Civilizational Ideology
Back from Sweden, I still need to type out my long entry from Estonia, but I thought I would make my first attempt to transition this blog into what I hope to be its post-trip format. The following is a excerpt from a longer essay I wrote reviewing Samuel Huntington's theories in The Clash of Civilizations...
THE QUEST TO BE “X”: THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONAL IDEOLOGY
In 1947, George Kennan’s now famous article outlining a plan for containment was released by Foreign Affairs and signed anonymously with an “X.” Kennan, the Truman administration’s ambassador to the Soviet Union, formulated a paradigm defining foreign relations between the United States and the Soviet Union for over forty years utilizing moral and ideological distinctions. At the end of the twentieth century, communism collapsed in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, and the paradigm Kennan and the Truman administration developed for conducting American foreign policy, no longer pertained to the emerging world. Political theorists scrambled to write the next Kennan article and explain the new world order. Visions of a new universal state quickly succumbed to a seemingly chaotic turn in world politics. Despite great criticism, Samuel P. Huntington found meaning and order in this chaos in his Foreign Affairs article on the “Clash of Civilizations.” After the events of September 11, 2001, Huntington’s thesis gained newfound respect and notoriety, and Huntington was praised for his prescient theory. While Huntington’s proposed paradigm serves well to show the flaws of competing models, and reminds scholars of the importance of culture, his prescription for the West and conceptualization of culture are problematic and dangerous.
George Kennan’s “X” article provided a structure through which Cold War Era – Americans could identify and organize themselves within the world around them. In the post-Cold War world, Huntington attempted to do the same. The 1990s was a global identity crisis. Huntington argued, “Alignments defined by ideology and superpower relations are giving way to alignments defined by culture and civilization.”(1) While balance of power alignments will sometimes lead to cross-civilizational alliances, Huntington believed reinvigorated old antagonisms and affiliations would be quite powerful in this new order. Huntington argued, “The civilizational ‘us’ and the extra-civilizational ‘them’ is a constant in human history.”(2) Cultural issues produce “zero-sum” choices, whereas one can more easily debate or resolve differences of secular ideology and material interest. Lisa Wedeen warns, however, against such culturally essentialist explanations of political outcomes which “tend to naturalize categories of group identity, rather than exploring the conditions under which such experiences of group identity come to seem natural.”(3) Viewing culture in a constant state of becoming, as part of a historical process, these zero sum choices no longer exist, rendering Huntington’s theory problematic.
Huntington believes the world increasingly identifies along civilizational lines, and calls for greater civilizational unity in the West. He despises the multicultural tendency of the United States and wishes we would reinvigorate our relationship with Europe. Huntington should be critiqued for his irresponsible prescription; calling for a hard-line civilizational ideology at home, while warning against the coming clash of hard line civilizational ideologies in the world.
Huntington’s models can aide politicians and foreign policy analysts in designing policy but it is a simplistic predictive model, not an explanation of events. The Clash of Civilizations is a work of political science, and of civilizational ideology, but it is not a work of history. It gives little, if any, significance to the possibility of change over time. Civilizational ideology is problematic because it is useful on all sides, and in many ways. Huntington’s model has provided a framework within which fundamentalists from all civilizations can view their world and arouse the support of those around them. Fred Tipson wrote in verse for Foreign Affairs:
It strikes me as a dangerous form of policy confusion,
Boosting culture clashes through a self-fulfilled conclusion…
Because the final irony of Huntington's portrayal
Is that in other countries he may make his biggest sale.(4)
Fundamentalists may clash in the future, and the likelihood grows stronger when intellectual theorists rally for closed cultural spheres. However, dissenters wishing to be disassociated with fundamentalist action and thought will remain strong in every “civilization.” Samuel Huntington lost his realist theory when he promoted the concept of unity over the reality of plurality.
Huntington’s model accurately refutes Fukuyama’s theory of Western universality. However, recent United States foreign policy has created an easily identifiable enemy in Islam by utilizing Huntington’s model of clashing civilizational ideology, while ignoring his criticism of Fukuyama’s imperialistic aggressive West determined to promote Western values and interests throughout the world. This is a dangerous policy combination and an accurate portrayal of the many ways Huntington’s theories are malleable to those who seek overarching support for previously unpopular causes. Gershom Gorenberg accurately assessed, “Framing this battle as a clash of civilizations invites every Muslim from Morocco to Indonesia to take the side of the men who crashed the planes. It labels every Muslim who opposed fundamentalists, every Muslim leader willing to work with the U.S., as a traitor. It risks turning a misconception into a political fact.”(5) The quest for “X” continues.
(1) Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Touchstone, 1996), 125.
(2) Ibid., 129.
(3) Lisa Wedeen, “Beyond the Crusades: Why Huntington , and Bin Laden, Are Wrong, “ Middle East Policy X, no. 2 (Summer 2003): 60.
(4) Frederick Tipson, “Culture Clash-ification: A Verse to Huntington’s Curse,” Foreign Affairs 76, no. 2 (March/April 1997).
