes, and policies from the outset†. As equality has been a cause of global concern, the new age government keep this aspect in mind each time when they consider a new policy or a law. When we look back historically, we know that human beings have always had the tendency to dominate over the weak. This resulted in the creation of a social structure where some sections became the privileged and other sections were considered less-equality. This craving for power and dominance started contributing to a society where inequality started existing. For example, areas of residences of various groups were demarcated. The affluent and dominating section of the society tried to ensure that the laymen do not live near to their places of residence To clarify further, we can also define equality in terms of non-discrimination. Equality means the absence of discrimination, and upholding the principle of non-discrimination between groups will produce equality. Therefore, discrimination can be defined as any act that denies equality that an individual or a group wishes for. It is widely accepted that equality and non-discrimination are positive and negative statements of the same principle.

The Evolution use and design of research centers in the world - 2 Essay

The Evolution use and design of research centers in the world - 2 - Essay Example Research Centers, Evolution and Architecture 1. Introduction The ongoing trend of research centers in the contemporary world is attributed to the formal beginning of research center in the 9th century. The importance of research centers is identified in the 9th century from where its benefits are being acquired in a significant manner today (Tash 9-11). The initial research centers were limited to observatories, which have expanded to several other disciplines by the evolution of time. In the contemporary world, there are several research centers which precisely deal with distinct important disciplines including medical and health sciences, chemistry, physics, sociology, psychology, astronomy and many more (Tash 22-27). Since the beginning of this significant trend in the world, the discipline of architecture has played an intrinsic role in the design and structure of research centers’ buildings (Narvaez, Panksepp and Schore 13-15). The evolution of this trend was accompanied with the evolution of architecture in which specific research facilities were designed in the latest state of the art with its contemporary times (Colquhoun 7-11). Out of many research centers, which are designed in concordance with its domain of discipline, there are specific research centers, which precisely incorporate the issues related to children. The idea of children research center is associated with the evolution of child development (Committee on Integrating the Science of Early Childhood Development 31-33). This concern has hatched the initialization of children research centers. As the evolution in the consideration of child development led to the persisting trend of children research centers, the discipline of architecture has also pertained to the influence of this evolution (O'Connor 3-5). There are several significant elements, which are being incorporated in the architectural design of children research centers in the contemporary times. These elements include arts, spacious interior design, modernistic exterior of building, numerous levels of buildings with utility of glass, and friendly decor to the architecture of building (Colquhoun 45-51). These are the elements which have been illuminated through the evolution in the children research centers’ architecture. 3.1 History/Evolution (International & National) of Development of your Project. If your project has multiple functions/mixed use you should trace the evolution of these functions/types/uses. Offering examples is necessary The Beginning of the Children Research Centre The very first recorded children’s research and learning center was the Victoria Hospital for Sick Children that was built in 1892 by Darling and Curry Architectural Firm. It was built in Toronto, Canada as a hospital to serve sick children. It became the first children’s hospital to open a school within its walls (Hamilton & David 65). This school was meant to facilitate the transfer of skills and k nowledge that nurses and doctors had learnt in the hospital to new staff. In addition, it was meant for doctors, professionals, and scientists to exchange information on various children illnesses. Starting off as a hospital, the building was later abandoned as it became less suited for multiple departments. The building, first made

Website for an organization which has a campaign promoting a core Assignment

Website for an organization which has a campaign promoting a core issue that interests you - Assignment Example Morris Dees SPLC uses current laws to bring lawsuits to change current unjust laws. One example is when Dees sued the United Klans of America on behalf of Beulah Mae Donald. Donald’s son had been killed due to the Klan’s incitement toward violence against blacks. This suit bankrupted the last majorly nationally organized Ku Klux Klan in the United States. By challenging unfair laws and bring lawsuits, the SPLC has challenged and won lawsuits against discrimination against those living in the United States. The primary message is written with photographs at the top. These messages are informative. The website is set up like a news organization. Articles are current news around the United States involving issues of discrimination against minorities, Lesbians, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT), and immigrants. The message is clear. Although America does have more tolerant laws today than in the 