Furthermore, with Tzipi and the Ehuds bombing the snot out of Gaza at the moment, it can't hurt to mull over the question: do people, and groups of people, behave according to three, four, or five categorizations based on their membership in this or that "civilization"?
Can, say, the hypothetical suicide bombing of a bus by a fanatic be reduced to said fanatic's membership in something so large and encompassing as "Islam" or "Arabic ethnicity"? Or, more simply (I'm trying here, guys): in analyzing such horrific events, are we doing our intellects a disservice by using Huntington's easy-as-one-two-three rubrics?
Shit, do "civilizations" "clash"? Can I employ even more quotation marks in this post? Wouldn't "Tzipi and the Ehuds" be a bad-ass name for a band?
***
[I'll say up front that I don't know the answer to any of these questions except the last one, whose appropriate and True response is "Yes, Yes, a million times Yes!"]
Let's unpack Huntington a little bit using a convenient numbered-bullet list, like they taught me in my old consulting firm.
1. Before any other criterion for categorizing a given human being, his membership in a cultural and religious order called a "civilization" holds supreme power. (Huntington discerns between Western, Islamic, Buddhist, Hindu, and other civilizations. )
So, for example, although the man standing next to me in the Apple Store as I write this may be, uh, tall, bald, gay, highly educated, prone to gas attacks, and an archery enthusiast, he is first and foremost a member of Western civilization; that's the first thing I should know about him and, importantly, do know about him.
2. These civilizations are stand-alone; they exist wholly as themselves, and one cannot be a member of more than one. As different and special as a bunch of little snowflakes. Aww.
3. This civilizational identity - cultural and religious identity - is and will be the primary source of conflict among humanity for the next long time. Hence "clash."
It's a tantalizing little piece of thought, right? It's so streamlined, and so bloody relevant! 9/11, 3/11, Darfur, immigration, adaptation, Holy Land, group identity, every damned issue of every damned newspaper for as long as I can remember...all of it seems like it can fit into the Theory. They are coming! To get us!
So, for anyone reading, all of this rests on IDENTITY. What Huntington is saying is that a couple of pieces of your identity - your culture and your religion - are far more important than any of the others, always.
***
As anyone can readily imagine, the headline counterargument to all of this is essentially: "You're a reductionist a-hole, and people are not who they are solely because they are American and Episcopalian, or Iranian and Shi'a." Amartya Sen is one of the more lucid proponents of this position, but he doesn't call anyone a-hole or anything. He's probably a pretty nice guy.
Sen asks what the use is of putting people into little boxes and then treating those boxes as immutable Gospel. Two years ago, around the time of the Danish Cartoon Crisis (cue MSNBC theme music), he published an article in Slate articulating this position:
This reductionist view is typically combined, I am afraid, with a rather foggy perception of world history that overlooks, first, the extent of internal diversities within these civilizational categories, and second, the reach and influence of interactions—intellectual as well as material—that go right across the regional borders of so-called civilizations.
Nice one. He goes on with this stellar point:
To focus just on the grand religious classification is not only to miss other significant concerns and ideas that move people. It also has the effect of generally magnifying the voice of religious authority. The Muslim clerics, for example, are then treated as the ex officio spokesmen for the so-called Islamic world, even though a great many people who happen to be Muslim by religion have profound differences with what is proposed by one mullah or another. Despite our diverse diversities, the world is suddenly seen not as a collection of people, but as a federation of religions and civilizations.
The problem, essentially, is not only that latching on this is way too easy, but that accepting it on a large scale just might make it true; a self-fulfilling religio-cultural prophecy. Be careful what you wish for, Sam, and enjoy your sleep.
Happy new year, everyone, no matter what your civilization.
AMR
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