Introduction What Difference Does the Difference Make? Cultural Pluralism as Friendship

This introductory chapter discusses the development of cultural pluralism through the friendship between Horace Kallen and Alain Locke. Kallen and Locke each rejected a crucial aspect of their identities: in Kallen's case, religion; in Locke's, biology. They met on the plane of high culture. They envisioned cultural pluralism as an elite project. They embraced the civilization they lived in and loved, particularly in the United States' and England's most prestigious institutions. These intellectual worlds provided space for transcending racial and religious barriers while upholding ethnic particularism. Both men came to embrace what they regarded as the strengths of their respective groups, rather than the weaknesses. Each man came to appreciate the value of the other's community, though Kallen more slowly than Locke. They would praise contributions Black people and Jews made to American and global civilization. Years later, when recalling his conversations with Locke, Kallen defined cultural pluralism as “the right to be different.” Kallen and Locke shared a fundamental belief in that right. Yet their adherence to cultural pluralism went beyond the language of rights. Group difference should not merely be tolerated; it should be celebrated.