1950’s, there is much work to still be done. The target audience is average Americans that might not be aware of incidents of discriminations in their area. An example is the Hate Watch map. The Hate Watch map tracks hate groups. These groups are skinheads, KKK, black panthers, anti-government groups, and any group that promotes hate against others. The map shows the locations of hate group members and more information on each group. It must be noted that although the SPLC was founded during the Civil Rights Movement, the group is not anti-white or pro-black. The SPLC was founded to promote equality among all Americans. The SPLC also has teaching material for educators to teach children. These messages are targeted toward the younger audience. These materials, books, worksheets, videos, and recordings are provided for free. History and current events are covered in these materials. The materials can be requested by a teacher or adult for free. The noise or confusion that

The Formation of Islamic Art and the Amalgamation of Different Literature review

The Formation of Islamic Art and the Amalgamation of Different Cultural - Literature review Example â€Å"Arts of the Islamic World† and â€Å"Islamic art† are significant phrases which refer to the various artistic traditions which have flourished since the advent of Islam across a vast geographic area ranging from southern Spain and North Africa to the islands of Southeast Asia in the late seventh century. (Arts of the Islamic World 2008). One most relevant factor about the formation of Islamic art has been the influence of the varied culture of the world on its formation. â€Å"The cultural influences ranged from Byzantine (inherited when the Ottomans made Constantinople their capital in 1453) to Italian, French, Central Asian, Persian and Arab.† (Sajoo 2001, p. 16-18). There was also important influences from Roman architectural elements, Spanish mosaic decoration, Chinese ceramics, and Iraqi calligraphic styles in North Africa under the Fatimid dynasty. One of the most important elements of Islamic art has been its architecture consisting of a unique relig ious architecture which comprises the mosque (masjid), and the madrasa and a secular architecture including palaces, caravansaries, cities and the mausoleum. The Islam from the Arabian Peninsula had no native artistic traditions, but as it began to spread politically and socially, it also absorbed and adapted indigenous art styles. â€Å"Islamic art thus developed from many sources. Roman, Early Christian, and Byzantine styles were taken over in early Islamic architecture; the influence of Sassanian art—the architecture and decorative art of pre-Islamic Persia under the Sassanids—was of paramount significance.

Last two hundred years Essay Example for Free

Last two hundred years Essay The 19th and 20th centuries are very rich about inventions that changed our lives. The automobile is one of those inventions changed peoples lives. Short after its invention automobile became a necessity in daily life more than being luxury or a symbol of nobility. Today the numbers of cars are close to half of earths population. Almost every family in developed countries owns a car. The automobile has had the greatest effects on our lives in last two hundred years because it is a necessity, it has an important effect on the world economy and it affects our lives directly. There are some reasons why automobiles become a necessity in todays life which of those reasons are being the cheapest, fastest and easiest way to travel when compared against other inventions like planes, ships or trains. Before the invention of automobiles humanity used to travel with domestic animals, which cause more expanses than, cars do in todays conditions. A traveler has to pay great amounts of money to travel from one town to another to the animals owner also if someone owns his own animal it will probably costs much more because he has to feed and look after that animal. Even today when compared against planes, ships or trains; the automobile is still the cheapest way to travel. The automobile is also the fastest way to travel when compared to old traveling methods. For example horse back riding from France to Germany will take months while driving the same distance with a car will take a day or less. The last important thing that made automobile a necessity is its being the easiest way of traveling and transportation. Traveling with automobiles gives people freedom of going wherever they want; only thing they have to do is to have wish of going and the money to afford an automobiles expanses. The automobile gives a freedom of traveling which other traveling methods do not offer. Trains are limited with the rails whereas planes are also limited with aerostations but cars can reach everywhere roads reach and even far. Today automobile is a necessity like sleeping or eating. The busses people go their work with, the lorries that people transport their goods, the ambulances that saves peoples lives and lots uncountable more examples there are which shows us how necessary automobiles are. As a result a necessity is something that affects peoples lives deeply. Without cars it will be impossible to the things we do in daily life like traveling, transporting and reaching. Another important point that makes the automobile effect on peoples life is its effect on world economy with the automobile industry and its subsidiary industries like car accessories. Today almost every developed countrys economy is based on the automobile industry while developing countries depend on the automobile industry also. A large rate of world trade is about automobiles. For instance there are big car companies in both Europe and USA that