JUNE 15, 2020， The Attack Of The Civilization State
https://www.noemamag.com/the-attack-of-the-civilization-state/?
A world society seemed to be advancing. But then the civilization state struck back.
21世紀世界新秩序：民族國家與文明國家
https://www.fairobserver.com/world-news/new-21st- century-world-order-nation-state-vs-civilizational-state/
美國總統喬·拜登提出了獨裁與民主的範式，中國國家主席習近平
作者：詹姆斯·M·多爾西
@mideastsoccer 2023 年 5 月 14 日
美國賓夕法尼亞州費城，2016年7月27日，副總統約瑟夫·拜登在民主黨全國提名大會上發表講話。
美國總統喬·拜登將烏克蘭戰爭定位為獨裁與民主之間的戰爭。 這減少了戰爭中的利害關係。 這些利害關係構成了 21 世紀世界新秩序的基本組成部分：國家的本質。
俄羅斯對烏克蘭的入侵標誌著一批從文明而非國家角度思考的世界領導人崛起的急劇終結。 他們想象自己國家的觀念和/或物理邊界是由曆史、種族、文化和/或宗教而不是國際法定義的。
這種主張常常涉及否認他人的存在以及獨裁或獨裁統治。 因此，當俄羅斯總統弗拉基米爾·普京宣稱俄羅斯人和烏克蘭人是一個民族，為自己入侵烏克蘭的行為辯護時，他得到了很好的支持。 換句話說，烏克蘭人作為一個民族並不存在。
在中國國家主席習近平的心目中，台灣或南海其他沿岸國家的海洋權利也不是這樣的。 或者是以色列總理本雅明·內塔尼亞胡的聯盟夥伴眼中的巴勒斯坦人。 優越性和例外論是土耳其總統雷傑普·塔伊普·埃爾多安、印度總理納倫德拉·莫迪、匈牙利總理維克多·歐爾班和內塔尼亞胡等人的指導原則。
2018年，以色列議會通過了一項有爭議的基本法，將以色列定義為猶太人民的民族國家。 “與以色列的《獨立宣言》相反，民族國家法律被視為尊奉猶太人的優越性和阿拉伯人的劣勢，以犧牲以色列的民主特征為代價來支持以色列的猶太特征，”記者卡羅萊納·蘭茲曼 (Carolina Landsmann) 說。
以色列猶太複國主義宗教作家埃胡德·尼奧爾 (Ehud Neor) 認為，“以色列不是西方意義上的民族國家。 這是聖經預言的實現，即猶太人應該永遠生活在聖地並遵循神聖的托拉，通過這樣做，他們將成為世界之光。 猶太教有一個全球使命。”
同樣，埃爾多安將土耳其描述為“dünyan?n vicdan?”，即世界的良心，這個概念構成了他對國際合作和發展援助的預測。 “土耳其被描繪成一個慷慨的族長，追隨奧斯曼帝國（特別仁慈的解讀）的腳步，照顧那些有需要的人——重要的是，包括那些據稱被其他人遺忘的人。 與被描述為自私的西方做法形成鮮明對比的是，土耳其的利他主義伴隨著穆斯林慈善和團結的文明框架，讓人想起奧斯曼帝國的宏偉，”學者塞巴斯蒂安·豪格和蘇普裏亞·羅伊喬杜裏說。
在學術比較中，豪格和羅伊喬杜裏將埃爾多安的土耳其例外論概念與莫迪的“vishwaguru”概念進行了比較。 這一概念建立在 19 世紀印度教領袖斯瓦米·維韋卡南達 (Swami Vivekananda) 的哲學之上。 “他對印度教的詮釋，就像甘地的印度教融合思想一樣，表麵上支持寬容和多元化。 通過這一框架和類似的框架，采用據稱受甘地啟發的融合印度教話語使莫迪在政治上與（印度民族主義領袖賈瓦哈拉爾）尼赫魯的世俗主義文明話語保持距離，”兩位學者表示。 “但與此同時，莫迪的文明話語及其對印度教優越性的無可爭議的信念，已開始支撐國際論壇上的官方言論，”他們補充道。
普京在2022年2月入侵烏克蘭前不到一年發表的一篇5000字的文章重寫了曆史，將這個前蘇聯共和國描繪成一個反俄羅斯的產物，其合法性的基礎是抹去“團結我們的一切”。 並預測“烏克蘭是俄羅斯帝國和蘇聯占領時期的一部分”。
在這樣做的過程中，普京創造了文明主義領導人經常使用的理由，以一種更靈活的國家概念來擴展或取代以國際法為基礎的硬邊界所定義的民族國家概念，即一個具有由曆史、種族和文化劃分的外部邊界的國家概念。 和/或宗教，以及區分其優越或特殊文明與其他文明的內部界限。
文明主義有多種目的。 維護所謂的文明權利並抵禦生存威脅有助於為獨裁和獨裁統治辯護。
被中國旗艦報紙《環球時報》稱為“Xivilization”
共產黨、習近平重新定義了文明，將專製納入其中。 今年 3 月，習近平在來自 150 個國家的 500 個政黨參加的北京會議上公布了他的全球文明倡議。
