A universal civilization would grow by expanding cross-civilizational commonalities

Evidence

Certainly a statement of Western and particularly American values would give far more weight to the rights of the individual as against those of the community, to freedom of expression and truth emerging out of the contest of ideas, to political participation and competition, and to the rule of law as against the rule of expert, wise, and responsible governors. Yet even so, while they might supplement the Singaporean values and give some lower priority, few Westerners would reject those values as unworthy. At least at a basic “thin” morality level, some commonalities exist between Asia and the West. In addition, as many have pointed out, whatever the degree to which they divided humankind, the world’s major religions—Western Christianity, Orthodoxy, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Confucianism, Taoism, Judaism—also share key values in common. If humans are ever to develop a universal civilization, it will emerge gradually through the exploration and expansion of these commonalities. Thus, in addition to the abstention rule and the joint mediation rule, the third rule for peace in a multicivilizational world is the commonalities rule: peoples in all civilizations should search for and attempt to expand the values, institutions, and practices they have in common with peoples of other civilizations. — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 897

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the ‘commonalities rule’ as one of three rules for peace across civilizations.
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: how thin-morality overlaps across major religions have been empirically documented or contested.