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世纪世界新秩序：民族国家与文明国家
https://www.fairobserver.com/world-news/new-21st- century-world-order-nation-state-vs-civilizational-state/
美国总统乔·拜登提出了独裁与民主的范式，中国国家主席习近平
作者：詹姆斯·M·多尔西
@mideastsoccer 2023 年 5 月 14 日
美国宾夕法尼亚州费城，2016年7月27日，副总统约瑟夫·拜登在民主党全国提名大会上发表讲话。
美国总统乔·拜登将乌克兰战争定位为独裁与民主之间的战争。 这减少了战争中的利害关系。 这些利害关系构成了 21 世纪世界新秩序的基本组成部分：国家的本质。
俄罗斯对乌克兰的入侵标志着一批从文明而非国家角度思考的世界领导人崛起的急剧终结。 他们想象自己国家的观念和/或物理边界是由历史、种族、文化和/或宗教而不是国际法定义的。
这种主张常常涉及否认他人的存在以及独裁或独裁统治。 因此，当俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔·普京宣称俄罗斯人和乌克兰人是一个民族，为自己入侵乌克兰的行为辩护时，他得到了很好的支持。 换句话说，乌克兰人作为一个民族并不存在。
在中国国家主席习近平的心目中，台湾或南海其他沿岸国家的海洋权利也不是这样的。 或者是以色列总理本雅明·内塔尼亚胡的联盟伙伴眼中的巴勒斯坦人。 优越性和例外论是土耳其总统雷杰普·塔伊普·埃尔多安、印度总理纳伦德拉·莫迪、匈牙利总理维克多·欧尔班和内塔尼亚胡等人的指导原则。
2018年，以色列议会通过了一项有争议的基本法，将以色列定义为犹太人民的民族国家。 “与以色列的《独立宣言》相反，民族国家法律被视为尊奉犹太人的优越性和阿拉伯人的劣势，以牺牲以色列的民主特征为代价来支持以色列的犹太特征，”记者卡罗莱纳·兰兹曼 (Carolina Landsmann) 说。
以色列犹太复国主义宗教作家埃胡德·尼奥尔 (Ehud Neor) 认为，“以色列不是西方意义上的民族国家。 这是圣经预言的实现，即犹太人应该永远生活在圣地并遵循神圣的托拉，通过这样做，他们将成为世界之光。 犹太教有一个全球使命。”
同样，埃尔多安将土耳其描述为“dünyan?n vicdan?”，即世界的良心，这个概念构成了他对国际合作和发展援助的预测。 “土耳其被描绘成一个慷慨的族长，追随奥斯曼帝国（特别仁慈的解读）的脚步，照顾那些有需要的人——重要的是，包括那些据称被其他人遗忘的人。 与被描述为自私的西方做法形成鲜明对比的是，土耳其的利他主义伴随着穆斯林慈善和团结的文明框架，让人想起奥斯曼帝国的宏伟，”学者塞巴斯蒂安·豪格和苏普里亚·罗伊乔杜里说。
在学术比较中，豪格和罗伊乔杜里将埃尔多安的土耳其例外论概念与莫迪的“vishwaguru”概念进行了比较。 这一概念建立在 19 世纪印度教领袖斯瓦米·维韦卡南达 (Swami Vivekananda) 的哲学之上。 “他对印度教的诠释，就像甘地的印度教融合思想一样，表面上支持宽容和多元化。 通过这一框架和类似的框架，采用据称受甘地启发的融合印度教话语使莫迪在政治上与（印度民族主义领袖贾瓦哈拉尔）尼赫鲁的世俗主义文明话语保持距离，”两位学者表示。 “但与此同时，莫迪的文明话语及其对印度教优越性的无可争议的信念，已开始支撑国际论坛上的官方言论，”他们补充道。
普京在2022年2月入侵乌克兰前不到一年发表的一篇5000字的文章重写了历史，将这个前苏联共和国描绘成一个反俄罗斯的产物，其合法性的基础是抹去“团结我们的一切”。 并预测“乌克兰是俄罗斯帝国和苏联占领时期的一部分”。
在这样做的过程中，普京创造了文明主义领导人经常使用的理由，以一种更灵活的国家概念来扩展或取代以国际法为基础的硬边界所定义的民族国家概念，即一个具有由历史、种族和文化划分的外部边界的国家概念。 和/或宗教，以及区分其优越或特殊文明与其他文明的内部界限。
