'Civilization' on trial

Millenium

Volumn 28, Issue 1, 1998, Pages 141-153

  Jackson, Patrick Thaddeus ^a,b  

^a Contemporary Civilization Program ^*

^b Och Spine at New York Presbyterian Hospitals   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 11544302893     PISSN: 03058298     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/03058298990280010301     Document Type: Article

References (56)

1. Arnold Toynbee, Civilization on Trial and The World and the West (New York: Meridian Books, 1958), 143-5.
2. In some subfields of IR, the notion of 'civilization' never left the analytical terrain. In particular, world-systems analysts have always been interested in 'civilizational' analysis of a sort, although they have tended to focus almost exclusively on the economic aspects of civilizations. An interdisciplinary International Society for the Comparative Study of Civilizations exists, and even publishes a journal (Comparative Civilizations Review), but mainstream IR has not, by and large, engaged with this literature over the past few decades.
3. By the word 'ontology', I simply mean a theoretical judgement about what kinds of things exist and what it means for something to exist. Ontological claims are 'fundamental' to any theory, but should not be understood as existing apart from the theories in which they are embedded, or having any kind of ultimate truth-status. Social scientists should never be so bold as to claim that they know what reality is; at the same time, we should be honest and explicit about the assumptions which we are making on an ontological level. For a similar use of the term, see Robert Cox, 'Towards a Posthegemonic Conceptualization of World Order', in his Approaches to World Order (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 144-73.
4. More detailed discussions of this distinction may be found in Nicholas Rescher, Process Metaphysics (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1996); Mustafa Emirbayer, 'Manifesto for a Relational Sociology', American Journal of Sociology 103, no. 2 (September 1997): 281-317; and Patrick Thaddeus Jackson and Daniel II. Nexon, 'Relations Before States: Substance, Process, and the Study of World Politics', European Journal of International Relations (forthcoming).
5. More detailed discussions of this distinction may be found in Nicholas Rescher, Process Metaphysics (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1996); Mustafa Emirbayer, 'Manifesto for a Relational Sociology', American Journal of Sociology 103, no. 2 (September 1997): 281-317; and Patrick Thaddeus Jackson and Daniel II. Nexon, 'Relations Before States: Substance, Process, and the Study of World Politics', European Journal of International Relations (forthcoming).
6. More detailed discussions of this distinction may be found in Nicholas Rescher, Process Metaphysics (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1996); Mustafa Emirbayer, 'Manifesto for a Relational Sociology', American Journal of Sociology 103, no. 2 (September 1997): 281-317; and Patrick Thaddeus Jackson and Daniel II. Nexon, 'Relations Before States: Substance, Process, and the Study of World Politics', European Journal of International Relations (forthcoming).
7. Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996), 37.
8. Ibid., 21.
9. Ibid.. 156.
10. Ibid., 43.
11. Ibid., 58.
12. Ibid., 69-72.
13. Ibid., 263-4.
14. Ibid., 158.
15. Ibid., 305-8.
16. Ibid., 318.
17. Previous criticisms of Huntington's thesis (for instance, the discussions in Foreign Affairs 72, no. 4 (1993)) or Stephen Chan's accusation that 'Huntington's confessed readings are...orientalisms' in his 'Too Neat and Under-Thought a World Order' (Millennium: Journal of International Studies 26, no. I (1997): 138), while noting his tendency to paint with a broad brush in characterising the essence of a civilization, have generally failed to note the political implications of his substantialism for the question of 'American identity'. A more subtle and concrete account of the essence of a civilization is still a substantial ist account and, as such, still carries the same political implications: that we should identify our identity and our friends according to some list of civilizational criteria, and then stick with them.
18. Previous criticisms of Huntington's thesis (for instance, the discussions in Foreign Affairs 72, no. 4 (1993)) or Stephen Chan's accusation that 'Huntington's confessed readings are...orientalisms' in his 'Too Neat and Under-Thought a World Order' (Millennium: Journal of International Studies 26, no. I (1997): 138), while noting his tendency to paint with a broad brush in characterising the essence of a civilization, have generally failed to note the political implications of his substantialism for the question of 'American identity'. A more subtle and concrete account of the essence of a civilization is still a substantial ist account and, as such, still carries the same political implications: that we should identify our identity and our friends according to some list of civilizational criteria, and then stick with them.
19. David Gress, From Plato to NATO: The Idea of the West and its Opponents (New York: The Free Press, 1998), 8.
20. Ibid., 16.
21. Ibid., 47.
22. Ibid., 183.
23. Ibid., 267-70.
24. Ibid., 173.
25. For whom Gress has little but scorn: The idea that students and workers - two mythical entities - had identifiable common interests and that these common interests were revolutionary, progressive, and anticapitalist was one of the most fruitful of the legends peddled by the Frankfurt school of Western Marxists, led by Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, and Herbert Marcuse' (ibid., 455). Given that Gress devotes a considerable number of pages to sympathetic readings of Montesquieu and Carl Schmitt, but dismisses one of the most vibrant intellectual traditions of recent times as the peddling of legends, lends credence to the suspicion that a political agenda is being pursued here.