has big factories in which millions of people work. This causes a great income for the world economy and keeps it running. Because economies depend on and based on the automobile, peoples lives are depended on automobile and this is why this invention affects humans lives too much. Peoples are depended on the automobile economically because lots of peoples job involves cars, lorries, trucks or buses and also lot of peoples job is to produce vehicle. For those reasons the automobile affects peoples lives too much as an economic support, it is what people earn their lives from. The last and the most important reason why the automobile affect peoples lives are because it affects their lives with its side effects like; pollution, accidents, transportation and automobile based lifestyles. All kinds of automobiles are based on the same principle, which is the creation of energy by using petrol and its side products. As a result automobiles produce harmful gases and release them through the air people breathe. Automobiles pollute the air and are a danger for all living creatures with the air pollution it causes. In addition to air pollution automobile also causes sound pollution with the sound of horns and motors, which depress people and create negative social effects on them. Because automobile is the fastest way to achieve somewhere, the wrong use of it causes accidents resulting with injuries or even deaths. As a result deaths and injuries cause incorrigible social effects like depression and suicide because it affects people negatively. With the automobile, transportation becomes easier and more common. That created an enormous effect on trade, which also means an enormous effect on peoples lives because it affects economy with this way, which means an affect on the way people, earns their lives. The last direct effect the automobile created on peoples lives is that some lives are based on the automobile passion. For example car and motor racers,  Harley Davidson cycles collectors, Chevrolet fans and lots more. Because of those reasons the automobile is a piece of peoples lives that affects them directly with a lot of reasons. In conclusion the automobile has had the greatest effect on peoples lives because it become a piece of their life with its usage and effects. It is the invention that gave man freedom of traveling wherever he wants, it changed his life and it is a necessity of life for him. In todays world cars save peoples time, power and even lives. The automobiles allow people to reach places quickly, lorries, trucks carry their goods and finally ambulances save lives. All those create enormous effects on peoples lives.

Effects of Population Density and Noise Essay Example for Free

Effects of Population Density and Noise Essay Effects of Population Density and Noise Density and noise is able to effect people differently, a person’s personal space; territory and privacy can be disrupted by other people, chronic noise, and short-term noise. The different effects can be from an annoying noise to a more strong intrusive and anxiety forming illness. When population density increases the personal space, privacy and territory are approached a person may demand the acknowledgment to help stop or prevent crowding, and to help maintain the anxiety and frustration levels that a person could reach. Personal space is defined as â€Å"a physical distance that people choose to keep in interpersonal relationships† (Hutchinson Kowalski, 1999). Personal space can also be defined as a invisible space or boundaries that surrounds a person’s body and where other people would be considered an intruder if the individual gets to close to that person. Territorial space is when a person uses durable but preventative behaviors such as a defense of a home, place, person, objects, etc. This could also be done by verbal, signs, self-markers, this can imply to a person the one in or on that property or near the property will react in a manner that will help keep that space safe. People are not the only one’s or things that use territory. Animals use territory to show ownership. Privacy is defined as â€Å"a control over information about a person and have control over interaction with others† (Hutchinson Kowalski, 1999). Privacy is a major concern especially with tec hnology today, people have information that is suppose to stay private where some information can be made very public, the individuals place the values and needs of this information through technology can cause a huge risk on privacy. According to Straub (2007), a study done by John Calhoun experimented with a population density with living conditions of rats. Through his study the  rats would behave as normal and were given ample living space and as the rats population increased the rats social environment starts to deteriorate. The rats would kill the young, reproduction would decrease, the rats would fight, and some even became cannibals. Although the study does not completely compare to people, the behavior of people can have certain affects as the population starts to get denser. Population density can start to affect crowding, which can ultimately lead to people feeling confined and very limited to the surroundings. In crowding a person can â€Å"start to feel aggression, inappropriate social interaction, social withdraws, and sometimes even criminal actions† (Stokols, 1972). If crowding becomes a factor but is able to be decreased the personal space, territory and privacy could be restored. This be comes a high demand and needs to be acknowledged so that others do not feel controlled or start to react to such annoyances. Having the perception of population density gives components, one being ample space provided to that