After the collapse of the Soviet Union, many scholars predicted that the future of world and where nations would advance. Huntington's idea in "the clash of civilization" is a representative case among the various views on the new world and it caused lots of debates about the pros and cons of his thought. In the "clash of civilization," Huntington argues that conflicts of contemporary world (after the end of Cold War) are not ideological nor economical but cultural and phenomenon such as confrontations and antagonisms among nations which are caused by clashes of different civilizations would rise remarkably. However, Said criticized that "the clash of civilization" is a creature of the imperative conception that the West should hold the hegemony of "new world order." This essay, therefore, explores the theory of "the clash of civilization" and criticizes several points which are mentioned in it. .
The Clash of civilization?.
According to Huntington: .
A civilization is the highest cultural grouping of people and the broadest level of cultural identity people have short that which distinguishes human from other species. It is defined both by common objective elements, such as language, history, religion, customs, institution, and by the subjective self-identification of people . The world will be shape in large measure by the interactions among seven or eight major civilizations - Western, Confucian, Japanese, Islamic, Hindu, Slavic-Orthodox, Latin America and possibly African civilization.
Moreover, he argued that the world become narrower, and as exchanges within civilizations deepened; the consciousness of their own civilization become deeper. Furthermore, regional or national identity would be weakened as modernization and social fluctuation progressed and the gap was filled by religions. Especially, in non-western civilization circle, their self-consciousness arose and intensified in order to spring back against the Powerful West.