GEB 3/LBEW 34 - Strange Loops 3 集异壁3/东西方的连接34 - 怪圈3

As argued in a previous essay, warfare has been, to a large extent, an inevitable outcome or event in history. However, the pattern that explains the inevitability of warfare is part of a greater narrative about human conflict in general. Conflict, including warfare, can take innumerable forms that have changed with the development of societies. Two of the most significant forms occur in politics and culture. By examining Kant and Hegel’s arguments on political conflict first, followed by a pivot to cultural conflict and its relationship to the former kind, this essay will illustrate that conflict constitutes another “strange loop” worth considering.

To begin with, in Kant’s essay “Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose” and Hegel’s lecture note “Freedom, the Individual, and the State,” both thinkers elaborated upon the concept of political conflict under a historical context. While Hegel argued from a more holistic point of view, both approached this concept initially by explaining the inherent nature of political conflict in history.

In “Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose,” Kant made nine propositions relating to the development of an individual, a state, and an eventual federation. Kant summarized his fourth proposition as “the means which nature employs to develop innate capacities is that of antagonism within society…” suggesting that he considered human conflict an innate aspect of human history, as it is designed by nature. To build on this proposition, Kant proposed the concept of one’s “unsocial sociability.” While humans are gregarious and desire to bond with each other, they also simultaneously distance themselves from others and live in a natural state defined by political conflict. The “unsocial sociability” point partially emphasizes the presence of vanity and insatiable desires in human nature, which become the unavoidable root causes of conflict.

Hegel put forth a similar statement in his lecture note. He wrote, “In this perspective the events that present such a grim picture for our troubled feeling and thoughtful reflection have to be seen as the means for what we claim is the substantial definition.” By “grim picture,” Hegel referred to the political violence and antagonism that erupt due to human passions or desires. In this quote, he essentially identified violence or antagonism as indispensable “means” for humankind to reach the end goal of history. This argument for the inherent nature of conflict in history resonates well with Kant’s proposition in his essay.

More remarkably, both philosophers illustrated how political conflict pushes the development of history, linking very strongly with the concept of a “strange loop,” as defined before. In Kant’s essay, he suggested that wars as a manifestation of political conflict are the driving force behind the formation of an ideal federation of states, writing, “wars… are the means by which nature drives nations to make initially imperfect attempts, but finally…take the step of…entering a federation of peoples.” Kant believed that societies could arrive at a state of calmness and security through inevitable antagonism. Wars annihilate previous orders and, above the ruins, prompt governments to develop a stabler and more feasible model. Eventually, though, this model can be destroyed by warfare again. In this cycle of construction and destruction, states progress toward a “federation of the peoples,” in Kant’s words.

Hegel resembles Kant because he explained the value of conflict too. During a section where Hegel clarified that an ideal state unifies the “private interest of the citizens” and “the universal goal of the state,” he added that this ideal situation can be achieved if “the state…undergo[es] much struggle with private interests and passions, in a long and hard discipline of them.” During this struggle or conflict against private interest and human passions, the state erects many institutions and arrangements to arrest these aspects of human nature. After this series of conflicts, history can reach a period of flourishing and prosperity. In this regard, political antagonism can be conducive to developing the human order in the long run.

After investigating the two German philosophers’ thoughts on political conflict, it should be noted that cultural conflict is also significant, especially in the modern context. Cultural conflict essentially refers to the mutual attacks between two entities on each other’s values and history. The outcomes of this kind of conflict usually result either in the assimilation of one culture into another or the total demolishing of one by the other, which can take a violent form, massacres being a prime example. Cultural conflict, to a degree, is rooted in human nature and hence becomes unavoidable. Analogous to how people pivot from their sociable side to their unsociable one like a pendulum, this essay makes an original but comparably double-sided proposition that people pivot from embracing diversity to desiring absolute unity.

To elaborate, while individuals want to display their unique personalities and beliefs to others, they can also “fall” easily into one belief and demand that their companions follow suit. The latter part of the preceding sentence explains how monothetic religions work. Take the example of when Christianity began to spread in the Roman Empire around 50 CE. Before then, Rome was more diverse culturally, as different regions worshipped different deities (most belong to the Greek pantheon). Following the emergence of important figures such as Saint Paul, Christianity first converted a relatively tiny fraction of the Roman population. However, as this group found Christianity convincing and powerful enough, they began to spread this religion to others, resulting in a sudden, exponential increase in missionary work. This missionary works, in effect, reflects the will of the initial Roman Christians to strengthen this belief and achieve greater unity by persuading more to put faith in it. This example shows how people can pivot from embracing diversity to desiring unity in a relatively short period.

