"The Clash of Civilizations and the Reconstruction of World Order" Reading Notes (6)

Part Five? The Future of Civilization

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1. The Renaissance of the West?

In the history of any civilization, history has ended once, sometimes more than once. As a civilized universal state emerged, its people became blinded by what Toynbee [1] called the "illusion of immortality," convinced that their civilization was the ultimate form of human society. However, any society that believes that history has ended is usually a society whose history is about to decline.

Is the West an exception to this pattern? Melko [2] raised two key questions:

First, is Western civilization a new, self-contained type, distinct from all other civilizations that have ever existed?

Second, will its expansion across the world destroy (or possibly destroy) the possibility of the development of all other civilizations?

Most Westerners are quite naturally inclined to answer these two questions in the affirmative. They may be right, but similar views in other civilizations have been wrong in the past.

The West is obviously different from all civilizations that have ever existed, because it has had an overwhelming impact on all civilizations that have existed since 1500 AD. It initiated the process of modernization and industrialization that unfolded around the world, as a result of which all other civilized societies have been trying to catch up with the West in terms of wealth and modernization. However, do these characteristics of the West mean that its evolution and changes as a civilization are fundamentally different from the patterns that prevail in all other civilizations? Historical evidence and the judgments of scholars of comparative civilization history suggest otherwise. So far, the development of the West is not significantly different from the same evolutionary model of civilizations in history. The Islamic revival movement and the economic momentum in Asia demonstrate that other civilizations are viable and at least potentially threatening to the West. A major war involving the West and other core nations of civilization is not inevitable, but it is possible. And the West's gradual and irregular decline, which began in the early 20th century, may continue for decades, even centuries. Alternatively, the West may undergo a renaissance phase, reversing its declining influence on world affairs and reasserting itself as a leader for other civilizations to follow and emulate.

In perhaps the most useful periodization of the evolution of civilization, Carroll Quigley[3] discovered a distinct pattern that can be divided into seven stages. He believed that Western civilization began to take shape between 370 and 750 AD through the fusion of classical, Semitic, Saracen and barbaric cultural elements. The gestation stage of Western civilization lasted from the mid-eighth century to the end of the tenth century, and then there was a tug-of-war between an expansion stage and a conflict stage that was rare in other civilizations. According to scholars in the West and other civilizations, the West currently appears to be moving out of its conflict phase. Western civilization has become a safe zone, and war within the West is virtually unthinkable, except for the occasional Cod Wars [4] . The West is developing a system equivalent to a universal empire, which takes the form of a complex system of confederations, federations, political powers and other forms of cooperative institutions. It promotes democracy and pluralism at the level of civilization. In short, the West has become a mature society. It is entering an era that when future generations look back on the past, they will call it the "golden age" based on the pattern of civilizational evolution that has repeated itself in history. In Quigley's words, it was a period of peace resulting from "the absence of any rivals within the civilization itself, and the remoteness or even non-existence of competition from other external societies." It was also a prosperity resulting from "the end of the devastation of internal war, the reduction of internal trade barriers, the establishment of a uniform system of weights, measures and currency, and the widespread implementation of a system of government expenditures associated with the establishment of a universal empire." period.

In previous civilizations, such a blissful golden age with the illusion of civilization's immortality ended either due to a sharp victory of an external society or due to a slow but equally painful disintegration within. What happens within a civilization is as critical to its ability to withstand destructive forces from outside as it is to preventing decay within. Quigley pointed out in 1961 that civilization can develop because it has an "instrument of expansion", that is, a military, religious, political or economic organization that accumulates surplus and invests it in construction sexual innovation. A civilization declines when it stops "investing its surplus in innovation, which in modern parlance means the rate of investment drops." This happens because the social groups that control the surplus have "unproductive, personal enjoyment vested interests... in using the surplus for consumption rather than providing more efficient methods of production." When people rely on capital to live, civilization moves from a universal state to a stage of decline.

Accompanying decline is the invasion phase. "When a civilization is no longer able to defend itself because it no longer wants to defend itself, it opens its doors to barbaric invaders." They often From "another younger, more powerful civilization."