26. The sins of the New Left, in Gress' account, were the criticism of the West as being 'in need of drastic correction in favor of students, women, blacks, other minorities, oppressed people, of the environment', the failure to recognize that 'the question about the Soviet Union. . .was in reality the question of how the West could survive', and the rejection of tradition, in particular, the traditional values of Western civilization (ibid., 456-7). Apparently, to argue that society could move 'away from capitalist democracy and toward something better, more absolute, more perfect' is an invitation to Stalinistic repression.
27. Gress characterises Derrida as an apologist for Stalin, accusing him of refusing 'to identify Hitler's Germany and Stalin's USSR as totalitarian, but rather attribut[ing] Hitler's evils to the West while holding Stalin to a lesser standard so as to save Marxism as a promise of redemption' (ibid., 476). Unfortunately Gress has provided the reader with no citations for this intriguing interpretation; on 'postmodernism' in general he cites not a single primary text, but only Richard Appignanesi and Chris Garratt's Postmodernism for Beginners, which can hardly be characterized as a reliable guide to the complex writings of a very diverse group of scholars. Even if it could be, there is something questionable about making such a bold claim without providing any textual evidence to support it.
28. Gress characterises Derrida as an apologist for Stalin, accusing him of refusing 'to identify Hitler's Germany and Stalin's USSR as totalitarian, but rather attribut[ing] Hitler's evils to the West while holding Stalin to a lesser standard so as to save Marxism as a promise of redemption' (ibid., 476). Unfortunately Gress has provided the reader with no citations for this intriguing interpretation; on 'postmodernism' in general he cites not a single primary text, but only Richard Appignanesi and Chris Garratt's Postmodernism for Beginners, which can hardly be characterized as a reliable guide to the complex writings of a very diverse group of scholars. Even if it could be, there is something questionable about making such a bold claim without providing any textual evidence to support it.
29. After a review of the global warming issue which draws heavily on the work of the well-known anti-environmentalist Julian Simon, Gress concludes: 'The environmentalist legend of inevitable scarcity, pollution, and unavoidable Malthusian clashes was a legend invented by people to serve authoritarian agendas and adopted by others who did not know better because it made them feel virtuous. . .The green superstition was the heir to both Marxism and the 1968 generation's ideology of liberation in the Western world' (ibid., 525-6). This is nothing if not a controversial position, and certainly demands more than a cursory ten-page treatment.
30. The condemnation of Star Wars comes via a criticism of Joseph Campbell's work on comparative mythology, which (in Gress' view) criticised Christianity and 'increasingly found spirituality and wisdom outside of the West, reducing Western mythology to a poor relation tainted by the political and colonial misdeeds of Western conquistadors, capitalists, and missionaries' (ibid., 452). According to Gress, Campbell's focus on the commonalities shared by a number of mythologies, rather than on those aspects unique to Christianity, connected his 'universal myth cult' to the rootless and irrational anti-Westemism of the New Age movement, which had its roots in 'the late-nineteenth-century soil of mysticism, theosophy, and occult political philosophy fertilized by the more enthusiastic followers of Richard Wagner' (ibid., 448). Inasmuch as Star Wars was inspired by Campbell's work, it is also an example of anti-Western 'progressive' thinking.
31. The condemnation of Star Wars comes via a criticism of Joseph Campbell's work on comparative mythology, which (in Gress' view) criticised Christianity and 'increasingly found spirituality and wisdom outside of the West, reducing Western mythology to a poor relation tainted by the political and colonial misdeeds of Western conquistadors, capitalists, and missionaries' (ibid., 452). According to Gress, Campbell's focus on the commonalities shared by a number of mythologies, rather than on those aspects unique to Christianity, connected his 'universal myth cult' to the rootless and irrational anti-Westemism of the New Age movement, which had its roots in 'the late-nineteenth-century soil of mysticism, theosophy, and occult political philosophy fertilized by the more enthusiastic followers of Richard Wagner' (ibid., 448). Inasmuch as Star Wars was inspired by Campbell's work, it is also an example of anti-Western 'progressive' thinking.
32. Ibid, 484.
33. Chris Coker, Twilight of the West (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1998), 31.
34. Ibid., 39-42.
35. Ibid., 42-44.
36. Ibid., 44-46.
37. Ibid., 37.
38. Coker also downplays the impact of German intellectuals like Oswald Spengler in formulating the notion of 'the West' in the first place; however, he does note that Spengler's book The Decline of the West 'was the first of the great blockbusters with which we are now familiar...rapidly selling 100,000 copies despite its formidable oracular style, apparent lack of organization and exhausting prolixity' (ibid., 147). The popularity of such expressions of 'the West' may help to explain how and why particular appeals to identity are successful while others are not.
