Samuel Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations"

[pecksniff]

Clash of Civilizations. The late Samuel Huntington's thesis is that, after the ideological division of the Cold War is no longer relevant, the most important factor in international relations is the conflicts between vast cultural complexes he calls "civilizations," shown here:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/34/Clash_of_Civilizations_mapn2.png

Does this classification make sense? E.g., Latin America is a group of countries with European languages, religions and legal systems. On what grounds can it be treated separately from a Western civilization that includes Spain and Portugal? The present Pope is Argentine. And if there is a Buddhist civilization, why is Japan not part of it? And of course Pakistan is Muslim, that's why it exists -- but otherwise, doesn't it have a lot more in common with India culturally than with the Islamic world?

 

[pecksniff]

BTW, the map I saw in Huntington's book differs from above in that it divides Ukraine into a Western (Catholic) west and an Orthodox east. He explains the country's internal conflicts in those terms.

 

[rae121452]

(snore)

 

[pecksniff]

And why is Vietnam Sinic and not Buddhist?

For that matter, why is Sinic (Chinese) civilization distinguished from Buddhist civilization?

 

[pecksniff]

E.g., Latin America is a group of countries with European languages, religions and legal systems. On what grounds can it be treated separately from a Western civilization that includes Spain and Portugal?

One is tempted to suspect that the line being drawn here is racial -- every country Huntington classifies as "Western" is white-majority. Most Latin Americans have a lot of Indian blood.

 

[Thunderbolt_e]

And why is Vietnam Sinic and not Buddhist?

For that matter, why is Sinic (Chinese) civilization distinguished from Buddhist civilization?

Because they aren’t Buddhist, most of them are not anyway.
Yeah Buddhism were widespread, but it never became an dominant religion in China. Religious in general did not play that big of a part in the Chinese civilization.

 

[pecksniff]

Because they aren’t Buddhist, most of them are not anyway.
Yeah Buddhism were widespread, but it never became an dominant religion in China. Religious in general did not play that big of a part in the Chinese civilization.

That is historically true. Religion was important in that the Emperor was chief priest of the Chinese folk religion that predated Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism, and there were certain rites only he could perform; but there was never any evangelism in that.