Re: what do you say about Civilization in the following sense?

My web page at   csf.colorado.edu/agfrank/
contaions several items on civilization in the on-line essyas section.
the excecutive summary of these is that
there are NO civilizationS [plural] and never have been,
and the existence of civilizztioN- singular- is increasingly doubtful,
especially with the UK US claims to defend it.

gunder frank
On
Mon, 9 Jun 2003, Seyed Javad
wrote:

> Date: Mon, 09 Jun 2003 11:17:40 +0000
> From: Seyed Javad <seyedjavad@hotmail.com>
> To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu
> Subject: what do you say about Civilization in the following sense?
> 
> Greetings,
>  
> I have come to formulate the problem of Civilization in the context of
> dialogical dimension (in relation to modern themes and in connection to
> Muslim Intellectual Tradition) in the follwoing sense. What do you think?
>  
> 
> Let’s for the sake of this debate, settle for a ‘pragmatic definition’ of
> the term in order to be able to pave the way for the introduction of our
> modern themes in relation to Muslim thinkers in an intercivilizational
> perspective by assessing how they respectively respond to the uncertain
> quest of modernity on various accounts.
> 
> Before going any further, we need to clarify the use of the term
> 'pragmatic' in our definition. Broadly speaking, within philosophy and
> social theory, pragmatism stands for: a) the position that the content of
> a concept consists only in its practical applicability; b) the
> philosophical stance that truth consists not in correspondence with the
> facts but in successful coherence with experience. (Hillary Putnam,1995)
> However, here, we are not concerned with this philosophical position and
> its respective stances. On the contrary, by 'pragmatism', we mean a
> practical approach to the idea of 'civilization' which would render our
> overall project practically feasible. This practical definition would
> allow us to bring into a dialogue the position of Muslim Intellectual
> Tradition with the mainstream social theory based on and through thematic
> modern issues such as Sacred, Community, Secular, Sacred, Religion and
> Man. So, when we used the term 'pragmatic' in relation to our project we
> did not mean the philosophical approach, which embraces the work of C. S.
> Peirce, William James, John Dewey, or Mead. We mean simply a practical
> (feasible) approach to the problem of 'civilization' which is in
> accordance with the needs of our question, i.e. an inter-civilizational
> dialogue.
> 
> Although it is undeniable that civilization and civilizational patterns
> have been nurtured within the matrix of 'City' (Lewis Mumford,1973),
> nevertheless it is a mistake to equate one with the other fully and
> substantially. Because one is the quality of 'Soul' and refinement of
> human spirit which would not necessarily be confined to the framework of
> the 'City'. In confining the emergence of 'civility' (in its broadest
> sense) to the frame of citadel reference, one would run the risk to
> ignore the rich and depth of 'civility' (as understood by Clive Bell, who
> understood it as 1. An acquisition of self-consciousness and 2. A habit
> of reflection [1938. 41] ) which could have be borne outside cities (both
> historically and contemporary). One example would be sufficient to
> demonstrate the infeasibility of the essential connection between 'city'
> and 'the emergence of civility': the rise of 'violence' and the spread of
> modern city. Let me explain and explicate what I mean by the idea of
> civilization in dual sense.
> 
> The term civilization,  has been used by philosophers of history,
> anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists, literary critics,
> historians, economists, and archaeologists. Our aim is not to delineate
> the different stages and shades of meaning in the history of this term,
> we will simply offer a definition which would enable us to conduct our
> search along inter-civilizational dialogue.
> 
> The idea of civilization was first introduced by the French thinkers in
> the eighteenth century in order to distinguish between barbarism and a
> civilized society. (Huntington, 1996. 40) Three main criteria were
> introduced then to distinguish between a culture (a primitive society)
> and a civilization (a civilized society); 1. settled vs. nomad, 2. urban
> vs. rural, 3. literate vs. illiterate. If this is the case, then a
> civilization cannot be defined conclusively because the French approach
> seems to concentrate on how to distinguish the civilized from the
> uncivilized, whereas a culture may be perfectly civilized without being a
> civilization. Therefore, we need a definition of civilization, which is
> broader in its scope. If one examines past civilizations one will see
> that it is externally hard to distinguish them from cultures except that
> they are much broader and include more than one culture; hence, a
> civilization is in fact 'a universalized culture.' This means that a
> civilization is in the true sense a culture, which is no longer limited
> to its local and national confines. As such it begins to include within
> its boundaries many sub-cultures, all of which are very much colored by
> the foundational culture that has become an all-embracing culture, namely
> a civilization. It is possible to find such a culture in the ultimate
> analysis of every true civilization. Our definition of a civilization
> enables us to distinguish the following criteria for civilizations:
> universality; multi-culturality; having an official language that
> characterizes its literature, whether scientific or artistic. If a
> culture does not have these characteristics it cannot be called
> 'civilization'. It is clear that the most important aspect of a
> civilization is its universality; and in fact all other aspects can be
> reduced to this one. (Alparslan Acikgenc, 1998) This definition of
> 'civilization' would allow us to think beyond the Gibbonistic paradigm of
> civilizational singularity or Huntingtonian clashism. Our definition of a
> ci vilization enables us to discern and recognize the possibility of an
> inter-civilizational dialogue, which would ultimately render the promise
> of sociology a viable and attainable dream.
> 
>  
> 
> Kind Regards
> 
> 
> 
> 
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    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

               ANDRE    GUNDER      FRANK

Senior Fellow                                      Residence
World History Center                    One Longfellow Place
Northeastern University                            Apt. 3411
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Tel: 617 - 373 4060                     Fax:    617-948 2316
Web-page:csf.colorado.edu/agfrank/     e-mail:franka@fiu.edu

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