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The Meaning of European Civilization - A Historical-Conceptual Approach My interest in the concept of civilization was triggered by Samuel Huntington's now famous article "The Clash of Civilizations" from 1993. I have been working on different discursive settings of European self-consciousness for some times. The idea of Europe as an entity or even a quality has a rather long history in Europe. In the 15 th century the concept of Europe (which, previously, mainly had been attached to geographical representations of a tripartite world composed of Europe, Asia and Africa/Libya) was formed within a religious discourse which equated Europe with (western) Christianity. Christianity became the core value of "Europe." Christianity contained a trans-national - to use an anachronistic term - reference and even a global pretension, while "Europe" marked a limit to a non-European world.
Connecting "Europe" and "Christianity" served both to strengthen the idea of an intra-European coherence and a borderline to a non-European and, therefore, also non-Christian world. Historically, this connection took shape in an anti-Islamic crusader discourse in which the Ottoman Empire was made to represent the negative qualities of non-Europe. The growing rationalisation of the European states influenced the meaning of "Europe." The 16 th century witnessed a growing use of the concept of Europe in an international political context. A state discourse replaced the religious discourse. States began to "speak" to each other on a formalised scene which was referred to as "Europe."Europe" was less a religious value and more a system of criss-crossing relations (military, economic, diplomatic and even legal relations - hat were contained within ideas of international law). The Europe-as-a-system concept focused on state rationalism (raison d'tat).
But this value was accompanied by an idea of Europe as a cultural value. Instead of Christianity the concept of "Europe" was combined with "civilization." This concept can be seen as a secularized parallel to Christianity. It took form in - what we might broadly call - an imperialist discourse used in the encounters with the New World. In their representations of the Indians (as they were named) the Europeans placed themselves and their continent in a superior, position which was related to civilization. Let me briefly return to Huntington. I will try to show that he reintroduces this concept of civilization into the debate on world order.
He does this, it seems, in order to criticise the dominating paradigm of globalization. Globalization stresses the growing interdependence and interpenetration of existing social orders (the national societies), the increasing homogenization of different spheres of social life (economy, culture, politics), and the creation of a global discourse within which different actors in the world speak. In Roland Robertson's formulation[ 1 ]: .".. globalization involves something like a global culture (... ) in the sense of a general mode of discourse about the world and its variety. " (p. 135). "The discourse of globally is thus a vital component of contemporary global culture.
It consists largely in the shifting and contested terms in which the world as a whole is 'defined'. Images of world order (and disorder) (... ) are at the center of global culture. (... ) global culture itself is partly created in terms of specific interactions between national societies. " (pp. 113 - 114). Global discourse is made up of these different images of the world. For Robertson globalization is not solely a question of interdependence and homogenization. There is room for differences - different responses to interdependence and homogenization. But his point is that these responses are framed within a global language and not in some traditional language.
The responses are thus part of a global discourse. Huntington acknowledges the growing interdependence. But he does not see any global discourse. In his view discourses (or rather, actions) are formed by and from cultural entities. He sees the world as divided in different cultural entities. The - apparently - new approach in his view is to divide the world into civilizations.
A civilization is cultural entity on a higher level: "A civilization is the highest cultural grouping of people and the broadest level of cultural identity people have short of that which distinguishes humans from other species." [ 2 ] One might object that this a way of transferring the 19 th century nationalist identity scheme (culture equals nation) onto a larger scale - a kind of model of concentric circles with civilization on the outer circle. In fact, Huntington does think in this way when he speaks of "levels of identity." It is less this rather simple approach to the question of identity construction that I want to take up than the similarities between Huntington's use of the concept of civilization today and earlier European formulations of civilization. I shall try to show that the idea of a European or Western (as it is in Huntington's use) civilization as a cultural entity - a way of conceptualizing a European self-consciousness - can be traced in a semantic history of civilization. This becomes even clearer when Huntington makes religion the center of these cultural entities.
Western civilization is thus formed by Western Christianity (which, conveniently, seals it off from Eastern Christianity). Huntington claims furthermore that "civilizations are dynamic; they rise and fall." Even though he does not really explain this dynamic - rise and fall only has to do with existence or non-existence - he attaches civilization to an idea of history and development. Civilizations work in time. This can be understood in different ways: firstly, that civilizations are formed by their history (Huntington talks constantly of historic boundaries and mentions historical events such as the battle between "the Arabs" (as he calls them) and the Christians in 732). Civilization is thus an accumulation of common history. Secondly, that civilization means an increasing self-consciousness.
