Conflict Based on Cultural and Civilizational Differences in 1990s

How many conflicts do you think occurred in the 1990’s? Do you think that the majority were based on cultural and civilizational differences? Samuel Huntington in his article, The Clash of Civilizations, certainly predicted that to be the case. However, in an analysis done by Jonathon Fox from 1989 to 2002 he concluded that the increase in cultural and civilizational conflicts Huntington predicted had not come true. His data showed 275 clashes had taken place around the world. Of them, one hundred four (104) or 37.8% of them were civilizational while one hundred thirty one (131) or 47.6% were noncivilizational. According to the ideas expressed by Samuel Huntington in his article, the number of civilizational conflicts should have been much greater.

Samuel Huntington’s belief was that the fundamental source of conflict after the cold war ended would be based on cultural and civilizational differences such as language and culture. He also felt that economic regionalism and the shrinking of the world would make these differences more obvious, thus creating conflict. I contend that The Clash of Civilizations ignores the constant ongoing changes of cultures and their boundaries and that globalization and the shrinking world will actually allow for a better understanding of others’ cultures and therefore help eliminate conflict. I will show that language barriers can be overcome, that social media and increased technology are changing our cultures to look more like one another, and that economic globalization and increased social interaction in our shrinking world will actually help us to understand one another more instead of creating conflict.

“Differences among civilizations are not only real; they are basic. Civilizations are differentiated from each other by history, language, culture, tradition and, most important, religion.” I find that many of these differences, especially language, are not as distinct as Mr. Huntington would lead us to believe. As we continue to interact with more and more people throughout the world, they will become even less so. The English language is the official language of more countries than any other and is the number two spoken language in the world; second only to Mandarin. With increasing technologies, it is very possible for an average tourist to have an application on their phone that will translate languages for them. With that kind of technology so readily accessible, to say language is even a barrier is ridiculous, so how could anyone argue that this will be a source of conflict?

The idea of culture being a difference that would cause conflict seems absurd to me as countries all over the world are seeing increasing changes in their cultures. Much of this is fueled by the ever-increasing social media in which Huntington could probably have never predicted. An example of such social media is Facebook. So the Facebook I use in the US is the