From: Bob Olsen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2001 16:28:20 -0500 Subject: Clash of Civilizations: Decline of the West Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2001 12:35:33 -0400 From: "Janet M Eaton" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [MAI-NOT] Overview Final Ch. The Clash of Civilizations [Prepared by JME] I have prepared a six page overview which abbreviates, for your possible convenience of cursory examination, the 20 page online last chapter of Samuel Huntington's controversial book, "The Clash of Civilizations". This and a subsequent post I will soon forward about the life and life work of 74 year old Harvard Political Science Prof. Samuel Huntington by Robert Kaplan provide, I believe, some important insights not always glimpsed by his many critics.. fyi-janet =================================================== http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/hunting.htm Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996) Chapter 12, The West, Civilizations, and Civilization An overview, Prepared by Janet M Eaton In his final and concluding chapter of the Clash of Civilizations, Samuel Huntington addresses four subject areas: [1] The Renewal of the West; [2] The West in the World; [3] Civilizational War and Order; [4] The Commonalities of Civilization. [1] The renewal of the West: In this section Huntington refers to earlier civilizations and analyses of historians and scholars who study the history of comparative civilizations and concludes that the west is a civilization which has reached its mature stage i.e. has been in a so-called 'golden era' of extended peace. He suggests that although the West obviously differs from all other civilizations that have ever existed in its overwhelming impact on all other civilizations and the processes of modernization and industrialization , the development of the West to date has not deviated significantly from the evolutionary patterns common to civilizations throughout history. He says that in previous civilizations this phase of blissful golden age, with its visions of immortality, has ended either dramatically and quickly with the victory of an external society or slowly and equally painfully by internal disintegration. What happens within a civilization is as crucial to its ability to resist destruction from external sources as it is to holding off decay from within. The central issue for the West is whether, quite apart from any external challenges, it is capable of stopping and reversing the internal processes of decay. Can the West renew itself or will sustained internal rot simply accelerate its end and/or subordination to other economically and demographically more dynamic civilizations? Referring to the work of Carroll Quigly, a scholar of comparative civilizations, Huntington draws economic and demographic parallels between the West and past civililizations in the phase of decline. But he says far more significant than economics and demography are problems of moral decline, cultural suicide, and political disunity in the West including: increasesin antisocial behavior, such as crime, drug use, and violence generally; family decay, including increased rates of divorce, illegitimacy, teen-age pregnancy, and single-parent families; at least in the United States, a decline in "social capital," that is, membership in voluntary associations and the interpersonal trust associated with such membership; general weakening of the "work ethic" and rise of a cult of personal indulgence; decreasing commitment to learning and intellectual activity, manifested in the United States in lower levels of scholastic achievement. The future health of the West and its influence on other societies depends in considerable measure on its success in coping with those trends, which, of course, give rise to the assertions of moral superiority by Muslims and Asians. Of particular concern to Huntington is the tendency for immigrants from other civilizations to reject assimilation and continue to adhere to and to propagate the values, customs, and cultures of their home societies. This along with the weakening in the long run of its central component, Christianity could weaken Western Civilization. A more immediate and dangerous challenge exists in the United States. Historically American national identity has been defined culturally by the heritage of Western civilization and politically by the principles of the American Creed on which Americans overwhelmingly agree: liberty, democracy, individualism, equality before the law, constitutionalism, private property. In the late twentieth century both components of American identity have come under concentrated and sustained onslaught from a small but influential number of intellectuals and publicists. In the name of multiculturalism they have attacked the identification of the United States with Western civilization, denied the existence of a common American culture, and promoted racial, ethnic, and other subnational cultural identities and group. The clash between the multiculturalists and the defenders of Western civilization and the American Creed is, in James Kurth's phrase, "the real clash" within the American segment of Western civilization. " Americans cannot avoid the issue: Are we a Western people or are we something else? The futures of the United States and of the West depend upon Americans reaffirming their commitment to Western civilization. In the mid-1990s new discussion occurred of the nature and future of the West, a renewed recognition arose that such a reality had existed, and heightened concern about what would insure its continued existence. This in part germinated from the perceived need to expand the premier Western institution, NATO, to include the Western countries to the east and from the serious divisions that arose within the West over how to respond to the breakup of Yugoslavia Leaders from both sides of the Atlantic have emphasized the need to rejuvenate the Atlantic community. In late 1994 and in 1995 the German and British defense ministers, the French and American foreign ministers, Henry Kissinger, and various other leading figures all espoused this cause. Their case was summed up by British Defense Minister Malcolm Rifkind, who, in November 1994, argued the need for an Atlantic Community,"resting on four pillars: [i] defense and security embodied in NATO; [ii] shared belief in the rule of law and parliamentary democracy, [iii] liberal capitalism and free trade; and [iv] the shared European cultural heritage emanating from Greece and Rome through the Renaissance to the shared values, beliefs and civilization of our own century. [2] The West in the World A world in which cultural identities�ethnic, national, religious, civilizational �are central, and cultural affinities and differences shape the alliances, antagonisms, and policies of states has three broad implications for the West generally and for the United States in