The Clash of Civilizations Essay examples

Samuel P. Huntington in his book “ The Clash of Civilizations”has predicted that the source of conflict in the new world shall not be ideological or primarily economic, as the great divisions among humankind and dominating source of conflict shall be cultural.Although nation states will remain to be the most powerful actors in world affairs, yet the principal conflict of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different

This direct linkage between modernization and westernization is, in fact, historically inaccurate. The history of technology development has actually indicated that the ideology or culture doesn’t really influence the modernization. When adopting modernisation, countries, including Saudi Arabia, Israel, doesn’t necessarily need to change its own culture. While most Muslim-majority countries are still undeveloped countries, the driving force is not their culture, but instead the clash of civilization itself. The fault line wars characterised by Huntington in fact have majorly taken place in the Middle East, including the war on terror and the Arab–Israeli War. This clash of civilisation characterised by fault line wars, in fact, leads to the chaos and poverty there. The appearance of this pre-modern image of those Muslim Countries is not the justification for the westernisation but the result of the clash of civilizations. Therefore, the inverted causality is inaccurate, and shall be corrected, as the clash of civilization can, in fact, hardly help those

The civilizations, as identified by Huntington are Sinic [Chinese or Confusious], Japanese, Hindu, Islamic, Orthodox [Russian], Western [Europe, North American, Australia, New Zealand], Latin American and possibly African. And it is among these groups that share a “common interest and common values” and have a “common culture or civilization” that will lead to more interdependence on members of the same civilization and less dependent on the West. Huntington’s theory is that the West has had [at one time or another] a negative impact on every other civilization, and this has led to a decline of power and influence around the world, especially the Islam civilization. Therefore he predicts, “the fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future.”

Each one of the claims will go onto support the overall issue that culture will cause the clash of civilizations. A great support Huntington uses is that no matter what we think of cultures each one is different in many ways. If its religion, language, or different historical backgrounds these will cause conflict to arise. With each civilization being different it can be hard to get along with other people because of how different their views might be. Another issue that arises is that not all, but many civilizations are influenced by the west. This is where the idea of westernization comes into play. Each community is trying to improve and be bigger and better themselves, they are trying to be better than their neighbors. If one civilization improves the surrounding groups will want to be the same. This means they will compete to be the same or even better than the civilization that already made it. This can lead to conflict and death between civilizations. Another reason is that when conflicts arise between civilizations it is a lot harder to resolve than a political or economical one. Like stated before it is very difficult to change someone’s beliefs, that means there is very little wiggle room for negotiation. The final example that Huntington writes about is that the economic regionalism is increasing. This means that more cultures and civilization are trading between themselves, but

Huntington also does not see westernization as a desirable surge that engulfs world politics. Conflict is very natural and history proves that argument. The author takes away focus from states as a foundation of war in the future and more on conflict between major culture regions. He states that peoples cultural and religious identities will be the primary bases of conflict post cold war. The world is becoming a smaller place with modernization and technology; thus, relations between people of different civilizations deepen consciousness and awareness. Post cold war, the role of the Western society enhances the growth of civilization. Unlike Fukuyamas argument, Huntington states that cultural characteristics and differences are more complex to solve than political and economical

In Samuel P. Huntington’s article “The West: Unique, Not Universal,” he addresses his audience with a very controversial question: Is Western Culture universal or unique? Huntington elaborately opens up this question with research and examples to explain and persuade readers that the West will never be a universal culture for all, but rather a unique culture that will be accepted by those who appreciate it. For decades now, historians and scholars have debated with one another to determine who is right and wrong. However, from a handful of articles from different scholars, Samuel Huntington’s statement that the West is unique rather than universal is supported and even further elaborated on by these particular sources. A common understanding between all the sources, that must be noted, is that a civilization’s culture is not comprised of material goods but rather their culmination of their religion(s), values, language(s) and traditions. While although there are scholars out their that negate the West is unique, a large amount of scholars still argue and strengthen Huntington’s argument that the West has unique and exclusive characteristics that make them distinctive and rare.

