ON "THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS," I

ah, man. just finished CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS (the book). what a disappointment.

i have repeatedly held up the "clash" model as the one through which we should view our conflict with the islamic world. i still hold up "clash" as that model but as to so much else in the book...

first, we need a new DOCTRINE to replace george kennan's "containment" that guided us through the cold war. a doctrine guides future action. it is not so much descriptive as prescriptive. at least it's both.

it is interesting and perhaps telling that while huntington writes of the cold war world view he never mentions the containment doctrine and never once even mentions kennan!

huntington's self-described task in the book is to provide "an interpretation of the evolution of global politics after the cold war. it aspires to present a framework, a paradigm..."

the word "paradigm" is loaded and he makes the reference specifically, to thomas kuhn's "classic" (his word) THE STRUCTURE OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTIONS.

STRUCTURE however was not a doctrine, it was not prescriptive. it was descriptive. a friend in the field of physics said kuhn essentially invented the history of science. STRUCTURE shows how scientific thought--it's hard to think of the right verb here to be accurate to kuhn--"went" for example from newtonian physics to einsteinian physics. it did not show how to create an einstein.

now, of course huntington does intend the book as he says to "show us what paths we should take to achieve our goals," but that's not the focus of the book.

eleven of the book's twelve chapters are support for his redrawing of the world map along civilizational lines. the twelveth chapter, the only one that can be called prescriptive, occupies only 20 of the books 321 pages.

maybe it'll be impossible to do this but since what i'm most interested in is doctrine i'm going to try to talk about huntington's "doctrinal" views first, in isolation of whether his proposed new civilizational "structure" of the world is useful.

on page 312 he lists the components of his doctrine:

1.to achieve a greater commonality of interests between the u.s. and europe.
2.to expand the western military and economic alliances to the rest of "the west," "central europe,...the baltic republics, slovenia, and croatia."
3. to encourage the westernization of latin america and it's close alignment with the west.
4.to restrain the conventional and unconventional military capability of the islamic and sinic civilizations.
5."to slow the drift of japan away from the west and toward accomodation with china."
6. "to accept russia as the core state of orthodoxy and a major regional power with legitimate interests in the security of its southern borders."
7. "to maintain western technological and military superiority over other civilizations."
8. "and, most important, to recognize that western intervention in the affairs of other civilizations is probably the single most dangerous source" of world instability.

there are some things here that are very exciting to me. the whole "philosophy" behind "international federalism" was to apply american federalism's principles of non-intervention in the affairs of its constituent states in the international context.

we should not nation build.

we should only militarily intervene when it's necessary for our national security.

we should not presume that the american way--or the "western" way--is universal.

we need to recognize the disruptive effects of our culture on others and somehow lessen their projection into other cultures by our corporations and business interests. this is a very difficult thing to do and even in the abstract puts our business interest in opening new markets in conflict with local sensitivities.

i have explicitly written on this page of the need to maintain at all costs, including preemptive military strikes, american (note, not "western") military supremacy over every other country and civilization in the world combined.

however, i have written of my vehement disagreement with those who conflate the u.s. and europe as one "interest group," as one civilization as huntington would have it.

because i see america and europe as having different and sometimes conflicting interests i have also vehemently opposed expanding nato as huntington prescribes.

his two "recruitment" strategies, to coopt latin america and "contain" japan from flying off into the chinese orbit are simply at odds with the descriptive features of "clash," that is with viewing the world as a group of seven or eight civilizations that are fundamentally different. as i believe huntington himself explained it in the "clash" article in FOREIGN AFFAIRS, "a communist can become a capitalist, but an armenian can never become a turk."

huntington or huntingtonists can certainly point to this page or that paragraph of the book and say "no, no, no you're not understanding," or "you're taking this out of context," or "you're oversimplifying"--huntington is no fool--,you can point to this subtlety or that nuance but there is just no denying that the paradigm that he argues and supports in 300 pages is a world in which the different civilizations are as immutable as the personal characteristics of their individual citizens. that is, in fact, what makes "clash" such a brilliant work, it gives us a new, compelling way of looking.

so it is simply inconsistent with his descriptive paradigm to argue as a component of doctrine that we should try to peel away as much of latin america as we can, and prevent the sinification of japan.

huntington urges on page 317 that each major civilization should be given a permanent seat on a revamped u.n. security council. in my view this is patent nonsense and carries to a logical if wrong-headed conclusion a specific policy proposal that would follow from the civilizational redrawing of the world map.

to me the most interesting, fruitful doctrinal recommendations that he makes are on the final four pages of the book, in a subchapter titled "the commonalities of civilization."

here he borrows from michael walzer who brilliantly distinguishes between the "thick" normative rules of specific cultures and the "thin" morality that links all civilizations: "...truth and justice" and "'...negative injunctions [like'rules against murder, deceit, torture, oppression, and tyranny.'"

as huntington puts it "instead of promoting the supposedly universal features of one civilization, the requisites for cultural coexistence demand a search for what is common to most civilizations. in a multicivilizational world, the constructive course is to renounce universalism, accept diversity, and seek commonalities."

wonderful! that's very positive stuff if a bit "thin" itself. i'll have to read walzer's book.

but isn't that the united states? don't we take peoples from different civilizations and "demand a search [from them] for what is common" between their old world and our new world? isn't the whole idea of america that? isn't our federal system in fact one explicitly "accepts diversity" so that we can have "fifty social laboratories" and "seek commonalities" on certainly a "thicker" level than we could among civilizations but still with generous allowance for local initiative and responsibility?

no, says huntington.

at least he doesn't offer american federalism as an example of a nation that has the characteristics that he would like to see in inter-civilizational relations.

SINGAPORE! singapore? FRIGGIN' SINGAPORE!

there, huntington says the government, while wishing to promote traditional "confucian values" (you mean like, for example, american conservatives desire to promote "traditional [judeo-christian] values") there was recognition that these were giving way to western individualism, etc.

"it is necessary, [president wee kim wee]argued, to identify the core values which singapore's different ethnic and religious communities had in common and 'which capture the essence of being singaporean.'"

and what are these instructive singaporean core values that beckon like a beacon from the east:

-"placing society above self"
-"upholding the family as the basic building block of society"
-"resolving major issues through consensus instead of contention"
-"stressing racial and religious tolerance and harmony"

wow. real original stuff there. makes ya want to slap yourself on the forehead and say "why didn't i think of that!," huh?

what the fuck is he talking about. THAT IS AMERICA! THOSE ARE AMERICAN VALUES! THAT IS THE AMERICAN GENEROSITY OF SPIRIT, OUR INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL MODESTY. WE DON'T HAVE TO LOOK TO SINGAPORE FOR A MODEL!

jesus christ.


-benjamin harris