Global Study Critical Reaction, The Clash Of Civilizations

GLOBAL STUDY CRITICAL REACTION
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The realm of social and religious conflict predicted by Huntington in his writing The Clash of Civilizations is undoubtedly with us. Huntington anticipated that the primary cause of conflict in the modern society would not be purely philosophical or purely economic. Instead, he asserts that culture will be the reason of the great divisions of the human race, as well as the principal cause of the conflict. Further, Huntington states that the great economic powers of the world would remain as the most politically influential on the global scene. However, he anticipates that the most significant political conflicts in international political affairs will be between states and people of diverse cultures. In writing the book, The Clash of Civilizations, Huntington was responding to Francis Fukuyama’s book End of History. In his book End of History, Fukuyama proclaims that the two powers, “the logic of modern science," and the "struggle for recognition" will result in liberal democracy, consequently resulting in the end of historical growth. A close examination of the two books reveals that they are both about policy, seemingly advising the United States government on what to do about the uncertain future. Stanley Kurtz analyses the two books and concludes that theoretically and psychologically, The End of History and The Clash of Civilizations are almost similar and are both relatively conservative. Further, from his review, Kurt concludes that when closely read, the ideas of the two authors, Huntington and Fukuyama, merge at some point. On the other hand, ultimately, neither Huntington nor Fukuyama gives a clear illustration on what the reader needs to know to understand their views.
In Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations, every page contains something familiar and unusual. The Clash of Civilizations seems to openly tell off the principles of liberalism and multiculturalism in equal measure. Huntington states that human beings require an identity, and to acquire this status, they have to create enemies. Consequently, with the mending of hostilities created during the cold war era, the human race inevitably has to build new forms of identity through the creation of new resentments. These new hostilities, he states, will be created by differences caused by religion and culture. To emphasize his point, he goes further and points out that the inclination of the Muslim world towards violent conflict will be a critical challenge to global harmony and the United States power. He states that "The underlying problem for the West is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is Islam, a different civilization whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power. The problem for Islam is not the CIA or the US Department of Defense. It is the West, a different civilization whose people are convinced of the universality of their culture”.
In the same manner, Huntington censures multiculturalism ideologies and upholds that cultural influences are to blame for the different modernization rates across diverse civilizations. When reading post-September 11, the book The Clash of Civilizations p...