Is the Clash of Civilizations Inevitable, or On the Problems in Understanding Civilization by S. Huntington

S. Huntington’s article on the clash of civilizations, published a little over 30 years ago, and the book that followed it, partly seemed prophetic — in any case, the main conflicts in Europe unfolded just along the line of civilizational faults outlined by the author; the ideas outlined are still in the focus of attention of political scientists. The article attempts not only to systematize the critical arguments against this concept, but also hermeneutically, based on the text of the article, to consider the question of understanding civilizations and substantiating the idea of their inevitable conflict, and systematically present errors in reasoning. Textual analysis shows that identification, which is considered by Huntington to be actually the key criterion of civilization, is first unreasonably reduced to fundamentalist religious, and then this information is supported by ad hoc assumptions. In addition, a number of logical errors in reasoning are revealed. Based on the results obtained, the heuristic potential of this concept is questioned; the conclusion about the fault line in Europe in this regard is not scientific, but “projective-ideological”.

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