Calizar, Jenny Pearl D.

The Contemporary World June 1, 2020

BA-PoS 1 TTh; 1:30 – 3:00 EH402MC

Comparative Paper

Governments does not only interact with the people they rule but also with other governments.

They interact with them to trade, to share ideas, to work together to solve global problems, and to

resolve disputes. Political scientists have been studying about international relations, relations between

states for centuries, but never more so than during the twentieth century, as they tried to explain the

reasons and explore the aftermath of World Wars I and II and the Cold War that followed. And because

of this we have to go back on how we view the world. On why it is behaving the way it is. Ther e are a lot

of different perspectives on how a person thinks on how the world is shaped. The current economic,

political, and social situations arose from different factors. Therefore Benjamin Barber and Samuel

Huntington along with other scholars have written books to help in explaining.

In Benjamin Barber’s book “Jihad vs. McWorld”, he described how cultural differences between

tribalism, ethnic and religious fundamentalism, and global capitalism are headed inevitable for an

explosion of violence. By "McWorld" he means not just the multinational corporations for whom

national boundaries are more or less obsolete but also the American values wrapped in such low-culture

packaging as pop music, movies, fast food and video games. "Jihad" is those forces who fear and oppose

that modernism, people who see themselves engaged in "a holy struggle against something that is seen

as evil.” These two viable political figures have one thing in common, they are both hindering practical

ways for citizens to govern themselves democratically. They both threaten democracy with their

conflicting beliefs and contradictory ways of politics of governing.

While in Samuel Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations”, he argued that the clash of civilizations will

create more conflict to follow. And according to him our modern history is about a collection of unique

identities of group themselves as civilizations and that how these civilizations will be the reason of

future wars to happen. He also discussed in his book about what attributes constitute a civilization.

Where he included that civilizations share basic commonalities that have been established over time,

and are unlikely to change quickly.

 Now for my thoughts about the two books that have been mentioned. I do agree with Barber’s

Jihad vs. McWorld wherein he stated, “ the planet is falling apart and coming together at the same

time.” Why do I agree with this one? Yes it may be true that the West is slowly capturing us by

influencing us with their culture and what not. Western ideas is slowly spreading/influencing other parts

of the world thus making it more similar to one another. The imperatives of globalization that Barber

discussed such as market, source, information-technology, and ecological have been dealing with

subjects like how countries are becoming dependent with one another and now there is a loss of

nationalism. I think what barber have stated and discussed in his book is very evident in today’s events.

We can cite South Korea as an example. While they are slowly entertaining the Filipino people, we do

not realize that we’re already adopting their culture, values, beliefs, even the language, unintentionally.

While on the other hand, with Huntington’s view on the world, where great divisions among

humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be culture, I have to disagree with him on that. I

don’t think people argue with each other because of their civilizations or culture, they even respect

them for that. Well maybe not all but most of the people respects the other due to their

civilization/culture. In today’s generation, countries are made up of people from all different

backgrounds. There are a few select groups of people who do have an “us” versus “them” mentality,

which Huntington mentioned in his book, including religious based cultures such as Islam, but I think

most of the people don’t clash, which is apparent due to globalization, where most people seem to

agree on similar ideas and values, which is what makes globalization work.

I may have agreed with the other and disagreed with the other but may I say that, with the

views of these two authors on the world, it gave me also a new and additional perspective on how to

view the world. You can really tell that there are a lot of opinions, it may be backed-up by facts or not

but it can be helpful in explaining to people that has no idea on how they should view the world. On why

the world is behaving this way.

 SOURCES:

https://skram-marks.blogspot.com/2008/11/samuel-p-huntingtons-clash-of.html?

fbclid=IwAR1CugbG0tuSeLdwu1z9-4gUmjf2B5UWdHcOlPsFBvCx8M9kCpDUS1oWWgw

https://adamcap.com/schoolwork/2903/?fbclid=IwAR3cRp4iiH2OE2sxEhMZpYWL8jfX6mw-

ruRaxLMmHdXJHFV1HYnqt3yE_tA