Genders 22. Ellen E. Berry
from sports over arms invention and production to space research, and in consistently painting the other bloc as an evil, dark other. This process led in America to an image of the other bloc as both alien to “us” and homogeneous within itself. At the same time, “our” bloc was also perceived as homogeneous, precisely because of its striking and constantly emphasized difference from the evil, dark other in opposition to which it was being constructed. In other words, while the cultural diversity paradigm makes difference visible, the cold-war paradigm covers it over — except when it comes to the difference between the two blocs.
Although considering a group an other and considering it culturally different are not, theoretically, one and the same thing, they appear to be easily confused, or, at least, easily translated into each other. While the end of the cold war removed in America some of the negative charge from the image of the Eastern Bloc, there remained a residue of (a certain negative) difference. This was an obvious, easy way to make sense of Eastern Europe: while not evil (any more) and not “other” in any negative sense, neither was it the same as “us.” At least not yet. After all, it had been communist for quite a long time; it is still in a state of transition. While Eastern Europe might now be acceptable to the American general public, communism most certainly is not; and neither is the Eastern Bloc’s communist past. Although there is in America a rising awareness that the former Eastern Bloc countries are culturally very different from one another, these cultural differences are still covered over and/or come second when set in the context of Eastern Europe’s communist past. In short, the Eastern Bloc is still considered different from “us” and homogeneous within itself (in a certain vaguely negative way) precisely by virtue of that past.
There is in the cultural diversity paradigm an (implied) element of atonement. The paradigm not only teaches that allowing for cultural differences is good, but also that making these differences visible and considering them valid and valuable is a correction of past injustices. The cold-war paradigm has taught us that Eastern Europe was different in precisely the way which merits this kind of treatment. In other words, Eastern Europe is not (has not been) considered different in a way in which, say, Sweden is different. It was considered different in a way taught to us by the cold-war paradigm. This, in fact, was an othering rather than an acknowledgment of real differences. Consequently, Eastern Europe can now be treated in American discourse as an oppressed and wronged culture. And it is, perhaps, precisely because we still think of it as slightly different (in that vaguely negative sense) that we feel we need to acknowledge it, to give it prominence and visibility.
In the development of any science, the first received paradigm is usually felt to account quite successfully for most of the observations and experiments easily accessible to that science’s practitioners. Further development, therefore, ordinarily calls for the construction of elaborate equipment, the development of an esoteric vocabulary and skills, and a refinement of concepts that increasingly lessens their resemblance to their usual common-sense prototypes. That professionalization leads, on the one hand, to an immense restriction of the scientist’s vision and to a considerable resistance to paradigm change (Kuhn 64).
It also produces a lot of good, precise information. As it was said before, even the resistance to change is, according to Kuhn, useful. It “guarantees that scientists will not be lightly distracted and that the anomalies that lead to paradigm change will penetrate existing knowledge to the core” (65).
I believe one can easily argue that the cultural diversity paradigm is still at a stage where normal science is quite in order. It is a relatively new paradigm, only entering the stage of professionalization, with a lot of blank spaces yet to be filled. Learning more about, and restoring visibility and legitimacy to, different cultural groups whose difference has been covered over by the previous paradigm is both politically and scholastically useful. Within this paradigm, then, a perfectly justified desire to internationalize and interculturalize the curriculum and campus life has led, at Bowling Green and elsewhere, to an increased inclusion of other cultures/countries into both course syllabi and campus events. As a result (as was said at the beginning of this essay), I had been asked to speak about Yugoslavia even before the country had grabbed the world’s attention by disintegrating into the chaos of war. I have been asked to comment on leisure in Yugoslavia, women in Yugoslavia, popular culture in Yugoslavia. In other words, I was given visibility and attention which I most likely would not have enjoyed under other paradigms. Why, then, the unease?
For a number of reasons, most of which have already been noted and analyzed by members of other cultural groups who have gone through similar experiences.
1. At the simplest level, it is a common dilemma: on the one hand, I wanted my difference acknowledged; on the other, however, “difference” often implied an inferiority in the eyes of the asker since to be “non-American” (more particularly, to be East European) was by many taken to automatically mean “worse than American.”
2. On a more complex level, speaking “as a Yugoslavian woman” could be seen as feeding a paradigm which my talk was supposed to question. I felt I was not contributing to my audience’s better understanding of the world, or, for that matter, to the development of scholarship. Gayatri Spivak (among others) suggests that some representatives of other cultures are token representatives. When an audience wants “to hear an Indian speaking as an Indian, a Third World woman speaking as a Third World woman, [writes Spivak], they cover over the fact of the ignorance that they are allowed to possess, into a kind of homogenization.”4 When I spoke “as a Yugoslavian woman” (particularly when what I said met — or could be interpreted to meet — the audience’s expectations) I became a token representative of both my imagined culturally pure and purely different group and an imagined proof of the audience’s openness toward difference and toward discourses of the “other.”
3. What my encounters with the First and the Second Worlds’ ideological spaces also show is Yugoslavia’s and my own semiotically unstable place within them. The First World considered me East European, the Second World considered me a Westerner. Although my meaning changed as I entered these ideological spaces, my structural position within them was vaguely similar: I was always identified as being — belonging to —“the other.” In both cases, the cultural/discursive spaces entered were more powerful (larger and politically and militarily stronger) than my place of origin (at that time, my country, Yugoslavia), so their reading of me (and by implication of my country) carried, so to speak, far more weight than my own reading of myself (and my country’s reading of itself).
The cold war could also, then, be seen as a war for classification of Yugoslavia. If the Eastern Bloc had won, Yugoslavia might have found itself classified as Western, and then, in retaliation (who knows?) been far more firmly united, all difference and decentering erased? Since, however, the West “won,” Yugoslavia finds itself in the position assigned to it by that discourse; it finds itself an Eastern European country. In other words, until recently semiotically unstable, Yugoslavia now finds itself fixed as Eastern Bloc. One could take this to clearly indicate at least one definition of the nature of the “fircond” world: the common space, rather than being negotiated among all participants, is defined in American terms. This indicates the victor’s prerogative to impose rules, in this case of discourse: it appears that the victors’ definition of the “fircond” world space (which now consists of both, the First and the Second Worlds) will apply from now on. Yugoslavia will be fixed as an Eastern Bloc country (which is the way it had been most commonly seen by the American popular discourse, but not by other discourses on the global stage).
And I, instead of performing on a common stage — created by the opening up to each other of Western and Eastern Blocs’ discourses (perhaps the image of one large room created out of two smaller ones by removal of a wall is a better one?) — am actually appearing on a stage which is controlled by the West. Furthermore, I am expected to assume on that stage an already designated place: to be different (specific to my region and culture, as well as to the political past of that region), but to relate my (different) experiences in the conceptual, linguistic, and stylistic categories offered, understandable, and expected by American audiences. And, by implication, I am also expected to walk through the door opened for me by (and into) the Western discourse, without changing that discourse.
So,