In this Hegelian way of thinking history is not only a reservoir of accumulated history, but also a process of increasing awareness or consciousness of the final aim of a civilization. History is not mainly events or tradition, but awareness of direction. Both these two temporal conceptions of civilization have their antecedents in the European concept of civilization. Thus equipped with religion and history Huntington can divide the world into seven or eight civilizations.
What he does is to locate civilization in a geographical space. Though he does not state it directly, he seems to claim a relation between a spatial configuration and a civilization (where it is possible to draw maps - which he actually does). This spatial configuration has been another very important aspect in the European concept of civilization. As I suggested just before, "civilization" has played a major role in filling out the cartographic notion of "Europe." Huntington constructs (or rather, in his own view, uncovers) a Western civilization located between the West Coast of the USA and a line somewhere in the former Eastern Europe. This civilization is a cultural entity with its history and religion (and its values of democracy and liberalism - but how does this fit in with Christianity? ). As a modernisation thinker Huntington has to confront civilizations with a general, even global modernisation of the societies in the world.
He does this by seeing "the increasing civilization consciousness" as a response to this development. This consciousness takes the form of "a revival of religion", of ethnic identities and of an increasingly anti-western attitude. A phenomena such as fundamentalism can thus be interpreted as a return to civilization. But, in a way, this also goes for Western values. They return (or should, in Huntington's normative view) to the West. The Westerners should acknowledge that it is in their interest not to universalize their own values, but rather keep them for themselves. (The shift from culture to interest in Huntington's text indicates that his aim is to see civilization as an element in international politics. ) Huntington runs into several theoretical problems when he makes use of modernisation and globalization to revive civilizations.
Firstly, it is not clear where modernisation comes from when changes in the world are formed by the different civilizations. This can, of course, be solved by making one civilization stronger and more powerful than the others, so that modernisation is related to a dominating civilization, such as the West. Huntington declines this solution, or rather he inverts it, so that Western civilization is in a situation where it risks to be dominated by other civilizations. Secondly, he leaves out the whole problem of a global discourse. It might be possible that fundamentalism is not a return to civilization, but something new that makes use of a traditional language or way it pointed to as being traditional.
It might even be possible to see fundamentalism as part of a global discourse using concepts that have become detached from their historical foundations. Other objections could be made from an opposite point of view. Said " ians would probably point to the relation between the concept of civilization and an imperialist discourse, where the concept is part of the European construction of the non-European in a silent, objectified position. This is certainly part of the history of this concept. But it is not the whole story. The concept has also played a role in making Europe.
Huntington's text is part of a European civilization discourse. It refers to the central meanings of civilization developed in Europe from the 18 th century. These are: - civilization as a cultural entity (based on religion) - civilization as a universal process and a final aim (history) - civilization as a space in time (from this follows the potential existence of several civilizations) - the existence of a European/Western civilization I now want to go back to the 18 th century and give examples of how the concept of civilization developed in Europe. This can, of course, only be a sketchy overview. I shall refer to some central texts in which civilization is framed. Civilization played a major role in two different configurations of Europe.
Firstly, Europe as a cultural entity (comprising the different states) - as a spatial figuration - was shaped in different texts dealing with encounters with the non-European. These encounters were seen as a relation between either other civilizations or uncivilised people. Civilization made the difference. Secondly, Civilization was seen as a difference in development. Civilization became a process operating in time - a temporal figuration - that involved an idea of historical or even universal progress. As can be seen from the first occurrence of the word "civilization", the universal perspective was attached to its meaning.
It first appeared, in a rather vague sense, in a text by the French physiocrats, Mirabeau the Elder, in 1756. In 1768, in a Treaty on Civilization, he gave it a more precise meaning. I quote here (in French) a passage from this text: "Si je demands la plupart, en quote faites-vous consider la civilisation? on me rpondrait, la civilisation d'un peuple est l'adoucissement de ses moeurs, l'urban, la politesse et les connaissance's rpandues de mature que les bien sances y soient observes et y tennent lieu de long de details; tout cela ne me present que le masque de la vertu et non son visage, et la civilisation ne fait rien pour la social si elle ne l donne le fonds et la forme de la vertu. C'est du sein des social avouches par tous les ingredients qu " on vient de city qu " est ne la corruption de l'human. "[ 3 ] A rough semantic field can be deduced from this passage. One pole of this field consists of manners (moeurs), politesse (politeness or polished), civility or urbanity (urban).