person, and two having crowding diminish. This giving the perception of space an influences to give more space if needed. Since crowding is inevitable a person psychological mindset is to change with the space that is given. If the person is able to get the space they need the likelihood of the person not having high anxiety and stress could look into a positive spectrum. Natural settings are typically managed, such as zoos, green spaces, even parks, this can create a social context as well as a support, this leading to interaction, and nurturing the environment, especially in urban living situations. People who are able to live in urban settings and are able to encourage the perception to live with nature are more influenced that people were to believe that nature would reduce disease, it would increase health and would reduce crime, although most theories are able to support this evidence. Urban parks can play a significant role in not only physical activity but some evidence even support fewer health issues. Some studies found that people who live in green spaces have a â€Å"lower mortality rate then those who do not live in green spaces, this study was shown through the culture of the Japanese, and has also shown that the stress from urban  settings can be reduced with green spaces† (Gidlofgunnarsson Ohstrom, 2007). Having a neighborhoo d with more green space is also known to cause closer interpersonal relationships, less aggression and violence, more positive social interaction with in the community, and even better school performance. Noisy environments have also shown to be a cause in negative health issues. Through, studies of people and animals the noise in an environment can cause an â€Å"increase in cortisol levels, and blood pressure† (Staub, 2007). Studies show even chronic exposure to noise can even cause risk of cardiovascular disease, and even a decrease in learning. This can become an issue for children as well, as children grow they learn maladaptive skills and how to block certain stimuli. Having to much noise in the environment can have them learn to block the wrong stimuli’s which can have the child lack verbal skills. Due to some studies in â€Å"chronic noise effects the louder noise can start to disrupt the short term memory as decrease the ability to be able to perform even the simplest tasksâ€Å" (Straub, 2007). Although noise can not be directly responsible for stress, it does however relate to sleep disturbance, it provokes anxiety, and can affect a person’s attitude. People may not have access to control the noise outside the homes, but the ways of decreasing the noise would be putting drapes up, objects on the wall, more objects within the home such as furniture. Being able to trap the sound waves from outside to the windows by layering things like blinds, and curtains, having carpet instead of wood floors would help muffle the noise that would have a tendency to bounce off the walls. There is a perception of noise that one sound will affect a presence of another sound, natural sounds like water running, is considered a white noise this ultimately effects the sound waves in an environment that are typically used in a home setting live a bath or vacuum. This can help reduce stress levels especially in young children. Some people are known to purchase sound machines, which can be inexpensive and take only a small portion of electricity. Auditory Masking is what creates this noise on top  of noise. This does not change the noise that is around but it will be able to decrease the awareness of such noises. Infants seem to be the ones who adjust more to auditory masking, if a mother/father is vacuuming as the child is crying to constant noise of the vacuum starts to soothe the child into a sleep (in most cases). Looking back, privacy, territoriality, and personal space are involved in a personal choice and is that person’s individual perceptions of how the space is used for a normal functioning day. Privacy can be subjected by technology, which in some cases cause the privacy to be leaked to the public. There are some psychological effects that the perceptions of the choices that person has made, does vary individual to individual, however limited space has a toll on every person. In urban, environments having limited space can increase aggression, and even violent behavior. The average academic performance decreases, and there is more negative reactions that is observed between the community. Intrusive noise, can cause a large amount that can cause annoyance, and depending on the individual this could lead to an interpretation of an intrusion. The access of a noise reduction can help strategies from complex to even simple annoyance. When the outside noise can not be controlled a pers on may look at internally controlling the situation which then decreases the anxiety and stress that noise can make. Having objects such as fans, or running ponds, can help reduce levels of stress due what is called â€Å"white noises†. Many people can have their personal space intruded by outside noises, especially when a person has state or county construction going on in the area. There are laws that help prevent certain times that are allowed to start and finish, just as a homeowners community does for daily noises such as mowing a lawn. Reference: Hutchison, E. D., Kowalski, S. (1999). Dimensions of human behavior: person and environment. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press. Stokols, D. (1972). On the distinction between density and crowding: Some implications for future research. Psychological Review, 79(3), 275-277. doi: 10.1037/h0032706 Straub, R. O. (2007). Health psychology (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Worth.

