Indeed the world in which we live in is becoming smaller and smaller with each new discovery and further innovations that humanity acquires. In face of this, the need to asses if indeed there is only one civilization-which is herein after called the “global civilization” really exist or is just a hypothetical mental over simplification or generalization of the different “existing” civilization in the whole world. In order to have a clear grasp or understanding about the problem at hand, it would be a good starting point to review some few basic assumptions that Professor David Wilkinson have argued in his lecture on Global Civilization-Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow.
In the lecture, there has been a definition of Civilization, stating that it is primarily concerned on the system or approach that the people living in a certain area abide. Well working on this definition, Professor Wilkinson have cited that there is an emphasis on the use of the word “certain area”, since it is a very problematic phrase. For one, it would really be hard to determine whether the people who are inside this so-called “certain area” are part or members of a certain “Civilization” (2-3).
It is in answer to this intriguing problem that several Civilization scholars have argued that a Civilization must be culturally bound. Roger Wescott is one of the scholars who studied several authors of civilization, according to him; the most popular civilization which all other authors have identified includes the Western, the Chinese and lastly the Indic.
Wilkinson has constantly argued that there are several unification processes along the different civilization in the past. This is further elaborated by Quigley who believes that there are several Civilizations in the past who have collapse, terminated or have been eradicated due to mergence of the different Civilizations in the past (Wilkinson 3-5).
In the early times, there had been a unification of the western civilization which includes Europe and America Civilization and the Eastern Civilization which comprise of the Middle East and other Asian nations, including the Islam’s, the Hindus and the Chinese. This distinction has continued until the West have presented or persistently caused several disruptive social changes to the Eastern Civilization (Wilkinson 4-8).
Thus, Wilkinson maintains that indeed there exists a Global Monocivilization (6-9). This is through defining Civilization as an interrelated network of different cultures and different cities which are link through politics, economics, diplomatic and in military affairs. According to Wilkinson, the global Civilization occur in a “certain area” which he identifies as the entire planet with an interconnected network of mutually conflicting cultures with their clashing styles, language, religion, traditions, etc.
To the prevalent claim that there is a single global Civilization, it is hard to disagree. The presentation of the arguments of Professor Wilkinson is clear and logically valid. However, it must be noted that Civilization is a term that originally use to denote a certain group of people living in a society or a group of society exhibiting certain common characteristics, as it was formerly used in different texts. Indeed there are several factors that differs one society from another but a Civilization have to have something which is binding in all other society. In our current Global network, such factor does not exist; there is nothing so far that can serve as a binding character for us to consider the existence of a Global Civilization. If it is to live harmoniously in a single planet, the definition of harmonious along with the so many instances of war and disputes would emerge as a problem. If this is as what Professor Wilkinson believes to be the unifying factor of a Global Civilization, then there will be no way to dispute on his claim, however, is everyone willing to accept this generalization or is it a very simple definition which classify Civilization as being humans per se, since it talks about the quality of living in the planet by humans.