Yet the overriding lesson of the history of civilization is that much is possible, but nothing is inevitable. Civilization can and has reformed and renewed itself. The central question for the West is whether, apart from any external challenges, it can halt and reverse the internal processes of decline. Will the West reinvent itself, allow continued internal corruption to hasten its demise, or succumb to other, more economically and demographically dynamic civilizations?

In the mid-1990s, many of the characteristics that Quigley identified as a mature civilization on the verge of decline appeared in the West. Economically, the West is far wealthier than any other civilization, but its rates of economic growth, savings, and investment are low, especially compared to East Asian societies. The natural birth rate of the population is very low, especially compared to Islamic countries. However, these problems are not inevitably disastrous.

In the West, far more important issues than economics and population are moral decline, cultural self-extinction, and political fragmentation.

Frequently cited manifestations of moral decline include:

1. The growth of antisocial behavior, such as widespread crime, drug abuse and violence;

2 .The decline of the family, including divorce, illegitimacy, teenage pregnancy, and the increase in single-parent families;

3. At least in the United States, there has been a decline in "social capital," that is, a decline in membership in voluntary organizations, And the related decline in trust between people;

4. The general decline in "professional ethics" and the increase in self-indulgence;

5. Knowledge and reduced investment in academic activities, which in the United States manifests itself in lower levels of academic achievement.

The future health of the West and its impact on other societies will depend to a large extent on its ability to successfully respond to the trends described above. Of course, these trends reinforce Muslims and Asians' sense of superiority over their moral powers.

Western culture is challenged by groups within the West. One such challenge comes from immigrants from other civilizations who refuse to integrate into Western society and continue to adhere to and promote the values, customs and culture of their original societies. This phenomenon is most pronounced among Muslims in Europe, although their numbers are small. It is also significant, albeit to a lesser extent, among the large Hispanic minority in the United States. In this case, if efforts to assimilate immigrants fail, the United States will become a divided country, with the potential for internal conflict and resulting division. In Europe, Western civilization would also be undermined by the weakening of its main component, Christianity. The number of Europeans who adhere to religious beliefs, observe religious practices and participate in religious activities is declining. This trend reflects not hostility to religion but indifference to it. However, Christian ideas, values ??and practices still permeate European civilization.

Unlike Europeans, the vast majority of Americans believe in God and consider themselves a religious nation. Many people go to church to worship. The decline of Christianity in the hearts of Westerners will only pose a very long-term threat to the health of Western civilization.

The United States faces a more direct and dangerous challenge. Historically, America’s national identity has been defined culturally by the legacy of Western civilization and politically by the principles of the American Creed—liberty, democracy, individualism—that the vast majority of Americans subscribe to , equality before the law, constitutional government and private property rights. At the end of the 20th century, these two components of American identity came under concentrated and sustained attack by a small but highly influential group of intellectuals and international law experts. In the name of multiculturalism, they attack the United States' identification with Western culture, deny the existence of a unique American culture, and promote racial, national, and sub-ethnic cultural identities and classifications.

Various legislation enacted after the passage of the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s also reflected the multicultural trend, and in the 1990s, the Clinton administration made encouraging diversity one of its main goals. These practices are in stark contrast to the past. America’s founders saw diversity as a reality and a problem, hence the nation’s motto, “E pluribus unum.” It was developed by a committee of the Continental Congress that included Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams. Later political leaders also worried about the threats posed by racial, local, national, economic, and cultural diversity (which in fact also led to America's greatest war between 1815-1914) and responded to "Let us unite" "Rise up" call, regarding the promotion of national unity as its main responsibility. Theodore Roosevelt warned: "There is one thing that will definitely lead to the collapse of the nation and hinder all possibilities of continued existence of the United States as a nation, and that is to allow the United States to become a nation full of national disputes." Yet American leaders in the 1990s not only allowed but worked to promote diversity rather than promote unity among the people they governed.