該倡議旨在針對西方促進民主和人權的努力，表明如果不同文明不將自己的價值觀投射到全球，它們就可以和諧共處。 “換句話說，”《經濟學人》打趣道，“西方應該學會與中國共產主義共存。 它可能是基於馬克思主義這一西方理論，但它也是中國古代文化的成果。” 習近平在拜登共同主持虛擬民主峰會幾天前發起了他的倡議。
相當數量的世界領導人對文明國家概念的主張，與總部位於印度尼西亞的世界上最大、最溫和的穆斯林公民社會運動“烏拉瑪”(Nahdlatul Ulama) 所提倡的民族國家作為伊斯蘭法的替代品形成了鮮明的對比。 全球穆斯林社區的哈裏發國、統一國家的文明主義概念。
豪格和羅伊喬杜裏通過對埃爾多安領導下的土耳其和莫迪領導下的印度進行比較得出結論，認為文明主義主張服務於“兩個截然不同但相互關聯的政治項目：試圖克服國際邊緣化和努力加強國內獨裁統治。”
與拜登一樣，習近平和其他文明主義領導人也在爭奪塑造未來世界秩序及其基本理念的鬥爭中的製高點。 拜登的獨裁與民主範式是這場鬥爭的一部分。 但治理體係是純粹政治的還是純粹文明的問題也是如此。 對於民主國家來說，解決這個問題可能更具決定性。
本文表達的觀點是作者自己的觀點，並不一定反映公平觀察家的編輯政策。
文明國家的攻擊
https://www.noemamag.com/the-attack-of-the-civilization-state/?
世界社會似乎正在進步。 但隨後文明國家進行了反擊。
作者：布魯諾·馬塞斯 2020 年 6 月 15 日
布魯諾·馬薩埃斯 (Bruno Maçães) 於 2013 年至 2015 年擔任葡萄牙負責歐洲事務的國務秘書，現任富林特全球 (Flint Global) 高級顧問和歐洲外交關係委員會成員。 他最近的兩本書是《曆史已經開始》和《末世地緣政治》。
三四年前，當我開車繞北京拜訪官員和知識分子時，我不斷聽到同樣的信息。 根據我的經驗，中國知識分子或官員唯一應該按字麵意思理解的時刻是他或她送客人上車的時候。 周圍沒有人，也沒有時間評論，一句話就能說明一切。 我聽到的一句話是：“永遠記住，中國是一個文明，而不是一個民族國家。”
這並不是一個新想法——遠非如此。 這也不是中國人的想法。 但在獲得官方認可後，這一概念被用來傳達一個重要但常常被忽視的信息：中國注定要被西方政治社會模式同化的神話已經結束。 從此，中國人將走自己的“Sonderweg”——特殊的道路。 有中國特色的進步。
作為一個文明國家，中國是圍繞文化而非政治組織起來的。 國家與文明息息相關，其首要任務是保護特定的文化傳統。 它的影響範圍涵蓋了該文化占主導地位的所有地區。
在我與印度執政黨印度人民黨總書記拉姆·馬達夫的談話中，這個概念的重要性變得更加明顯。 在德裏舉行的一次會議後，他解釋說：“從現在開始，亞洲將統治世界，這改變了一切，因為在亞洲，我們擁有的是文明，而不是國家。”
這些變化的具體性質並未提及。 一個直接的影響是僑民的作用。 納倫德拉·莫迪總理領導下的新印度將加強與美洲、英國和海灣地區等地的大量印度僑民的聯係。 為什麽不聲稱 V.S. 例如，奈保爾作為印度作家？ 奈保爾出生於特立尼達和多巴哥，就讀於牛津大學，並在倫敦度過了大半生。 但那又怎樣——他表達了印度文明的感受和思維方式。
“與文明息息相關，中國國家的首要任務是保護特定的文化傳統。
對於一個文明國家來說，文化聯係可能比單純的公民法律地位更重要。 正如印度最近的《公民身份修正案》所表明的那樣，文化甚至可能決定誰可以獲得印度公民身份。 該法案為來自巴基斯坦、孟加拉國和阿富汗的移民提供了快速入籍通道，但如果他們是穆斯林，則不然。 這與該國日益流行的意識形態相一致：雖然你不必成為印度教徒才能成為印度人，但你確實需要了解、尊重甚至欽佩印度教的方式。
通過確認印度是一個文明國家，莫迪政府正在將反對派——印度國大黨——托付給一支西方化力量的危險角色，意圖用外國體係的標準來衡量印度的成功。 國大黨提出的世俗主義和世界主義思想太過明顯，無需太多辯護，但它們被視為印度必須擺脫的文化輸入。 奈保爾曾將印度稱為一個受傷的文明，他的觀點也許有道理，但當代印度是一個受傷的文明正在重新展現自己。 民族國家是西方的發明，自然容易受到西方的影響。 文明是西方的替代品。
印度人民黨在 2019 年印度大選中大獲全勝，在議會下院又獲得了 300 多個席位，這表明這種態度的力量有多麽強大。 正如政治理論家普拉塔普·巴努·梅塔（Pratap Bhanu Mehta）所說，莫迪能夠說服選民，他們應該起來反對主要由英國化精英組成的權力結構，並且西方的寬容哲學已成為蔑視印度教的象征和做法。 。 曾經有一段時間，自由主義哲學幾乎在所有地方都受到認真對待。 許多曾經被稱為“第三世界”的獨立運動完全讚同它，並使用人權和法治的語言來反對歐洲殖民者。
穆納西為 Noema 雜誌拍攝
