Talk:Clash of Civilizations

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[edit] Japan is a fusion of western civilization

One of the main nations i nthe turn of the century to "borrow" as much of european technology, business, politics, culture as possible. It has to be a mix of whatever and western.

-G —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.117.158.83 (talk) 05:26, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] greece

the map/theory is laughable. It has greece painted with the same color as russia and whatever is "at that side of the world" just because of the religion denomination. i suspect the guy is a fanatical christian of a certain denomination seeing only black or white for regions never visited or even cared to read something more than a few sentences about them. greece, the country that gave the roots of the western civilization and the word that names europe. not only this theory is ridiculous, the whole article should be at least renamed to ".. (book)" or ".. (Huntington 's view)" --Leladax 11:13, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

  • It's more than just religion, it's history and culture too. Ancient Greece certainly had a strong influence on the Western World, just as it has on the Islamic World and the Orthodox World as well, but that doesn't make Greece a Western country. Western Civilization is actually rooted in the Romans... It begins to emerge under the Roman Empire when distinctions arise between the Greek-speaking East and the Latin West. This is solidified with the collapse of the empire into two halves and the eventual Great Schism between Catholic and Orthodox Christianity. Western Europe goes on to experience the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Age of Exploration, and the Enlightenment. Eastern Europe on the other hand develops as a mixture of Greek Byzantine and Slavic culture. In my opinion, though, Greece should be considered a "lone" or a "torn" civilization under Huntington's theory as it has more in common culturally with other Mediterranean cultures in Western Europe and the Middle East than it does with the Slavic world, and it aligned with NATO instead of the Soviet Union.

I find nothing laughable. And you are entitled to your own opinions... however laughable.

-G —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.117.158.83 (talk) 10:26, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure about that analysis. It is telling (and contrary to your views) that most historians refer to the Greco-Roman foundations of western civilization. The roots of the latter are not to be found in the differentiation of Roman culture (much less the schism between the churches). Moreover, the Renaissance and Enlightenment were heavily influenced (if not outright shaped) by the so called "re-discovery" of ancient Greek culture, and we all know their importance in the creation of the modern western world. 84.254.35.239 (talk) 21:36, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
  • There is nothing "laughable" about the classification. Huntington wrote about MODERN civilizations, not ancient civilizations. Greece is not a civilization in the modern world. Greece now is just a third-rate country that belongs to the Orthodox civilization headed by Russia. 66.65.129.159 (talk) 05:59, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
"Third rate"? That seems more like a comment intended to create offense, rather than a good faith contribution to the discussion. Having said that, there is sometimes a seed of truth to be found even in the most inflammatory statement. In our case, there does indeed seem to be a discord between those supporting Greece's Western alignment, and those suggesting that we orientate Eastwards (in our case, to Russia) instead. 84.254.35.239 (talk) 21:36, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "Recent Issues"

Who decides wich conflict will be linked in, and wich not? I don't see clear references, just popular believes, and some ethnic conflicts listed as civilizational clashes, wich are quite constrained to be listed here as a "recent issue". Clash of civilizations is about the clash of civilizations, where civilizaitions are clashing. Like Ukrainian presidental elections, tha israeli-arab conflict, international terrorism, and such. Wars other than the former Yugoslavia's (Kosovo, Croatia vs Serbia) are tipically one of those constrained ones. You misunderstood Huntington? --Vince hey, yo! :-) 10:06, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Missing/Mixed parts

  • "La revanche de Dieu" ~ God's revenge - the revival of the religions, and the renewal of religious wars/conflicts
  • The types of civilizations - 1. universalist (west), 2. agressive (islam, sinic), 3. weak (Latin America, Africa), and 4. indecisive (Hindu, Orthodox, Japanese)
    • The sructure of a civilization: 1. member states, 2. core state(s) - the "leader" of the civ 3. torn countries (this is mentioned) 4. the lone states (also just a line) 5. switching/aparting states (from a civ to another, like Turkey from Islamic to Western)
  • The poles of the World will be those core states and global interests will be replaced by interest spheres. These interest spheres: 1 Western world 2. Russia and its surroundings 3. China and it's interests 4. Islam
  • Islam's internal conflicts are mainly because of the absence of a core state and the fight to be the core (leader) state. in the Islam states, loyalty to the tribe is above the loyalty to the state. Statehood is secondary, since those are just the borders of the former colonies.
  • The revival/upcoming of the local majority's culture (nationalism) like in Slovakia, Serbia, etc. The importance of cultural identity also grows fast (and "high").