(5) Gershom Gorenberg, “Clash of Civilizations? No Thanks,” The Jerusalem Report (October 22, 2001): 33.
THE QUEST TO BE “X”: THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONAL IDEOLOGY
In 1947, George Kennan’s now famous article outlining a plan for containment was released by Foreign Affairs and signed anonymously with an “X.” Kennan, the Truman administration’s ambassador to the Soviet Union, formulated a paradigm defining foreign relations between the United States and the Soviet Union for over forty years utilizing moral and ideological distinctions. At the end of the twentieth century, communism collapsed in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, and the paradigm Kennan and the Truman administration developed for conducting American foreign policy, no longer pertained to the emerging world. Political theorists scrambled to write the next Kennan article and explain the new world order. Visions of a new universal state quickly succumbed to a seemingly chaotic turn in world politics. Despite great criticism, Samuel P. Huntington found meaning and order in this chaos in his Foreign Affairs article on the “Clash of Civilizations.” After the events of September 11, 2001, Huntington’s thesis gained newfound respect and notoriety, and Huntington was praised for his prescient theory. While Huntington’s proposed paradigm serves well to show the flaws of competing models, and reminds scholars of the importance of culture, his prescription for the West and conceptualization of culture are problematic and dangerous.
George Kennan’s “X” article provided a structure through which Cold War Era – Americans could identify and organize themselves within the world around them. In the post-Cold War world, Huntington attempted to do the same. The 1990s was a global identity crisis. Huntington argued, “Alignments defined by ideology and superpower relations are giving way to alignments defined by culture and civilization.”(1) While balance of power alignments will sometimes lead to cross-civilizational alliances, Huntington believed reinvigorated old antagonisms and affiliations would be quite powerful in this new order. Huntington argued, “The civilizational ‘us’ and the extra-civilizational ‘them’ is a constant in human history.”(2) Cultural issues produce “zero-sum” choices, whereas one can more easily debate or resolve differences of secular ideology and material interest. Lisa Wedeen warns, however, against such culturally essentialist explanations of political outcomes which “tend to naturalize categories of group identity, rather than exploring the conditions under which such experiences of group identity come to seem natural.”(3) Viewing culture in a constant state of becoming, as part of a historical process, these zero sum choices no longer exist, rendering Huntington’s theory problematic.
Huntington believes the world increasingly identifies along civilizational lines, and calls for greater civilizational unity in the West. He despises the multicultural tendency of the United States and wishes we would reinvigorate our relationship with Europe. Huntington should be critiqued for his irresponsible prescription; calling for a hard-line civilizational ideology at home, while warning against the coming clash of hard line civilizational ideologies in the world.
Huntington’s models can aide politicians and foreign policy analysts in designing policy but it is a simplistic predictive model, not an explanation of events. The Clash of Civilizations is a work of political science, and of civilizational ideology, but it is not a work of history. It gives little, if any, significance to the possibility of change over time. Civilizational ideology is problematic because it is useful on all sides, and in many ways. Huntington’s model has provided a framework within which fundamentalists from all civilizations can view their world and arouse the support of those around them. Fred Tipson wrote in verse for Foreign Affairs:
It strikes me as a dangerous form of policy confusion,
Boosting culture clashes through a self-fulfilled conclusion…
Because the final irony of Huntington's portrayal
Is that in other countries he may make his biggest sale.(4)
Fundamentalists may clash in the future, and the likelihood grows stronger when intellectual theorists rally for closed cultural spheres. However, dissenters wishing to be disassociated with fundamentalist action and thought will remain strong in every “civilization.” Samuel Huntington lost his realist theory when he promoted the concept of unity over the reality of plurality.
Huntington’s model accurately refutes Fukuyama’s theory of Western universality. However, recent United States foreign policy has created an easily identifiable enemy in Islam by utilizing Huntington’s model of clashing civilizational ideology, while ignoring his criticism of Fukuyama’s imperialistic aggressive West determined to promote Western values and interests throughout the world. This is a dangerous policy combination and an accurate portrayal of the many ways Huntington’s theories are malleable to those who seek overarching support for previously unpopular causes. Gershom Gorenberg accurately assessed, “Framing this battle as a clash of civilizations invites every Muslim from Morocco to Indonesia to take the side of the men who crashed the planes. It labels every Muslim who opposed fundamentalists, every Muslim leader willing to work with the U.S., as a traitor. It risks turning a misconception into a political fact.”(5) The quest for “X” continues.
(1) Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Touchstone, 1996), 125.
(2) Ibid., 129.
(3) Lisa Wedeen, “Beyond the Crusades: Why Huntington , and Bin Laden, Are Wrong, “ Middle East Policy X, no. 2 (Summer 2003): 60.
(4) Frederick Tipson, “Culture Clash-ification: A Verse to Huntington’s Curse,” Foreign Affairs 76, no. 2 (March/April 1997).
(5) Gershom Gorenberg, “Clash of Civilizations? No Thanks,” The Jerusalem Report (October 22, 2001): 33.
posted by LeahT at 9:50 PM
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