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S. Healey: Dialogue Between Civilizations: Possibilities after Huntington
Written by Stephen Healey, Director, World Religions Program, University of Bridgeport
Friday, January 26, 2001
Presented to A Convocation of World Leaders, “Dialogue and Harmony Among Civilizations: The Family, Universal Values and World Peace, January 26-30, 2001
Samuel Huntington’s 1993 Foreign Affairs article “The Clash of Civilizations?” was greeted with a hailstorm of protest, but many also felt that Huntington had grasped something important and fundamental about the post Cold War world. Huntington’s 1996 book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order more completely elaborates the point of view initially set forth in the article. Like the article, the book has been greeted with an admixture of enthusiastic reception and critical dismissal. At least in part, the theme of this conference is in tension with Huntington’s idea, at least insofar as it asks whether something positive—namely, dialogue—is possible between civilizations. In this brief presentation, I also will question whether Huntington’s proposed remedy to the clash of civilizations is adequate. Indeed, I will argue that the motif of dialogue as an aspect of liberalism is not given enough play in his work, even though the liberal tradition itself is rightly criticized by Huntington at a number of points. I will proceed quickly through three parts: first, I will discuss liberalism, religion, and politics; second, I will consider Huntington’s analysis of and proposed remedy to a clash of civilizations; and third, I will briefly sketch a counterproposal.
Part I
In his seminal essay Perpetual Peace, Immanuel Kant laid a groundwork for peace among nations. To be sure, this framework has not been consistently applied, and one can say that the twentieth century, a mere two centuries after Kant’s essay, was the bloodiest and most tragic in the human record. Kant’s great essay followed earlier liberal theories that sought to secure peace within and among the nations: at the least, one can refer to Hobbes and Locke, who focused on national issues, and also to earlier political and theological treaties of international scope in the Peace of Augsburg (1555) and the Treaty of Westphalia (1648), both of which explicitly sought to bring about the arrest of religiously and politically motivated international and territorial violence. Peace within and among the nations, in all of these theories and treaties, was purchased by placing limitations upon the scope of religion. The liberals confined religion to matters of the heart; they placed it outside the scope of rational enquiry and beyond the pale of political mandate and force. Augsburg and Westphalia limited religion regionally (cuius regio eius religio), thus conferring tremendous power to the state in the doctrine of state sovereignty.
For four reasons, the time in which we live has called these developments into question. First, the nation state itself, subject to powers beyond its control in economic globalization, is diminishing as an actor on the world stage, even though the nation state is still the primary actor in international relations. It may be that transnational corporations will wield more power in the coming century than do nation states.
Second, it is clear to many that, although political liberalism was an ingenious response to the post Protestant European crisis, its status as a universal cure is suspect. Liberalism accords well with certain aspects of Protestantism, but its relationship to Islam, Sikhism, Orthodox Judaism, and Christian Orthodoxy is, at best, tenuous. Some religions, Shinto and Hinduism, for example, have seemed to be more open to liberalism, but they have been so under the weight of Western hegemony. It is worth noting that all of the world religions developed before the advent of liberalism, and thus require serious reconsideration and reconfiguration if they are to be fully squared with it. Many within these traditions feel, I suspect rightly, that this is a westernization of their traditions.
Third, the growth of fundamentalism of the most sinister kind and the practice of terrorism represent a type of violence not fully comprehended by the great liberals and the treaties of state sovereignty. Fundamentalism of this sort is not limited to any religion: its presence can be discerned within Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
Fourth, the new global order—this newly networked cosmos—itself calls out for and stands in need of unlimited and truly comprehensive religious points of view, but pretensions such as these were precisely what Augsburg and Westphalia in one way, and the liberals in another, brought to a de facto end. It would be a tragic irony if what is required for reasons of religious consciousness in our time—a comprehension of the world as a totality—itself is a new or even the primary cause of violence in the world. In that respect, it may be that fundamentalists are actually grappling with one of the most serious questions of our time, even if they are doing so in an abortive and ultimately self-destructive way.
Part II
Samuel Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order deals with these issues in both a descriptive and a prescriptive sense. In short, Huntington describes several relevant features of civilizational conflict. I will mention only a few of the more important ones. First, Western power, both its hard dimensions (military) and soft dimensions (cultural attractiveness), is in relative decline. Second, hard and soft power are related. With the decline of Western hard power, and the relative increase of hard power among others, these others will increasingly dismiss the West’s attitudes toward civilizational life and will return to their own cultures and roots. Other civilizations will assert their own cultures, religions, and languages. Third, as a result, a conflict between civilizations is the likely course of world affairs in the post Cold War world. Fourth, such a civilizational clash is likely to be the dominant sort of conflict in the post Cold War world, even though the conflicts will be motivated, as they always have been, by material interests, resources, and prestige. Finally, a key dimension of civilizational conflict is identity. People within cultures understand their own lives and quite often misunderstand the lives of others through categories of an us/them duality.
