To begin with, all the societies in the world do share certain common basic values and ideas with regards to good & evil, social structure and morality (just to quote a few). These values and ideas have existed in various human civilizations even when they were not in contact with each other. Is this the Universal Civilization we are talking about? If it is then what explains the differences and changes in the human behavior over the time with these values intact? This may explain some constants in the human behavior but it cannot explain the documented human history.
The reason for this unclear stand on this matter is that the humanity is divided into several subgroups - tribes, nations, continents and, more broadly, civilizations. There is no term beyond Civilization for the common culture of the humanity. Hence, we are indeed different.
Last few years have seen emergence of terms such as ‘global civilization’ and ‘world citizen’ further emphasizing the idea of a Universal Civilization. If we look at it more carefully we discover that the term Universal Civilization is used to refer to what the (already) civilized societies have in common. It contains elements that distinguish them from primitive societies and barbarians. Or more precisely, this term refers to the Western ideas and popular culture around the world. This is not uncommon. Transfer of skills, technologies and cultural fads amongst civilizations has been very regular throughout history. This can either have permanent effect (if imposed) or it can pass without altering the receptor civilizations (if received by will) and can help in value addition.
West has been the most dominant civilization in the world for almost 300 years. The ideas and concepts that are projected to be noble and ethical today may not have been so in the history. The dominant civilizations always end up imposing their ideas and schools of thoughts to the other civilizations – willingly or unwillingly. Universal Civilization is one such idea developed by the west and contrary to popular belief this idea is centuries old. In the late 19th century the idea of “the white man’s burden” started and even justified the extension of Western powers’ military, political and economic domination. And by the end of 20th century when this domination began to cease (at a superficial level) this concept of Universal Civilization helps justify Western cultural dominance (though the power shifted from Europe to America but it still remained with the West) of other countries and societies and the need for those societies to ape Western ideas, practices and institutions. Dominance of one particular civilization is not unprecedented. Hindu, Sinic and Islamic civilizations have seen their golden periods. But what is different or special about the dominance of Western civilization? Let’s analyze the facts and reasons.
First, there has been only one civilization in recent times that has been able to challenge the dominance of the West and that is the Soviet. The collapse of the Soviet communism, after 5 decades of the Cold War, meant the end of history and victory of liberalism and democracy (two of West’s most favorite ideas) throughout the world. But if we come to think of it, this argument has an inherent fallacy. This argument implies that the sole alternative to Communism is Liberal democracy which, principally, is not true. It would be unwise to assume that since the Soviet communism has been defeated, the other non-western civilizations (mainly Indian, Chinese and Islamic) will embrace the Western liberalism as the only alternative. The cold war division maybe over but (a much older) religious and ethnic divide still remains.
Second, never before in the history of mankind a dominant civilization has been able to spread its ideology as effectively as today. The reason – unprecedented increase in interaction among people via media, trade, tourism and electronic communication–generating a common world (western) culture and perhaps everyone is aware of this. What most people do not realize is that this increase in interaction among people of different societies and exchange of ideas and information may become the reason for the decline of the Western dominance. All of these (in modern times) are basically Western ideas and they have the taken the West where it is today. If this information is shared with other civilizations it can used to reverse the process. As we can see that today the terrorists across the world are using the western inventions like electronic devices and sophisticated weapons against the West itself. Anyhow, it is difficult to predict the result of this event.
Third, emergence of a Universal Civilization results from the process of modernization. The western definition of modernization has elements such as industrialization, literacy, wealth, urbanization and technology. The idea of modernization has indeed been revolutionary for all of mankind and since the West was the pioneer it further emphasizes its dominance. No other civilization in the history has been able to bring about such a paradigm shift.
Responses to Modernization
The West has always promoted the idea that Westernization and modernization enjoy a linear relationship. No part of the world has been untouched by this idea but there have been several forms of responses to the above mentioned idea. Embrace both, reject both or embrace the first and reject the second. The adjoining diagram explains the alternative responses to the impact of west.*
A: Refers to the rejectionist attitude. It was, in past, followed by the Japanese civilization. Only limited forms of modernizations were permitted especially those which added to its military strength. It came to an end by the forcible opening up of Japan to the west by Commodore Perry in 1854 followed by Meiji Restoration in 1868. Similar school of thought was followed by the Chinese before the Opium war of 1839. After improvement in the transportation and communication facilities in the early 20th century it became increasingly difficult to reject westernization and yet modernize.
A ->B: This would refer to the response more commonly referred to by the historians as Kemalist, with reference to the Mustafa Kemal Ataturk of Turkey. He was a strong supporter of the western idea of westernization and modernization going hand in hand and that they reinforce each other. The idea talks of the western attitude of “if you want to modernize you have to be like us”. This was hardly racial, in fact it was genuine viewpoint of the western intellectuals that the religious and social structures of every non-western society is in some form hostile to industrialization and economic development and hence modernization. In fact this is the attitude we see in most of the modern world countries today. But how long will it last?
A->C: It points towards the reformist idea in which a civilization neither has to isolate itself nor does it have to destroy its own culture in order to modernize. This refers to the idea of modernization sans westernization. The perfect example of this would be modern day China and to some extent India. The fact that these are the two of World’s largest growing economies implies that this idea can be extremely successful in the future and can be adopted by other non-western societies. This, in short, points to the decline of western dominance in the future.
A->D: This is perhaps the most unfortunate process “westernization without modernization”. Modern day examples include mainly the African countries which were duly westernized during the imperialistic period but were never modernized post-independence, unlike Asian countries, owing to several internal political conflicts.
A->E: This curve mainly refers to the idea of absorbing westernization in order to modernize initially. In the later phases, modernization would promote de-westernization. There are no prominent examples for this response but this is the response which will be most famous and widespread in the future especially in the already modernized non-western societies (China, India, Japan and parts of South America).
In short, modernization does not necessarily mean Westernization. There have been examples of non-western societies modernizing without having to abandon their own culture. Modernization, in fact, strengthens these indigenous cultures and reduces the relative power of the west. If we look at the big picture, the world is becoming more modern and less western.
____________________________________________________________________* Adopted from Samuel P. Huntington's The clash of civilzations and remaking of the world order.
