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From The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (Samuel P. Huntington, 1996) p56-9

Some people argue that this era is witnessing the emergence of what V.S. Naipaul called a “universal civilization.” What is meant by this term? The idea implies in general the cultural coming together of humanity and the increasing acceptance of common values, beliefs, orientations, practices, and institutions by peoples throughout the world. More specifically, the idea may mean some things which are profound but irrelevant, some which are relevant but not profound, and some which are irrelevant and superficial.

First, human beings in virtually all societies share certain basic values, such as murder is evil, and certain basic institutions, such as some form of the family. Most peoples in most societies have a similar “moral sense,” a “thin” minimal morality of basic concepts of what is right and wrong. If this is what is meant by universal civilization, it is both profound and profoundly important, but it is also neither new nor relevant. If people have shared a few fundamental values and institutions throughout history, this may explain some constants in human behavior but it cannot illuminate or explain history, which consists of changes in human behavior. In addition, if a universal civilization common to all humanity exists, what term do we then use to identify the major cultural groupings of humanity short of the human race? Humanity is divided into subgroups – tribes, nations, and broader cultural entities normally called civilizations. If the term civilization is elevated and restricted to what is common to humanity as a whole, either one has to invent a new term to refer to the largest cultural groupings of people short of humanity as a whole or one has to assume that these large but not-humanity-wide groupings evaporate. Vaclav Havel, for example, has argued that “we now live in a single global civilization,” and that this ‘is no more than a thin veneer” that “covers or conceals the immense variety of cultures, of peoples, of religious worlds, of historical traditions and historically formed attitudes, all of which in a sense lie ‘beneath’ it. Only semantic confusion, however, is gained by restricting “civilization” to the global level and designating as “cultures” or “subcivilizations,” those largest cultural entities which have historically always been called civilizations.

Second, the term “universal civilization” could be used to refer to what civilized societies have in common, such as cities and literacy, which distinguish them from primitive societies and barbarians. This is, of course, the eighteenth century singular meaning of the term, and in this sense a universal civilisation is emerging, much to the horror of various anthropologists and others who view with dismay the disappearance of primitive peoples. Civilization in this sense has been gradually expanding throughout human history, and the spread of civilization in the singular has been quite compatible with the existence of many civilizations in the plural.

Third, the term “universal civilization” may refer to the assumptions, values, and doctrines currently held by many people in Western civilization and by some people in other civilizations. This might be called the Davos Culture. Each year about a thousand businessmen, bankers, government officials, intellectuals, and journalists from scores of countries meet in the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Almost all these people hold university degrees in the physical sciences, social sciences, business, or law, work with words and/or numbers, are reasonably fluent in English, are employed by governments, corporations, and academic institutions with extensive international involvements, and travel frequently outside their own country. They generally share beliefs in individualism, market economies, and political democracy, which are also common among people in Western civilization. Davos people control virtually all international institutions, many of the world’s governments, and the bulk of the world’s economic and military capabilities. The Davos Culture hence is tremendously important. Worldwide, however, how many people share this culture? Outside the West, it is probably shared by less than 50 million people or 1 percent of the world’s population and perhaps by as few as one-tenth of 1 percent of the world’s population. It is far from a universal culture, and the leaders who share in the Davos Culture do not necessarily have a secure grip on power in their own societies. This “common intellectual culture exists,” as Hedley Bull pointed out, “only at the elite level: its roots are shallow in many societies . . . [and] it is doubtful whether, even at the diplomatic level, it embraces what was called a common moral culture or set of common values, as distinct from a common intellectual culture.”

Fourth, the idea is advanced that the spread of Western consumption pattern, and popular culture around the world is creating a universal civilization. This argument is neither profound nor relevant. Cultural fads have been transmitted from civilization to civilization throughout history. Innovations in one civilization are regularly taken up by other civilizations. These are, however, either techniques lacking in significant cultural consequences or fads that come and go without altering the underlying culture of the recipient civilization. These imports “take” in the recipient civilization either because they are exotic or because they are imposed. In previous centuries the Western world was periodically swept by enthusiasms for various items of Chinese or Hindu culture. In the nineteenth century cultural imports from the West became popular in China and India because they seemed to reflect Western power. The argument now that the spread of pop culture and consumer goods around the world represents the triumph of Western civilization trivializes Western culture. The essence of Western civilization is the Magna Carta not the Magna Mac. The fact that non-Westerners may bite into the latter has no implications for their accepting the former.

It also has no implications for their attitudes toward the West. Somewhere in the Middle East a half-dozen young men could well be dressed in jeans, drinking Coke, listening to rap, and, between their bows to Mecca, putting together a bomb to blow up an American airliner. During the 19705 and 19805 Americans consumed millions of Japanese cars, TV sets, cameras, and electronic gadgets without being “Japanized” and indeed while becoming considerably more antagonistic toward Japan. Only naive arrogance can lead Westerners to assume that non-Westerners will become “Westernized” by acquiring Western goods. What, indeed, does it tell the world about the West when Westerners identify their civilization with fizzy liquids, faded pants, and fatty foods?

A slightly more sophisticated version of the universal popular culture argument focuses not on consumer goods generally but on the media, on Hollywood rather than Coca-Cola. American control of the global movie, television, and video industries even exceeds its dominance of the aircraft industry. Eighty-eight of the hundred films most attended throughout the world in 1993 were American, and two American and two European organizations dominate the collection and dissemination of news on a global basis. This situation reflects two phenomena. The first is the universality of human interest in love, sex. violence, mystery, heroism, and wealth, and the ability of profit-motivated companies, primarily American, to exploit those interests to their own advantage. Little or no evidence exists, however, to support the assumption that the emergence of pervasive global communications is producing significant convergence in attitudes and beliefs. “Entertainment,” as Michael Vlahos has said, “does not equate to cultural conversion.” Second, people interpret communications in terms of their own preexisting values and perspectives. “The same visual images transmitted simultaneously into living rooms across the globe,” Kishore Mahbubani observes, “trigger opposing perceptions. Western living rooms applaud when cruise missiles strike Baghdad. Most living outside see that the West will deliver swift retribution to non-white Iraqis or Somalis but not to white Serbians, a dangerous signal by any standard.“

Global communications are one of the most important contemporary manifestations of Western power. This Western hegemony, however, encourages populist politicians in non-Western societies to denounce Western cultural imperialism and to rally their publics to preserve the survival and integrity of their indigenous culture. The extent to which global communications are dominated by the West is, thus, a major source of the resentment and hostility of non-Western peoples against the West. In addition, by the early 1990s modernization and economic development in non-Western societies were leading to the emergence of local and regional media industries catering to the distinctive tastes of those societies. In 1994, for instance, CNN lntemational estimated that it had an audience of 55 million potential viewers, or about 1 percent of the world’s population (strikingly equivalent in number to and undoubtedly largely identical with the Davos Culture people), and its president predicted that its English broadcasts might eventually appeal to 3 to 4 percent of the market. Hence regional (i.e., civilizational) networks would emerge broadcasting in Spanish, Japanese, Arabic, French (for West Africa), and other languages. “The Global Newsroom,” three scholars concluded, “is still confronted with a Tower of Babel.” Ronald Dore makes an impressive case for the emergence of a global intellectual culture among diplomats and public officials. Even he, however, comes to a highly qualified conclusion concerning the impact of intensified communications: “other things being equal [italics his], an increasing density of communication should ensure an increasing basis for fellow-feeling between the nations, or at least the middle classes, or at the very least the diplomats of the world,” but, he adds, “some of the things that may not be equal can be very important indeed.”