De Benoist: The Age of Civilization States

“Civilization worthy of this name cannot be without giving up and rejecting something.”

Fernand Braudel

Three competing models are presently competing over who will form Nomos Earth: liberal internationalism, the planet of national states created by the Westphalian order and the civilization states.

Liberal Internationalism

Liberal internationalism is based on the classical themes of liberal thought: the regulation of law, the protection of the rights of individuals guaranteed constitutionally, the primacy of procedural standards, parliamentary democracy and the free market, i.e. concepts proclaimed as universal and appropriate "humanities". It is only possible to forget that anyone who rejects what is referred to as “freedom and democracy” will be outside the category of humanity and will be considered part of the “axis of evil” due to the fact that liberalism maintains that any opposition to a lifestyle based on individualism and capitalism constitutes an act of “aggression”.

This shows that the liberal strategy is trapped in fundamental contradiction: on the 1 hand, it is theoretically based on the rule of tolerance for all individual choices, leading to the thought of the essential "neutrality" of public authorities (in France, too, this is the basis laïcité[1]On the another hand, he wants to impose his individualistic values on the full world, to the detriment of another systems of values, thus denying the rule of tolerance. It is not able to prove universal and absolute superiority of liberal democracy, but at the same time it multiplies any intervention to impose it on the full world, making what was to be 1 of many theoretical options an alibi for the most brutal imperialism.

Similarly, in the United States, Monroe's doctrine (1823) evolved from categorical non-interventionism (the rule of neutrality) to a moral position giving them unlimited right to interfere. ‘The rule of non-interference and rejection of abroad powers – writes Carl Schmitt – has given way to justify American imperialist interventions".

Homogenity of the national state

A national state is considered to be a basic political cell in the global order ordained by the UN, in which each country has the right to be considered sovereign. Rejecting the pluralism typical of imperial powers, it uses categories of individual nations, territories and political communities, with small tolerance for differentiation and the pursuit of homogenisation of interior components.

Liberal internationalism is not fundamentally hostile to national states due to the fact that the second have always been susceptible to colonization by its values. We know how effective it has been around the planet to impose the rule of universal legitimacy of liberal democracy (Friedrich Hayek He called it "constitutional protection of capitalism") and the free market. From a liberal point of view, national states are no longer an obstacle to the expansion of the global market. Liberal internationalism does not even hesitate to support it in the political and military sphere if it considers it essential to extend its influence. This is now the case in the case of a war in Ukraine, in which the United States provides immense assistance to a country that wants to become a national country, due to the fact that it is in line with American interests.

State-civilization as an enemy of liberal internationalism

The same cannot be said of the state of civilization which liberal internationalism considers to be a strong opponent, as it naturally resists the values promoted by it.

Who are these fresh actors, therefore, which many authors mention to as "civilisation states"[2]? These are regional powers whose influences extend beyond their own territory and which recognise multipolar Nomos Earth. Initially, China and Russia were mentioned among them. However, this word can besides be applied to many another countries capable of organising based on their culture and the long past of a sphere of influence wider than their national territory or the ethno-language community, specified as India, Turkey and Iran.

States-civilizations reject Western universalism by proposing in its place a model in which each civilization formation has a different identity, both in the sphere of cultural values and political institutions; an identity which cannot be reduced to any commonly applicable pattern. They want not only to conduct their sovereign policy, independent of the dictatorship of the supranational elites. They besides want to prevent any "globalistic" projects seeking to impose the same principles on the full world, due to the fact that they are aware that their culture is not identical to any another culture. They remind us that 1 culture of all cultures does not exist.

Universalism as a Mask of ethnocentrism

A common feature of the civilized states is that they consider Western universalism to be a masked ethnocentrism, an elegant way of concealing the essence of hegemonic imperialism. Above all, however, the civilisation states draw from their own past and culture not only in order to accomplish a different than that proposed by liberal internationalism of the political and social system, but besides in order to bring out from them the concept of a planet designed to form the foundation of "good life", at both political and spiritual level, i.e. in the fundamental sphere of non-negotiable values whose embodiment and defence are meant to constitute the mission of the state. In another words, state-civilisation seeks to make a concept of good based on autonomous values and a circumstantial tradition.

Civilization states refuse to comply with Western standards, which in the past have adopted any of them to ‘modernize’, regardless of whether they are headed by a fresh czar, a fresh emperor, a fresh caliph; from whether their opposition is carried out in the name of Confucian ‘harmony’, the heritage of the ‘Sacred Russia’ (“Moscow, 3rd Rome”), eurasianism, Hinduism or memories of the caliphate. Octidentalization and modernization have no longer been synonymous with them.