Multiculturalists in the United States also reject their country's cultural heritage. However, they do not want the United States to identify with another civilization, but to build a country with many civilizations, that is, a country that does not belong to any civilization and lacks a cultural core. History shows that a nation so constituted cannot long survive as a cohesive society.

A multi-civilizational America will no longer be the United States of America, but the United Nations. (laughing)

Multiculturalists also challenge central elements of the American creed by replacing individual rights with collective rights, which are largely based on race, ethnicity, sex, and gender defined by preference.

In an era when people all over the world define themselves by culture, how can a society that has no cultural core and only defines itself by political creeds have a foothold? Political principle is only a mutable foundation for an enduring democratic community. In a culturally diverse world, the United States may be nothing more than the last remaining anachronism of a disappearing ideological West.

Rejecting the American Creed and Western Civilization would mean the end of the United States of America as we know it. In fact, this also means the end of Western civilization. If America de-Westernizes, then the West shrinks to only Europe and a few countries with small European immigrant populations. Without the United States, the West would be an insignificant and declining segment of the world's population, living on a small and inconsequential peninsula at one end of Eurasia.

The conflict between multiculturalists and defenders of Western civilization and the American creed is "a real conflict" within the American part of Western civilization. The future of America and the West depends on Americans reaffirming their responsibility to Western civilization. Domestically, this means rejecting the seductive call of divisive multiculturalism. Internationally, it means rejecting incomprehensible and illusory calls for America to identify with Asia. Whatever economic ties exist between Asian and American societies, fundamental cultural differences will make it impossible for them to live in the same room. Culturally, the United States is a member of the Western family; multiculturalists may damage or even destroy this relationship, but they cannot replace it. If Americans are looking for their cultural roots, they will find it in Europe.

The development and expansion of the West went through a first stage that lasted for centuries, and then experienced a second stage in the 20th century, the American stage. If North America and Europe could renew their moral lives based on cultural independence and develop close forms of economic and political integration to complement their security cooperation within NATO, they could create Western economic affluence and political influence The third stage of expansion is the European and American stage. Meaningful political integration can go some way to offsetting the West's relative decline in its share of the world's population, economic production, and military capabilities, and allow leaders of other civilizations to see a return to Western power. However, whether the West can come together politically and economically depends mainly on whether the United States can reaffirm its Western identity and determine its global role as the leader of Western civilization.

2. The West in the World

A world centered on cultural identity—racial, national, religious, and civilizational identity—and based on cultural similarities and differences To shape the world of alliances, confrontational relationships, and national policies, this has three broad implications for the West as a whole, and for the United States in particular:

First, only when politicians recognize and understand reality can they constructively Change reality. Cultural politics are taking shape, and the power of non-Western civilizations is rising. These societies are increasingly extending their own cultures and have been recognized by the non-Western world. European leaders have pointed out that the power of culture can both unite and divide people. On the contrary, American elites have been slow to accept and grasp these emerging realities. The U.S. government has encountered extraordinary difficulties in adapting to an era of global politics influenced by cultural and civilizational trends.

Second, U.S. foreign policy thinking was also plagued by a reluctance to abandon, change, and sometimes even rethink policies that suited the needs of the Cold War.

Third, the diversity of cultures and civilizations challenges the West, especially the United States’ belief in the universality of Western culture. This belief is expressed in interpretive and normative terms. In an interpretive way, it believes that people in all societies want to accept Western values, systems, and time; in a normative way, the Western universalist belief asserts that people all over the world should believe in Western values, systems, and culture because it It contains the most advanced, progressive, free, rational, modern and civilized thoughts of mankind.

In today's emerging world of conflicts of nationalities and civilizations, the Western universal concept encounters three problems: it is wrong; it is immoral; and it is dangerous. That it is wrong is the central thesis of this book.

It is immoral to believe that people in non-Western countries should adopt Western values, institutions and culture, just as it is immoral to achieve this goal. The expansion of power brings the spread of culture. If non-Western societies are once again shaped by Western culture, it can only be the result of the expansion, deployment and influence of Western power. Imperialism is the inevitable logical consequence of universalism. As a mature civilization, the West no longer has the economic or demographic momentum to impose its will on other societies, and any effort to do so is contrary to Western values ??of self-determination and democracy.