文明主义有多种目的。 维护所谓的文明权利并抵御生存威胁有助于为独裁和独裁统治辩护。
被中国旗舰报纸《环球时报》称为“Xivilization”
共产党、习近平重新定义了文明，将专制纳入其中。 今年 3 月，习近平在来自 150 个国家的 500 个政党参加的北京会议上公布了他的全球文明倡议。
该倡议旨在针对西方促进民主和人权的努力，表明如果不同文明不将自己的价值观投射到全球，它们就可以和谐共处。 “换句话说，”《经济学人》打趣道，“西方应该学会与中国共产主义共存。 它可能是基于马克思主义这一西方理论，但它也是中国古代文化的成果。” 习近平在拜登共同主持虚拟民主峰会几天前发起了他的倡议。
相当数量的世界领导人对文明国家概念的主张，与总部位于印度尼西亚的世界上最大、最温和的穆斯林公民社会运动“乌拉玛”(Nahdlatul Ulama) 所提倡的民族国家作为伊斯兰法的替代品形成了鲜明的对比。 全球穆斯林社区的哈里发国、统一国家的文明主义概念。
豪格和罗伊乔杜里通过对埃尔多安领导下的土耳其和莫迪领导下的印度进行比较得出结论，认为文明主义主张服务于“两个截然不同但相互关联的政治项目：试图克服国际边缘化和努力加强国内独裁统治。”
与拜登一样，习近平和其他文明主义领导人也在争夺塑造未来世界秩序及其基本理念的斗争中的制高点。 拜登的独裁与民主范式是这场斗争的一部分。 但治理体系是纯粹政治的还是纯粹文明的问题也是如此。 对于民主国家来说，解决这个问题可能更具决定性。
本文表达的观点是作者自己的观点，并不一定反映公平观察家的编辑政策。
文明国家的攻击
https://www.noemamag.com/the-attack-of-the-civilization-state/?
世界社会似乎正在进步。 但随后文明国家进行了反击。
作者：布鲁诺·马塞斯 2020 年 6 月 15 日
布鲁诺·马萨埃斯 (Bruno Maçães) 于 2013 年至 2015 年担任葡萄牙负责欧洲事务的国务秘书，现任富林特全球 (Flint Global) 高级顾问和欧洲外交关系委员会成员。 他最近的两本书是《历史已经开始》和《末世地缘政治》。
三四年前，当我开车绕北京拜访官员和知识分子时，我不断听到同样的信息。 根据我的经验，中国知识分子或官员唯一应该按字面意思理解的时刻是他或她送客人上车的时候。 周围没有人，也没有时间评论，一句话就能说明一切。 我听到的一句话是：“永远记住，中国是一个文明，而不是一个民族国家。”
这并不是一个新想法——远非如此。 这也不是中国人的想法。 但在获得官方认可后，这一概念被用来传达一个重要但常常被忽视的信息：中国注定要被西方政治社会模式同化的神话已经结束。 从此，中国人将走自己的“Sonderweg”——特殊的道路。 有中国特色的进步。
作为一个文明国家，中国是围绕文化而非政治组织起来的。 国家与文明息息相关，其首要任务是保护特定的文化传统。 它的影响范围涵盖了该文化占主导地位的所有地区。
在我与印度执政党印度人民党总书记拉姆·马达夫的谈话中，这个概念的重要性变得更加明显。 在德里举行的一次会议后，他解释说：“从现在开始，亚洲将统治世界，这改变了一切，因为在亚洲，我们拥有的是文明，而不是国家。”
这些变化的具体性质并未提及。 一个直接的影响是侨民的作用。 纳伦德拉·莫迪总理领导下的新印度将加强与美洲、英国和海湾地区等地的大量印度侨民的联系。 为什么不声称 V.S. 例如，奈保尔作为印度作家？ 奈保尔出生于特立尼达和多巴哥，就读于牛津大学，并在伦敦度过了大半生。 但那又怎样——他表达了印度文明的感受和思维方式。
“与文明息息相关，中国国家的首要任务是保护特定的文化传统。
对于一个文明国家来说，文化联系可能比单纯的公民法律地位更重要。 正如印度最近的《公民身份修正案》所表明的那样，文化甚至可能决定谁可以获得印度公民身份。 该法案为来自巴基斯坦、孟加拉国和阿富汗的移民提供了快速入籍通道，但如果他们是穆斯林，则不然。 这与该国日益流行的意识形态相一致：虽然你不必成为印度教徒才能成为印度人，但你确实需要了解、尊重甚至钦佩印度教的方式。