particular. First, statesmen can constructively alter reality only if they recognize and understand it. European leaders have pointed to the cultural forces drawing people together and driving them apart. American elites, in contrast, have been slow to accept and to come to grips with these emerging realities. e.g. The Bush and Clinton administrations promoted multicivilizational economic integration plans which are either meaningless, as with APEC, or involve major unanticipated economic and political costs, as with NAFTA and Mexico Second, American foreign policy thinking also suffered from a reluctance to abandon, alter, or at times even reconsider policies adopted to meet Cold War needs. With some this took the form of still seeing a resurrected Soviet Union as a potential threat. More generally people tended to sanctify Cold War alliances and arms control agreements. NATO must be maintained as it was in the Cold War etc. Third, cultural and civilizational diversity challenges the Western and particularly American belief in the universal relevance of Western culture. This belief is expressed both descriptively and normatively. Descriptively it holds that peoples in all societies want to adopt Western values, institutions, and practices. In the emerging world of ethnic conflict and civilizational clash, Western belief in the universality of Western culture suffers three problems: it is false; it is immoral; and it is dangerous. [i]That it is "false" has been the central thesis of this book, a thesis well summed up by Michael Howard: the "common Western assumption that cultural diversity is a historical curiosity being rapidly eroded by the growth of a common, western-oriented, Anglophone world-culture, shaping our basic values . . . is simply not true." [ii] The belief that non-Western peoples should adopt Western values, institutions, and culture is "immoral" because of what would be necessary to bring it about. If non-Western societies are once again to be shaped by Western culture, it will happen only as a result of the expansion, deployment, and impact of Western power. Imperialism is the necessary logical consequence of universalism. As Asian and Muslim civilizations begin more and more to assert the universal relevance of their cultures, Westerners will come to appreciate more and more the connection between universalism and imperialism. [iii] Western universalism is "dangerous" to the world because it could lead to a major intercivilizational war between core states and it is dangerous to the West because it could lead to defeat of the West. All civilizations go though similar processes of emergence, rise, and decline. The West differs from other civilizations not in the way it has developed but in the distinctive character of its values and institutions. These include most notably its Christianity, pluralism, individualism, and rule of law, which made it possible for the West to invent modernity, expand throughout the world, and become the envy of other societies. The principal responsibility of Western leaders, consequently, is not to attempt to reshape other civilizations in the image of the West, which is beyond their declining power, but to preserve, protect, and renew the unique qualities of Western civilization. To preserve Western civilization in the face of declining Western power, it is in the interest of the United States and European countries: * to achieve greater political, economic, and military integration and to coordinate their policies so as to preclude states from other civilizations exploiting differences among them; * to incorporate into the European Union and NATO the Western states of Central Europe that is, the Visegrad countries, the Baltic republics, Slovenia, and Croatia; * to encourage the "Westernization" of Latin America and, as far as possible, the close alignment of Latin American countries with the West; * to restrain the development of the conventional and unconventional military power of Islamic and Sinic countries; * to slow the drift of Japan away from the West and toward accommodation with China; * to accept Russia as the core state of Orthodoxy and a major regional power with legitimate interests in the security of its southern borders; * to maintain Western technological and military superiority over other civilizations; * and, most important, to recognize that Western intervention in the affairs of other civilizations is probably the single most dangerous source of instability and potential global conflict in a multicivilizational world. [3] Civilizational War and Order: In this section Huntington suggests that a global war involving the core states of the world's major civilizations is highly improbable but not impossible. Such a war, he suggests, could come about from the escalation of a fault line war between groups from different civilizations, most likely involving Muslims on one side and non-Muslims on the other. Escalation is made more likely if aspiring Muslim core states compete to provide assistance to their embattled coreligionists. It is made less likely by the interests which secondary and tertiary kin countries may have in not becoming deeply involved in the war themselves. A more dangerous source of a global intercivilizational war is the shifting balance of power among civilizations and their core states. He then goes on to describe a possible scenario for global civilizational war between the US and China in the year 2010 and concludes by saying if this scenario seems a wildly implausible fantasy to the reader, that is all to the good. What is most plausible and hence most disturbing about this scenario, however, is the cause of war: intervention by the core state of one civilization (the United States) in a dispute between the core state of another civilization (China) and a member state of that civilization (Vietnam) Huntington then offers his prescription for the avoidance of major intercivilizational wars in the coming era: [i] This will require core states to refrain from intervening in conflicts in other civilizations. This is a truth which some states, particularly the United States, will undoubtedly find difficult to accept. This abstention rule that core states abstain from intervention in conflicts in other civilizations is the first requirement of peace in a multicivilizational, multipolar world. [ii] The second requirement is the joint mediation rule that core states negotiate with each other to contain or to halt fault line wars between states or groups from their civilizations. Acceptance of these rules and of a world with greater equality among civilizations will not be easy for the West or for those civilizations which may aim to supplement or supplant the West in its dominant role. Most of the principal international institutions date from shortly after World War 11 and are shaped according to Western interests, values, and practices. As Western power declines relative to that of other civilizations, pressures will develop to reshape