The Concept Of Identity Politics

The Concept Of Identity Politics Identity is about belonging, about what you have in common with some people and what differentiates you from others. At its most basic it gives you a sense of personal location, the stable core to your individuality. But it is also about your social relationships, your complex involvement with others, and in the modern world these have become ever more complex and confusing. Each of us live with a variety of potentially contradictory identities, which battle within us for allegiance: as men or women, black or white, straight or gay, able-bodied or disabled, British or European The list is potentially infinite, and so therefore are our possible belongings. Which of them we focus on, bring to the fore, identify with, depends on a host of factors. At the centre, however, are the values we share or wish to share with others. Identity politics was initially defined by and for the new social movements that came to public consciousness from the late 1960s: the black movement, feminism, lesbian and gay liberation and so on. The question of integrating these creative but diffuse and potentially divisive forces into the political mainstream has been part of the agony of the Left during the last decade. Issues of identity are now, however, at the centre of modern politics. When Mrs Thatcher utters anathemas against Brussels and all its works, or interfers in the details of the history curriculum, she is engaged in an exercise in delineating a cultural and political identity, in this case of Britishness, which she wants us to share. When President Gorbachev discourses on our common European home he is striving to re-form our perception of the Soviet identity, and to re-fashion our idea of Europe. When the Bradford mullahs organize simultaneously affirming and fashioning an identity as Muslims, but also as a bla ck British community entitled to the protection of the blasphemy laws like Anglicans and Catholics and evangelicals. When we mourn with students in Beijing, or express solidarity with black South Africans, or run (or sing, or joke) for the world, we are striving to realise our identities as members of the global village, as citizens of the world. Identities are not neutral. Behind the quest for identity are different, and often conflicting values. By saying who we are, we are also striving to express what we are, what we believe and what we desire. The problem is that these beliefs, needs and desires are often patently in conflict, not only between different communities but within individuals themselves. All this makes debates over values particularly fraught and delicate: they are not simply speculations about the world and our place in it; they touch on fundamental, and deeply felt, issues about who we are and what we want to be and become. They also pose major political questions: how to achieve a reconciliation between our collective needs as human beings and our specific needs as individuals and members of diverse communities, how to balance the universal and the particular. These are not new questions, but they are likely, nevertheless, to loom ever-larger as we engage with the certainty of uncertainty that characterise s new times. The Return of Values This is the background to a new concern with values in mainstream politics. Most notoriously, Mrs Thatcher has invoked Victorian values and has pronounced about everything from soccer hooliganism, to religion, to litter. Even the Labour Party, in an uncharacteristic burst of philosophising, has produced a statement on Democratic Socialist Aims and Values. And these are but the tips of an iceberg. Such flurries have not been entirely absent in the past from British political and cultural history. But on the whole, from the Second World War until recently, the political class eschewed too searching a discussion of values, preferring, in Harold Macmillans world-weary remark, to leave that to the bishops. During the years of the social-democratic consensus, welfarism, with its commitment to altruism and caring, provided a framework for social policy, but offered little guidance on the purposes of the good society. Similarly, in the sphere of private life, the most coherent framework of moral regulation, that enshrined in the permissive reforms in the 1960s of the laws relating to homosexuality, abortion, censorship etc, is based on a deliberate suspension of any querying of what is right or wrong. It relies instead on subtle distinctions between what the law may accept for public behaviour in upholding public decency, and what can be tolerated in private when the curtains are closed. Most of us are probably quietly grateful for such small mercies. As the postwar consensus has crumbled, however, the search for more or less coherent value-systems has become rather more fevered. On a personal level some people have moved promiscuously through drugs and alternative lifestyles to health fads and religion; a number seek to be born again. Perhaps most of us just share a vague feeling that things are not quite right. On the level of politics, various fundamentalisms, on Left and Right, have burst fort h, each articulating their own truth, whether it be about the perils of pornography, the wrongs done to animals, the rights and wrongs of this or that religion, or the marvels of the market economy.   