War on the National State

Russian philosopher Konstantin Krylov (1967-2020) in his posthumous book Statement (Maintenance) describes Russia from 2021 as a country to which liberal reasoning has been abroad since its beginning. He rejects liberalism, but not democracy. Although he became a Zoroastrist during his stay in Uzbekistan, he emphasizes the importance of Orthodox religion. presently head of the Simone Weil Political doctrine Center in the United States Paul Grenier He late wrote about him in his article: "I do not know any conservative Russian intellectual for whom Russia would be part of Western civilization. They all respect it as something separate and different.”[3]. They have already expressed specified an opinion Nikolai Danilewski and Oswald Spengler, paying attention to the distinctness of Russian social behaviour and ethical norms, starting with “our” (in Russian we do not say “I went for a walk with my brother” but “we went for a walk with my brother”).

For a liberal strategy based on the pursuit of individual interests, Russia – refusing to relegate everything to the private sphere and rejecting the neutrality of the state in axiological matters – is simply a denial of all holiness. In this way, it becomes understandable that in Ukraine Moscow not only defends the concept that the Russian state cannot become a national state due to the fact that it belongs to the Slavic civilization space, but besides undertakes to fight the national state as such, with supporters of the secular imagination of the planet and liberal values of the "collective West" which it considers to be "decadential"; and with American hegemonism supported by the liberal system.

Kyōto School

In the past, long before the emergence of decolonization movements, most likely the first effort to make the thought of a multipolar planet divided into large, distinct spaces treated as crucibles of culture and civilization; as well as criticism of abstract principles of Western universalism with its capitalism and Scientism, in the name of cultural pluralism characterizing the "real world" (sekaiteki secai) – as part of a school from Kyōto, founded in 1941 by Nishida Kitarō and Tanabe Hajime.

The chief representatives of this school were philosophers like Kōsaka Masaaki, Kōyama Iwao, Nishitani Keiji and Suzuki Shigetaka. Of the European thinkers who have the top influence on them, we can mention Johann Gottfried von Herder and Leopold von Ranke. In the times of the latest ideas of the Kyōto school were besides present with Communist authors specified as Charles Taylor is Alasdair MacIntyre[4]. It is in her ellipse that the concept developed ‘co-do business zones in east Asia’, which combined a number of countries sharing common values and respecting their autonomy. This concept must not be confused with the "Japanese centrism" of the nationalist right, nor with the nipponese imperialism of that time. authoritative censorship banned the publication of the work of representatives of this stream as early as June 1943, straight accusing them of trying to propose to the nipponese authorities a mission different from average imperialist expansion.

School tianxia

In modern China we should mention the school tianxia and its representatives, specified as Zhao Tingyang, historian Xu Jilin, Xu Zhuoyun, Wang Gungwu and Liang Zhipping proclaiming the concept "China's explanation with China" (ĭ zhōngguó jiěshì zhōngguó), and to any degree Jianga Shigong, a supporter "Chinese model of socialism".

Her theorists focus on the concept tianxia “All that under the heavens”[5]), the spiritual rule of pre-modern China, according to which the state was the Earth Empire. This ambiguous term, utilized before Laozi and Confucius, refers to the perfect order of civilization, to the spatial image in which China is the core, the hierarchical order in which the "curse" of its participants determines their place and the political strategy is to warrant the balance of the whole. According to Zhao Tingyang, it is "A comprehensive concept in which metaphysics as an ontology replaces metaphysics understood as a doctrine of politics, treated as the foundation of philosophy"[6], which at the same time stands for the incomparability of cultures in terms of values and the belief that China must step distant from Euro-centrism and realise its function as the Kingdom of the Middle.

For Xu Jilina "The origin of the current crisis is, above all, the mentality of the nation's interest". “To truly deal with this problem – adds – We request a thought that will counter nationalism. I call this reasoning fresh tianxia, pearls of the core civilizational cognition of pre-modern China, adapted to contemporary criteria’.

The way it has been since 1990 is characteristic. Chinese authorities based on ‘Asian values’ resisted criticism from the human rights ideology. On the forum in Davos, January 2021, Xi Jinping He said: "As there are no 2 leaves in the world, there are no 2 same stories, cultures and social systems. Each country is unique in these areas and no is better than others. There is no reason to worry about these differences, and we should alternatively worry about trying to put a hierarchy between civilizations or forcing 1 of them to identify with another in the field of history, culture or social system".

Civilization or civilization?