現在正在發生的轉變可以說是更深層次、更徹底的。 文明國家的捍衛者指責西方政治理念是騙局，在所謂的中立原則的幌子下掩蓋其起源，他們是在說，對普世價值的探索已經結束，我們所有人都必須接受這樣的事實：我們隻代表自己的利益說話。 我們自己和我們的社會
。
文明國家的世界就是自然的政治世界。 想想國家是如何建立和擴張的。 如果一個國家已經發展出一種成功的模式來組織社會關係和集體權力，它就會傾向於吸收其鄰國。 隨著新的財富形式的擴展和集中，社會生活將變得越來越複雜。 神話將會被創造，藝術和科學將會繁榮。 在它的管轄範圍內，一些可能性將被打開，而另一些可能性則被無可挽回地關閉。 一種生活方式——一種看待世界和解釋人類狀況的方式——將會發展。 在領域之外，其他國家也會提供替代方案，但由於這些替代方案又是不同的思維方式和生活方式，因此國家與文明共存，並從屬於文明形式。
現代西方打破了這種模式。 從以往的情況來看，西方政治社會的科學野心奇怪地錯位了。 他們希望自己的政治價值觀得到普遍接受，就像科學理論具有普遍有效性一樣。 為了實現這一目標——我們將有機會懷疑它是否曾經實現過——需要在抽象和簡化方麵付出巨大的努力。
“民族國家是西方的發明，自然容易受到西方的影響。 文明是西方的替代品。”
西方文明將成為獨一無二的文明。 準確地說，它根本不是一個文明，而是更接近於一個操作係統。 它不會體現豐富的傳統和習俗，也不會追求宗教教義或願景。 它的原則是廣泛而正式的，隻不過是一個可以探索不同文化可能性的抽象框架。 西方價值觀植根於寬容和民主，因此並不代表一種特定的生活方式與另一種生活方式相對立。 寬容和民主不會告訴你如何生活——它們會建立程序，根據這些程序，這些重大問題可能會在以後得到解決。
由於這就是文明國家的定義——促進和捍衛一種生活方式，反對所有其他選擇——現代西方政治社會必須發明一種新的政治形式。 所捍衛的價值觀本應成為普遍的，但在實踐中，世界國家的理念從來都不是很受歡迎。 畢竟，這些普世價值具有足夠的普遍性，為實施差異留下了充足的空間。 而且它們太抽象了，很多問題都沒有解決，需要根據當地情況采取不同的方式來決定。
民族國家的概念允許一定程度的多樣性，但普世價值仍然旨在提供每個國家自我統治的憲法框架。 這些普世價值代表著對文明國家的否定，並肯定了嚐試不同生活方式的自由。 但如果被廣泛接受，它們可以幫助建立全球機構和規則，減少國家衝突的可能性。 在過去的幾十年裏，世界國家仍然是一個烏托邦，但世界社會似乎在進步。
“通過指責西方政治理念是騙局，文明國家的捍衛者們表明對普世價值的探索已經結束。”
但隨後文明國家進行了反擊。 西方普遍主義的問題是雙重的。 首先，對於生活在亞洲或非洲的許多人來說，西方價值觀似乎隻是眾多選擇中的一種。 傳統生活方式可以在自由社會中得到保留的承諾是一個致命的自負。 如果土耳其、中國或俄羅斯引進整套西方價值觀和規則，他們的社會很快就會成為西方的翻版，並失去文化獨立性。 盡管這一過程被視為現代化的必要代價，但文化同化仍保持著其威望。 但最近，人們越來越懷疑是否真的有必要模仿西方國家才能獲得現代社會的所有好處。 還有第二個困難：西方的價值觀和規範仍然需要解釋和執行，而西方最強大的國家總是把這項任務交給自己。
值得注意的是，在印度這樣一個成功的民主國家中解決的每一個有爭議的問題都應該由西方政治和知識權威對其合法性進行最終確定。 似乎沒有人認真對待《印度教徒報》的一篇社論可以解決這個問題的可能性，但紐約、華盛頓或倫敦的主要報紙很樂意承擔這項任務。 文化同化意味著政治依賴。
穆納西為 Noema 雜誌拍攝
從表麵上看，如果說我們回到了文明國家的世界，那麽根本原因就是世界文明觀念的崩潰。 美國政治學家塞繆爾·亨廷頓從
認識到這一點，他在《文明的衝突》一書中最鮮明的段落之一指出，“普世文明的概念有助於證明西方對其他社會的文化主導地位以及這些社會模仿西方實踐和製度的必要性。” 普世主義是西方對抗其他文化的意識形態。 亨廷頓認為，自然地，西方以外的每個人都應該將同一個世界的想法視為一種威脅。
我相信亨廷頓是對的，但隻對了一半。 確實，俄羅斯、中國、印度和許多其他國家的人們越來越多地通過不同的棱鏡來看待西方文明的概念，將其視為眾多文明中的一種，沒有特別聲稱具有普遍性。 這本身隻是一種智力決定。 接下來的問題更為重要：如果西方認為有權利用國家權力的所有工具——在許多情況下甚至是軍事力量——來追求其特定的願景，為什麽其他國家不應該這樣做呢？ 為什麽他們不應該圍繞自己的美好生活理念建立一個國家，一個背後有整個文明的國家？ 無論如何，他們的野心都比較溫和——他們隻是眾多選擇中的一種。
亨廷頓沒有看到的是，西方對世界文明的自負並沒有消失。 我們還沒有回到哈布斯堡王朝、奧斯曼帝國和莫臥兒王朝的世界——甚至沒有回到電視播出的《權力的遊戲》的時代。 我們的世界是一個徹底現代化和科技化的世界，距離不再足以將文明分開，邊界已成為過去的影子。 在這個世界上，不同文明在實踐上是共通的，但在願望上卻是共通的。 它們很可能會爭奪全球權力，但它們都屬於一個共同的、日益一體化的政治和經濟格局。
