FROM DECOLONIZATION TO ISLAMISM: CIVILIZATION UNDER SIEGE?

It is their common hatred of Western Civilization that has led to the forging of an alliance between Hamas murder squads and LGBTQ and Black Lives activists

A lecture for the meeting of The Academy’s meeting on the theme of Civilisation Under Siege, 17 August 2024.

Civilization is not simply about dramatic symbols of human achievement. Nor is it merely about the development of sophisticated technologies and complex techniques of social organization. As I explain below it is also about cultural values that provide a web of meaning for society. Through the internalization of the cultural orientation offered by such a web of meaning a consciousness of civilization emerges. It is implication of the loss of this consciousness that constitutes the main theme of our discussion.

In his lecture on October 27, 1950, in Chicago, the anthropologist, Professor Alfred  Krober explained that the ‘most characteristic part of civilizations, which we may call value culture, is not their only component’. He added that

‘There is also what may be called reality culture, concerned with finding out, mastering, and directing nature and sometimes mastering and directing fellow men as well. Technology, the useful arts, ways of successful practical living, are the avenues by which reality culture is expressed.

‘There is a third component, social structure and relations, which in principle might be thought to be independent of the rest of civilization or culture, because it also occurs well-developed among cultureless, non-symbolizing animals, especially the social insects. But since human societies always operate with symbols and thus possess culture, their social structure and relations are channelled into variable cultural forms instead of being constant, autonomous, and mainly hereditary.[my emphasis] Social culture is therefore, in man, always interwoven with value culture and reality culture’.[i]

So civilization is indissolubly linked to a system of values and culture.

It is evident that in the first instance, civilization, is, as Samuel Huntington argued, ‘the broadest cultural entity’. He explained:

‘Villages, regions, ethnic groups, nationalities, religious groups, all have distinct cultures at different levels of cultural heterogeneity. The culture of a village in southern Italy may be different from that of a village in northern Italy, but both will share in a common Italian culture that distinguishes them from German villages. European communities, in turn, will share cultural features that distinguish them from Chinese or Hindu communities. Chinese, Hindus, and Westerners, however, are not part of any broader cultural entity. They constitute civilizations. A civilization is thus the highest cultural grouping of people and the broadest level of cultural identity people have short of that which distinguishes humans from other species’[ii]

However, to grasp the contemporary debates on this subject, it is useful to distinguish between civilization as a grand representation of distinct cultural forms and the concept of civilization – which pertains to the realm of the consciousness of civilization.

In this lecture I am mainly interested in discussing the changing forms of the consciousness of civilization.

The idea of civilization and its development as a concept presupposes the existence of historical consciousness. Ancient civilizations lacked such a consciousness, which is why they did not need such a concept. This is why civilization only emerges and gains currency once that form of consciousness acquires a powerful cultural presence.

Although there is a clear conceptual distinction between civilization in the way that Krober expressed it and more specifically, that of Western civilization – civilizational thinking is intimately linked to the emergence of the self-consciousness of the West.

As the sociologist Norbert Elias argued

‘The concept of civilization expresses the self-consciousness of the West…It sums up everything in which Western society of the last two or three centuries believes itself superior to earlier societies or “more primitive” contemporary ones. By this term Western society seeks to describe what constitutes its special character and what it is proud of: the level of its technology, the nature of its manners, the development of its scientific knowledge or view of the world, and much more’.[iii]

So, the term civilization is not merely one of description. It is that, of course. As the French historian Lucien Febvre explained in 1930, the term refers to all the features of collective life – from material, intellectual, moral, political, etc., possibly called the ‘ethnographical conception of civilization’. ‘It does not imply any value judgment’.[iv] But secondly, civilization is also a normative concept that implies a judgment of value.

Febvre stated that ‘when we are talking about the progress, failures, greatness and weakness of civilization, we do have a value judgment in mind’. In its colloquial usage, civilization evokes a sense of pride and meaning. Febvre wrote

‘We have an idea that the civilization we are talking about – ours – is in itself something great and beautiful; something too which is nobler, more comfortable and better, both morally and materially speaking than anything outside it – savagery, barbarity or semi-civilization. Finally, we are confident that such civilization, in which we participate, which we propagate, benefit from and popularize, bestows on us all a certain value, prestige, and dignity’.