There is a new climate where values matter, and politicians, willy-nilly, are being drawn into the debate. Speaking of values, as the philosopher Paul Feyerabend has said, is a roundabout way of describing the kind of life one wants to lead or thinks one wants to lead. 1 Mrs Thatcher has been clearer about the sort of life she wants us to lead than any other recent political leader. She does not trust her bishops, so the values of the corner-shop and the cautious housewife have expanded inexorably into the culture of enterprise and the spiritual significance of capitalism. From her paean to Victorian values in the run-up to the 1983 General Election to her address to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in May 1988, Mrs Thatchers moral outlook has had, in Jonathan Rabans phrase, a peculiar integrity. 2 Questions of value have traditionally been more central to socialist debates than to conservatism but during the 1970s and early 1980s the nervous collapse of the Left allowed little room for such niceties. Recently, there have been welcome signs of a revival of concern with basic values. The Labour Partys 1988 statement, Democratic Socialist Aims and Values, intended to frame the partys policy review, may have been too bland for many peoples taste (The true purpose of democratic socialism is the creation of a genuinely free society) but it was the first time since 1917 that the Party had attempted to define its purposes, and in a recognizable philosophical tradition (essentially the rights based liberalism of the American philosopher, John Rawls). At the same time the Party seems to be attempting to resurrect the half-buried collectivist traditions of the British population. The lyrical Kinnock election broadcast in 1987 subliminally told us of the importance of rootedness and be longing as the basis for political advance. The Labour Partys poster campaign early in 1989 The Labour Party. Our party similarly articulated a sense of shared values, of communal spirit, lying latent in the collective unconscious. In part, of course, these Labour Party innovations illustrate the wizardry of ad-agency skills, but it is not too fanciful to see them as a reflection of broader tendencies towards reasserting universal humanistic values, which transcend conventional political divisions. In their different ways, President Gorbachev and green politics have made an impact because of their expression of a human solidarity underlying the divisions of the world. Gorbachevs address to the United Nations in 1988 turned on a call to respect universal human values, and looked forward to an ending of the arbitrary divisions between peoples. Green philosophy calls on the same sense of our common destiny and interdependence, as human beings and as fellow inhabitants of spaceship ea rth, and in doing so claims to displace traditional divisions between Left and Right. It is impossible to underestimate the power of these various (and perhaps sometimes contradictory) appeals to human solidarity after a decade dominated by an ethic of human selfishness. We are reminded that what we have in common as human beings is more important than what divides us as individuals or members of other collectivities. Difference Nevertheless there are difficulties for the Left in an all-embracing humanism. As a philosophical position it may be a good starting point, but it does not readily tell us how to deal with difference. As President Gorbachev could bitterly affirm, it is difference economic, national, linguistic, ethnic, religious and the conflicting identities and demands that diversity gives rise to, that poses a major threat to perestroika, and to human solidarity. If ever-growing social complexity, cultural diversity and a proliferation of identities are indeed a mark of the postmodern world, then all the appeals to our common interest as humans will be as naught unless we can at the same time learn to live with difference. This should be the crux of modern debates over values. In confronting the challenge of social and moral diversity, the responses of Left and Right are significantly different. The Right has a coherent, if in the long run untenable, view of the moral economy. At its most extrem e, expressed in Mrs Thatchers dictum that there is no such thing as society, only individuals and their families, difference becomes merely a matter of individual quirks or pathologies. Social goods are products of individual wills or desires, mediated by family responsibilities. In the economic sphere, this leads to a privileging of individual choice, the essence as Mrs Thatcher put it during the 1987 election campaign of morality. Rut moral choice, in turn, particularly with regard to issues such as sexuality, is limited by the commitment to a traditional concept of domestic obligation, in and through the family. The Left, on the other hand, is heir to a strong sense of collective identities, of