“歐洲可能確信它正在建設一個普世文明。 事實證明，它隻是在構建自己的產品。”
文明國家的回歸給西方帶來了一個棘手的問題。 請記住，在很大程度上，西方社會為了普遍的計劃而犧牲了自己的特定文化。 在這些社會中，人們再也找不到古老的傳統和習俗，也找不到美好生活的願景。 他們的價值觀告訴我們可以做什麽，但對我們應該做什麽卻保持沉默。 還有一個問題，在歐洲尤其尖銳：既然我們已經犧牲了自己的文化傳統來為整個地球創建一個通用框架，那麽我們現在是否應該是唯一采用它的國家？
反應各不相同。 歐洲有些人——用一個流行的術語來說，就是民粹主義者——想要讓時光倒流，恢複傳統基督教社會的健康內容。 但更多人相信，即使世界其他地區走不同的道路，現代世俗歐洲文明的核心仍然有效。 歐盟正在被重新配置為一個文明國家，一個聚集了所有以特定價值體係生活的人的政治實體，並使用政治工具來保護歐洲文明免受敵人的攻擊。 通用規則框架可以為了不同的目的而進行翻新。 以前，它意味著接受世界上每一種文化，但現在它是一種特定生活方式的根源：不拘一格、自由、超然、審美。 歐洲自由主義擺脫了對日益抽象和稀薄的規則框架的承諾，可以專注於發展其自身所包含的具體可能性。 這主要是藝術家、作家和技術人員的工作。
歐洲可能確信它正在建設一個普世文明。 事實證明，它隻是在構建自己的產品。 承認這一事實將是困難和痛苦的，但這似乎是不可避免的。 我第一次注意到這種轉變是在歐洲政客開始聲稱歐洲是世界上最適合居住的地方時。他們不再捍衛民主或人權等普世價值觀，而是越來越多地捍衛一種生活方式，反對任何替代方案——與其他選擇的競爭 贏家和輸家。 這個希望超越文明邏輯的大陸非常接近於皈依文明邏輯，美國也是如此。 當這種情況發生時，文明國家將取得徹底的勝利。
New 21st Century World Order: Nation State vs Civilizational State
https://www.fairobserver.com/world-news/new-21st-century-world-order-nation-state-vs-civilizational-state/
US President Joe Biden has put forth the autocracy vs. democracy paradigm. Chinese President Xi Jinping
@mideastsoccer MAY 14, 2023
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, July 27, 2016 Vice President Joseph Biden delivers his speech from at the podium at the Democratic National Nominating Convention.
US President Joe Biden positions the Ukraine war as a battle between autocracy and democracy. That reduces what is at stake in the war. The stakes constitute a fundamental building block of a new 21st-century world order: the nature of the state.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine represents the sharp end of the rise of a critical mass of world leaders who think in civilizational rather than national terms. They imagine the ideational and/or physical boundaries of their countries as defined by history, ethnicity, culture, and/or religion rather than international law.