Western universalism is dangerous for the world because it may lead to wars between major civilizations (between core countries of civilizations); it is also dangerous for the West because it may leading to the failure of the West. The wise move for the West is not to try to stop the transfer of power but to learn to navigate shallow waters, endure pain, take fewer risks and defend its culture.

All civilizations have gone through similar processes of formation, rise and decline. The difference between Western civilization and other civilizations lies not in the way of development, but in the uniqueness of its values ??and systems. These attributes, most notably Christianity, pluralism, individualism, and the rule of law, enabled the West to create modernity, expand globally, and become the envy of other societies. These characteristics as a whole are unique to the West. As Arthur Schlesinger Jr. [5] said, Europe is “the birthplace and the only source of ideas about personal freedom, political democracy, the rule of law, human rights and cultural freedom.” “These characteristics are European ideas, not Asian, African or Middle Eastern ideas unless adopted by them”. These characteristics make Western civilization a unique civilization. The value of Western civilization lies not in its universality but in its uniqueness. Therefore, the main responsibility of Western leaders is not to try to reshape other civilizations in the image of the West, which is beyond the reach of the West's declining power, but to preserve, maintain and revive the unique characteristics of Western civilization. Since the United States is the most powerful Western country, this responsibility inevitably falls mainly on the shoulders of the United States of America.

In the face of the decline of Western power, it is beneficial for the United States and European countries to protect Western civilization. To achieve this goal, they need to:

1. Strengthen political, economic and military integration ization and coordinating policies to prevent countries belonging to other civilizations from taking advantage of their differences;

2. Incorporate Western countries in Central Europe into the European Union and NATO;

3. Encourage "Westernization" of Latin America and making Latin American countries as closely aligned with the West as possible;

4. Inhibiting the development of conventional and unconventional military forces in Islamic and Chinese countries;

5. Delay Japan’s break from the West and conform to China;

6. Recognize Russia as a core country of the Orthodox Church and a regional power, and recognize that ensuring the security of its southern border is Russia’s legitimate interest;

7. Maintain the advantages of Western technology and military power over other civilizations;

8. The most important thing is to realize that Western intervention in other civilizations may cause instability in a multi-civilization world and the single most dangerous factor in potential global conflict.

In such an era, the United States can neither dominate the world nor escape from it. Neither internationalism nor isolationism, nor multilateralism nor unilateralism, can serve the interests of the United States well. Only by avoiding these extreme practices, adopting an Atlanticist policy of close cooperation with European partners, and protecting and promoting the interests and values ??of a unique civilization that we all share, can the interests of the United States be most effectively promoted.

3. War and Order among Civilizations

A more dangerous factor that triggers global wars among civilizations is the change in the balance of power among civilizations and among their core countries. If China's rise and the increasing self-assertion of this "largest player in human history" continue, it will put tremendous pressure on world stability at the beginning of the 21st century.

In the coming era, in order to avoid wars between civilizations, core countries should avoid intervening in the conflicts of other civilizations. But the fact is that some countries, especially the United States, will undoubtedly find this unacceptable. The "avoidance principle", which means that core countries avoid intervening in conflicts of other civilizations, is the primary condition for maintaining peace in a multi-civilization and multi-polar world. The second condition is the "principle of mutual mediation", that is, core countries negotiate with each other to contain or stop fault line wars between these civilized countries or groups.

Accepting these principles and a world of more equal treatment among civilizations will not be easy for the West and those civilizations that aim to supplement or replace its dominant role. For example, in such a world, core states may regard the possession of nuclear weapons as their prerogative and not allow other states in the civilization to possess them; in civilizations lacking core states, competition for leadership may also inspire The competition to possess nuclear weapons.

Nuclear proliferation is clearly dangerous. A world in which one or two core states of each major civilization possess nuclear weapons and others do not may be a moderately stable world.

