In outline, Huntington's thesis seems to be: (1) We had a world system structured by superpower alignments. (2) That system provided considerable free-world stability and gave the US a point of leverage with which to exercise leadership and influence. (3) That system is unravelling due to collapse of one superpower. (4) Regional cultural alignments bode to be the natural new organizing principle; the West is powerless to stop this tide. (5) Various historical observations demonstrate the naturalness and stability of such a culture-centric system. (6) "Core" powers - one dominant in each region - can play a natural and beneficial regional stabilizing role. (7) In response to this new system, the West should come together in solidarity as a single "region", unified by a re-dedication to traditional Western cultural values. (8) The other regions can be expected to similarly re-embrace their own traditional values - and this is as it should be. Superfically this thesis makes considerable sense, seems to fit the data, and promises that a comforting stability will develop out of the very divisive forces which seem threatening from the old-system perspective (eg- Muslim fundamentalism, anti-Western feelings, etc). It seems an attractive hypothesis on which to base US foreign policy, from both a national-interest and concerned-citizen perspective - it "goes with the flow" and it promises stability. But only slightly beneath the surface the analysis behind the thesis unravels. To begin with, Huntington bases much of his hypothesis on a strong distinction between Western culture and modernity. The widely-perceived identification of Western culture with modernity, he claims, is unfounded - Western culture preceded modernity and is characterized by such things as rule of law, democracy, human rights, etc. Hence economic modernization - which is not based on those characteristics - should not be expected to - and in experience is not leading to - a convergence of global cultures. Here he leaves out what may seem to be a fine distinction, but one which turns out to be significant. To wit: a modern culture is made up of _both_ its inherited cultural elements _and_ new cultural elements caused by modernization. Let me give a microcosmic example. There was a time when Western culture - I hope I'm not over-generalizing - could be characterized by mutually-supportive extended-family units, and by stable communities arising out of families remaining in the same communities for several generations. With modernization - which brings shifting job markets and increased mobility potential - family units have decreased in size, extended families have been dispersed, population transience is on the rise, and communities have become more unstable - leading to all kinds of social and psychological dysfunctions. This amounts to a significant transformation in the definition of what Western culture is, and this transformation is one which has been affecting - and can be expected to affect - all cultures in similar ways as a consequence of modernization. Similar considerations apply to other modernization-related cultural shifts, such as: increased dependency on wage employment for economic survival, decreased connection to - and ownership of - land by the majority of people, increased importance of cities as economic and social units, increased exposure to mass-media-propagated cultural models, and decreasing relevance of traditional culture and religion to the problems of daily life - lending strength to either secularism or reactionary fundamentalism, or perhaps both simultaneously (eg- Turkey, US). To assess the significance of such modernity-related cultural transformations would take a bit of research and analysis. But to ignore these cultural trends entirely, as Huntington does, is to ignore what may be a signicant degree of global cultural convergence, a convergence which can only be expected to increase as modernization expands its dominion as a consequence of free trade and globalized investment strategies. Additional encouragement of cultural convergence could be expected from increased world travel, globalized communications and media, increased trade, and the presence of the same corporations and products throughout the world. Although Huntington discounts it, MacDonalds, Sony, Toyota, Siemens, Shell, Agfa, Heinekens, and Nestle to name a few, do bring some degree of shared cultural experience with them, if only in the common economic activities which are displaced (ie decline in competing indigenous enterprises). If all these convergence factors turn out to be sufficiently significant, Huntington's thesis may be 180 degrees wrong (culture may ultimately be unifying rather than divisive), and certainly his thesis cannot be accepted without adequate consideration of such possibilities. * * * While Huntington makes much of the naturalness and beneficence of nations and regions retaining their distinct socio-political heritages, he never touches on the possibility - perhaps because it would be beyond his ability to imagine - that nations and regions could also be encouraged to retain their various traditional economic heritages, which in many cases have included communal rural land ownership, socialism, state-operated infrastructures, protected national economies, sustainable development, etc. When it comes to economics and trade, his focus on local variability, desirability of stability, and the limited power of the West is suddenly forgotten - he tacitly accepts that the West, with its considerable economic influence, and assited by the international agencies and treaties it has promulgated, should continue to impose the Western-evolved corporatist, unbalanced-growth economic model on all regions of the world indiscriminately - despite the obvious instability introduced, and the popular resistance which is often encountered. In economics Huntington is happy to see the West force homogenization despite opposition, while with respect to democracy and human rights he wants to take a hands-off, local-autonomy stance. Centralized control of econmomic policy and laissez-faire politics - an ironic twist in the evolution of neoliberal doctrine. Perhaps it is time we drop the pretense that Huntington is an objective political scientist, and take into account that he is in fact a flagship propagandist for the Council on Foreign Relations, and the elite interests embodied therein. * * * An objective political scientist would agree with Huntington that the end of the Cold War and the onslaught of globalist-accelerated modernization bodes the evolution of new global ordering structures, but he or she would see that many future scenarios are possible and that the West is in a position to strongly influence which evolving buds are nurtured and which are discouraged. The West _could_ excercise clear and steady pressure in the direction of democracy, human-rights, healthy working conditions, pollution controls, etc. It could do this effectively, without great cost, without imposing specific Western mechanisms, and without stirring up conflicts - it would only need the will to do so. Lack of success in this regard in recent experience reflects only that the effort was insincere - token pressure on China, for example, following Tianmen Square, was only a sop to public opinion and China well understood (and was probably told covertly and explicitly) that there was no resolve behind the rhetoric. Similarly, the West _could_ encourage civil fraternity among _all_ nations and help nurture a spirit of increasingly shared cultural experience - and cinema and other Western propaganda channels could be employed to this purpose. Huntington's proclivity to fixate immediately on one particular scenario - culture-centric spheres - does not reflect, let's be realistic, lack of intellectual imagination on his part - it rather reflects an obvious agenda: the CFR/elite interests simply do not want more democracy and human rights loose in the world - it's bad for profits. Simple as that. The rest is rationalization/ propaganda. * * * Huntington's further elaboration of his scenario - local core powers, a nostalgic return to "traditional values", and the circling of the Western wagons against a threatening world - flesh out the architecture of this CFR agenda of a mafia-like world heirarchy of gang-clans, as was explored in my posting of a few days ago. Regards, rkm ~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~--~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~ Posted by Richard K. Moore - •••@••.••• - PO Box 26 Wexford, Ireland Cyberlib: ftp://ftp.iol.ie/users/rkmoore/cyberlib | (USA Citizen) * Non-commercial republication encouraged - Please include this sig * * Please Cc: •••@••.••• directly on forwards & replies * ~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~--~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~
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