Clash of Civilizations in the World Today. Essay

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Introduction

Political scientist Samuel P. Huntington proposed the theory that people’s cultural and religious identities will become the primary source of conflict in the post-Cold War world formulated in 1993 in the Foreign Affairs article “The Clash of Civilizations” as a reaction to Francis Fukuyama’s 1992 book The End of History and the Last Man (Huntington, 1993). Huntington wrote:

“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.”

The theory was further discussed in the 1996 book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order but it was believed that Bernard Lewis first used the phrase in a 1990 article of The Atlantic Monthly titled The Roots of Muslim Rage (1990).

This paper will analyze the term “clash of civilizations” relevance with the world today, following reasoning while trying to sketch out positive and negative features of current trends in relations among different civilizations today.

Discussion

Culture as pointed out by Your Author (year) “humans have very little innate knowledge about how to get along in the world, we depend on culture to provide a road map for living.” It is through this premise that differences occur among various nationalities or groups and sub-groups of which certain factors have helped mold them as they are today. Already, we are not bereft of studies and research as to how and why various cultures have emerged differently as against other existing ones. As Anthropologist Clifford Geertz emphasized, culture is not just a thing that is “added on […] to a finished or virtually finished animal” but a main ingredient “in the production of that animal itself,” (Your Author, year).

Factors that influence culture include culture carriers like languages, human inventiveness or capacity to adapt to new or current situations never before encountered, as well as absorption of other cultures’ elements. One example provided has been the food rice which was not very popular in Latin America nor in Germany but has recently become a preferred staple diet due to constant contact of peoples and accumulation of information.

One conflict outlined in the chapter is “learning” which is seen as a “complex process that requires a great deal of time and a large measure of empathy.” When time and empathy are taken away, what happens is plain “imitation” which non-humans may easily perform. In the learning process, the element of human sociability was also pointed out as humans’ tendency to be sociable begins at an early age. As David and Ann Premack pointed out:

A 6-month-old infant, clinging to a teddy bear, makes eye contact with an observer, then glances at its teddy bear, inviting the observer to share with it the presence of the bear and of the child’s possession of it. In the child of 11 or 12 months, who is likely to have a few words, the evidence takes a more overt form. The child points excitedly at an object, almost always a moving one — a bus, truck, fish swimming in a bowl, even an ant crawling on the ground — calling out its name repeatedly, at the same time avidly seeking eye contact with the observer. The child is not requesting the object, as tests have shown, but is inviting the recipient to share the excitement of the object that the child has encountered (Your Source’s Premac ref, year).

Current trends that become factors in the clash of civilizations may include established religions and political systems which may or at most, not shared as common values among cultures. One such example is that people from other countries outside the United States may view US or Western arrangements as being too much dominated by the wealthy while westerners may view Asian systems as too authoritarian.

Cultural capital has also been pointed out as an advantage for those who acquire or have it. The means to acquiring it may include education although family and friends may also help acquire it. Economist Thomas Sowell suggested that that individuals and groups are in a better position when they try their best to acquire “the cultural capital needed to move forward” (Your Source’s ref 33, year).

On a different note, the chapter also discussed the relevance of “social capital” as an “asset that has meaning only through interaction […] takes two to benefit from shared trust.” Certain groups in some cultures are viewed to do a better job of building social capital than in others, and it was also proposed that the stock of social capital in a society can rise and fall as the culture changes over time. In addition, substantial dividends result from social relations which serve as the “currency” of societal life which in turn provides positive outcomes of many kinds.

Nevertheless, social capital also produce norms that people exercise when belonging to a group, and this may include going off to war. Religious belief has been mentioned as one cause of this, while another is as author wrote as “the interactions of individuals themselves creates the moral order that undergirds personal norm adherence and appropriate societal interaction,” (Your Source, year).

Conclusion

Much of the perceived “clash of civilizations” today may be closely attributed to those “who have” and those who “don’t have”. Economy, with the globalization of almost every aspect of modern life today, has marginalized peoples who could not access materials and information they need to progress as well as afford to improve their lot. This may be reflected in leading political powers that dictate upon their so-called colleagues which should and should not be thereby propagating that which Charles Darwin has posed about the human society decades ago: survival of the fittest.

In this sense, competition and return to primal instinct to be on top of the other, or to fare better than the rest becomes very evident for the preservation or protection of “one’s ass.” Same thing may be said about Homeland Security of the US, which argues to protect the welfare of its citizens as far away from the land as possible, which, at this point could not only step but trample on the toes of millions, such as the case of Iraq.

While these differences are already pointed out as negative, a more positive aspect of culture such as interdependence in one’s group, or having to belong to even a global one could lead to understanding and unity which benefits not only the group but the individual.

Reference

Huntington, Samuel (1993). “The Clash of Civilizations?” From Foreign Affairs.

Lewis, Bernard (1990). “The Roots of Muslim Rage.” The Atlantic Monthly.

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