Samuel Huntington

1
Samuel Huntington

• Originator of clash of civilizations
• 1993 article in Foreign Affairs
• Controversial, but major impact on foreign policy
  discussion, social science, culture studies
• 1996 The Clash of Civilizations Remaking of the
  World Order

2
Clash of Civilizations

• Post Cold War world clash of civilizations
  replaced clash of ideologies (Soviet bloc vs.
  Western alliance)
• Cultural identity became crucial force
• culture counts, and cultural identity is what is
  most meaningful to most people

3
Clash of Civilizations

• Global politics now multipolar and
  multicivilizational
• Balance of power among civilizations is shifting
• Countries group themselves around the lead or
  core states of their civilization

4
Clash of Civilizations

• 4. Wests universalist pretensions bring it into
  conflict with other civilizations, especially
  Islamic and China
• 5. Survival of West depends on Americans
  reaffirming their Western identity and Westerners
  accepting their civilization as unique not
  universal and uniting to renew and preserve it
  against challenges from non-Western societies.

5
Clash of Civilizations

• Avoidance of global war of civilizations depends
  on world leaders accepting and cooperating to
  maintain the multicivilizational character of
  global politics
• Most basic question today Who are we?
• (His next Book, subtitled Challenges to
  Americas National Identity)

6
The Hispanic Challenge

• America initially defined by race, ethnicity,
  culture, and religion
• Then added creed set forth in declaration of
  independence
• Identity now defined in terms of culture and
  creed creed product of distinct
  Anglo-Protestant culture
• Most significant challenge from Latin American
  immigration (Mexicans)

7
The Hispanic Challenge

• Contiguity, scale, illegality, regional
  concentration, persistence, and historical
  presence
• The threat the cultural division between
  Hispanics and Anglos could replace the racial
  division between black and whites as the most
  serious cleavage in U.S. Society
• Different values and committed to own ethnic
  identity
• U.S. as a country of two languages and two
  cultures

8
Critique of Clash of Civilizations

• Edward Said
• Major spokesperson in the West for Arab and
  Muslim world
• Strong critic of Huntington
• Huntingtons focus on Islamic civilization
• Huntingtons pessimistic view of unceasing,
  inevitable clash

9
Said on Huntington

• Weakest part of argument assumption of rigid
  separation between civilizations
• Civilizations are not monolithic and
  homogeneous i.e. Hispanic Values
• Mistaken focus on unchanging duality between us
  and them

10
Communities and Borders

• Claims of monolithic, homogeneous communities gt
  Claims of necessary clashand vice versa
• Cold War replayed with civilizations?
• Should we want clash?
• Said such assumptions are built into
  Huntingtons argument

11
A Question of Borders

• Starting point Two different rhetorics of
  culture and civilization
• Utopian rhetoric contact and harmony among
  peoples possible
• Cold war/Clash of civilization rhetoric cultures
  basically separated from, and opposed to one
  another

12
Rhetorics

• Part of political/cultural stance, often
  disguised as fact or discovery
• - Starting point for making/interpreting an
  argument
• - Constructed, not natural or found in
  pre- existing reality
• - Huntingtons rhetoric creates the very
  clash he seems . . . to be discovering and
  pointing to

13
Rhetorics

• Rhetoric of crossing and mixing
• Cooperation and humanistic exchange (not just
  amateurish enthusiasm for exotic)
• There are no insulated cultures, civilizations
• Every culture and civilization is hybrid

14
A Question of Borders

• Utopian rhetoric language and institutions of
  UN, attempts at world government, voluntary
  limitations on sovereignty
• Border crossings natural
• Because of commonalities
• Because of internal heterogeneity
• Clash of civilizations rhetoric White apartheid
  in South Africa, Afrocentrism
• Inviolate borders and opposition

15
Internal Heterogeneity and Contestation

• Said All cultures have creative provocation
  from the unofficial to the official
• History writing as royal road to the definition
  of a country is fraught with contested claims
  and counterclaims
• Public memory as product of struggle between
  official culture and vernacular culture
  (Bodnar)

16
National Identity

• Gibernau Sentiment of belonging to a specific
  nation, endowed with its own symbols, traditions,
  sacred places, ceremonies, heroes, history,
  culture and territory
• Special status as an identity Trumps other forms
  of identity

17
National Identity

• Huntingtons proposal
• Identity is an individuals or groups sense of
  self. It is a product of self-consciousness,
  that I or we possess distinct qualities as an
  entity that differentiates me from you and us
  from them.

18
Huntington on National Identity

• Key points
• Both individuals and groups have identities
• Group identities have primary identifying
  characteristics and are less fungible than
  individual identities
• I can switch groups and social identity groups
  cannot

19
Huntington on Identity

• 2. Identities are overwhelmingly constructed
• Gellner Having a nation is not an inherent
  attribute of humanity, but it has come to appear
  as such (6)
• Nationalism as a modern, European invention
• Created in late 1700s
• Basic model created in Europe and then exported
  elsewhere

20
How does this relate to The Social Space of
Postmodernism

• Outdated socio-spatial models of bounded
  community (Culture) and center-periphery
• How is Rouses rhetoric like Huntington or Said?
• How are circuits and border zones different?
• Is there in inevitable clash if we think in terms
  of transnational migrant circuits?