Often that assertion involves denial of the existence of the other and authoritarian or autocratic rule. As a result, Russian President Vladimir Putin is in good company when he justifies his invasion of Ukraine by asserting that Russians and Ukrainians are one people. In other words, Ukrainians as a nation do not exist.
Neither do the Taiwanese or maritime rights of other littoral states in the South China Sea in the mind of Chinese President Xi Jinping. Or Palestinians in the vision of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s coalition partners. Superiority and exceptionalism are guiding principles for men like Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, India’s Narendra Modi, Hungary’s Victor Orban, and Netanyahu.
In 2018, the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, adopted a controversial basic law defining Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people. “Contrary to Israel’s Declaration of Independence, the nation-state law was seen as enshrining Jewish superiority and Arab inferiority, as bolstering Israel’s Jewish character at the expense of its democratic character, ” said journalist Carolina Landsmann.
Israeli religious Zionist writer Ehud Neor argued that “Israel is not a nation-state in Western terms. It’s a fulfillment of Biblical prophecy that Jewish people were always meant to be in the Holy Land and to follow the Holy Torah, and by doing so, they would be a light unto the world. There is a global mission to Judaism.”
Similarly, Erdogan describes Turkey as “dünyan?n vicdan?,” the world’s conscience, a notion that frames his projection of international cooperation and development assistance. “Turkey is presented as a generous patriarch following in the steps of (a particularly benevolent reading of) the Ottoman empire, taking care of those in need—including, importantly, those who have allegedly been forgotten by others. In explicit contrast to Western practices described as self-serving, Turkish altruism comes with the civilizational frame of Muslim charity and solidarity reminiscent of Ottoman grandeur,” said scholars Sebastian Haug and Supriya Roychoudhury.