these institutions to accommodate the interests of those civilizations. The most obvious, most important, and probably most controversial issue concerns permanent membership in the UN Security Council. Huntington provides his formula for restructuring the UN security Council. In a multicivilizational world ideally each major civilization should have at least one permanent seat on the Security Council. At present only three do. [4] The Commonalities of Civilization Some Americans have promoted multiculturalism at home; some have promoted universalism abroad; and some have done both. Multiculturalism at home threatens the United States and the West; universalism abroad threatens the West and the world. Both deny the uniqueness of Western culture. The global monoculturalists want to make the world like America. The domestic mulitculturalists want to make America like the world. A multicultural America is impossible because a non-Western America is not American. A multicultural world is unavoidable because global empire is impossible. The preservation of the United States and the West requires the renewal of Western identity. The security of the world requires acceptance of global multiculturality. Then referring to Michael Walzer's notions of culture and morality Huntington launches into his Formula for global mulitculturality. Cultures, as Michael Walzer has argued, are "thick"; they prescribe institutions and behavior patterns to guide humans in the paths which are right in a particular society. Above, beyond, and growing out of this maximalist morality, however, is a "thin" minimalist morality that embodies "reiterated features of particular thick or maximal moralities." Minimal moral concepts of truth and justice are found in all thick moralities and cannot be divorced from them. There are also minimal moral "negative injunctions, most likely, rules against murder, deceit, torture, oppression, and tyranny." What people have in common is "more the sense of a common enemy [or evil] than the commitment to a common culture." Human society is universal because it is human, particular because it is a society." At times we march with others; mostly we march alone. Yet a "thin" minimal morality does derive from the common human condition, and "universal dispositions" are found in all cultures."' Instead of promoting the supposedly universal features of one civilization, the requisites for cultural coexistence demand a search for what is common to most civilizations. In a multicivilizational world, the constructive course is to renounce universalism, accept diversity, and seek commonalities. Huntington describes in detail a relevant effort to identify such commonalities in Singapore in the early 1990s - . The Singapore project was an ambitious and enlightened effort to define a Singaporean cultural identity which was shared by its three dominant ethnic and religous communities and which distinguished it from the West. Drawing on this line of thought Huntington concludes that in addition to the abstention rule and the joint mediation rule, a third rule for peace in a multicivilizational world is the commonalities rule: peoples in all civilizations should search for and attempt to expand the values, institutions, and practices they have in common with peoples of other civilizations. This effort would contribute not only to limiting the clash of civilizations but also to strengthening Civilization in the singular (hereafter capitalized for clarity). The singular Civilization presumably refers to a complex mix of higher levels of morality, religion, learning, art, philosophy, technology, material well being, and probably other things. Huntington returns to the theme of looking for insights in patterns of civilizations - Are they simply cyclical historical patterns with predictable phases or is it possibile, he asks, that with western civilization it may be conceivable that modernization and human moral development produced by greater education, awareness, and understanding of human society and its natural environment, produce sustained movement toward higher and higher levels of Civilization. He answers that modernization has generally enhanced the material level of Civilization throughout the world. But asks - has it also enhanced the moral and cultural dimensions of Civilization? In some respects this appears to be the case. Slavery, torture, vicious abuse of individuals, have become less and less acceptable in the contemporary world, however he says "Much evidence exists in the 1990s for the relevance of the "sheer chaos" paradigm of world affairs: a global breakdown of law and order, failed states and increasing anarchy in many parts of the world, a global crime wave, transnational mafias and drug cartels, increasing drug addiction in many societies, a general weakening of the family, a decline in trust and social solidarity in many countries, ethnic, religious, and civilizational violence and rule by the gun prevalent in much of the world". The rise of transnational corporations producing economic goods is increasingly matched by the rise of transnational criminal mafias, drug cartels, and terrorist gangs violently assaulting Civilization. On a worldwide basis Civilization seems in many respects to be yielding to barbarism, generating the image of an unprecedented phenomenon, a global Dark Ages, possibly descending on humanity. Huntington final paragraph begins with a reference to Canada's Nobel Laureate Peace Prize winning former Prime Minister: "In the 1950s Lester Pearson warned that humans were moving into "an age when different civilizations will have to learn to live side by side in peaceful interchange, learning from each other, studying each other's history and ideals and art and culture, mutually enriching each others' lives. The alternative, in this overcrowded little world, is misunderstanding, tension, clash, and catastrophe." Huntington concludes: The futures of both peace and Civilization depend upon understanding and cooperation among the political, spiritual, and intellectual leaders of the world's major civilizations. In the emerging era, clashes of civilizations are the greatest threat to world peace, and an international order based on civilizations is the surest safeguard against world war. - ----END---- "Janet M Eaton" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> - -- For MAI-not (un)subscription information, posting guidelines and links to other MAI sites please see http://mai.flora.org/ ............................................ Bob Olsen Toronto <[EMAIL PROTECTED] Capitalism is war ............................................ _________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki Phone +358-40-7177941 Fax +358-9-7591081 http://www.kominf.pp.fi General class struggle news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe mails to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Geopolitical news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ____________
