Beginning with, the end of WWII, the West (mainly the U.S and Europe) has maintained global dominance. Since then international conflicts have emerged in the Middle East, and China has become an influential player both politically and economically. Those two developments among others, have raised questions about future conflicts, global politics, and what the future holds, about which scholars disagree. Samuel Huntington argues that the next factor of conflict will be a result of, “clashing Civilizations,” the West and the East*. On the other hand, Edward Said argues that such ideas are rooted in pre-conceived notions, which are a reflection of certain interest. Huntington’s argument rests on the assumption that the world is consolidating along regional and cultural lines, which make up each civilization, and would become the driving force of conflict*. He divided the world into seven major civilizations, such as Western, Islamic, orthodox to name a few. Each civilization will act independently or with the west depending on their preference*. Take China, for instance, who integrated capitalism with authoritarian governance. Huntington argues that as China grows they will seek to gain hegemonic influence over Asia, which will become a source of conflict, as the West seeks to maintain global dominance*. Similarly, he argues that his thesis …show more content…
First, the U.S should build a strong partnership with Europe. Secondly, they should limit immigration, and assimilate the immigrants that are currently in the U.S. Essentially, reinforcing U.S culture at home, while maintaining close ties to Europe. Huntington does not clearly define what he means by culture. It appears that he is arguing that civilizations and cultures are defined by their dominant religions and ethnicity, which is shown by his explanation for conflict between the Muslim and non-Muslim
Nations and people founded by Europeans and other countries with western ideals have be very critical of their view of civilization. When one thinks of western ideas and the civilization we think of an end to savagery, progress and prosperity. These same ideas were the ideas that many of European countries and the United states rooted into its citizens. Industrialization was at the heart of creating a more civilized world and western ideas.
AUTHOR: Oswald Spengler, (1880-1936), was a German philosopher who acquired his conservative views from his father, a postal official in Germany. Spengler attended the Universities of Munich, Berlin and Halle in Germany, where he studied natural science and mathematics. In 1903, he wrote his dissertation on a Greek philosopher named Heraclitus, though he failed due to a lack of references. Spengler resubmitted his revised thesis in 1904, earning him his doctorate degree. Shortly after earning his degree, Spengler suffered a mental break down, secluding himself from the world. In 1906, he recovered and began working as a teacher in secondary schools until he received some money from his mother. In 1911, Spengler gathered his inheritance and moved to Munich as a private scholar.
Therefore, following the phenomenon of the Rise of the Rest and some emerging issues regarding diversity in civilizations, this essay will examine where the post-American world order will lead, either to strengthen the dialogue between civilizations or even increase the possibility of the clash of civilizations. II. Discussion Samuel Huntington was one of the America’s greatest political scientists, back in 1993 Huntington published an essay, which later became a book, called The Clash of Civilizations, in his analysis he argued that the future conflict will be marked by civilizations conflict. He believes that in this new world the sources of conflict will not be primarily ideological nor economical, but rather the great division of humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. In short, Huntington’s predicts that the clash of civilizations will dominate global politics in the future (Huntington, 1993).
During late seventeen hundreds and the early eighteen hundreds America focused on growth and development. In 1803, America bought from France 828,000 square miles of land that ranged from the Mississippi to the Rockies for the bargain price of $15,000,000. This pristine land had not yet been ravaged by the rigorous process of growing cotton, so Southern farmers were excited about the prospect. However, most farmers were also afraid of what lay in the West, be it “savages,” dangerous wildlife or inhospitable terrain. The government believed that American citizens needed convincing that travelling west, settling and stabilizing this new land was a smart thing to do. To help convince the populace, the government turned to a new media, photography. The product of this invention astounded and perplexed many viewers who believed that the photos they saw depicted the absolute truth. Their ignorance of the selective bias of photographers paved the way for rumors and myths that influenced many to venture into dangerous areas, having little idea what really lay ahead. Photography in the early American West was a manipulative tool of the government’s interest by portraying the West as a safe land filled with opportunity.