In an academic comparison, Haug and Roychoudhury compare Erdogan’s notion of Turkish exceptionalism with Modi’s concept of “vishwaguru.” The concept builds on the philosophy of 19th-century Hindu leader Swami Vivekananda. “His rendition of Hinduism, like Gandhian Hindu syncretic thought, ostensibly espouses tolerance and pluralism. With this and similar framings, the adoption of an allegedly Gandhi-inspired syncretic Hindu discourse enables Modi to distance himself politically from the secularist civilizational discourse of (Indian nationalist leader Jawaharlal) Nehru,” the two scholars said. “At the same time, though, Modi’s civilizational discourse, with its indisputable belief in the superiority of Hinduism, has begun to underpin official rhetoric in international forums,” they added.
In a rewrite of history, Putin, in a 5,000-word article published less than a year before the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, portrayed the former Soviet republic as an anti-Russian creation that grounded its legitimacy in erasing “everything that united us” and projecting “the period when Ukraine was part of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union as an occupation.”
In doing so, Putin created the justification civilizationalist leaders often apply to either expand or replace the notion of a nation-state defined by hard borders anchored in international law with a more fluid concept of a state with external boundaries demarcated by history, ethnicity, culture, and/or religion, and internal boundaries that differentiate its superior or exceptional civilization from the other.
Civilizationalism serves multiple purposes. Asserting alleged civilizational rights and fending off existential threats help justify authoritarian and autocratic rule.
Dubbed Xivilisation by Global Times, a flagship newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, Xi has redefined civilisation to incorporate autocracy. In March, Xi unveiled his Global Civilization Initiative at a Beijing conference of 500 political parties from 150 countries.
Taking a stab at the Western promotion of democracy and human rights, the initiative suggests that civilisations can live in harmony if they refrain from projecting their values globally. “In other words, ” quipped The Economist, “the West should learn to live with Chinese communism. It may be based on Marxism, a Western theory, but it is also the fruit of China’s ancient culture.” Xi launched his initiative days before Biden co-hosted a virtual Summit for Democracy.
The assertion by a critical mass of world leaders of notions of a civilisational state contrasts starkly with the promotion by Nahdlatul Ulama, the world’s Indonesia-based largest and most moderate Muslim civil society movement, of the nation-state as the replacement in Islamic law of the civilizationalist concept of a caliphate, a unitary state, for the global Muslim community.
Drawing conclusions from their comparison of Erdogan’s Turkey and Modi’s India, Haug and Roychoudhury concluded that civilizationalist claims serve “two distinct but interrelated political projects: attempts to overcome international marginalization and efforts to reinforce authoritarian rule domestically.”
Like Biden, Xi and other civilizationalist leaders are battling for the high ground in a struggle to shape the future world order and its underlying philosophy. Biden’s autocracy vs. democracy paradigm is part of that struggle. But so is the question of whether governance systems are purely political or civilizational. Addressing that question could prove far more decisive for democracies.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.
The Attack Of The Civilization State
https://www.noemamag.com/the-attack-of-the-civilization-state/?
A world society seemed to be advancing. But then the civilization state struck back.
Three or four years ago, as I drove around Beijing visiting officials and intellectuals, I kept hearing the same message. In my experience, the only moment when a Chinese intellectual or official should be taken literally is when he or she is walking a guest to the car. With no one around and no time to add any commentary, a single sentence can speak volumes. And the sentence I was hearing was this: “Always remember that China is a civilization rather than a nation-state.”
This is not a new idea — far from it. Nor is it a Chinese idea. But having received official sanction, the concept was being used to convey an important and often ignored message: The myth that China is destined to be assimilated to a Western model of political society is over. From now on, the Chinese would be treading their own “Sonderweg” — special path. Progress with Chinese characteristics.
As a civilization state, China is organized around culture rather than politics. Linked to a civilization, the state has the paramount task of protecting a specific cultural tradition. Its reach encompasses all the regions where that culture is dominant.
The importance of this concept became more obvious to me in India during a conversation with Ram Madhav, the general secretary of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. After a conference in Delhi, he explained: “From now on, Asia will rule the world, and that changes everything because in Asia, we have civilizations rather than nations.”
The exact nature of those changes was left unsaid. One immediate implication is the role of the diaspora. The new India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi would be tightening ties with the large Indian diaspora in the Americas, Great Britain and the Gulf, among other places. Why not claim V.S. Naipaul as an Indian writer, for example? Naipaul was born in Trinidad and Tobago, went to Oxford and lived most of his life in London. But so what — he expresses the Indian civilization’s ways of feeling and thinking.