powerful inherited solidarities derived from class and work communities, and of different social constituencies, however inadequately in the past it has been able to deal with them. Multi-culturalism, as it was articulated from the 1960s in the legislation on racial equality, embodied a notion of different communities evolving gradually into a harmonious society where difference was both acknowledged and irrelevant. In rather less hopeful times, the commitment to the co-existence of different value-systems is implied in the statement on Democratic Socialist Aims and Values: Socialists rejoice in human diversity. But the Left has been less confident and sure-footed when faced by the reality of difference. When the Livingstone-led Greater London Council attempted to let a hundred flowers bloom at County Hall in pursuit of a new majority of minorities, the response of the Labour Party establishment varied from the sceptical to the horrified. Nor should we be entirely surprised at that: despite its political daring, and commendable commitment to those hitherto excluded from the political mainstream, it was difficult to detect behind the GLC policy anything more coherent than the belief that grass-roots activity and difference in itself were prime goods. Empowerment, yes; but whom should the Left empower? The Salman Rushdie crisis has dramatised the absence of any clear-cut philosophy on the Left. The Rushdie affair is important for socialists not simply because it concerns the fate of an individual (and an individual of the Left at that) but because it underscores in the most painful way the dil emmas of diversity. At its simplest we have an apparent conflict of absolutes: the right of an author to freedom of speech, to challenge whomsoever he wishes in a democratic society, set against the claims of a distinctive moral community not to have its fundamental religious beliefs attacked and undermined. Rut of course the real divisions are more complex and profound. The Left has not on the whole been willing to endorse an absolute right of free speech. On the contrary it has supported campaigns against racist and sexist literature, whilst a strong minority has supported the banning of pornography.   On the other side, the Muslim communities at the centre of the crisis are themselves not monolithic, bisected as they inevitably are by antagonisms of class and gender, and by political conflicts. At the same time the issues raised do not exist only in a meta-realm of principle: they work their way through the murky world of politics, in this case the complexities of international politics as well as the ward by ward, constituency by constituency problems of Labour politicians. Nevertheless, there is a central question at the heart of the Rushdie affair, and it concerns the possibilities and limits of pluralism in a complex society. Lets take as an example the question of religious education in schools: the government by insisting under the 1988 Education Reform Act that there should be a daily act of Christian worship in maintained schools is in effect asserting the centrality of the Christian tradition to, in Mrs Thatchers words, our national heritage For centuries it has been our very life-blood. People with other faiths and cultures are always, of course, welcome in our land, but their beliefs can only, by implication, ever hope to have a secondary position in relation to ours. Labour, however, accepts a less monolithic view of our religious past and present. As a result it seems prepared to support the principle of state-funding of separate fundamentalist Muslim schools. There is a certain multi-cultural rationale in this: if Anglican, Jewish and Roman Catholic schools are supported by the state, there seems no logic in not supporting the schools of other faiths as well. But schools transmit cultural values, some of which in the case of fundamentalists run counter to oft-declared values of the Left. In this case, the schools will be based on a principle of sex-segregation which elsewhere Labour opposes. As a letter to the Guardian from Southall Black Sisters put it, the Labour Party is prepared to abandon the principle of equality where black women are concerned. Instead, they deliver us into the hands of male, conservative and religious forces within our communities, who deny us our right to live as we please.5 This underlines the danger of seeing communi ties as unified wholes, rather than as the locus of debate and divisions. Not surprisingly, the multi-culturalist values of the Labour Party seem as likely to cause confusion, conflict and distrust as the explicitly mono-culturalist views of the Right. It is ironically appropriate that these dilemmas should have been brought to the surface by the publication of, and reaction to, Rushdies The Satanic Verses. Not only was the book written by an immigrant and about immigrants, but the book itself, as Malise Ruthven argued on its publication, is about changing identities, about the transformations of identities that affect migrants who leave the familiar reference points of their homeland and find themselves in a place where the rules