From:	Josh Munn barnack2@*****.com
Subject:	OT Spirit of the land and it's people
Date:	Wed, 21 Jul 1999 08:54:46 -0400 (EDT)

--- Quindrael <d.n.m.vannederveen@****.warande.ruu.nl> wrote:
> >Actually, according to Samuel P. Huntington in his book "The Clash
> of
> >Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order", which is the
> >diffinitive work in this area, there are seven to nine
> civilizations.
> >These being Western, Latin American, African, Islamic, Sinic, Hindu,
> >Orthodoxy, Buddhist, and Japanese.
>
> OK, I'm absolutely no expert on this subject, but to me it seems this
> is
> just a distinction made from a _western_ view.
> For example, to differentiate between western and orthodox and put
> all
> African culture under one wing, might raise some African eyebrows.
> "You
> mean they say me and my completely different neighbour form the same
> culture, while they differentiate between these two exactly the same
> cultures?"
>
Huntington actually addresses this point, he make a distition between
culture and civilization. Cultures are a small groups of people within
an overall civilization. So yes Hutu and Tusi are different cultures
and yes they are different but they are also part of the same
civilization. Affrica is also a very hard place to clasify
civilizationally. Huntington acknowleges that Africa is closer to
civilizational anarcy that it is to a unified civilization, and yes
Huntington is a Western writer, therefore his writing and thought are
western slanted.

My main reason for quoting Huntington was to make the point that while
Western and Orthodow, or Japanese and Sinic share a lot of
characteristics they are distinct civilizations. The distinction is in
the way they think.

==
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