“Linked to a civilization, the Chinese state has the paramount task of protecting a specific cultural tradition.
For a civilization state, cultural ties are potentially more important than the mere legal status of citizenship. As India’s recent Citizenship Amendment Act exemplifies, culture may even determine who can acquire Indian citizenship. The bill fast-tracks citizenship for immigrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan — but not if they are Muslim. This is in line with what the ruling ideology in the country increasingly suggests: While you do not have to be Hindu to be an Indian, you do need to know, respect and perhaps even admire the Hindu way.
By affirming that India is a civilization, the Modi administration is consigning the opposition — the Indian National Congress — to the perilous role of a Westernizing force intent on measuring Indian success by the yardstick of a foreign system. The ideas that Congress had presented as too obvious to need much defense — secularism and cosmopolitanism — are seen as cultural imports from which India has to free itself. Naipaul had spoken of India as a wounded civilization, and he may have had a point, but contemporary India is a wounded civilization reasserting itself. Nation-states are a Western invention, naturally vulnerable to Western influence. Civilizations are an alternative to the West.
The BJP’s strong victory in India’s 2019 election, where it captured more than 300 further seats in the lower house of Parliament, shows how powerful that attitude turned out to be. As the political theorist Pratap Bhanu Mehta put it, Modi was able to convince voters that they should rise against a power structure that is essentially made up of Anglicized elites and that a Western philosophy of tolerance had become a symbol and a practice of contempt for Hinduism. There was a time when that liberal philosophy was taken seriously almost everywhere. Many of the independence movements in what used to be called the “third world” fully subscribed to it and used the language of human rights and the rule of law against the European colonizer.
Moonassi for Noema Magazine
The shift now taking place is arguably deeper and more radical. By accusing Western political ideas of being a sham, of masking their origin under the veneer of supposedly neutral principles, the defenders of the civilization state are saying that the search for universal values is over, that all of us must accept that we speak only for ourselves and our societies.
The world of the civilization state is the natural political world. Think of how states are built and how they expand. If a state has developed a successful formula to organize social relations and collective power, it will tend to absorb its neighbors. As it expands and concentrates new forms of wealth, social life will become increasingly complex. Myths will be created, the arts and sciences will prosper. Within its dominion, some possibilities will be opened while others are irredeemably closed. A way of life — a way to see the world and interpret the human condition — will develop. Outside the realm, other states will offer alternatives, but because these alternatives are in turn different ways to think and to live, states are coextensive with civilizations and subordinate to the civilizational form.
The modern West broke with this mold. From the perspective of what had come before, Western political societies had oddly misplaced scientific ambitions. They wanted their political values to be accepted universally, much like a scientific theory enjoys universal validity. In order to achieve this — we shall have occasion to doubt whether it was ever achieved — a monumental effort of abstraction and simplification was needed.
“Nation-states are a Western invention, naturally vulnerable to Western influence. Civilizations are an alternative to the West.”
Western civilization was to be a civilization like no other. Properly speaking, it was not to be a civilization at all but something closer to an operating system. It would not embody a rich tapestry of traditions and customs or pursue a religious doctrine or vision. Its principles were meant to be broad and formal, no more than an abstract framework within which different cultural possibilities could be explored. By being rooted in tolerance and democracy, Western values were not to stand for one particular way of life against another. Tolerance and democracy do not tell you how to live — they establish procedures, according to which those big questions may later be decided.
Since that is the very definition of a civilization state — to promote and defend one way of life against all alternatives — modern Western political societies had to invent a new political form. The values being defended were meant to become universal, but in practice, the idea of a world-state was never very popular. After all, these universal values were sufficiently universal to leave ample room for differences of implementation. And they were so abstract that many questions were left open, needing to be decided in different ways according to local circumstances.
The concept of a nation-state allowed for some level of diversity, but universal values were still meant to provide the constitutional framework under which each individual nation ruled itself. These universal values stood for the negation of the civilization state and affirmed the freedom to experiment with different ways of life. But if widely accepted, they could help build global institutions and rules, reducing the likelihood of state conflict. Over the last few decades, a world-state remained a utopia, but a world society seemed to advance.
“By accusing Western political ideas of being a sham, the defenders of the civilization state are saying that the search for universal values is over.”