The identity crisis of the 1990s, wich lead to the new order of civilizations

  • "Human rights imperialism" - forced weternization (for ex Iraq), in the name of human rights.

Religions are more important in civilizational clashes, than ethnicity or such.

And some more. --Vince hey, yo! :-) 11:02, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Like Francis Fukuyama's The End of History and the Last Man wich is really not important to mention. No, the reason, why Huntington wrote this book is not intresting. No. Not. Gosh... --Vince hey, yo! :-) 00:16, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The clash of civilization map is incorrect

Atleast with regards to India. I dont think it does justice to Sikhs,Jains,Bddhists or even India's 150 million Muslims to pegionhole Indian civilization as a "Hindu civilization". Whats more the South East Asian countries decidedly have cosiderable Hindu influence. I know Huntington labels it as such, but the map makes it look as if Wikipedia is endorsing his hypothesis. I mean c'mon you dont need a grossly incorrect map on this article. This isnt Clash of Civilizations of Dummies or something, is it? Amey Aryan DaBrood© 19:54, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I completely agree that Huntigton's conceptualization is highly problematic. But this is an encyclopedic entry about his controversial theory. Wikipedia does not endorse any specific theory, it just tries to summarize all of them. That is why the map should follow what Huntigton actually wrote in his book. But there is also a section about the published criticism in the article. Tankred 20:21, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

In fact, India is also marked as a "cleft" coutry. It's muslim pop is considered as part of the Muslim civ. Huntington's map is divided on religions, not real borders. Those are just sometimes match with religious borders. So, I partially agree that the map incorrect. OFF:But this is common. (Personal attack removed) --Vince hey, yo! :-) 12:38, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I think that map is 100% WP:OR. For example, the Turkic speaking countries of central Asia, Albania and Bosnia are remarkably secular due to their communist past and in some cases multiethnic with significant non-Islamic populations. How can they be classified as part of the "Islamic World" when Turkey is not? Generalizations like that should not be made, at least without sources.--Domitius 23:19, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

The main problem with the map is that it differs from Huntington's own map (in the book) in quite a few details. Arguably it reflects Huntington's views better than his own map but it involves some interpretation that might be controversial. Christopher Parham (talk) 01:29, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

In fact, just read the article: there are a lot of #Missing/Mixed parts. --Vince hey, yo! :-) 04:46, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

There is also a mistake on the map regarding Bosnia and Herzegovina. On the map it is under Orthodox and in the text it says Muslim. In reality is neither Orthodox nor Muslim nor Western. It's a strange kind of mix. 122.162.158.198 12:03, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Created Archive

See Talk:Clash of Civilizations/Archive_1 for the archived discussions from prior to this year. Kyle Cronan 05:07, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] World population by civilization

I have made a plot of past and projected population by civilization, using Huntington's classification. The data is from the US Census and covers the period 1950-2050. Perhaps this is a bit too much in the way of original research (as I had to decide exactly which countries to put into each civilization), but I wondered if this might be good for the article. One caveat is that as Huntington himself points out, this model is not so useful once you go back to the Cold War era and may not be again in 2050. But it seems to give a pretty good impression of how things are changing presently.

I'd be glad to also post the country lists if people are interested in how this data came about. Here is the image.

Kyle Cronan 05:28, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I'd be concerned about adding this first because it is original research and second because total population is not really the demographic issue Huntington focuses on. Nonetheless interesting image. Christopher Parham (talk) 05:42, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, I suppose that's true. Well, I'm glad somebody else got a kick out of it. Kyle Cronan 03:33, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
I´d agree that this is original research, but there are some researchers pursuing such questions.
I take Huntinton to be concerned not so much about absolute numbers of population but about young males. In an interview with a british newspaper, he stated: "I don’t think Islam is any more violent than any other religions, and I suspect if you added it all up, more people have been slaughtered by Christians over the centuries than by Muslims. But the key factor is the demographic factor. Generally speaking, the people who go out and kill other people are males between the ages of 16 and 30" See Michael Steinberger: ‘So, are civilizations at war?’ - Interview with Samuel P. Huntington, The Observer, Sunday October 21, 2001.
This seems to point to youth bulge theory, a summary of which (including references) you can find here. This model basically states that historically, large scale violence such as in conquests, colozization, wars, civil wars etc. has been executeed by "surplus young males" - ambitious 2nd, 3rd. and 4th sons who were not able to find acceptable positions in their society of origin. A mismatch between social positions and young male seekers creating "surplus" young males presupposes high birth rates (4 children per woman´s lifetime or above). So the line of research you were suggesting does exist - I´m not sure if Huntington pursued it any further, though. --Thewolf37 19:57, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New map