39. Ibid., 68.
40. Ibid., 53. My doubts about the historical accuracy of Coker's characterisation of the German 'embrace' of 'the West' as 'purely functional' will be elaborated in my dissertation (in progress).
41. Ibid., 61-63.
42. Ibid., 79-82.
43. There is more than a little irony in the fact that Coker's primary intellectual inspiration throughout the book is Nietzsche, a relentless critic of the material/ideal opposition in favor of a more genealogical' approach to the emergence of things and thoughts. Indeed, Coker's reading of Nietzsche is quite unusual, as he argues that 'Unlike Lenin, Nietzsche did not believe that "man is something to be overcome"' (ibid., 28). The phrase 'man is something to be overcome' ('Der Mensch ist etwas, das überwunden werden soll') occurs again and again in Nietzsche's Also Sprach Zarathustra, and serves as somewhat of a slogan for Nietzsche's doctrine of the Übermensch. Granted, Coker's book is not a book about Nietzsche, but a more detailed reading of Nietzsche might have provided the author with some of the conceptual resources needed to solve some of the problems he raises.
44. Martin Lewis and Karen Wigen, The Myth of Continents: A Critique of Metageography (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 62-63.
45. Ibid., 2.
46. One of the earliest offenders in this regard, the authors point out, was Montesquieu, 'a virulent racist and general bigot' (ibid., 241) who is one of Grcss' historical sources for his account of the formation of the Old West.
47. Ibid., 76-78.
48. Ibid., 157.
49. Ibid., 170.
50. Ibid., 186-8. Although the authors may be correct in this argument, one wonders about the impact of this scheme on political practice, especially since some of the 'world regions' seem quite similar to the 'continents' and 'civilizations' criticized by the authors earlier. 'South Asia' seems well justified as a region (and the authors devote a number of pages to doing so), but a region like 'Russia-Southeast Europe and the Caucasus' (which is not defended in the text at all) seems uncomfortably familiar to the Eastern Bloc of the Cold War, earlier denounced by the authors as a fiction. Indeed, one wonders whether any such schema is particularly useful for political practice.
51. Jan Willem Schulte Nordholt's The Myth of the West (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1995), Paul Dukes' World Order in History (London: Routledge, 1996), or Iver Neumann's Russia and the Idea of Europe (London: Routledge, 1996) are all examples of this kind of 'genealogical' p/r analysis. Along these lines, Sujata Chakrabarti Pasic ('Culturing International Relations Theory', in The Return of Culture and Identity in IR Theory, edited by Yosef Lapid and Friedrich Kratochwil (Boulder: Lynne Reinner, 1996), 101) suggests that civilizations, like other historical communities, are 'in essence mythological'; of course, this is not an 'essence' at all in the sense which I have used the term here, but is more of a p/r stance.
52. Jan Willem Schulte Nordholt's The Myth of the West (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1995), Paul Dukes' World Order in History (London: Routledge, 1996), or Iver Neumann's Russia and the Idea of Europe (London: Routledge, 1996) are all examples of this kind of 'genealogical' p/r analysis. Along these lines, Sujata Chakrabarti Pasic ('Culturing International Relations Theory', in The Return of Culture and Identity in IR Theory, edited by Yosef Lapid and Friedrich Kratochwil (Boulder: Lynne Reinner, 1996), 101) suggests that civilizations, like other historical communities, are 'in essence mythological'; of course, this is not an 'essence' at all in the sense which I have used the term here, but is more of a p/r stance.
53. Jan Willem Schulte Nordholt's The Myth of the West (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1995), Paul Dukes' World Order in History (London: Routledge, 1996), or Iver Neumann's Russia and the Idea of Europe (London: Routledge, 1996) are all examples of this kind of 'genealogical' p/r analysis. Along these lines, Sujata Chakrabarti Pasic ('Culturing International Relations Theory', in The Return of Culture and Identity in IR Theory, edited by Yosef Lapid and Friedrich Kratochwil (Boulder: Lynne Reinner, 1996), 101) suggests that civilizations, like other historical communities, are 'in essence mythological'; of course, this is not an 'essence' at all in the sense which I have used the term here, but is more of a p/r stance.
54. Jan Willem Schulte Nordholt's The Myth of the West (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1995), Paul Dukes' World Order in History (London: Routledge, 1996), or Iver Neumann's Russia and the Idea of Europe (London: Routledge, 1996) are all examples of this kind of 'genealogical' p/r analysis. Along these lines, Sujata Chakrabarti Pasic ('Culturing International Relations Theory', in The Return of Culture and Identity in IR Theory, edited by Yosef Lapid and Friedrich Kratochwil (Boulder: Lynne Reinner, 1996), 101) suggests that civilizations, like other historical communities, are 'in essence mythological'; of course, this is not an 'essence' at all in the sense which I have used the term here, but is more of a p/r stance.
55. In fact, if this were not the case, neither Coker nor Lewis and Wigen could be particularly optimistic about their proposed replacements for 'civilizations', since both proposals amount to rearticulations of identities.
56. Imre Lakatos, The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978). I am not advocating that we adopt a rigourously Lakatosian stance in order to evaluate different approaches, but only suggesting that some of Lakatos' reflections on 'progress' might be of some use here.