conspicuous examples, a sense of insecurity spread through the Western world.
The Western values and ideals that in the modern world gave everybody a sense
of direction began to erode as material wealth in many postcolonial countries
increased, and in the postmodern world these values no longer delineate the only
route to a better life. Other identities, understood as ways of life, morals, and
political philosophies, which seemed to be destined to ultimate decay until
recently (at least from a Western point of view), now constitute alternative
templates to understand the world and act on it politically.
This new perspective involves an apparent contradiction. Hybridization is a
feature of postmodern life and thought. Boundaries between ethnicities, races,
nationalities, faiths, and languages are increasingly seen to be constructed and
therefore fluid and moveable. At the same time, the idea of a clash of
civilizations suggests the existence of solid entities that collide. By reifying
civilizations—he distinguishes the following nine: Western, Latin American,
African, Islamic, Sinic, Hindu, Orthodox, Buddhist, and Japanese—Huntington
laid himself open to criticism. For there is much overlap and interaction between
civilizations. Japanese civilization partakes of Sinic and Buddhist civilization;
Latin American is hardly wholly distinct from Western civilization; Orthodox
and Western civilizations are deeply intertwined, for instance in Greece.
Boundaries are porous and fluid. Assuming that the civilizational partitioning of
the world is a hard fact bears, like identity politics on lower levels, the risk of
overgeneralization and what Nobel laureate Amartya Sen calls ‘the illusion of
destiny’.
Constructivism may offer a way out. In this view, cultural identities are not fixed
once and for all but are a source from which to draw to assure one’s own
position whenever opportune. Confucianism in China is a pertinent example. For
much of the 20th century, Chinese intellectuals and politicians condemned it for
impeding China’s modernization, especially the Communist Party. But when the
People’s Republic initiated radical economic reforms in the 1980s, Confucianism
experienced a renaissance as an important reference point for Chinese identity.
Even government officials acknowledged Confucius proudly as a contributor to
China’s cultural heritage, which in the event dates back 2,500 years and spreads
far beyond China’s borders, and in this sense underlies a civilizational identity
rather than a national identity.
Like his colleagues Gautama Buddha, Jesus Christ, Muhammad, and some