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Aleksandra Vraneš




Multiculturalism.

Abstract:

We are boastful of attempts to obliterate national differences, but the economic, political and cultural ones come in their stead. Cultural boundaries are drawn more accurately than the national ones. Gender differences are not necessarily boundaries, but social determinism, personal and family responsibility, reproductive role religious demands, draw a gender-based cultural line of expectations. Cultural chauvinism and isolationism are the more entrenched the more powerful and globally present a nation, i.e. a country, feels to be, in various spheres of action, or, o the other hand, if gender inequality is so irreconcilably insisted upon.

Relying on relevant information, information society requires respect for two fundamental privileges: freedom of information, on one hand, and protection of personal and social interest, on the other. Life-long learning principle, as an advanced form of the previously passive continuous learning, significantly contributed to by the Internet, has reshaped the roles of both recipients and providers of knowledge, thus contributing to development of multiculturality. The education paradigm shift from distance among its participants to a collaborative process, from deeply rooted cultural models and formal ways of communication to a team, competitive environment, where the parametre is not age but efficiency, has also imposed new economic and cultural models, and vice versa. The main symbols of contemporary era have become: timely and fast information, both implicit and explicit knowledge, creativity, competition, multidisciplinarianism, collaborativeness, flexibility, error minimalization as background for future knowledge, intellectual diversity, compression and visualization od large amount of data. They have been a prominent feature especially for the last thirty years. The role of women in the society, however, and all her life determinants by the same token, as well as her scientific and artistic proclivities, has been paid attention to since the third decade of the XX century.

Global information society rests on a system prospective, where its borderline events also matter, not only the progressive centre; on self-education, responsibility in knowledge reception and application, change anticipation. This has caused a proportionally increased responsibility of both individuals and groups in the process of protecting copyright, freedom of thought and expression and free access to information. The lack of intellectual freedoms frustrates the existence of quality information society, so in order to protect and defend these rights declarations, manifests, laws and regulations are defined, supported or opposed by individuals, communities, associations, all of which contributes to establishment of a value system protecting human rights, amongst which the attitude toward women and their creations is distinctive. Recognizing this issue as a very “unpleasant and complex”, Marianna Tax Choldin advocates for a massive, considerate and timely education of all stakeholders in the process of information shaping and conveying, as the basis of any democratic society.

Each form of generalization conceals a latent threat to derogate freedom. Thus in may legislative provisions, progressive proclamations, succesful standardizations, there are numerous restrictions to civil rights and liberties hidden. Occasionally, the very books with attractive, libertarian titles, invoking intellectual freedom, constitute truth censorship, and so a trap for readers. Positive characteristics of contemporary society, such as: copyright definition and protection, various programmes’ and databases licencing, restrictions to the use of librarian and archive inventories in order to protect privacy, often time mean restrictions to acces to onformation, and so in the context of intellectual freedoms they are mentioned as negative.

With opulence, diversity and importance of information sources, historical role in shaping cultural awareness, educational level and preservation of national identity, bibliography, either stemming from centuries’ legacy or just established, preserves the role of national, i.e. international museum of written words, sometimes elevated to the leading role in multicultural development, akin to an antique portrait in a frame modernized precisely by the role of the manager of national bibliography control process.

On one hand, the paper observes the imapct of multiculturality on women’s role in society, and on the other their presence in social and artistic life, the level of autochtonousness and originality, but also that of dependence on general social problems, such as copyright and intellectual freedom protection.





SvD, April 2011




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