THE “EMPIRE” STRIKES BACK: BARRY’S DEFENSE OF LIBERAL UNIVERSALISM

Autor se bavi problemom odnosa liberalizma i multikulturalizma te ističe neke od napetosti koje donosi raspra liberala i multikulturalista. U tekstu su predstavljeni teorijski zahvati političkih filozofa Charlesa Taylora (multikulturalist), Johna Graya (postmoderni liberalni konzervativac) i Briana Barryja (liberalni univerzalist). Prikazujući Barryjev napad na Taylora i Graya, autor pokušava pokazati kako Barry griješi kad ih optužuje za relativizam izveden iz pojma nesumjerljivosti, ali nepogrešivo prepoznaje slabosti relativističke kritike liberalizma. Prema autorovu mišljenju, brojni teoretičari koji sudjeluju u akademskom sporenju liberala i multikulturalista pretpostavljaju da su liberalni egalitaristi (Rawls i njegovi sljedbenici) pravi cilj napada. To stvara dramatično pogrešan dojam da su Sjedinjene Američke Države liberalne na egalitaran način. I tako, dok su lijevi kritičari egalitarnog liberalizma pronalazili slabosti u omraženoj univerzalističkoj teoriji, antiliberali su (i antimultikulturalisti) preuzeli stvar u svoje ruke.The author deals with the issue of the relationship between liberalism and multiculturalism and points out certain tensions stemming from the debate between liberals and multiculturalists. The paper mentions the theoretical interventions of political philosophers such as Charles Taylor (multiculturalist), John Gray (postmodern liberal conservative) and Brian Barry (liberal universalist). By looking into Barry’s attack on Taylor and Gray, the author tries to show Barry’s mistake in accusing those two of relativism derived from incommensurability, but also gives him credit for unerringly recognizing the weaknesses of the relativist criticism of liberalism. According to the author, many theoreticians participating in the academic dispute between the liberals and the multiculturalists assume that the real targets are the liberal egalitarians (Rawls and his disciples). This has created a dramatically erroneous impression that the USA are liberal in an egalitarian way. Thus, while the leftist critics of egalitarian liberalism were finding fault with the abominable universalist theory, the antiliberals (and the antimulticulturalists) have gained prominence