But then the civilization state struck back. The problem with Western universalism was twofold. First, Western values seemed to many people living in Asia or Africa as just one alternative among many. The promise that traditional ways of life could be preserved in a liberal society was a fatal conceit. Were Turkey or China or Russia to import the whole set of Western values and rules, their societies would soon become replicas of the West and lose their cultural independence. While this process was seen as the necessary price of becoming modern, cultural assimilation kept its prestige. But lately, doubts have been growing about whether it is really necessary to imitate Western nations in order to acquire all the benefits of modern society. There was a second difficulty: Western values and norms still needed to be interpreted and enforced, and the most powerful nations in the West had always arrogated that task to themselves.
It is remarkable, when one thinks about it, that every controversial issue being decided in a successful democracy such as India should be subject to a final determination of its legitimacy by Western political and intellectual authorities. No one seems to take seriously the possibility that an editorial in The Hindu could settle the issue, but the leading newspapers in New York, Washington or London gladly take up the task. Cultural assimilation meant political dependence.
Moonassi for Noema Magazine
If, to all appearances, we have returned to a world of civilization states, the root cause is the collapse of the concept of a world civilization. American political scientist Samuel Huntington started from this realization, arguing in one of the starkest passages of his book “The Clash of Civilizations” that “the concept of a universal civilization helps justify Western cultural dominance of other societies and the need for those societies to ape Western practices and institutions.” Universalism is the ideology of the West for confronting other cultures. Naturally, everyone outside the West, Huntington argued, should see the idea of one world as a threat.
I believe Huntington was right, but only half right. It is true that people in Russia, China, India and many other countries increasingly see the concept of Western civilization through a different prism, as one civilization among many, with no particular claim to universality. That in itself is a mere intellectual determination. What follows is more consequential: If the West feels entitled to pursue its particular vision with all the tools of state power — in many cases, even military power — why should others refrain from doing the same? Why should they refrain from building a state around their own conception of the good life, a state with a whole civilization behind it? Their ambitions were more modest in any event — they were meant to be one alternative among many.
What Huntington failed to see was that the Western conceit of a world civilization has not simply disappeared. We have not returned to the world of the Hapsburgs, Ottomans and Mughals — not even in the garb of a televised Game of Thrones. Ours is a thoroughly modern and technological world, where distance is no longer sufficient to keep civilizations apart, and where borders are a shadow of their former selves. In this world, different civilizations are universal in practice if not in aspiration; they may well compete for global power, but they all belong to a common, increasingly integrated political and economic landscape.
“Europe may have been convinced that it was building a universal civilization. As it turned out, it was merely building its own.”
The return of the civilization state poses a delicate problem for the West. Remember that to a great extent, Western societies have sacrificed their specific cultures for the sake of a universal project. One can no longer find the old tapestry of traditions and customs or a vision of the good life in these societies. Their values tell us what we can do but are silent on what we should do. And then there is this question, particularly acute in Europe: Now that we have sacrificed our own cultural traditions to create a universal framework for the whole planet, are we now supposed to be the only ones to adopt it?
Responses vary. There are those in Europe — the populists, to use a catchy term — who want to turn the clock back and recover the wholesome content of a traditional Christian society. But many more believe that the core of a modern, secular European civilization will remain valid even if the rest of the world takes a different path. The European Union is in the process of being reconfigured as a civilization state, a political entity aggregating all those who live by a specific value system and using political tools to protect European civilization from the attacks of its enemies. The universal framework of rules can be refurbished for a different purpose. Previously, it was meant to accept every world culture under its wings, but now it is the root of a specific way of life: uncommitted, free, detached, aesthetic. Liberated from its commitment to an increasingly abstract and rarefied framework of rules, European liberalism can focus on developing the concrete possibilities contained within itself. This is mainly work for artists, writers and technologists.
Europe may have been convinced that it was building a universal civilization. As it turned out, it was merely building its own. The recognition of this fact will be difficult and painful, but it seems inevitable. I first noticed this transformation when European politicians started to claim that Europe is the best place in the world to live in. Rather than defending universal values such as democracy or human rights, they increasingly defend one way of life against every alternative — a competition with winners and losers. The continent that hoped to move beyond the logic of civilization is very close to converting to it, as is America. When that happens, the triumph of the civilization state will be complete.
