According to Samuel Huntington's essay, "The Clash of Civilizations?", the
world can be divided into seven or eight major cultural blocks, or
civilizations. In his view, tensions among these civilizations will
replace ideology as the primary source of global conflict. Although Edward
Said portrays culture as an important force in human interaction, he
believes lines among cultures are blurry and no pure cultural regions
exist. Said writes that centuries of imperialism have brought
civilizations together and allowed them to exchange ideas. He would likely
interpret Huntington's distinct blocks as consistent with the Western
tendency to create a sense of "us" and "them" which can further
imperialistic goals.
Said refers to a static notion of identity as "the core of cultural
thought during the era of imperialism." He explains that a belief in sharp
barriers among cultures allows the West to presume that our values and
structures are uniquely superior and that it is not only our right, but our
duty, to bestow our knowledge and guidance on less enlightened cultures.
Notions of the "African mind" or "the mysterious East" feed Western
stereotypes of non-Western cultures and provide us with a paternalistic
sense that these "primitive" cultures need our intervention. Said would
maintain that examples of American imperialism are still prevalent today in
our foreign policy, including the idea of "making the world safe for
democracy." As Huntington explains in his article, Western powers use
international political and economic institutions to protect Western
interests and promote Western values.
Said would point out that even within the United States, a single
monolithic culture does not exist. In recent years, active immigrant
groups have risen to the surface in this country. According to Said, these
populations have been here for some time, and we owe their presence to the
process of globalization sparked, to some degree, by modern imperialism.
Conversely, there is much evidence of Western economic and political
imperialism in non-Western societies, from the adoption of elements of our
political system to the introduction of McDonald's restaurants. In order to
understand this century, Said contends, one must appreciate the overlapping
and interdependence of different cultures. Said would assert that although
differences in language and tradition persist, human life is about
connection, and pointing out our differences, as Huntington does, can only
lead to prejudice.
Said would agree with Huntington that the world is experiencing a
surge in ethnic and cultural separatism, in many parts of the globe. But he
does not attribute these events to a growing trend toward a clash of
civilizations. Said interprets the discourse as a sign of a fundamental
desire to be independent and speak freely, without the yoke of domination.
Said blames the American media for launching buzz words like "terrorism"
and "fundamentalism" to describe some groups because they create fearful
images and work to give the U.S. moral power over whomever they designate.
He writes that "border wars" between cultures can be called an expression
of "essentializations-Africanizing the African, Orientalizing the
Oriental," etc, which suggests that these wars do not result from real and
absolute differences in culture and are instead attempts at self-assertion.
However, Said does warn that "the world is a crowded place, and if
everyone were to insist on the racial purity or priority of one's own
voice, all we would have would be the awful din of unending strife."
Said would also note Huntington's Eurocentric interpretation of
global affairs in the past few centuries. Huntington begins his analysis
with the Peace of Westphalia, in which European leaders gathered to
dispense power among European nations, and proceeds to the Cold War
division between two competing Western ideologies. Said would likely
respond that meanwhile, the rest of the world was carrying on its own
lives, and that those lives are equally important in a examination of
historical world politics. Huntington asserts, "In the politics of
civilization, the peoples and governments of non-Western civilizations no
longer remain the objects of history as targets of Western colonialism but
join the West as movers and shapers of history." While Said would
certainly agree that there has been a "general European effort to rule
distant lands", he would answer that non-Western cultures have never acted
merely as targets of Western policy and have always resisted Western
intrusion. Just as the influence of the dominant West reshaped its
subordinates, the West became dependent on their "targets".
Said would most likely dismiss Huntington's paradigm of a world
separated into cultural blocks as a Eurocentric analysis. According to
Said, imperialism has forced cultural exchange and blurred the lines
between civilizations. He believes that sharp designations among cultures
can only lead to prejudice and the justification of imperialistic acts.