Huntington predicted that—“The most important conflicts of the future will occur along the cultural fault lines…”
His argument was based upon 6 points:
1. Differences among civilizations are real, basic.
2. The world is becoming a smaller place.
3. The processes of economic modernization and social change throughout the world are separating people from longstanding local identities.
4. The growth of civilization-consciousness is enhanced by the dual role of the West.
5. Cultural characteristics and differences are less easily compromised and resolved than political and economic ones.
6. Economic regionalism is increasing.
But, what Huntington couldn’t offer was cognitive research to support his assertion that the differences among civilizations actually affect political, legal, social interactions. However, a recent article in the Wall Street Journal has done just that.
Lera Boroditsky, a professor of psychology at Stanford University and editor in chief of Frontiers in Cultural Psychology, authored Lost in Translation, an article outlining the findings of her most recent study in last week’s WSJ.
Her research suggests that civilizations affect the way people think and the way in which people see the world. In that, the language a person speaks influences the way in which he or she thinks. The structure of a language can affect an individual’s attribution of blame and/or her understanding of time, etc.
Research shows that the languages we speak not only reflect our thoughts, but also shape the thoughts we wish to express. The implications this has on politics, law and religion are critical and could be used in part to explain why today’s political conflicts appear to be occurring along “cultural fault lines” as Huntington predicted.
LT
Thanks for the link, Lindsey. This is fascinating. Maybe we could talk about it on Wednesday.
ReplyDeleteBoroditsky uses Noam Chomsky, now a prominent Linguist as the bases for most of her research in most of this study which is interesting because he was not well respected until he came up with the sentence, "Colorless ideas sleep furiously" which rejects all of the respected linguistic universals that supposedly "connect people." The sentence means absolutely nothing (in our language), yet is a perfectly grammatical expression.
ReplyDeleteFrom a linguistic stand point, Boroditsky is absolutely right, the language we are taught, directly impacts the thoughts we are able to think, it has been proven (if you are interested in this take Ling. 367-Language and the Mind).
As far as Huntington, it is becoming clear that language so far as civilizations are concerned, it is fascinating to think that the language that a civilization speaks is a barrier to their understanding entirely of another group. Even if they can understand the actual words, it is not too far to say that a civilization does not understand the prosody, linguistic variation, and other distinctions between languages.
Could it be that the final clash of civilizations will be a mere misunderstanding?
A. Braden