[lit-ideas] Re: Huntington's thesis
- From: "Andreas Ramos" <andreas@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2006 23:54:46 -0800
The Japanese/American war did represent a Huntington Clash of Civilizations.
The use of weaponry doesn't enter into his thesis. That Japan has mastered
technology doesn't either.
I understand quite well that Huntington didn't consider the technological
status of Japan.
That's precisely my point.
Huntington defines "civilizations" as religious-cultural units, but he ignores their
economics: agrarian, industrial, digital tech, etc. This is the fundamental error in his
idea.
This type of history was done a hundred years ago: Toynbee and others tried to explain
history in various ways: geological determinism (people in warm climates had it too hot,
therefore they were lazy; people in cold climates had it too harsh, therefore they struggled
to survive, and Europeans had it "just right" so they vigorously conquered, er, colonized
the planet), religious determinism (Buddhism is passive, Christianity is open, etc.) , and
so on. And there were racial theories as well. Huntington's idea seems close to racial
theories (Chinese are different from Europeans, etc.) such as Gobineau and others. If you
want a thrilling history, read Herder.
But these differences disappear when you look at the actual history of the area (as I
pointed out, India has been three different "civilizations"). Give it a try: describe
Mexico. They've had practically every form of revolution and government ever invented, even
royalist revolutions, all in 200 years.
Furthermore, Huntington's differences between civilizations are superficial. The Japanese
eat sushi; Americans eat burgers, therefore, they are different civiliations? Or, as Eric
points out, Japanese commit seppuku (it's seppuku, not hara-kiri, that he's thinking of) and
Americans don't. But both militaries were based on the very same form of industrialized
economy. Some details are different (Californians eat sushi and Japanese eat pasta), but
they both live in the same kind of post-industrial digital economy. They commute to work in
office buildings, they worry about credit card bills, they talk on their cell phones, and so
on. Japanese and Americans, even in the 1920s, were more alike than different. Read Soseki's
novels; you can switch out names and place it in London or Chicago. Read Ryu Murakami (50s
and 60s) or Haruki Murakami (90s and present); there's nothing "foreign" about any of those
novels.
Look: what was the Japan/US war about? Why did they fight? Did both sides have radically
different understandings over the goals? The Spaniards vs. the Aztec was indeed two totally
different cultures with different agendas. The Aztecs went into their standard war and got a
big surprise.
But both sides in the US/Japan war had identical goals: colonization, control of shipping,
control of oil supplies (which triggered the war), and so on. Both sides used the same
technology. It was fundamentally an economics war, over money and power. Clash of
civilizations? Or clash of siblings?
This is why Huntington and others have remained pop history, read by non-historians. It's
not taken seriously among historians. There's no deep theory, differences evaporate in the
details, the difference disappear in comparison, and so on.
Lawrence, I think you would do much better if you looked at economics, how globalization
functions, the impact of digital technology on a region, and so on. It would explain much
more.
yrs,
andreas
www.andreas.com
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