25-04-2025
- Politics
- South China Morning Post
When it comes to a ‘civilisational state' is there really such a thing?
The notion of a civilisational state has always intrigued me because it seems to be a contradiction in terms. And yet, it has been in vogue for decades. In varying guises, it's being promoted and encouraged in such diverse and even hostile countries as China and India, Iran and Israel.
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When you have such a long glorious civilisation or religion, and sometimes they are indistinguishable – the West, for example, used to be called Christendom – it's inevitable the state will incorporate that history into its ideology to legitimise itself.
On the other hand, 'youth' can also be an ideology. The once-young United States thought of itself as the vanguard of 'the new world' as opposed to the corrupt 'old world' in Europe. The US is the opposite of a civilisational state, in terms of their contrasting ideologies.
It strikes me that civilisation – or being 'civilised' into a particular way of life – is the pervasive background to how you think, speak, live your life, and accept or fear death. It's quiet and semi-conscious.
However, ideology is loud and in your face; it's about mobilising and controlling others, and being mobilised and controlled willingly. It's about power – that of being acted on or acting on someone.
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Also, civilisations throughout history often learned and mixed with each other. Unfortunately, Samuel Huntington turned them into practically enemy states!
What led me to revisit this idea is a new post on X by Yishan Wong, the former CEO of Reddit and one of the original 'PayPal Mafia' that includes such controversial billionaires as Elon Musk and Peter Thiel.
