Culture Wars and the Global Village : A Diplomat's Perspective [Hardcover]

Carleton S. Coon (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 2000

Why is there so much conflict in the Balkans, the Middle East, Africa, and many other parts of the world? Is there something innate in human nature that makes it next to impossible to achieve peaceful coexistence? The answer, says career diplomat Carl Coon, must be sought in the distant prehistoric past when intergroup hostility became ingrained as a pattern of cultural evolution. For thousands of generations, our ancestors organised themselves in distinctive groups that competed with one another. Sometimes the competition was peaceful, but more often than not the struggle took violent forms.Today, we still witness the vestiges of these prehistoric roots when the intermingling of different ways of life results not in harmonious co-operation but in animosity, conflict, and violence. Coon suggests that we have recently embarked on a new phase of cultural evolution, one comparable in importance to the dawn of the Neolithic, when our forebears graduated from a hunter-gatherer way of life to agriculture and animal husbandry.At that time many diverse cultural groups were subsumed by larger, better organised groups whose talent for organisation was necessary to manage the complexities of a new agricultural and technologically more sophisticated society. Today, this process has reached its culmination with organisation established on a world-wide scale and societies becoming ever more multicultural. With the emergence of the global village the world is experiencing the natural atavistic impulse toward violence in certain parts of the globe just as the mechanisms and technology are being put in place to further intercultural co-operation.The challenge for enlightened men and women in contemporary society, says Coon, is to realise that cultural conflicts are an inevitable result of our evolutionary heritage; to use this insight to help manage the transition to a new, global society; and then to focus in a co-operative fashion on the new global priorities of environmental preservation and the promotion of an equitable, prosperous, and peaceful world community.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...a wonderfully lucid account of the ways in which human nature has led to our present predicament." -- Professor Robert Hinde, author of Why Gods Persist

"...an ambitious effort to understand the broad trends of social evolution, at a time of perplexing and accelerating historical change." -- Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Advisor under President Jimmy Carter

"...an informed, readable, and thought-provoking book, highly worthwhile for anyone seriously concerned with the state of our world." -- Louis W. Cabot, Chairman Emeritus, The Brookings Institute

"...diplomat's history of regional conflicts...suggesting that a new phase of cultural evolution has been entered." -- Midwest Book Review, September 2000

"Coon's book is an important landmark in the ongoing conversation to try and understand ourselves better than we do." -- Arthur L. Caplan, Ph.D., director of the Center for Bioethics, University of Pennsylvania Health System

From the Inside Flap

Human society is engaged in the most profoundly disorienting transition since the dawn of the Neolithic age. A panhumanist ethos is dawning that recognizes the essential oneness of all humankind. The largest and most complex societies are multicultural or are fast becoming so. Yet, despite moves toward greater cooperation and global integration, regional conflicts persist in the Balkans, the Middle East, Africa, and many other parts of the world. Are these mere aberrations, or is there something innate in human nature that resists peaceful coexistence?

The answer, says career diplomat Carl Coon, must be sought in the distant prehistoric past, when intergroup hostility became ingrained as a pattern of cultural evolution. We are where we are now because of our ancestors, for thousands of generations, organized themselves in distinctive groups that competed with each other, sometimes peacefully, but very often through violent struggle. We still witness this ancient pattern of animosity when the intermingling of different ways of life results not in harmonious cooperation, but in regional wars and conflicts.

The challenge for enlightened men and women in contemporary society is to realize that cultural diversity and the clashes it precipitates are an inevitable result of our evolutionary heritage. Drawing on his more than thirty years in the U.S. Foreign Service and on various recent studies of human behavior and cross-cultural differences, Coon illustrates how we must recognize and respect cultural diversity on the road toward forming a new, global society. Only by realizing that cultural conflicts -- indeed, culture wars -- are an inevitable outgrowth of our evolution as humans can we fashion more effective ways to preserve the environment and to promote an equitable, prosperous, and peaceful world community -- a community that is informed by science, realistic about current issues, and undergirded by an essential optimism about the future of humanity.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Prometheus Books (June 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1573928011
• ISBN-13: 978-1573928014
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,730,203 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very important contribution to international studies., September 8, 2000

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Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Culture Wars and the Global Village : A Diplomat's Perspective (Hardcover)

Why is there so much conflict in the Balkans, Middle-East and other parts of the world? This provides a diplomat's history of regional conflicts, turning to the prehistoric past to analyze intergroup hostility and suggesting that a new phase of cultural evolution has been entered. Cultural conflicts are an inevitable result of evolution and the transition to a new society: chapters show how this happens.