Civilisation vs Barbarism (Huntington and Fukuyama)

In my view, both Huntington (and Fukuyama to whom he is often contrasted) use conceptual categories that will soon show to be of limited relevance in terms of this century’s central ideological conflicts.

Basically, what Huntington has done is to try and comprehend what consequences the reduction of meaningful diversity between nation-states (the political entities we are used to thinking about) will have. He proposes that since nation-states are becoming less conceptually important, future historical developments will occur along the lines of … “civilisations” … and more specifically a kind of tribal/cultural clash between what is often (erroneously) called “Western Civilisation” and … “the rest”.

He tells us:
“It is my hypothesis that the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic. The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. Nation states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future.”

He also tells us:
“The central axis of world politics in the future is likely to be, in Kishore Mahbubani's phrase, the conflict between "the West and the Rest" and the responses of non-Western civilizations to Western power and values. Those responses generally take one or a combination of three forms. At one extreme, non-Western states can, like Burma and North Korea, attempt to pursue a course of isolation, to insulate their societies from penetration or "corruption" by the West, and, in effect, to opt out of participation in the Western-dominated global community. The costs of this course, however, are high, and few states have pursued it exclusively. A second alternative, the equivalent of "band- wagoning" in international relations theory, is to attempt to join the West and accept its values and institutions. The third alternative is to attempt to "balance" the West by developing economic and military power and cooperating with other non-Western societies against the West, while preserving indigenous values and institutions; in short, to modernize but not to Westernize.”

And he concludes:
“Non-Western civilizations have attempted to become modern without becoming Western. To date only Japan has fully succeeded in this quest. Non-Western civilizations will continue to attempt to acquire the wealth, technology, skills, machines and weapons that are part of being modern. They will also attempt to reconcile this modernity with their traditional culture and values. Their economic and military strength relative to the West will increase. Hence the West will increasingly have to accommodate these non-Western modern civilizations whose power approaches that of the West but whose values and interests differ significantly from those of the West. This will require the West to maintain the economic and military power necessary to protect its interests in relation to these civilizations. It will also, however, require the West to develop a more profound understanding of the basic religious and philosophical assumptions underlying other civilizations and the ways in which people in those civilizations see their interests. It will require an effort to identify elements of commonality between Western and other civilizations. For the relevant future, there will be no universal civilization, but instead a world of different civilizations, each of which will have to learn to coexist with the others.”

And that’s about it. That is the gist of his contribution. I find it obvious, simplistic and irrelevant to what is already starting to take place. Of course the nation state is conceptually less crucial today than in the early part of this century. And of course the concept of a civilisation has meaning. And of course various civilisations will “clash” to some degree. It’s all true … but it’s also trivially so because civilisations clash in a way that is only marginally different from clashing nation-states.

What Huntington is basically saying is this: It’s not about nations states … it’s about …”civilisations”! Did he come up with that all by himself? :) He simply uses larger groupings of people to grandiosely exclaim: “Clash of Civilisations”! And of course some people in the USA think that something interesting was said.

This would be fine I guess if there was something to it … but there isn’t. This is NOT what the conflict is about. Something much more interesting is going on. There is a clash of civilisation going on but it is the conflict between civilisation with a capital C and … what used to be called barbarism.

Let me explain: What Huntington means by “Western Civilisation” is more accurately described by the terms “European Civilisation”. And it travelled to America, Australia and many other places with European settlers. None of this matters of course and this civilisation was not much better than any other … BUT for just one little thing:

European civilisation at some point in history placed an unusual emphasis on … “reason”. Now, today this doesn’t seem like much but keep in mind that at the time everyone was up to their neck in magical explanations of the world. People everywhere were not as concerned about solving problems through observation and logic but about fixing their relationships with this or that deity … praying begging and all the rest … calling for supernatural interventions.

Contrasted to the authoritarian/tribal/superstitious/magical/religious perspectives that characterised the other civilisations … a consensus/scientific/rational perspective emerged in Europe. And THIS is what made the difference … a difference that led to conceptual, scientific and technological advances, to both the American and French revolutions and to the rest of the ideals that characterise us.

And this is where the clash occurs ... yet again. And this time, the USA chose the wrong path. It has been tempted and succumbed … abandoning its original enlightenment ideals. It manages to both go fundamentalist and to represent everything that is unholy in humans: Though they pay lip service to the original European ideals, one knows today that if something is good … the USA is actually against it … from the International Criminal Court, to the peaceful union of Europe, to International Law, to the environment, to Human Rights and even to arms control. Though they support a bizarre kind of “targeted arms control” (to soften up countries that they might want to invade) ... general arms control they actually hate … and they typically spend more on weaponry than anyone else … by very very far ... to inforce "disarmament" no doubt!

Invading disarmed countries, killing thousands upon thousands of civilians … “for their own good” … kidnapping people, incarcerating them without due process or any judicial protection and even torturing them seems to become more their kind of thing. They thus have become just another barbarian people. They are trying to establish a protection racket.

Not too long ago, the enlightened ideas that characterised Europe seemed to have spread planet-wise … with the USA as its most proud proponent … and now Europe has lost one of its few standard-bearers of civilisation.

And THIS is what it’s all about: The real coming conflict is between reason and all kinds of racist/religious/nationalist zealots. There is no “fundamental” (pardon the expression) difference between Islamic-fundamentalists, Judaic-Zionist-fundamentalists or Christian-fundamentalists.

And it’s absurd for anyone to claim that their own specific dogma is IT… that they know how God thinks ... and that he is “a jealous God” who is into punishing humans over which faith they were born into. But all of the fanatics will claim exactly that. THEY, and only they, are the way to salvation you see. And the creepiest part of it all is that we know, from historical experience, that if we actually give these kind of people any real power, they will do horrible things … dark-ages style!

Basically Huntington models his thinking (without crediting it) on that of the ancient Greeks. They recognised a long time ago the obvious differentiation of the conflicts between the Greek City-States and those between the whole Greek civilisation and the barbarians (non Greeks). And by simply reapplying these ancient conceptual categories to current events, this guy pretends he has done his job of thinking about what is occuring today.

Problem is … this is the wrong situation. What the current situation is like is rather that of the renaissance … in reverse. And the upcoming conflict will be between those who want to establish some computerised-neo-dark-ages and those who will work for an enlightened computerised-neo-renaissance. It’s ... again ... between reason and ... hum ... un-reason.

And if the divine exists, reason is the path to it … and it can be argued that that’s why the ability to reason exists. We can, other words, reason ... for a reason (so to speak). It’s about understanding why … “thou shall not kill” for example … without being threatened by the supernatural punishments of some deity.

Of course, reason means responsibility … and the fact that the organised decisions we make today absolutely determine ... FOR REAL … our future, the human race’s future, life’s future … THAT ... is too much to bear. The safety of dogma with a foretold and inevitable armagedon dispensing us of any responsibility about the next generations … well it seems so soothing. It's just like a drug.

And by the way, by “reason” I don’t just mean science/engineering (knowing how to do) but also and most importantly … ethics (choosing what to do). If, for example, some sick or ruthless or stupid scientist shows no better sense than to engage in altering animals into genetic freaks ... in order to increase stock prices for some corporation ...

...well …

... that is not “reasonable” … that is stupid and evil and bad and everything else you can throw at it.

But anyway … enough for now.

Cheers!