通过确认印度是一个文明国家，莫迪政府正在将反对派——印度国大党——托付给一支西方化力量的危险角色，意图用外国体系的标准来衡量印度的成功。 国大党提出的世俗主义和世界主义思想太过明显，无需太多辩护，但它们被视为印度必须摆脱的文化输入。 奈保尔曾将印度称为一个受伤的文明，他的观点也许有道理，但当代印度是一个受伤的文明正在重新展现自己。 民族国家是西方的发明，自然容易受到西方的影响。 文明是西方的替代品。
印度人民党在 2019 年印度大选中大获全胜，在议会下院又获得了 300 多个席位，这表明这种态度的力量有多么强大。 正如政治理论家普拉塔普·巴努·梅塔（Pratap Bhanu Mehta）所说，莫迪能够说服选民，他们应该起来反对主要由英国化精英组成的权力结构，并且西方的宽容哲学已成为蔑视印度教的象征和做法。 。 曾经有一段时间，自由主义哲学几乎在所有地方都受到认真对待。 许多曾经被称为“第三世界”的独立运动完全赞同它，并使用人权和法治的语言来反对欧洲殖民者。
穆纳西为 Noema 杂志拍摄
现在正在发生的转变可以说是更深层次、更彻底的。 文明国家的捍卫者指责西方政治理念是骗局，在所谓的中立原则的幌子下掩盖其起源，他们是在说，对普世价值的探索已经结束，我们所有人都必须接受这样的事实：我们只代表自己的利益说话。 我们自己和我们的社会
。
文明国家的世界就是自然的政治世界。 想想国家是如何建立和扩张的。 如果一个国家已经发展出一种成功的模式来组织社会关系和集体权力，它就会倾向于吸收其邻国。 随着新的财富形式的扩展和集中，社会生活将变得越来越复杂。 神话将会被创造，艺术和科学将会繁荣。 在它的管辖范围内，一些可能性将被打开，而另一些可能性则被无可挽回地关闭。 一种生活方式——一种看待世界和解释人类状况的方式——将会发展。 在领域之外，其他国家也会提供替代方案，但由于这些替代方案又是不同的思维方式和生活方式，因此国家与文明共存，并从属于文明形式。
现代西方打破了这种模式。 从以往的情况来看，西方政治社会的科学野心奇怪地错位了。 他们希望自己的政治价值观得到普遍接受，就像科学理论具有普遍有效性一样。 为了实现这一目标——我们将有机会怀疑它是否曾经实现过——需要在抽象和简化方面付出巨大的努力。
“民族国家是西方的发明，自然容易受到西方的影响。 文明是西方的替代品。”
西方文明将成为独一无二的文明。 准确地说，它根本不是一个文明，而是更接近于一个操作系统。 它不会体现丰富的传统和习俗，也不会追求宗教教义或愿景。 它的原则是广泛而正式的，只不过是一个可以探索不同文化可能性的抽象框架。 西方价值观植根于宽容和民主，因此并不代表一种特定的生活方式与另一种生活方式相对立。 宽容和民主不会告诉你如何生活——它们会建立程序，根据这些程序，这些重大问题可能会在以后得到解决。
由于这就是文明国家的定义——促进和捍卫一种生活方式，反对所有其他选择——现代西方政治社会必须发明一种新的政治形式。 所捍卫的价值观本应成为普遍的，但在实践中，世界国家的理念从来都不是很受欢迎。 毕竟，这些普世价值具有足够的普遍性，为实施差异留下了充足的空间。 而且它们太抽象了，很多问题都没有解决，需要根据当地情况采取不同的方式来决定。
民族国家的概念允许一定程度的多样性，但普世价值仍然旨在提供每个国家自我统治的宪法框架。 这些普世价值代表着对文明国家的否定，并肯定了尝试不同生活方式的自由。 但如果被广泛接受，它们可以帮助建立全球机构和规则，减少国家冲突的可能性。 在过去的几十年里，世界国家仍然是一个乌托邦，但世界社会似乎在进步。
“通过指责西方政治理念是骗局，文明国家的捍卫者们表明对普世价值的探索已经结束。”
