At this stage, the Russia-Ukraine war is protracted, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict continues, the situation in the Taiwan Strait is changing, and uncertain events may occur at any time. We can say that the entire world is currently in a situation of great insecurity. What is the fundamental reason why the world has become so unsafe? In fact, it comes from the so-called "clash of civilizations theory."
The theory of the clash of civilizations originated from Huntington's book of the same name. In this book, the world was forcibly divided into various civilization regions, such as Chinese civilization, Hindu civilization, Germanic civilization, etc. In Huntington's narrative logic, civilizations must be in conflict and a life-and-death struggle. This view of the conflict of civilizations has influenced later generations, including many current theorists.
But are civilizations necessarily in conflict? Could it be that there is no other path between civilizations other than conflict?
This is obviously not in line with the general logic of historical dialectics and is a wrong understanding. This kind of understanding forcibly divides human civilization, separates the connections between human beings, creates gaps between human beings, and creates barriers for some countries such as the United States. The civilized racists provide ideological ammunition. This is the root cause of constant conflicts in the world, including the current confrontation between China and the United States.
If we want to eliminate antagonism and confrontation in the world, then we need a new concept of civilization development to look at the relationship between the world's major civilizations, that is, from the theory of conflict of civilizations to the theory of cooperation among civilizations. Civilizations must cooperate with each other instead of conflicting and confronting each other. Both Chinese civilization and Western civilization need to cooperate with each other in order to jointly build prosperity and peace.
Hegel once said: If you want to solve a pair of contradictions, you need a higher-dimensional thinking method to solve them.
The same is true for conflicts between civilizations. Whether it is the confrontation between China and the United States or the war between Russia and Ukraine, we need to build a larger set of ideological methods to bridge these conflicts and solve the world's troubles. So I call this new way of thinking "global integration."
Through the thinking method of global integration, we can create a higher-dimensional civilization system based on the levels of each major civilization, that is, earth civilization. All other civilizations are just a subset of the earth's civilization. In this way, through the creation of a higher-dimensional civilization system, people all over the world can find the same sense of belonging, that is: we are all earthlings.
At the same time, after we have the thinking method of globalization and the identity of Earthlings, we can create a new philosophical concept on this basis, that is, world government and global government, and further, the Republic of the Earth.
From the perspective of Hegelian dialectics, we can divide like this:
- Existence: The Global Integration
- Essence: The Economic Globalization
- Phenomena: The Political Integration
- Reality: The World Government
- Concept: The Earth Republic
The theory of the clash of civilizations and the series of theories derived from it that artificially demarcate the regions of human civilization are actually not conducive to mutual cooperation and unity among human beings. They will only increase the antagonism and conflict between civilizations and are not conducive to world peace, prosperity and stability. fundamental overall situation.
There is no difference between human civilizations just like humans themselves. They are all one community and are all people of the earth. There is no need to distinguish the differences between them. There is no Islamic civilization, and there is no Western civilization. There is only one civilization, and that is the civilization of the earth, or human civilization in a broad sense.
Moreover, with the continuous advancement of human science and technology, we humans, or in other words, we earthlings, will sooner or later face challenges and threats from outer space and even alien planets. At the same time, our earth must also explore for its own survival. The universe, and all these things, require us on earth to unite, eliminate differences and barriers between civilizations, and face the challenges of the universe together.
Our current confrontation with the United States and the West is also for our own development and rise, not to kill the United States and the West. In fact, Western civilization led by the United States is an important part of the entire world civilization. We cannot Nor should the United States and Western civilization be excluded from the world system but should cooperate with it.
Tolerance and tolerance are not only the traditional virtues of our Chinese civilization, but also in line with the basic meaning of the "Oriental Renaissance". The Eastern Renaissance is not about rejecting Western civilization. On the contrary, the Eastern Renaissance is about absorbing the achievements of Western civilization and then creating a new ideological edifice on top of it. This actually coincides with the thinking of global integration.