Febvre’s statement accurately captured the various meanings associated with the concept of civilization in the 1930s. At this point, the concept of Western civilization communicated a positive and even idealized form of self-consciousness.

However, civilization has become an intensely contested concept in the contemporary era, and Western civilization has lost much of its positive connotations. On the contrary, as the historian James Hankins argues,

‘In recent times we have seen spread through our schools and institutions an improper and uncivilized humility, a malicious form of humility indistinguishable from self-hatred. This is a humility that humiliates; that seeks to blind Westerners to their magnificent traditions and to rub their noses, like misbehaving dogs, in their worst offences. The effect if not the goal of this movement of self-humiliation is to make Westerners ashamed of their own civilization and to take away from us the very inheritance our parents and ancestors worked and fought so hard to hand down to us. It makes us reluctant to add to that inheritance and pass it on to those who will come after us’.[v]

There are many reasons why society has become estranged from its civilizational accomplishments. No doubt, at times, the concept acquired an ideological form that communicated claims about racial and cultural superiority. In the 19^th century, the idea of a civilizational mission was used to legitimise imperialism and colonial domination. An awareness of the injustices committed in the name of Western civilization has led to an understandable critical orientation towards the claims made on behalf of Western civilization.

However, the main driver of Western society’s alienation from its civilizational accomplishment is the ascendancy of a negative representation of the act of judgment. In the contemporary world, judgment has an entirely negative connotation to the point that its opposite – non-judgementalism – has become a foundational value of contemporary Western culture. That is why, in academic circles, the concept of civilization comes with a health warning.

Even the mere hint that civilization is judged as in any way superior to modes of social organizations that preceded it or as more advanced than contemporary non-literate communities provokes the denunciation of racism or cultural arrogance. As one American educator, Cynthia Stokes Brown explained:

‘Popular usage defines “civilization” along these lines: “an advanced state of human society, in which a high level of culture, science, industry and government have been reached.” This definition is problematic for archaeologists, anthropologists, and historians, because it contains an overt value judgment that civilization is better, more advanced, and superior to other forms of social organization’.[vi]

What this celebration of non-judgmentalism implies is that what was hitherto seen as entirely obvious – which is that a civilization is better and more advanced than other form of social organisations- has become a view that runs counter to the narrative that dominates contemporary society. In our world, western civilization is more likely to be demonized then idealised.

Non-judgmentalism, which at times has acquired the pathological form of judgmentphobia, threatens to dispossess Western society of its traditional sources of meaning. That is why the ruling classes of the Western world are so reluctant to say a good word about their civilizational legacy. They have lost faith in their civilization to the point that they are unprepared to defend it against its opponents.

From civilizational estrangement to defeatism

By all accounts, Western civilization and the ideals associated with it are in big trouble. For a start, the very concept of civilization is decried, and Western civilization, in particular, is frequently demonized as a supposed medium for the promotion of white supremacy and racism. The American historian Daniel Gordon has observed that ‘of all the terms in modern social science, none is more reviled by academics today than civilization’.[vii] As the Cambridge historian Richard Tombs remarked.  ‘Attacking Western civilization would have seemed eccentric in 1989.  Now it seems to be the tide of history’.[viii]

Cultural institutions in the West – including museums charged with preserving and exhibiting artefacts that symbolize different epochs of Western civilization – are indifferent and even hostile to the tradition that they are meant to represent. At best, they regard civilization as an outdated idea; at worst, they dismiss it as an ideological construct oriented towards upholding a racial hierarchy. In some instances, those who refuse to conform to this anti-civilizational ethos, who insist on taking the tradition of Western Civilization seriously, are condemned for ‘catering to populism’.

The American sociologist Roger Brubaker asserts that populist movements have embraced ‘civilizationism’ as a response to what they perceive as an Islamist civilizational threat.[ix] Brubaker coined the term ‘civilizationism’ to refer to the weaponization of Western ideals by far-right identitarian activists.

