During my study of social difference, one of the most
influential and controversial works has been the Clash of civilizations piece
written by Huntington. Thus, for this blog post, a short report is written
about Huntington’s influential work, and a few responses have been offered at the
end.
Since Huntington’s article deals with the clash of
civilizations, I first find it important to state his definition of and
parameters for civilization. In the first part of his article, he defines
civilizations as units “differentiated from each other by history, language,
culture, tradition and, most important, religion.” Huntington uses Arnold
Toynbee work as the primary source for compiling his exhaustive list of
civilizations that have existed over time, “21 major civilizations; only six of
them exist in the contemporary world.” The question for this blog post will
henceforth be broken down into three separate sub-categories and each will be
superficially touched upon. Due to the length limitations on this blog post, it is
acknowledged that the following summary is not exhaustive or intellectually
robust in any way.
Main components of theory: The author’s major thesis
is that people’s cultural and religious identities will be further strengthened
or reinforced due to the increased globalization of the world, which also
implies decreasing strength of identities borne out of ideologies. As a result
of reaffirmed belief in the legitimacy of these identifiers, religion and
culture will be the primary reason behind most conflicts. His prediction,
therefore, is that all other factors (economic development, resource scarcity,
commodification and monopolization of natural resources) will take a secondary
seat to cultural and religious identities.
View on religion and culture: The author seems to see
no distinction between the two concepts of religion and culture – implied that
the religious identity causes one’s cultural identity. I would extrapolate that
such a belief then implies the author’s personal belief that religions strictly
belong to a certain culture and are not belief systems that are valid across
these boundaries. His belief that certain cultures would never “evolve” or accept
the Western way of life implies that he evaluates cultures according to a
moralistic perspective – that some cultures are more progressive or more
“correct” than others is taken as an unchallenged reality. Generally, it seems
that the article is written from a biased belief that religion causes problems.
I challenge this assumption and counter claim that religion can be an
imperative tool in bridge-building.
View on relations between cultures and multiculturalism:
Huntington seems to view culture in absolute, rather than continuous terms –
either you belong to a culture or you do not. For instance, while talking about
the “Arab civilization”, the author ignores the number of divides that exist
within this group of people. For instance, one nationality might claim that the
other is not ‘truly Arab’ or ‘Arab enough.’ His claim that civilizations are
defined by a different history, language, culture tradition and religion seems
to ignore the unavoidable overlaps within these categories. However, the fact
that the author believes in such distinct categories, while ignoring the
numerous times in history when members of different language, cultural
tradition and religion have lived together harmoniously, also implies his lack
of belief in multiculturalism. His view on relations between cultures can be
concluded from his statement, “These differences are the product of centuries.
They will not soon disappear.” The fact that differences are looked upon as
negative conflicts rather then opportunities for mutual growth and learning
illustrates that he subscribes to a zero-sum game kind of vision, where one
culture can only gain (or maintain) power at the expense of another culture
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