Without taking into account the layers of each story and looking for other conflicts and perspectives within it, one is likely to miss important details and fall into a narrow line of thinking. For example, consistent conflict between the East and West is easy to see and is not without evident backing. It is stopping at that conclusion or even jumping to it that will limit one’s ultimate perspective on these events. Choosing to see history from only the perspective of only East vs. West can restrict one from seeing the possibilities of other motivations and the peaceful and revolutionary intermingling between the East and West, which can cause cultural unawareness and

Huntington goes on to suggest that along with this umbrella idea of conflict between civilizations; through economic, social, and cultural separations; there will be a divide in which countries with similar beliefs or ‘civilizations’ will stick together in war and conflict against other civilizations. Another key point to highlight is that he believed that in the post-cold war world, religion would become something that separates civilizations. In connection to Krauthamer’s viewpoint, Huntington’s explores the idea that with the West viewed as an enemy due to economic, military, and political strength, many civilizations who don't want to or cant join the west will compete with it. Huntington then suggests that the west learn to co-exist with other civilizations in order for it to remain the strongest and that it needs to accept religious and philysophical differences of other

Huntington and Fukuyama have opposite points of view about how the world will looks like in the future. Huntington thinks that the civilization identity will be increasingly important in the future, and the world will be divided between seven or eight major civilizations because the most important conflicts of the future will occur along the cultural differences, separating these civilizations from one another. However, Fukuyama argues that all the people on planet want to live in liberal – democratic regime especially after discrediting of socialism, monarchy, fascism, and other types of authoritarian rule. He supports his point of view by saying that modernity, democracy and free market have a stronger cultural foundation

Samuel Huntington sees an emerging world organized on the basis of "civilizations". Societies that share cultural affinities cooperate with each other and the efforts to force a society into another civilization will fail; countries gather around the leading States of their civilization. This description of the process of new structures of international relations that Huntington sees developing, leads him to consider that the greatest risks of violence and confrontation lie in the Westerns’ claims to universality, which are leading them to increasingly get into conflict with other civilizations, particularly Islam and China; local conflicts, especially between Muslims and non-Muslims, generate new alliances and lead to an escalation of violence, which will usually lead the dominant states to make an attempt to stop them.

While these theories are seemingly compatible at first glance – Fukuyama 's Western liberalism be the victor in Huntington 's war of civilizations – there is a major difference, and some important reasons for this difference, which we can find in the authors ' pasts.

The “Global war on Terror” and Huntington’s “Clash of Civilization” could not be engaged in the same position because the West especially the UK and the US and some other Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Pakistan and Uzbekistan helped AQ when it was in war with the Soviet Union (Lansford, Watson and Covarrubias, 2009). So, according to Joseph Nye (2004: 17), the struggle against Islamist terrorism is not a clash of civilizations. In the same way, Ahmed S. Hashim (2001:29) relates that it is not in the interest of the

In 1992, Samuel Huntington had suggested his idea on the Clash of Civilizations (COC) which he later, in 1996, discussed in more detail in his book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (Huntington 1996). The most popular inference made from his thesis is the idea that post-Cold War conflicts will be due to cultural difference and religion rather than cooperation. Huntington surrounds this idea around eight major civilizations which are: Western, Confucian, Japanese, Hindu, Latin American, Islamic, Salvic-Orthodox, and African (Payne 2013). However, although there are individuals that support this idea, there have been many criticisms to Huntington’s thesis. This paper will critically evaluate Huntington’s thesis in relations to the Muslim-U.S. relations. Huntington refers to certain cultures being totally different whereas the culture of the United States is not that much different to that of the Muslim. Also, paper will address a study that provides qualitative data that proves that Muslim-U.S. cultural differences are unlikely to be the cause of conflict and other studies show that it more likely to be caused by other situations. Huntington also fails to provide a link between cultural characteristics and behavior as well as civilization and foreign policies.

Huntington instead of strengthen the potential Dialogue between Civilizations. This can be seen by the case above that the U.S. – or mostly known as the Western Civilizations – is frightened and worried about the rise of China – or known as the Chinese Civilizations. This case will create the clash between the West and Chinese Civilizations. The clash of civilizations that will be occurred by both the West and Chinese civilizations will be in a form of the macro-level clash of civilizations where the states from different civilizations compete for economic power, struggle over the control, and competitively promote their particular political and religious

Huntington’s ‘Clash of Civilizations’ theory does not help with understanding the contemporary politics and history of the Middle East. His theory is too simplistic and does not consider the complexity of the region. Indeed, Said is correct to call Huntington’s theory a ‘clash of ignorance’ as one cannot gain an understanding of the Middle East through an orientalised lens. This essay aims to show the complexity of the history and politics of the Middle East. This will be done by looking at the history of the Middle East, Pan-Arabism and the Arab Spring. It will also consider Korany’s intermestics theory as a better theory in helping to understand the contemporary politics and history of the Middle East.