Hostility to the concept of Western Civilization has led to the abolishment of university history courses devoted to teaching this topic. Those in charge of the history curriculum have followed suit and coupled any mention of Western Civilization with a health warning. For example, a course titled ‘The Myths of Western Civilization: decolonizing and Queering European History’ offers a content warning that states, ‘Much of European history is and should be disturbing. It often involves violence, queerphobia, racism, classism, sexism, and xenophobia’.[x]

Decolonization means decivilization

The loss of confidence in the civilizational accomplishment of its cultural elites has encouraged and empowered anti-western opponents to go on the offensive. In any case, opponents of colonialism during the 20^th century understandably criticized Western civilization as a medium of their oppression. As the Indian academic, Makarand R Paranjape pointed out:

‘For the colonized, the critique of modern, Western civilization became essential to the anti-colonial struggle. That is because the colonizers had tried to legitimize their expansionist and exploitative enterprise of empire-building as the white man's civilizing mission or burden’.[xi]

Tragically, from the 1960s onwards, an entirely legitimate anti-colonial critique of the ideological instrumentalization of Western civilization became entwined with the growing influence of a non-judgmental cultural sensibility of the times. Anti-colonialism came under the spell of Western identity politics and multiculturalism. Perversely, a new form of anti-westernism emerged based on the ideological resources developed in Western universities and cultural institutions.

The new synthesis of Western identity politics and the traditional form of anti-colonialism was most systematically expressed by the American Black Power movement in the 1960s. One of its leaders, Stokely Carmichael, explained that ‘When you talk of black power, you talk of building a movement that will smash everything Western civilization had created’.[xii]

The mutation of an anti-colonial critique of Western civilization into a nihilistic call for the destruction of everything it has created has gained momentum due to the expanding influence of identity politics. On January 15, 1987, the American civil rights activist Jesse Jackson and around 500 protesters marched down Palm Drive, Stanford University’s grand main entrance, chanting, ‘Hey hey, ho ho, Western Civ has got to go’. This event marked the beginning and end of teaching Western civilization courses in American universities. In the Academy, multiculturalism displaced the study of Western culture throughout the Anglo-American world.

Soon every academic discipline became the target for decolonization. Its mere association with western is sufficient to denounce mathematics, philosophy and even scientific subjects for their civilizational association.

The synthesis of non-judgmentalism and identity politics became a driver for a discourse that was not merely anti-western but also anti-civilizational. As Ibram X. Kendi, a leading idealogue of racist ‘anti-racism’, contends ‘“Civilization” itself is often a polite euphemism for cultural racism’. In effect the demonisation of the concept of civilization has become integral to the ideological worldview of identity politics. The merging of anti-civilizationalism and anti-westernism serves as an important driver of  identity politics. Its influence transcends Western cultural institutions and even shapes the attitudes of opponents of the West worldwide.

It is the common hatred for Western civilization that unites the most disparate of movements, such as LGBTQ and Hamas. This sentiment is strikingly affirmed by the @columbia Students for Justice in Palestine post on X, which stated that ‘We are Westerners fighting for the total eradication of Western civilization’![xiii] Its post refers to ‘our intifada’ to highlight the fact that it is motivated by the same impulse as its jihadist allies.

The call by ‘Westerners’ for the ‘total eradication of Western civilization’ is symptomatic of a willingness of sections of society to embrace an extreme version of  anti-civilizationalism as a form of their identity. This orientation does not simply reject the values of Western Civilization but also the norms of behaviour associated with it. Recently, anti-civilizationalism has led to what can be best described as a process of de-civilization.

Referring to the work of Ramin Jahanbegloo, the Iranian philosopher Paranjape noted that in recent times, ‘civilizational battles have been redrawn’. He adds that ‘the fight is not between two meanings of civilization, but between civilization itself and a rampant worldwide decivilizing counternarrative.’ Jahanbegloo hints that the latter also has caused religious or ideological fanaticism. The fanaticism of Hamas and nihilistic zealotry of movements like Black Lives Matter and Trans-activism are expressions of this decivilizing counternarrative.