Huntington’s prescription is especially aimed at the West, though he also develops points of view that are applicable to the “rest.” The prescription to the West might be summarized thusly: “Think ahead to the time when the West is no longer dominant. Act now in light of that fate. Cultivate good interest and high regard from those who one day be in the position to dominate you. ”
In more formal terms, Huntington calls for the West to bring its secular missionary zeal, its universalist tradition, to an end. He argues that Western ideals and practices—democracy, human rights, free markets—are confessionally applicable to the West, and should not be viewed as items to be insisted upon throughout the world. As to the mitigation or policing of conflict throughout the world, these matters should be dealt with regionally and in terms internal to the world civilizations. China, for example, might be looked to as the core state in Sinitic civilization; if a policeman is needed within this civilization, China’s sensibilities, without Western interference, should prevail. So on down the line: India, North America, Europe, etc. — each should internally police itself without extra civilizational interference. Islam, in this context, presents a special problem, according to Huntington, since Islamic civilization lacks a core state. Nonetheless, this is Huntington’s prescription for taming the violent impulses of civilizational conflict.
Part III
In this context I cannot engage in a thorough critique of Huntington’s point of view, though at several particular points the temptation to do so is compelling. Here I would simply like to reflect upon his prescription and to suggest an alternative. The alternative, I will suggest, is a better way to encourage a “Dialogue among Civilizations.”
Huntington’s prescription, it seems to me, disavows the Universalist liberal tradition and seeks counsel instead in the more confessional and regionalist tradition of Augsburg and Westphalia. I do not mean to diminish Huntington’s articulation of this point of view, which is a bold attempt to limit violence between civilizations in our time. In one sense, I strongly agree with Huntington: he reminds us that, the views and aspirations of liberalism and capitalism notwithstanding, religion and culture do no retreat to the hearts and minds of people who act publicly. No. In fact, these sensibilities are expressed in wider and wider publics, and Huntington is also right, I think, that they are effective at the largest, that is, at the civilizational level. Even if we get our politics and economics right, conflict can remain, since it is often generated at the cultural and religious level.
But, for the sake of brevity, allow me to focus on a few of Huntington’s claims that seem sorely misguided: I quote, “Western universalism is dangerous to the world because it could lead to a major inter-civilizational war between core states and it is dangerous to the West because it could lead to the defeat of the West. ”1 Huntington follows this dire warning with a claim about the uniqueness of Western civilization. Again, I quote, “…Western civilization is valuable not because it is universal but because it is unique. ”2 To underscore the urgency of Huntington’s worry in this last instance, it should be noted that he views not only inter-civilizational war as a threat to the West, but also multiculturalism within the West. Huntington urgently concludes that a “more immediate and dangerous challenge exists in the United States,”3 namely the view that the United States does not require cultural homogeneity. Added to this, Huntington worries about “immigrants from other civilizations who reject assimilation and continue to adhere to and to propagate the values, customs, and cultures of their home societies. ”4
In short, Huntington wants to historicize the conception of the West, to view its liberal institutions as valuable because they are Western, not because they have universal purchase. If this is as far as Huntington went, I for one would applaud. A more historical sense of Liberalism would help to raise questions about its hubris in viewing itself as a necessary stage of cultural development. In my view, however, Huntington not only wants to historicize the West but also wants to reify it, to freeze it in time. In this sense, his view is not historical but insufficiently historical. We could add, further, that it is insufficiently courageous.
A truly historical and particularized notion of the West would suggest that cultural change is a reality, and this is especially where a dialogue with other civilizations is imperative. Huntington’s view might pass as humility, insofar as he insists that the West not seek to universalize its own culture; but this humility mutates quickly into an admixture of fear and arrogance, insofar as he holds that the West is in no position to learn from other civilizations and that immigrants must be willingly assimilated.
If I had time, I would like very much to subject this view to a more thorough critique. But since I do not, I would like instead simply to indicate a few areas where the West could stand to learn through dialogue from non-Western cultures. Since I teach religion, I will draw a few examples from that domain. Surely the West could learn from the treasure house of Confucian philosophy, for in this philosophy some of the deepest problems of the West—how to integrate civic life, families, old fashioned values like honor and responsibility—were long ago addressed as Confucians sought to articulate ways to overcome problems of social unrest internal to China after the collapse of the Zhou dynasty. Also, it seems to me that the West’s theoretical defense of pluralism—while it itself is a deep legacy—could be genuinely deepened by encountering the metaphysical structure of Hinduism. I will give one more example, though many others suggest themselves. If Huntington’s true aspiration is to limit violence, and I think that it is, why not counsel the West to draw upon the deep ahimsa tradition of Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism? In these we find resources that may serve to enrich the West’s conception of itself and also its long-term durability. On the other side, it is also true that particular and historically grounded Western traditions—human rights and democracy, for example—may contribute to other cultures.
I realize that proposals such as these require careful scrutiny, and it is true that a dialogue of civilizations is a process that requires centuries of distillation. But my point is simple: we cannot know unless we try. We will not try unless we imagine that dialogue is possible and that we have something to learn from the other. In order to start trying, we must engage in dialogue. That sort of dialogue can give us a better liberalism, a better world, a better Huntington.
Notes
1. Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order (New York: Touchstone, 1997), p. 311.
2. Ibid., Emphasis Huntington’s.
3. Ibid., p. 305.
4. Ibid., pp. 304-305.