Alternative Right: THE ANTI-CIVILIZATION OF THE WEST

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THE ANTI-CIVILIZATION OF THE WEST

Originally published in the first issue of Radix. You can buy the second
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by Colin Liddell
In his book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the New World
Order (1996) Samuel P. Huntington put forward the thesis, popular with
large sections of the 'Right,' that the post-Cold-War world would be shaped
by its major civilizations and their interactions.

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RECOMMEN

For some it was the gently coded recognition of race that appealed, for others
it was the stigmatization of Islam as a rather unpleasant civilization that rang
true, so that the book became, for better or worse, a landmark of political
science. This makes it an ideal starting point for considering the topic of
civilizations in general and the problematic nature of the West in particular.
The book is well written in that it deploys supportive data for its theories in
the correct amounts and at reassuring intervals, but there is also an
extremely misshapen feel to Huntingdon's thesis that stems from the
following factors:

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1. Overemphasis on religion

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2. Questionable demarcation of civilizational boundaries

3. Superficial definition of civilization
4. Cowardice regarding race
5. Confusion about the true nature of THE WEST

Quibbles
The map showing the "World of Civilizations" in Huntingdon's book presents
nine civilizations, namely WESTERN, LATIN AMERICAN, AFRICAN,
ISLAMIC, SINIC (Chinese), HINDU (Indian), ORTHODOX (largely
Russian), BUDDHIST, and JAPANESE.
Huntingdon's scheme relies heavily on religion as a defining factor. This is
especially noticeable in his BUDDHIST 'civilization,' which includes such
disparate countries and climate zones as Thailand, Tibet, and Mongolia,
three countries that have little in common except for the fact that they are
Buddhist. Given their relative unimportance, it would perhaps have been
more elegant to have simply included them as peripheral regions of SINIC
civilization.
Religion is also the unacknowledged basis for his WESTERN civilization,
which throws together Catholic and Protestant countries, while strangely
excluding heavily Europeanized parts of South America and Africa. Given the
widespread lack of faith in most of THE WEST, this seems odd. Religion also
allows him to divide Russia and its satellites from THE WEST with Greece
thrown in as a kind of going away present! Another major problem is INDIA.
Just as American maps of the world have two Indias, one on each side, so
Huntingdon seems to think there are two, allocating the whole country to
both the ISLAMIC and HINDU civilizations.

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Huntingdon makes a strong case for the inherent aggressiveness of ISLAMIC

civilization, based on the number of intra-civilizational and intercivilizational conflicts [p.256-258]. This is something that has given the book
Neo-Con appeal, but there are other obvious explanations for this
aggression, like Islam's comparative lack of political unity and the fact that it
borders more civilisations than other civilizations.

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One of the weaknesses of Huntingdon's book is that he is never clear about

what a civilization actually is. His best definition comes on page 43, but is
sketchy and subjective:
"A civilization is the broadest cultural entity. Villages, regions,
ethnic groups, nationalities, religious groups, all have distinct
cultures at different levels of cultural heterogeneity... A
civilization is thus the highest cultural grouping of people and
the broadest level of cultural identity people have short of that
which distinguishes humans from other species Civilizations are
the biggest 'we' within which we feel culturally at home as
distinguished from all the other 'thems' out there."
The key point in this definition is that a civilization is something that people
"feel" comfortable belonging to. Rather than just being a member of the
same civilization that your parents were part of, it is now far more important
how you feel about it.
This effectively turns 'civilization' into an expression of late 20th-century
consumerism. Your civilization could almost be something you pick off the
shelf, like a pack of soap powder. Needless to say, following this principle in

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practice would cause havoc with Huntingdon's civilizational map.

The reason Huntingdon favours religion as the civilizational 'sorting hat' is
that it loosely reflects race and therefore gives his thesis a quality readers can
empathize with, but also allows him to avoid mentioning the dreaded
R-word itself quite literally, as the book's index has no mention of "race" or
its equivalents!
The idea of distinct zonal civilizations, however, is implicitly racial because
such civilizations can only emerge through a degree of sustained
demographic stability. Left-wing critics of Huntingdon realize this and have
concentrated their attacks on this point.

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To talk about WESTERN CIVILIZATION as Huntingdon does, is to slyly

evoke the idea of Western European man. WESTERN CIVILIZATION is how
the phrase THE WHITE RACE is whispered in the modern, politically
correct era. Huntingdon knew this and this is why this book has been so
successful, but he also knew that he could not make this explicit. As a
successful academic and part of the establishment he had to maintain
deniability. His slyness was his cowardice.

The Uniqueness of the West

But enough about quibbles! The book's main weakness lies at its very heart,
in the idea that the WEST is just another civilization, and an old one at that,
dating from around the time of Charlemagne, according to Huntingdon.
Huntingdon often admits that the WEST is unique among civilizations, but
he fails to proceed to the next logical step, i.e. considering whether the WEST
is in fact something entirely different:
"The West obviously differs from all other civilizations that have
ever existed in that it has had an overwhelming impact on all
other civilizations that have existed since 1500. It also
inaugurated the process of modernization and industrialization
that have become worldwide, and as a result societies in all
other civilizations have been attempting to catch up with the
West in wealth and modernity. Do these characteristics of the

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