Is cultural convergence a given in the wake of Cold War?

By Greg Sheridan

This is the second of two articles on Australia's position in the Pacific century.

CANBERRA: For Australia, Huntington's thesis would be utterly, cataclysmically, disastrous. Indeed, an Australianized version of Huntington's thesis was written in The Australian newspaper by Owen Harries.

Australia, he said, was isolated in a sea of hostile civilizations. We were the most vulnerable outpost of the West, located along one of the most dangerous fault lines in the world, Harries deprecated our policy of seeking to become closer to Asia as representing the only case of a Western civilization seeking to join an Asian civilization.

This was unrealistic for Australia, as we would never be accepted by the Asians anyway. The only real choice for Australia, Harries rather preposterously argued, was whether to align ourselves with the North American or European version of Western civilization. Otherwise there would be dark days ahead down-under.

The real problem with both Fukuyama and Huntington is that they are extremely silly. This is no bar to popularity in Time or Newsweek, but it is surprising that both theories are taken so seriously by so many serious people.

The essential analytical weakness in both essays is the same. They are totally unempirical. They make no concessions to reality. Each can explain away any contradictory bits or real- world data with an escape clause.

Thus Fukuyama can dismiss any country which doesn't embrace a pretty tight definition of Western liberal capitalism as "trapped in history". He can dismiss the whole of Islam in this way and for China simply prophesy that the time will come when it too has its own first amendment and when Chinese are free to vote in national elections, attend Madonna concerts and have 50 cable- television channels broadcasting simultaneously pornography and bible lessons.

Huntington's anti-empirical bent is more easily demonstrable because he is dealing in much shorter-term prophecy. The only evidence he adduces for the Islam-Confucian grand alliance against the West is that China sold a number of weapons to some Islamic states in the Middle East.

But wait a minute. The former West Germany sold weapons to Iraq -- is Germany part of the great anti-Western conspiracy? The Pope has recently allied himself with Islam against abortion -- has the Pope become part of the anti-Western conspiracy as well?

The evidence that Huntington adduces in favor of his grand concert of nations is not of lines. Rather it is unipolar, with the United States as the sole superpower, and a series of secondary powers of varying significance.

But the human mind (especially those minds formed in the Cold War) craves an explanation, a unifying theory. The beginnings of a new fad with universalist pretensions a la Huntington or Fukuyama can be found among the enthusiasts for communications technology, especially those who believe that rapid communications will tend to eradicate all cultural differences.

Given this fluidity, what shapes can we discern in questions of culture convergence or cultural clash? Well, of course, there is a grain of truth in Fukuyama, Huntington and the microchip enthusiasts -- almost any ideological fashion has at least a grain of truth in it.

There are perhaps three fairly compelling reasons for there will probably be no culture convergence. First, although the Western economic system and Western military technology have acquired great additional prestige, Western social dislocation has acquired international opprobrium.

We might all dream of California, but the California we dream of does not include the Los Angeles race riots. Being wealthier will not automatically make us all the same. America's role as a universal model is diminished by its drugs, violence, urban decay and educational failings.

The second reason for doubting that cultural convergence will proceed apace is that in much of East Asia soft authoritarianism appears to have acquired a great degree of legitimacy.

It is perhaps still too early to say whether Taiwan is an unusual democracy to an unusual authoritarian regime. Perhaps that distinction is not all that useful. Certainly Japan and South Korea are democracies, but they are pretty different from any democracy in North America or Western Europe and have deep authoritarian features.

This is important because numerous authoritarian or quasi- authoritarian East Asian societies are successful societies. They cannot be written off, in Fukuyama's terms, as societies "trapped in history".

Because one culture succeeds in one way does not mean that another culture cannot succeed in another way. While these East Asian societies remain successful they will retain their legitimacy and may well continue to prefer soft authoritarianism to full-blow Western liberal democracy.

The third reason cultural convergence is probably overrated is that the fantasies of the info-techno-babblers notwithstanding, the human spirit is still frequently informed by many things which cannot easily be transmitted on television or computer screens. Religious conviction is one such quality, family and human relationships are another, literature is a third and there are many, many more. We may well watch CNN coverage of the Gulf War but we may each react to it very differently.

The truth is that human culture is utterly dynamic. As soon as you think you've got a hold on it, it changes.

It's a bit hard to follow all the changes just at the moment. But really there is very little to be alarmed about, or very much, just as you like, but certainly much less than for most of the last 50 years, or for most of the last century if it comes to that. There is only one thing that is (relatively) sure: you can distrust totally any universal explanations of the age in which we live.

Greg Sheridan is foreign editor of the Australian newspaper.

-- The Nation, Bangkok