are different, and all the markers have been changed. This is not simply the experience of the migrant: the sense of dislocation and disorientation, of the rules of the game subtly changing, of the co-existence within us of conflicting needs, desires and i dentities, is becoming a major cultural experience for us all. Choice The basic issue can be stated quite simply: by what criteria can we choose between the conflicting claims of different loyalties? To ask the question immediately underlines the poverty of our thinking about this. Can the rights of a group obliterate the rights of an individual? Should the morality of one sector of the population be allowed to limit the freedom of other citizens. To what extent should one particular definition of the good and the just prevail over others? These are ancient questions, but the alarming fact is that the Left lacks a common language for addressing them, let alone resolving them. There have been two characteristic approaches on the Left in confronting these dilemmas. Firstly, there is the discourse of rights, probably still the most potent mobilising force in the worlds of politics and morality. In the United States the protection of individual rights is enshrined in the constitution, and the claim to group rights has become the basis of many of the transf orming currents of recent American politics, from the civil rights and black power movements to the womens movement and lesbian and gay liberation. Elsewhere in the West, a rights-based politics is similarly enshrined in written constitutions, bills of rights, constitutional courts, and so on. In Britain, the tradition is enfeebled. Individual rights, though much bandied around in the political rough and tumble, are not entrenched in a constitutional settlement, and the concept of group rights barely exists. Rights are, however, clearly back on the agenda of the Left: the response to the launch of Charter 88, with its appeal for a new constitutional settlement, with government subordinate to the law and basic rights guaranteed, suggests there is a strongly felt need for a codification and protection of fundamental rights. Unfortunately, the claim to right, however well established at a constitutional level, does not help when rights are seen to be in conflict. To take the issue of a bortion (yet again the focus of moral debate in America and Britain), here the conflict is between two violently conflicting claims to right: the rights of the unborn child against the rights of a woman to control her own body. In these stark terms the conflict is unresolvable, because two value-systems tug in quite different directions. The problem is that rights do not spring fully armed from nature. They cannot find a justification simply because they are claimed. Rights are products of human association, social organisation, traditions of struggle, and historical definitions of needs and obligations: whatever their claims to universality, they are limited by the philosophical system to which they belong, and the social and political context in which they are asserted. This is not to deny the importance of rights-based arguments. But if we are to take rights seriously we must begin to articulate the sort of rights and the type of political culture we want. This is the starting point for the second major approach to the dilemma of choice, the politics of emancipation. In his essay On the Jewish Question in the 1840s Marx counterposed to the morality of Rights a morality of emancipation, and even more powerfully than the claim to rights this has proved a potent mobilising force.8 It offers a vision of a totally free society, where everyones potentiality is fully realised, and a powerful analysis of the constraints on the realisation of human emancipation. At its heart is a denial that want, division, selfishness and conflict are essential parts of human nature. True human nature, it claims, can flourish in a truly emancipated society. Most of us who are socialist must have been inspired by this vision. As a politics of liberation it shaped the rhetoric of the social movements that emerged in the 1960s. It is still latent in the hungerfor utopia and for the transcendence of difference that shades our politics. The difficulty is that the p ractice has rarely kept up with the vision, particularly in the history of Marxism. The Marxist tradition has been reluctant to define the nature of the emancipated society, and has been noticeably blind to questions of nationalism, ethnicity, gender and sexuality. Nor do the experiences of the soi disant socialist countries offer much confidence in the attainability of emancipation in the terms offered by the tradition so far. We must not confuse a noble goal with the sordid practices of particular regimes, but we need to ponder whether the very project of human emancipation as conventionally set forth is not itself the fundamental problem. The glorious goal has all too often justified dubious means, whilst the absence of any detailed exposition of the meaning of emancipation has left us floundering when faced by the reality of conflicting claims to right and justice.