The problematic of multiculturalism—the hybrid coexistence of diverse cultural life-worlds—which imposes itself today is the form of appearance of its opposite, of the massive presence of capitalism as universal world system: it bears witness to the unprecedented homogenization of the contemporary world. It iseffectively as if, since the horizon of social imagination no longer allowsus to entertain the idea of an eventual demise of capitalism—since, as we might put it, everybody silently accepts that capitalism is here to stay—critical energy has found a substitute outlet in fighting for cultural differences which leave the basic homogeneity of the capitalist world-system intact.
Slavoj Žižek,
“Multiculturalism or the Cultural Logic of Multinational Capitalism”Political differences — differences conditioned by political inequality or economic exploitation — are naturalised and neutralised into “cultural” differences, that is, into different “ways of life” which are something given, something that cannot be overcome. They can only be “tolerated.”
Slavoj Žižek,
Violence: Six Sideway Reflections
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