Most of the major international institutions established in the immediate aftermath of World War II were based on Western interests, values, and practices. As Western power declines relative to other civilizations, these international institutions will be under pressure to reorganize to suit the interests of other civilizations. The most obvious, important and perhaps most controversial issue is the permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council. The permanent members of the Security Council are composed of the main victors of World War II, but this situation is increasingly inconsistent with the reality of world power.

To this end, two changes will occur in the long term. One is to change the composition of member states, and the other is the possible development of some less formal procedures to deal with security issues. In a multi-civilizational world, the ideal situation would be for each major civilization to have at least one permanent seat on the Security Council. But currently only three civilizations have it.

Each of the seven civilizations has one permanent seat, and the West has two. This distribution plan broadly reflects the distribution of the world's population, wealth, and power.

4. The *** nature of civilization

A multicultural America is impossible, because a non-Western America cannot be the United States. A multicultural world is inevitable, because it is impossible to build a global empire. To maintain the United States and the West, we need to rebuild Western identity; to maintain world security, we need to accept global multiculturalism.

The survival of culture requires seeking the commonalities of most civilizations, rather than promoting the assumed universal characteristics of a certain civilization. In a multi-civilizational world, the constructive path is to abandon universalism, embrace diversity and seek unity.

At least on a basic "shallow" moral level, there are certain differences between Asia and the West. Regardless of the extent to which the world's major religions differentiate human beings, they all share some important values. If humans one day develop a world civilization, it will gradually take shape by pioneering and developing these unique characteristics. Therefore, in addition to the "avoidance principle" and the "homosexuality principle", maintaining peace in a multi-civilized world also requires a third principle, namely the "homosexuality principle": people of all civilizations should seek and expand values, institutions, and practices unique to other civilizations.

In the 1950s, Lester Pearson[6] once warned that mankind is entering "an era in which different civilizations must learn to live together in peaceful exchanges, learn and research from each other Otherwise, misunderstandings, tensions, conflicts and disasters will arise in this crowded and narrow world." The future of peace and civilization depends on understanding and cooperation among the political, spiritual and intellectual leaders of the world's great civilizations. In the clash of civilizations, Europe and the United States will join hands with each other or be separated from each other. In the greater conflict between civilization and barbarism, that is, the global "real conflict", the great civilizations of the world have achieved fruitful results in religion, art, literature, philosophy, science, technology, morality and emotion. They will join hands with each other or be separated from each other. In an era of separation, the conflict of civilizations is the greatest threat to world peace, and the international order based on multi-civilizations is the most reliable guarantee to prevent world war.

[1] Arnold Joseph Toynbee (1889-1975): a famous British historian. Known as the greatest historian in modern times. His representative works are "Historical Research", "Humankind and Mother Earth" and "Looking into the 21st Century". Among them, "Historical Research" is known as the greatest historical work of the 20th century.

[2] Matthew Melko. American. Author of "The Nature of Civilization". The rest are unknown.

[3] Carroll Quigley (1910-1977): A well-known American historian. After graduating with a doctorate from Harvard University, he taught at Princeton University and Harvard University. After 1941, he transferred to the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University until 1976. His representative works include: "The Evolution of Civilization: An Introduction to Historical Analysis" (1961), "Tragedy and Hope: A World History of Our Era" (1966).

[4] Cod War: refers to the fishing conflict between Iceland and the United Kingdom from 1958 to 1976. This war spanned nearly twenty years.

[5] Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. (1917-2007) was a famous American historian and political commentator. He served as the White House special assistant to US President John F. Kennedy and is known as "the person who knows the Roosevelt and Kennedy eras best." He won the Pulitzer Prize twice for "The Jackson Years" and "JFK's 1,000 Days in the White House."

[6] Lester Pearson (1897-1972): Canadian politician and diplomat. The fourteenth Prime Minister of Canada. The idea of ??a United Nations peacekeeping force was first proposed by Pearson. He won the 1957 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to resolve the 1956 Suez Crisis. He became prime minister in 1963 and resigned as prime minister in 1968, retiring from politics.