If one takes the part of this proposition that communities sometimes wish unity over diversity to a more macro level, then cultural conflicts can be logically explained. The logic is quite like how Kant magnifies the unsocial nature of humankind to explain the presence of political conflict. Imagine a simple microcosm of only two cultures or civilizations. Before they make contact, the only factor that can impact their individual development is the changing decisions of their citizens,ceteris paribus. With this condition being set, they developed along different paths, though both successfully achieved a respectable level of cultural unity within. Now, as the two communities grow, they finally come into contact. At this moment of contact, when both communities desire a greater cultural unity, the possible actions provided to both cultures (call them Culture A and B) can be presented in the matrix below:

In this matrix, both cultures can either begin a conflict or proceed with no conflict upon encountering each other. When there is conflict, one side shall usually emerge victorious, allowing the victor to spread or impose their cultural beliefs on the defeated, hence achieving cultural unity in favor of the victor. No greater unity shall be reached when both sides choose to avoid conflict and embrace their differences. Based on this matrix, it is clear that if they want to unify the other culturally, the “dominant strategy” is to wage a conflict between both cultures. If they decide not to, there is a chance that no unity for either party will occur. Although there is a simplification of the situation involved, this matrix adequately illustrates the inevitability of cultural conflict as cultures interact, which can be traced back to the will of humans to seek broader unification.

Cultural conflicts form a strange loop too. The presence of this strange loop can be attributed to the pivoting of communities between hailing diversity and craving for absolute unity. However, as Kant argued that political conflicts between states eventually allow the establishment of a federation of the peoples, this essay similarly proposes that cultural conflicts and the constant pivoting between the two poles of diversity and unity shall result in the eventual formation of a global cultural “bloc”. The arrow of history in terms of cultural development points towards a supreme unity. One can see how nature guides cultures toward this bloc in the historical pattern of religions. A priori knowledge has it that before the times of the Sumerians and ancient Egyptians, most of the inhabited regions of the Earth were animistic, meaning that people believed in the spirit of most if not all, natural elements. During that time, the diversity of religions probably was the highest in the annals of history. Then, as people began to seek unity and thus chose to initiate cultural conflicts against other groups, animistic beliefs gradually disappeared and were replaced by polytheistic religions as they were more capable of uniting a greater population. The age of polytheism, which witnessed a decline in religious diversity and a movement forward towards a vaster, worldly cultural unity, lasted for quite some time. But through countless smaller cycles of conflict, monotheistic religions emerged victorious, as they were even more powerful than polytheistic ones in creating unity. This pattern reveals how religions, as an essential element of human culture, progress to a grander unity on a global scale.

If the case of religions is not convincing enough, look at how political values globally (i.e., the belief in a certain form of government or a set of doctrines for running a state) display a comparable pattern of coalescing into an increasingly unified form. Before the Age of Enlightenment, different regions believed in different political values. Some cultures believed in monarchy, some believed in aristocracy, while others advocated democratic values. Through cultural conflicts, though, since the Age of Enlightenment, the world has been moving to unification under the value of democracy and freedom. For instance, democratic values were first introduced into China through violent cultural wars in the early 1900s and 1910s. The waves of democratization have swept through Europe, the Americas, Asia, and Africa. It is difficult today to find a region on the world map that does not believe in democratic values, although some are struggling to form an actual system of democracy. Other examples aside from religion and political values can be found, such as the cultural belief in currency or money, the belief in modernization, etc. All these examples illustrate that by using the tool of cultural conflict, nature has been directing humankind toward an increasingly unified cultural world. 

It is necessary to tackle the crucial question that concerns human societies collectively reaching this ultimate cultural unity. This essay believes that, like the notion of a political utopia, nature does not expect societies to arrive at this final point in the near term. Instead, nature only requires people to approximate to this idea, similar to how an asymptote infinitely approaches a function but does not meet it at any point. In a hypothetical scenario where humans manage to reach this ultimately unified state, the progression of history may stop altogether, and global cultures may sink into a dormant state where no breakthrough can be made. This hypothetical moment marks the end of the pivoting behavior between diversity and unity in human nature. It thus even casts doubt on human nature's significance and very existence. 

Overall, as a parallel extension to Kant and Hegel’s arguments for the pattern of political conflicts, this essay briefly expounds on its stance on the nature and role of cultural conflicts. As a final note of thought, touching on the relationship between these two kinds of conflict is intriguing. Cultural conflict precedes political conflict because cultural ideas and values precede political institutions. There is merit to the argument that political institutions have been built on cultural ideas, so the first political conflicts sprang out of cultural strife. As history took increasingly complex forms, nature has employed both kinds of conflict to push growth in all aspects of humankind. In this sense, though civilization has gained more powers to control its destiny and to alter many laws of nature, the fundamental concept of “conflict” may proceed as an indestructible and imperative facet of human history.