Yet there arose in tandem with this arrogance a fascination with other religions in themselves. It was rather the anti-imperialist Marxists who maintained the Hegelian vision of religion as destined by the historical dialectic to transcend itself in philosophy. In the imperialist age, religion was alternatively a primitive mode of thought destined to pass away and a transhistorical set of anthropological themes. The pathos of early ethnography is founded on the idea that we of the West are rapidly destroying the ecological conditions on which primitive societies depend. We need to engage in dialogue with these societies, yet such dialogue is not really possible.
Modern multiculturalism takes a different tack.
In a world already wholly penetrated by the Western exchange-system, it insists that all extant cultures participate in dialogue rather than in the master narrative of Western triumph. In the domains of artistic and religious practice, this dialogue produces local syncretisms that in turn contribute to the variety of Western culture. But the ineffable triumph-narrative that haunts the postmodern enterprise continues to trivialize all other narratives. Our fear is not unjustified. The market system can progress only by making all cultural elements equally marketable.