Re: dialogue of civilizations?

Dear WSN, 

To add my own input on the “Civilization”/”civilization(s)” discussion.  We do need to clarify some concepts and terminology on this issue.

It seems to me that Frank, et al, are very right in their not liking the word “civilization” because of its ideological baggage and problematic implications (ala Samuel Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations”).  I agree; the word/concept has a bad history in this regard.  But, I do think the principle behind it (in part) is a good one if we understand “civilization” to mean a ‘super societal communicative system [or “culture” if one prefers] which ties together a group of regionally spread societies.’  This is the way philosopher of history, Christopher Dawson described it.  (Unfortunately, Dawson also reverts back to the ideological notion of civilizations in his analysis of the concept.)

I think we’re so used to defining “cultures” and “civilizations”, it seems to me, in terms of population groups that we often forget that what we’re talking about should not be discussed/represented in demographic terms [picture a dot diagram representing numbers of people] but as a grouping or enumeration of values, principles, ideals (crystallized largely – though certainly not completely - through a people’s language, literature, social-political-economic parlance, and philosophy).  (Picture a list of special concepts, catch phrases, and slogans used in a given society X –> these terms embody but, albeit, can’t fully capture the values/ideals of such a society; still they project a rough outline of them within their written forms)

The problem persists, however, when the inevitable question (‘how does one determine when a particular idea is “in”-and-part-of a given society or “out” of that society [ and “in” another]?) is asked (to borrow Professor Frank’s notion of  “in” and “out” regarding societies, cultures, and civilizations in human experience).  I can’t claim to solve that dilemma, even by using the documentation I described above to help outline a human population’s set of values & principles.  There’s so much cross-cultural give-and-take among groups of people (“societies” and “civilizations”) that all one can do loosely is: to look closely in history at instances where people seem to be identifying themselves with particular ideas and superficially make the claim that those ideas belong to their culture or civilization.

Complicating factors to this include:  the origin of an idea probably comes from another society or culture – another human pop. different from the one identifying with the term and making it a part of its own culture , etymology of a word may have changed enough over time that its cultural context changes – to the point that the ideal being identified with in a certain period of history isn’t the same as when the word was coined and its concept/value originated.

SO, in lieu of  “civilizations” and “culture”, what are the better terms or concepts to use  when we discuss communicative networks and idea exchanges in human events?  I look forward to your responses.

Luke Rondinaro

 

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