“Clash of Civilization” Vs. “Clash of Ignorance”

November 22, 2009 shahedballan

In the Clash of Ignorance, Edward Said refutes the generalized ideas presented by Samuel Huntington in his article, Clash of Civilization. Huntington argues that after the end of the cold war, fundamental world conflicts began to occur culturally leading eventually to politically. He adds by defining that the major source of conflict is the clash between the West and Islam.

Edward Said rejected this generalization pointing out that the culture is a very complex composition. Said argues from a different perspective and defining cultures as a mixture of different civilizations. He mentions that throughout history, cultures have been mixing together and being affected by one another. On the contrary, Huntington’s viewpoint was much narrower and one-dimensional.

Not only did Said refuse Huntington’s generalizations, but he also found it ignorant to speak of a whole civilization in such a judgmental and simplistic way. In addition to that Huntington’s argument was not based on truthful and valid evidence.

strengths :

Edward Said is a very smart critic and that goes back to his wide experience and his further knowledge. He passes his points and ideas to the reader easily and his sentences and well constructed therefore, easy to understand and absorb. The whole topic was strong itself and made a controversy therefore he proved his argument carefully and validly.

weaknesses :

I did not find weaknesses in his article and that is because he argued it so carefully that he gave proven evidence for each point he made; so not even to be accused of being bias.