I have updated the map of Huntington's major civilizations to more accurately reflect the one from the book. This look about right? Kyle Cronan 08:54, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Please quit putting your map on the article. It is has too many errors. 1.)Israel is not a part of the islamic world 2.) Haiti is not part of latin america, they don't speak spanish and they are black 3.) if you are going to potrays the islamic regions in africa then u should have included northern nigeria and nearly all of west africa 4.) The phillipines is not part of the sinic world (they are catholic) 5.) there are more muslims in kazakhstan and bosnia than there are orthodox christians, so don't lable them orthodox nations. 6.) kaliningrad is part of russia, not the west
I can at least commend u on labling tamil eelam in sri lanka hindu, something I messed up on. User: Ishvara7
The image is captioned "Huntington's Civilizations" (at least it was: you also reverted my fix to the markup for the caption). Generally speaking, an article--particularly one that covers someone else's book--should try to avoid offering new interpretations of the material, in keeping with the policy on original research. The only way we can do this without controversy is to follow Huntington's own map. If the delineation has been criticized, and that criticism is notable and verifiable, then we can point out cases where the map may give a misleading impression. I think it would also be fine to qualify by citing text in the book where Huntington seems to contradict his own map.
In case you don't have the book on hand, a scanned image of Huntington's map is available here [1]. I took another look, and I believe the only places I have strayed from Huntington's own image are in Tibet, Guinea-Bissau and Guinea. I will correct these errors, but I hope we can come to an understanding first. Kyle Cronan 03:21, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
Is the northern part of the Philippines supposed to be shown as Sinic, with a Western outline? Also, Hong Kong is marked as being Western. --Astrokey44 13:05, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
Both those markings are in Huntington's map as well (see the linked copy). Christopher Parham (talk) 13:40, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I'll take a look at the book's map tonight and provide some input on this. Christopher Parham (talk) 03:19, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

On the whole I think Kyle's map is superior. Ishvara's seems to make numerous deviations from the one in the book based on his own opinions about the proper affiliations for these countries. I would support putting Kyle's map back on the main article. Christopher Parham (talk) 03:53, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
Ishvara, thanks for creating the original image. I would not have been motivated to create a new version if you hadn't gotten the ball rolling. That said, I'm going to restore my version (with a few errors corrected). Kyle Cronan 05:17, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
Ishvara's map is correct. If you have read the book, you would have noticed that all comments made by Ishvara above are correct. Nevertheless the map can be improved, for instance by crossing the boundaries of countries. Many countries do indeed have civilizational cleavages, such as the entire east coast strip of Africa should be Islamic. Sijo Ripa 11:52, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Ishvara's identified errors are supported by the book to various degrees; Haiti is the most clear one. (Israel isn't marked as Muslim in Kyle's map.) With countries like Kazakhstan, however, it is not clear that being majority Muslim puts them in the Muslim civilization; Kazakhstan is pretty clearly identified as being politically dominated by its Russian minority. And while the Phillipines are clearly Catholic it's not clear that this puts them in the Western world. In general, Huntington doesn't speak directly to the affiliation of many countries. The nice thing about adopting the same divisions as Huntington's own map is that they are clear and unambiguous. Christopher Parham (talk) 14:08, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Let's focus on the words at this point. Covering these sorts of cases in the text (as is done currently, for the most part) will allow us to present a more nuanced and accurate reading of Huntington's theory than is possible with the map alone. I, however, still have half the book left to read, and will return later. Kyle Cronan 14:54, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I have done a slow revert on the map again. If anyone objects (Ishvara, are you still around?), please let's discuss it here. Personally, I just don't see how it can be incorrect to use a map that follows exactly what's in the book. Kyle Cronan 19:45, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

