Huntington Blog

Huntington’s main argument is that people's cultural and religious identities will be the primary source of conflict in the post-Cold War world. Some of the most prominent critics of Huntington's ideas often extend their criticisms to traditional cultures. These cultures that “dampen” the validity of Huntington’s theory are ones that wish to, or have modernized without adopting the core and central values and attitudes of the west. Critics argue that the existence of the “East Asian Tigers” who have adopted western economics while maintaining traditional or totalitarian social government do not support Huntington’s thesis, thereby producing doubts regarding the theory’s accuracy.
As a result of “buzz” of his argument in 1993, Huntington responded to critics. Huntington wants argue that as with any paradigm, or the change in basic assumptions within the ruling theory, there is much that the civilization paradigm does not account for. He states that critics have no trouble citing events like Iraq's invasion of Kuwait that his theory does not explain and would not have predicted. Despite this, he wants to argue that uncharacteristic events do not falsify a paradigm. A paradigm is disproved only by the creation of an alternative model that accounts for more crucial facts in equally simple or simpler terms. I want to argue that although Huntington’s statement is true, and idea of paradigm shift is a valuable one; it should not stop the desire to falsify theories. Moreover, one could argue that we should not hold onto the "Clash of Civilizations" as a model if we can falsify it, even if we lack a better explanatory theory at the current moment
Despite the fact that I personally believe his argument false, Huntington does produce an interesting point in support of his theory. He states that because the civilizational paradigm has generated so much “buzz” around the world it shows that, it strikes home; it either accords with reality as people see it or it comes close enough so that people who do not accept it have to attack it . This point, although doesn’t provide any real weight to the theory’s validity is a very interesting point and is worth consideration.