The aim of Samuel P. Huntington’s “The Clash of Civilizations” was to provide an academic framework to understand almost all of the conflicts that had broken out since the end of the twentieth century, to include predicting the appearance of future conflicts. According to Huntington, there will be a clash of civilizations since the world has been in an unreasonable era since the end of the Cold War and the position of the nation-state has not been of any significance. Far more than the political objectives of territorial take-overs, it is the religious element of culture that has become the main cause of conflict. It should be acknowledged that Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations” is a relatively simple theory which focuses on illuminating the ins and outs of international politics. Samuel P. Huntington’s article played a prominent role in establishing today’s international relations field by defining culture and religion as the main culprit of today’s international conflicts. However, in order to validate such a standard lies within the capability to describe and interpret the real world and motivate people to seek how this theory allows one to understand current conflicts.
According to Huntington, a new type of resistance has thrived the Middle Ages conflict between princes and the post-Westphalia antagonisms between nations since the end of the cold war. This new type of conflict, however, opposes the seven or eight major civilizations, i.e. Western, Confusion, Japanese, Islamic, Hindu, Slavic-Orthodox, Latin American and possibly African civilization. With the end of political philosophies, individuals would feel a close recognizance regarding shared cultural features and, consequently, would acknowledge that they b...
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..., especially where extremists’ government’s are involved. With the advantage of observation, one would question Huntington’s prime objection to either want to provide political leaders with a basic theoretical framework for analyzing world politics or wanting to pave the way for the United States administration in preparation for an intervention in American foreign policy at the beginning of the twenty-first century.
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The non-fictional work Day of Empire: How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance - and Why They Fall, by Amy Chua, evaluates how hyperpowers came to be, how they maintained strength, and how they declined. Chua’s thesis is exercised throughout many segments of her writing and is as follows, “For all their enormous differences, every single world hyperpower in history ... was extraordinarily pluralistic and tolerant during it’s rise to preeminence. Indeed, in every case tolerance was the indispensable to … hegemony. But … It was also tolerance that sowed the seeds of decline. In virtually every case tolerance … [led to] conflict, hatred, and violence.” Chua’s thesis is strongly supported through her examples of how great empires like The Persians, Romans, Chinese, and Mongols surged to power and the reasons for their deterioration.
In his essay, Rodriguez believes that the diplomatic affairs we see on the evening news are merely being disguised as a religious war. The fight over oil or land when in reality it is the fight between whose side God is on, the attacks under the control of Al Qaeda when perhaps it’s the greed for power or world domination. According to Richard, these religious wars are allowing terrorism to become prevalent; often times within the same culture (147).
...f social imperialism and imperial rivalry in the world system. Durham: Duke University Press, 1991.
Religion is a part of society that is so closely bound to the rest of one’s life it becomes hard to distinguish what part of religion is actually being portrayed through themselves, or what is being portrayed through their culture and the rest of their society. In Holy Terrors, Bruce Lincoln states that religion is used as a justifiable mean of supporting violence and war throughout time (Lincoln 2). This becomes truly visible in times such as the practice of Jihad, the Reformation, and 9/11. The purpose of this essay is to show that as long as religion is bound to a political and cultural aspect of a community, religious war and destruction will always occur throughout the world. A historical methodology will be deployed in order to gain
Upshur, Jiu-Hwa, Janice J. Terry, Jim Holoka, Richard D. Goff, and George H. Cassar. Thomson advantage Books World History. Compact 4th edition ed. Vol. Comprehensive volume. Belmont: Thompson Wadsworth, 2005. 107-109. Print.
Perry, Marvin, et al. Western Civilization: Ideas, Politics and Society. 4th ed. Vol. I. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1992.
Flory, Harriette, and Samuel Jenike. A World History: The Modern World. Volume 2. White Plains, NY: Longman, 1992. 42.
I share the view of Edward Said who responded to Huntington’s thesis in his 2001 article, “ The Clash of Ignorance”. He argued that Huntington’s categorization of the world’s fixed “civilizations” omits the dynamic interdependency and interaction of culture. Said (2004) also argues that the clash of civilizations thesis is an example of “ the purest individious racism, a sort of parody of Hitlerian science
...arly lead to the rivalry of superpowers being replaced by the clash of civilizations. Conversely it then makes it evident that in this particular new world global politics then become the politics of civilizations whereas local politics become the politics of ethnicity (Huntington, 1996).
Analysing The West: Unique, Not Universal. Throughout history, Western civilization has been an emerging force behind change in foreign societies. This is the concept that is discussed in the article, the West Unique, Not Universal, written by Samuel Huntington. The author makes a very clear thesis statement and uses a variety of evidence to support it. This article has a very convincing point.
Beck, Roger B. Modern World History: Patterns of Interaction. Student text and teacher’s ed. Orlando: Houghton, 2012. Print.
All throughout history, we see this dichotomy between tradition and modernity. On one hand, we have tradition, the force living perpetually in the past and refusing to change. On the other hand, modernity leaves tradition behind in favor of progress. These two concepts, much like oil and water, dare to divide but coexist as a debatable founding solution. Not only are the themes Western ideas, but they have been present and are found in literature all around the world, from China to Africa.
People’s ideas and assumptions about world politics shape and construct the theories that help explain world conflicts and events. These assumptions can be classified into various known theoretical perspectives; the most dominant is political realism. Political realism is the most common theoretical approach when it is in means of foreign policy and international issues. It is known as “realpolitik” and emphasis that the most important actor in global politics is the state, which pursues self-interests, security, and growing power (Ray and Kaarbo 3). Realists generally suggest that interstate cooperation is severely limited by each state’s need to guarantee its own security in a global condition of anarchy. Political realist view international politics as a struggle for power dominated by organized violence, “All history shows that nations active in international politics are continuously preparing for, actively involved in, or recovering from organized violence in the form of war” (Kegley 94). The downside of the political realist perspective is that their emphasis on power and self-interest is their skepticism regarding the relevance of ethical norms to relations among states.
Dimitter, Lowell. World Politics. 1st ed. Vol. 55. New York: Johns Hopkins UP, 2002. 38-65.
Childress, Diana, and Bruce Watson. "The fall of the west." Calliope 11, no. 5 (January 2001): 27.