Decivilization does not merely breed irrational and fanatical attitudes towards civilization. It is also seeks to dissolve the practice of civility that emerged through the civilizing of human behaviour. Civility emerged with the transformation of standards of behaviour through the centuries. It referres to becoming less violent, more tolerant and rational and to attitudes that are prepared to yield to the insights offered by new experience. Decivilization represent the negation of civility. Its willingness to support violence is matched by its self-conscious rejection of tolerance and the freedom of speech.

In his account of the issues at stake, Jahanbegloo is concerned about what has been lost in the anti-civilizational turn of society. The author of the book, The Decline of Civilization, correctly asserts that the ‘true expressions’ of decivilization are ‘meaninglessness and thoughtlessness’.[xiv] The devastating consequences of this development have been amply demonstrated by the anti-civilizational behaviour of Hamas and its Western supporters on 7 October.

Islamism in its zealous politicised form expresses the decivilizational ambitions of identity politics most consistently. The vile behaviour of Hamas killers on 7 October was more than matched by the celebratory manner that its Western collaborators responded to this atrocity. 7 October was not only an act of barbaric cruelty but self-conscious performance of rejecting of civilizational norms

However, the responsibility for unleashing the attitudes associated with decivilizationalism originated with the willingness of the ruling elites of the West to refuse to uphold its civilizational legacy. Hamas no less than LGBTQ ideologues was acting out a narrative invented by decadent western authors. Confusion, disorientation and the crisis of meaning have provided a fertile terrain for the flourishing of self-consciously anti-civilizational identities.

In the current climate, the defence of humanity’s civilizational accomplishment requires a willingness to challenging the decivilizational ambitions of identity politics. But defence is not enough. It is far better to go on the offensive  and demonstrate  that the willingness to develop the cultural, intellectual and moral resources provided by Western Civilization is essential for the future of humanity.

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[i] Kroeber AL. Is Western Civilization Disintegrating or Reconstituting?. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. 1951 Apr 30;95(2):100-4.

[ii] Huntington, S. (2007) The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. [edition unavailable]. Simon & Schuster.

[iii] Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process, Blackwell Publishing : Oxford.

[iv] Lucien Febvre (1930) ‘History and civilization: “Civilization: Evolution of a Word and a Group of Ideas”’ in Rundell & Mennell (1998)

[v] See Allen C. Guelzo and James Hankins: The Golden Thread: A History of the Western Tradition, NY: Encounter Books

[vi] https://worldhistoryconnected.press.uillinois.edu/6.3/brown.htm

[vii] Gordon, D., 2017. “Civilization” and the Self-Critical Tradition. Society, 54, pp.106-123.

[viii] . https://historyreclaimed.co.uk/decolonization-and-the-attack-on-the-west/ .

[ix] Brubaker, Roger. 2017. “Between Nationalism and Civilizationism: The European Populist Moment in Comparative Perspective.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 40/8: 1191–1226.

[x]

https://www.europenowjournal.org/2020/06/02/the-myths-of-western-civilization-decolonizing-and-queering-european-history/

[xi] https://www.dailyo.in/variety/civilization-world-decolonisation-18844

[xii] https://www.historynewsnetwork.org/article/whatever-you-think-of-stokely-carmichael-youre-pro

[xiii] https://legalinsurrection.com/2024/08/columbia-anti-israel-coalition-declares-its-fighting-for-the-total-eradication-of-western-civilization/?fbclid=IwY2xjawElm4JleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHSBZPOcjXO9-zVnuohjlcRW2u13YCjTT_N_S61B1M2NOWnek6ZbAPuWZ1A_aem_pln1jGAnxCf-zhP9zTs7nQ

[xiv] https://www.governancenow.com/views/interview/mahatma-gandhi-and-rabindranath-tagore-are-the-two-indian-authors-who-redefine-civilization-as-a-moral-compass-and-a-space-of-dialogue-decivilization-ramin-jahanbegloo-brexit-donald-trump-right-wing-terrori