Logically, Then, One Can Conclude That Taylor Would Not Be A Proponent Of

Logically, then, one can conclude that Taylor would not be a proponent of so-called race-blind policies, for he believes that to pointedly ignore race is to deny minorities recognition of some of the very characteristics that make them distinct as human beings. One can imagine a fictional conversation between Taylor and Dr. Martin Luther King, who famously spoke of having a dream in which his children would not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. Would Taylor argue that King was advocating that black deny themselves the opportunity for self-recognition in favor of assimilation to the expectations of American ideals? This is yet another example of where the intellectual gymnastics of philosophy collides uncomfortably with practicality and transforms into a hopelessly self-contradictory muddle. Does a black man want the world to recognize him as a black man first, or as a British citizen? Is it a zero-sum equation, or is there a continuum of self-expression by which a person manifest his or her identity as a varying proportion of any particular collective identity? The traditional liberal point of view would say let the individual decide where s/he falls. Ironically, many modern liberals would think government or the special interest groups claiming to speak for the minorities would be be better qualified to make these deeply personal and individualistic decisions for each person.
University of Chicago political science professor Jacob Levy weighs in favoring practicality over theory or idealism, via his contribution to the political canon of political multiculturalism, 2000's The Multiculturalism of Fear. Levy argues that modern liberalism should transcend the philosophical debate over whether and how to preserve and celebrate cultural identities and differences; rather, he believes liberalism should seek to improve the practical, daily lives of minorities or diverse ethnic groups where they are suffering or oppressed, in places like fundamentalist Muslim countries where women must obey their husbands upon pain of death and young girls are forced to undergo female circumcision; in countries like Sudan where cultural genocide is rampant; or regimes under which the state sanctions the subjugation of minorities, such as Iraq's brutal repression of Kurds and Shi'ites under Saddam Hussein. Levy draws here on the work of Judith Shklar's concepts of 'liberalism of fear' vs. 'liberalism of rights,' and concludes that the former is more appealing in the sense that it more directly responds to tangible human suffering in the quantifiable present.