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
George Friedman the author of the next decade focuses on three key ideas; the tension between the American empire and the American republic, the character needed of a president to manage the unintended empire and lastly a prediction of the world we will be living in during this decade. (Xix) Although Friedman talks about other countries and their impacts he primarily focuses on the unintended empire, the United states. He argues that since the United states is an empire, it is up to the people to in turn figure out how to manage the empire. After all an empire without power can have no republic.
In the article The Clash of Cultures, William Cronon and Richard White delve into “the interrelations between people and their environment,” (11) specifically, between the American Indians and the Europeans and the Americas. The reason Cronon and White wrote this article was, “In part, a result of our current concern with pollution and the exhaustion of valuable natural resources, but it has also proved to be a valuable way of learning more about how people of past generations and different cultures dealt with nature and with one another.” (11)
Ideology, Knowledge and the escalation of new ideas led to a better life and society that made positive impacts on Western Civilizations. There were many idea’s that were explored and implement into the daily lives of the people and for the most part it turned out to be a good impact. Although there were some bad ideas that caused suffering to the society at the time. They learned from what they witnessed and created something that would work better for the most part. In this essay I am going to use some primary sources that support my idea that society benefited from the new “ideas” but I will also use an example to explain how it caused a negative impact too.
Abstract: Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has been the world’s only unquestioned superpower. How the United States evaluates its position as global hegemon has important consequences for American foreign policy, particularly with regards to the potential for future policy constraints. Thus, this paper seeks to consider the question: How durable is American hegemony? The paper first defines the state of American hegemony and then considers the primary challengers: Europe, Russia, China, Japan and imperial overstretch. It will conclude that in the long-term, East Asian geopolitical instability poses the greatest threat to American hegemony, but that in the short-term, the hegemony will prove to be quite durable as long as the United States can counteract the phenomenon of imperial overstretch. In order to diffuse both internal and international threats to hegemony, American leaders should work to pursue national interests within a framework of consensus and legitimacy as much as possible.
Additionally, in the book US FOREIGN POLICY, Michael Cox (2012) concluded that “China’s peaceful rise has largely consoled its neighbors and the United States that it remains a status quo power. However, as it has risen, there are some (perhaps an expanding number) who predict this will lead to increased regional and global competition” (p.266). Clearly, Michael Cox indicated the point that there might be more competitions in the future relation between China and the rest of the world no matter China rises peacefully or not. In particular, China and the United States will face many intense issues since they are the two giants in th...
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.
The Western culture has evolved over a span of several years with various civilizations specializing in specific aspects of life or nature. In essence, Western civilization dates back to the BCE periods when Ancient Greece, Mesopotamia, and Ancient Rome reigned. Each of the Western civilizations came with a clear lineage that portrayed such attributes as property rights, free market economy, competition, personal freedoms, and innovation (Perry, 2013). Besides, the western civilizations came at different periods with some of the attributes evolving or remaining unchanged throughout the lineage. However, the non-western civilizations contributed towards such attributes to a given extent, primarily because of the interactions among
The advertisements both contain the symbolism of the milk squirted in the face, but it is used as a sexual (and pornographic) innuendo and has connotations to semen being ejaculated into a woman’s face.i
One of the most vigorous debates focuses on the current status of the United States hegemony and whether or not it is in decline. This begs the question, if the United States is indeed declining in status, will it still be an influential player or not? I argue that the United States is losing its prominent position as the hegemonic leader of the world, but will still remain an influential player in global politics in the following decades to come. Its decline is an imminent result of their domestic issues, the violation of international laws and economic deficit, which have posed a grave and serious challenge for the United States. On the other hand, I propose that the United States will remain a dominant force due to its innovation, cultural influences around the world, and military prowess. In their articles, “How Americans Can Survive the rise of the Rest”, by Fareed Zakaria and “America and Europe in the Asian Century”, by Kishore Mahbubani, provides two distinctive and thought provoking arguments from a declinist perspective. However, both articles are susceptible to criticism and will be further examined in order to understand the United States prominent role.
In 1992 within a lecture Samuel P. Huntington proposed a theory that suggests that people's cultural and religious identities will undoubtedly be the primary source of conflict in the post-Cold War world, this theory is known as the Clash of Civilizations. Therefore this essay provides a criticism of this theory, whether I agree or disagree with it and also the aspects I like or dislike about the theory as a whole.