These qualifications are all attached to people. We can then draw a line between manners, etc. and people. But this pole is characterised as a mask by Mirabeau. Behind the mask is the true meaning of civilization; that is, virtue or rather the process within which virtue is produced or secured. To be civilised is thus to be virtuous.
The opposite of virtue is corruption, which means destruction of social life. Consequently, virtue is the quality needed to uphold society. This quality is human or universal. We can therefore draw a line between humanity and virtue which delineates the other pole: We can observe a tension between a universal pole (virtue-humanity) and a particular / cultural pole (people-manners).
Mirabeau tries to solve this tension by turning the cultural pole into a distortion of the true meaning of civilization. The distortion will lead to corruption while only virtue will carry with true civilization. Furthermore, Mirabeau attaches an active role to civilization (and corruption). It can do something for society. It is a driving force in maintaining and developing society. In that sense, civilization and corruption are at once processes, driving forces within this process, and positive or negative end results of this process.
For Mirabeau the important thing is to place the concept of civilization in a relation between the universal and the particular. But, indirectly, he also situates it in a space-time relation. Civilization is located in man, and at the same time it is a process by which man discovers virtue and creates society. Surely, Mirabeau has a very abstract idea of the space of civilization (man as such).
The reason for this is that he wants to stress the universal dimension: civilization is an inherent quality of human society. But in the 18 th century this idea met with a much more precise idea of where civilization could be found, namely in Europe. This idea was mainly worked out in specific type of texts that treated European encounters with a non-European world. In both fictional and non-fictional texts about travels to and encounters with a non-European world, Europe was attached to an idea of civilization.
Travel literature, ethnographic studies and the like became extremely popular in Europe from the end of the 17 th century. This genre staged a relation between Europe and non-Europe as an encounter between civilization and non-civilization. Travel can be seen as the discursive instrument that made this comparison understandable. All travel literature is composed from a very simple narrative scheme consisting of the two poles, home and outside: There are, of course, a lot of possibilities for variation: how is home described? What are the motives for leaving home? How long does the journey take?
How are the others encountered? From my point of view, only the last question is of interest. Generally, encounters can be either positive (the other can be friendly, even wonderful, cp. Stephen Greenblatt's "marvellous possession"), or negative (the other is dangerous and barbarous). Whether a positive or a negative image is produced of the other has a lot to do with the construction of the self-image. To schematic we have two main types of other-self image construction: 1) A civilised European meets a uncivilised other (categorised as savage) 2) A civilised European meets a civilised other The first type is normally seen in European encounters with the New World.
The second type forms accounts of encounters with the East/The Orient. It is possible to make a graphic illustration of how these two non-European spaces are constructed differently: The radical difference is symbolized by the crossing of the Atlantic Ocean. The Ocean was the mythological frontier between the known and the unknown world before the age of Discovery. The Orient was not marked by a clear borderline. Different Eastern spaces (The Ottoman Empire, Persia, India, China, Japan) could qualify as Oriental. The Orient was seen as a long, almost infinite space that began in Europe (cp.
the concept of Eastern Europe). Two famous texts can illustrate how the two main types fit the two different spaces: Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe (1719) and Montesquieu's Lettres Persanes (1721). In Robinson Crusoe the other is first presented metaphorically as an island. The radical difference is here between a civilised European (from England being the center of civilization) and emptiness which is, of course, the most radical way of posing an opposite. Here the journey works as an expulsion from the civilised world (ending with Robinson being cast ashore on what seems to be a deserted island).
The island is not only empty, it is wild and therefore threatening. Robinson represents civilization (the word is not used by Defoe - but the meaning of civilization is present in other words). The island gives a double meaning to the antithesis of civilization: emptiness and savagery. Robinson represents civilization because he can civilize. Civilization is both an inherent quality (that he discovers in himself) and a process within which the island is transformed into...
civilization. The result of this process is the creation of civilization en miniature, a copy of home. The civilization process is first of all connected with work and with the taking into possession of the island; work and possession then being the fundamental values in European civilization. Note how Robinson describes the island in the following passage: "I descended a little on the Side of that delicious Vale, surveying it with a secret Kind of Pleasure (... ) to think that this was all my own, that I was King and Lord of all this Country indefeasibly, and had a Right of Possession; and if I could convey it, I might have it in Inheritance, as completely as any Lord of a Mannor in England. " [ 4 ] Possession and work are the two sides of the same coin.
There is a third dimension in the civilization process...
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