但随后文明国家进行了反击。 西方普遍主义的问题是双重的。 首先，对于生活在亚洲或非洲的许多人来说，西方价值观似乎只是众多选择中的一种。 传统生活方式可以在自由社会中得到保留的承诺是一个致命的自负。 如果土耳其、中国或俄罗斯引进整套西方价值观和规则，他们的社会很快就会成为西方的翻版，并失去文化独立性。 尽管这一过程被视为现代化的必要代价，但文化同化仍保持着其威望。 但最近，人们越来越怀疑是否真的有必要模仿西方国家才能获得现代社会的所有好处。 还有第二个困难：西方的价值观和规范仍然需要解释和执行，而西方最强大的国家总是把这项任务交给自己。
值得注意的是，在印度这样一个成功的民主国家中解决的每一个有争议的问题都应该由西方政治和知识权威对其合法性进行最终确定。 似乎没有人认真对待《印度教徒报》的一篇社论可以解决这个问题的可能性，但纽约、华盛顿或伦敦的主要报纸很乐意承担这项任务。 文化同化意味着政治依赖。
穆纳西为 Noema 杂志拍摄
从表面上看，如果说我们回到了文明国家的世界，那么根本原因就是世界文明观念的崩溃。 美国政治学家塞缪尔·亨廷顿从
认识到这一点，他在《文明的冲突》一书中最鲜明的段落之一指出，“普世文明的概念有助于证明西方对其他社会的文化主导地位以及这些社会模仿西方实践和制度的必要性。” 普世主义是西方对抗其他文化的意识形态。 亨廷顿认为，自然地，西方以外的每个人都应该将同一个世界的想法视为一种威胁。
我相信亨廷顿是对的，但只对了一半。 确实，俄罗斯、中国、印度和许多其他国家的人们越来越多地通过不同的棱镜来看待西方文明的概念，将其视为众多文明中的一种，没有特别声称具有普遍性。 这本身只是一种智力决定。 接下来的问题更为重要：如果西方认为有权利用国家权力的所有工具——在许多情况下甚至是军事力量——来追求其特定的愿景，为什么其他国家不应该这样做呢？ 为什么他们不应该围绕自己的美好生活理念建立一个国家，一个背后有整个文明的国家？ 无论如何，他们的野心都比较温和——他们只是众多选择中的一种。
亨廷顿没有看到的是，西方对世界文明的自负并没有消失。 我们还没有回到哈布斯堡王朝、奥斯曼帝国和莫卧儿王朝的世界——甚至没有回到电视播出的《权力的游戏》的时代。 我们的世界是一个彻底现代化和科技化的世界，距离不再足以将文明分开，边界已成为过去的影子。 在这个世界上，不同文明在实践上是共通的，但在愿望上却是共通的。 它们很可能会争夺全球权力，但它们都属于一个共同的、日益一体化的政治和经济格局。
“欧洲可能确信它正在建设一个普世文明。 事实证明，它只是在构建自己的产品。”
文明国家的回归给西方带来了一个棘手的问题。 请记住，在很大程度上，西方社会为了普遍的计划而牺牲了自己的特定文化。 在这些社会中，人们再也找不到古老的传统和习俗，也找不到美好生活的愿景。 他们的价值观告诉我们可以做什么，但对我们应该做什么却保持沉默。 还有一个问题，在欧洲尤其尖锐：既然我们已经牺牲了自己的文化传统来为整个地球创建一个通用框架，那么我们现在是否应该是唯一采用它的国家？
反应各不相同。 欧洲有些人——用一个流行的术语来说，就是民粹主义者——想要让时光倒流，恢复传统基督教社会的健康内容。 但更多人相信，即使世界其他地区走不同的道路，现代世俗欧洲文明的核心仍然有效。 欧盟正在被重新配置为一个文明国家，一个聚集了所有以特定价值体系生活的人的政治实体，并使用政治工具来保护欧洲文明免受敌人的攻击。 通用规则框架可以为了不同的目的而进行翻新。 以前，它意味着接受世界上每一种文化，但现在它是一种特定生活方式的根源：不拘一格、自由、超然、审美。 欧洲自由主义摆脱了对日益抽象和稀薄的规则框架的承诺，可以专注于发展其自身所包含的具体可能性。 这主要是艺术家、作家和技术人员的工作。
欧洲可能确信它正在建设一个普世文明。 事实证明，它只是在构建自己的产品。 承认这一事实将是困难和痛苦的，但这似乎是不可避免的。 我第一次注意到这种转变是在欧洲政客开始声称欧洲是世界上最适合居住的地方时。他们不再捍卫民主或人权等普世价值观，而是越来越多地捍卫一种生活方式，反对任何替代方案——与其他选择的竞争 赢家和输家。 这个希望超越文明逻辑的大陆非常接近于皈依文明逻辑，美国也是如此。 当这种情况发生时，文明国家将取得彻底的胜利。
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.
