Accusing a civilization of fixity presupposes belief in progress

Evidence

The world is not as simple as Lewis and Huntington want it to be. They desperately want to hold onto a world in which the difference between “us” and “them” is clear. What they ignore, argues Said, is that civilizational identity is not fixed but fluid. All civilizations and cultures, including so-called Western civilization, have intense, often contentious internal debates about how to define themselves. Civilizations are also shaped and transformed by all sorts of migrations and movements between peoples of different cultures. Finally, it is hard to imagine a culture today that, in the past or the present, has walled itself off from other cultures. In fact, every culture has been and continues to be involved in transformative exchanges, contacts, and conversations with other cultures. — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 232 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Herder ranked Arabs as permanently stalled at a middle degree of civilization; The ‘all civilizations degrade nature’ argument masks a dogmatic doctrine of predetermined progress; Civilizational identity is fluid, not fixed or walled off — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 232 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Civilizational identity is fluid, not fixed or walled off #complicates (0.74) — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 232
• Doctrines of civilizational decay are intimately connected with race-thinking #complicates (0.72)
• Civilizations import foreign ideas but assimilate them to survive unchanged #complicates (0.71)