The problem with the new map is that it has too many errors. We need to follow what Huntington wrote rather than drew. His map of tibet was rather crude, and last time I checked Bosnia's muslims make up the largest group. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ishvara7 (talk • contribs) 16:02, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
I agree that the border line for Tibet is not quite right, though I think people will understand the intended meaning. I don't know a whole lot about Bosnia, but it would certainly seem to be a difficult case. Keep in mind that at the time of the book's publication the war there had only just ended. It is a place that has historically been subjugated by Serbs. Though it's interesting that the same reasoning did not apply for Huntington in the case of Tibetans in China. Perhaps the circumstances are a bit different there. In any case, you're absolutely right that what Huntington wrote is the important thing and it may contradict his own map a bit, but this only goes to show how contentious the debate is bound to be if we open things up to subjective interpretations! Kyle Cronan 07:21, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] S vs Z

I took me quite a while to find this article, being that I was using "Civilisations rather than the American "Civilizations". I'm not a pro at Wikiediting, so could someone put a redirect to this page from the former's spelling? Thanks --AQjosh 14:29, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Since 13:42, January 13, 2005, there exists Clash of Civilisations and since 17:06, March 24, 2007, Clash of civilisations, so I don't really understand why you had difficulties. --Cyfal (talk) 21:26, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Clash Of Civilizations

Rastinny 11:12, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Rastinny, I have moved your essay to Talk:Clash_of_Civilizations/Rastinny_essay so that it doesn't take up so much space here. Hope you don't mind, but I figured you just weren't aware that you can do that (it took me long enough to figure out!). Kyle Cronan 07:42, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bosnia and Herzegovina

As we all know this is a major issue within the Huntington framework.

Even on this wikipedia page the information is carelessly contradictory, as Bosnia and Herzegovina is placed in the Orthodox camp on the map and in the Islamic camp in the text.

I am here to propose a solution.

As we all know Bosnia and Herzegovina is a region particularly relevant to the clash of civilizations concept because the three major groups there, the Serbs (Orthodox), the Bosniaks (Muslim), and the Croats (Catholic) connect their national identity largely with their religions (civilizations). As Huntington observed, this led to a clash of these 3 civilizations and a civil war. The country is now an independent state for the first time in history and we are puzzled as to where to place this country on Huntington's map.

The solution is simple: Bosnia and Herzegovina is divided into 2 distinct entities, The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Serb Republic (Republika Srpska). Each entity takes up roughly 50% of the geographical area. (see Subdivisions_of_Bosnia_and_Herzegovina on wikipedia) The population of the eastern region, Republika Srpska, is nearly 90% Serb and thus 90%+ Orthodox. The other entity, The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, is 70% Bosniak and 28% Croat. That second entity may yet see a struggle between the Islamic and Western civilizations, but one thing is clear...

The western borders of the Orthodox Civilization must be drawn at the Republika Srpska, including this entity into the Orthodox world. This is a notion Huntington himself would certainly agree with, and the solution that makes the most sense. Bosnia and Herzegovina is far too divided along civilizational lines to be represented as a whole single entity on the Huntington map. It is Huntington's view that any such country that embodies clashing civilizations will meet the same fate as Yugoslavia itself in the near future: civil war and ultimately partitioning of territory along civilizational lines.

I propose we make this change to both the text and the map, dividing Bosnia and Herzegovina by its distinct entities.

--24.150.77.3 23:55, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Influence on "Clash" - Feliks Konexzny?

I just changed in a slightly bold/choleric action the main article on Samuel P. Huntington. Maybe I should have waited for a reactions on my entry in the talk section Talk:Samuel P. Huntington#Coinage:_The Clash of Civilization.

BUTWhat I cut out now is an unsourced contribution in brackets, that suggests the following influence on the "Clash of Civilization" : (inspired by Polish scientist Feliks Koneczny) My hope is that the author might be around, and strictly it belongs here. LeaNder (talk) 13:36, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Clash of Civilizations by Samuel Huntington

World politics is entering a new phase, in which the great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of international conflict will be cultural. Civilizations-the highest cultural groupings of people-are differentiated from each other by religion, history, language and tradition. These divisions are deep and increasing in importance. From Yugoslavia to the Middle East to Central Asia, the fault lines of civilizations are the battle lines of the future. In this emerging era of cultural conflict the United States must forge alliances with similar cultures and spread its values wherever possible. With alien civilizations the West must be accommodating if possible, but confrontational if necessary. In the final analysis, however, all civilizations will have to learn to tolerate each other —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.28.27.68 (talk) 16:16, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

  • Not just tolerate each other but eventually mix up (unite) and form a single global civilization. The sooner this will happen, the better. Otherwise people will be killing each other for no reason for centuries. 66.65.129.159 (talk) 06:02, 19 May 2008 (UTC)