The perception of the crisis of universalism and Western hegemonism goes hand in hand with the feeling that the era of global governance based on the conflict-based balance of national states is ending, as Carl Schmitt predicted already in 1930[7]. The emergence of civilisation states marks the beginning of an era in which planet order will no longer depend solely on the unstable pendulum of national states. As civilization's standards begin to play a key function in geopolitics, fundamental rivalry moves from national to civilization level. Civilisation states besides pave the way for a fresh knowing of sovereignty, which deviates from that concept in national countries.

It's worth stopping here on a certain defining issue. It concerns the concept of ‘civilisation’, which, in a delicate way, is not free from ambiguity. Samuel P. Huntington He claimed that the meaning of that word depends on whether we usage it in a single or multiple number. It's no accident that Huntington's book Collision of Civilization (1996) appeared in German under the title Kampf der Kulturen. In Germany there is simply a tradition of opposing culture (Culture) civilization (Zivilisation). For example, Spengler recognized “civilization” as an antemortem condition of large cultures.

Liberals have always claimed that the "defence of civilization" which in their view is identical with the rights of individuals and free marketplace rules. For them, civilization occurs only in a singular number, and its embodiment is liberal democracies. Any country that departs from them ceases to be part of the "civilised world"; those who reject this strategy are immediately delegated and considered to be "authoritarian" and undemocratic authorities, as if the only possible form of democracy was liberal democracy. The thought of a single-number civilization in the past was the justification for colonization, followed by inspiration for the “end of history” Francis Fukuyama and his imagination of a planet free from all power-based relationships. According to the civilized states, it is precisely the opposite: civilizations (or cultures) happen only in plural numbers. Civilisation countries do not defend ‘civilisation’ as suchBut civilization own.

New empires?

The question arises at this point as to how many civilizations have assumed the function of empires traditionally understood as multinational or even multicultural states, ruling over immense territories inhabited by different peoples who mostly enjoy local autonomy, provided that they respect the applicable laws defined by the central authority.

The concept of a state of civilisation is more like a ‘large space’ (Großraum) about which Carl Schmitt wrote, redefining global relations and moving beyond the framework of relations between national states. “Great space,” said Schmitt, requires “great peoples”, immense territory and autonomous political will. ‘Imperia – he writes – These powers are the bearers of a political thought radiating into a large space beyond them and simultaneously excluding the intervention of abroad powers in this area.". It besides states the key point: “Imperium is more than a large state, just like a large space is more than an enlarged tiny space”. "The Logic of Large Spaces has no universalistic dimension. It involves the historical evolution of the large territorial powers affecting another countries. The paradigm ceases to be national and begins to be spatial”[8].

With respect to Europe, which for 2 millenniums has been a cultural and ideological hybrid formula, it is now a neutralized space in which the clashing concepts of civilization come to an end.

Alain de Benoist

Source: https://arktos.com/2023/04/26/the-time-of-the-civilisational-states/

[1] The French concept of separating religion from state, guarantees equal treatment of all religions and spiritual freedom of individuals.

[2] Christopher Coker, The emergence of the Civilizational State. London 2019.

[3] Paul Grenier, Konstantin Krylov’s Ethical explanation and What It Reveals about the Property for Conflict between Russia and the West, ‘Telos’, No 201 (winter 2022), p. 112.

[4] Kenn Steffensen, The Political thought of the Kyoto School, [in:] Michiko Yusa (ed.), The Bloomsbury investigation Handbook of Contemporary nipponese Philosophy, fresh York 2017. See besides John W. M. Krummel, The Kyoto School’s Wartime doctrine of a Multipolar World, ‘Telos’, No 201 (winter 2022), pp. 63-83.

[5] Golden Age tianxia was placed during the reign of Prince Zhou, a military commander and author surviving in the 11th century BC, who is frequently portrayed as the creator of Confucianism, though he lived many centuries before Confucius.

[6] Zhao Tingyang, La philosophie du tianxia, ‘Diogène’, 2008, No 1, pp. 4-25. See besides Zhao Tingyang, Tianxia, tout sous le męme ciel, Paris 2018.

[7] Amitav Acharya, The End of American planet Order, Cambridge 2014; Oliver Stuenkel, Post-Western World: How Emerging Powers Are Remaking Global Order, Cambridge 2016. See besides Martin Jacques, When China Rules the World: The End of the Western planet and the Birth of a fresh Global Order, fresh York 2009; Charles Horner, Rising China and Its Postmodern Fate, Athens 2009.

[8] Karl Peyrade, Le droit des peuples réglé sur le grand espace de Carl Schmitt, online, 23.05.2017.