Cultural conflicts: definition, types of causes and ways to resolve

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:53

Conflicts occurring in the clash of cultural values have captured the modern world. This includes large-scale anti-religious persecution in the USSR, an Islamic fundamentalist political movement based on religious beliefs, China's occupation of the territory of independent Tibet that caused almost no international reaction, and so on.

Broad definition

Jonathan Turner, Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of California, defined the concept of "cultural conflict" as follows: it is a confrontation that occurs due to differences in cultural beliefs, elements of worldview that give an individual or social group confidence in their views of the world. Conflict occurs when expectations from people of certain behavior, due to their origin, are not justified.

Cultural values conflicts are harddecide because the parties are convinced of the correctness of their worldview. All problems of this kind are especially aggravated when it comes to the political sphere. An example of this is the debate surrounding the issue of the moral and legal status of induced abortions.

The modern cultural conflict is ethnic cleansing. Conflicts can result in armed clashes. The most famous example of armed conflict of cultural values is the controversy over the issue of slavery, which led to the war in the United States. Here comes another complication. We are talking about the protection of cultural property in the event of an armed conflict.

Narrow definition

American sociologist and publicist, author of the theory of the information (post-industrial) society, Daniel Bell, expressed interesting thoughts in his essay "Crime as an American way of life", which was published in 1962. The author describes the dangerous consequences of the clash of values. Another researcher, W. Kornblum, emphasizes that as soon as state authorities begin to impose cultural values on people who do not share them (as a rule, the majority forcibly impose their opinion on the minority), illegal organizations, markets and ways to get around these restrictions are created.

Conflict as a social process

Cultural conflict is defined as one of the main types of social processes. A social process is a set of interactions or phenomena that changerelationships between individuals or entire groups. It is a regulated form of social interaction. An important feature of such processes is the scale, because nothing in society can take place outside of social interaction. The main varieties are competition, adaptation, cooperation, conflict, amalgamation (mutual cultural penetration), assimilation (the loss of a certain part of the society of its distinctive features).

Prohibition in the interwar period

An example of the appearance of illegal organizations, markets and ways to get around government restrictions is Prohibition in the United States between the First and Second World Wars. The cultural conflict between adherents and opponents of this law has led to the development of illegal activities in the field of alcohol circulation. Attempts to circumvent this law were very active, so that in the end only an increase in the number of criminal organizations, mafia and other criminal groups that were engaged in bootlegging - the illegal production and distribution of alcoholic beverages - was recorded. Mass neglect was also associated with the corruption of politicians and law enforcement officials.

US War on Drugs

A similar example of cultural conflict is the fight against drugs. This refers to a multi-year US government campaign to combat the trafficking and use of narcotic drugs. According to the weekly The Economist, the "war on drugs" was inconclusive: the destruction of plantations in Peruled to an increase in the production of the narcotic coca plant in Colombia, and after the destruction of Colombian crops, production increased again in Peru. This is confirmed by other results of the campaign:

1. After the suppression of smuggling through the Caribbean, drugs in the United States began to be smuggled through the border with Mexico.
2. A short-term shortage of traditional drugs has led to the spread of surrogates that have proven to be even more dangerous to he alth.
3. In Latin America, the “war on drugs” has intensified local crime, corrupted governments and law enforcement agencies. At the same time, the main task of reducing supplies to the United States was not solved.

Influence and perception

Culture is a powerful unconscious factor that influences conflict and attempts to resolve it. It is multi-layered, that is, what can be seen on the surface does not always reflect the essence and is constantly in motion. In addition, most cultural conflicts, rooted in the deep past, are usually based on the traditions, myths and beliefs of a certain people, therefore, even in modern conditions, they are practically not amenable to transformation. Ways to resolve conflicts are different, but, as a rule, only conflict avoidance (ignoring problems) or attempts to find a compromise solution (negotiations) are used.

Other examples of conflicts

Author of the concept of ethno-cultural division of civilizations, American political scientist and sociologistSamuel Phillips Huntington, in The Clash of Civilizations, a philosophical and historical treatise dedicated to the world after the Cold War, argued that all wars in the future will take place between cultures, not between countries. Already in 199, the author unequivocally stated, for example, that Islamic extremism would become the most significant threat to security throughout the world, but in general, this idea was proposed at a university lecture in 1992, and then developed in more detail in Huntington's article "Foreign Affairs 1993".

Among the modern socio-cultural conflicts, one can name not only Islamic fundamentalism, which seeks to influence the process of social development based on religious norms, although this movement has become so large-scale that it has actually turned into a worldwide opposition of religion to the rest of the world. Cultural conflicts are the religious confrontation in Ireland, the revolution that took place in Iran, the war that unfolded for the Holy Land of Palestine, religious persecution in the USSR in the last century, the Chinese occupation of Tibet, wars on religious grounds in Africa, the confrontation between Islamists and Hindus, enmity between Serbs and Croats, "liberation theology" and so on.

French-Flemish conflict

An example of a cultural and linguistic conflict is the Walloon-Flemish confrontation, which arose on the basis of the linguistic factor in the middle of the nineteenth century. The conflict has its roots in antiquity. The modern territory of the conflict was the border of the Roman Empire. Part of the land was Romanized, while other villages prevented mass German colonization, which allowed the population to preserve their speech and culture. In modern Belgium, the Franco-Flemish conflict is understood as a whole range of ethnic, political, linguistic, economic and ethnic differences.

Cultural conflict in recent history was the cause of the political crisis in Belgium in 2007-2011. A long period of tense relations between the subjects of the kingdom increased the economic and political instability of the country. This crisis was the longest in the history of the kingdom since its founding in 1830. It is possible that against the backdrop of another aggravation of relations, Belgium may split into two parts: French-speaking Wallonia and the Brussels-Capital District and Flanders. By the way, more than 65% of the inhabitants of Flanders predict such an outcome.

Liberation Theology

In the 1970s, a powerful religious movement became active in Latin America, which became known as "liberation theology". Gustav Gutierrez, Sergio Mendelez, Leonardo Boffa and other ideologists of the concept literally challenged the existing capitalism in the world, based on a special interpretation of the principles of Christianity. Within "liberation theology," the life and teachings of Jesus Christ represent a social revolt against the Roman Empire. This is a kind of Catholic "jihad", a religious war against capital. In fact, the emergence of such a concept has becomeonly another evidence in favor of the fact that in the twentieth century religions are increasingly politicized, being included in the socio-political confrontation.

But the phenomenon of "liberation theology" is very interesting. For example, for many followers of Ernesto Che Guevara, who proposed an alliance between the left and Catholics back in the sixties, is a legendary person. Comandante is compared by many to Christ. In some parts of Bolivia, for example, every family prays to Saint Che Guevara.

Confrontation in Ireland

The armed confrontation between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland is very indicative. Protestants do not want to remain part of the UK. This shows the presence of serious cultural conflicts in a prosperous region - Western Europe - and refutes the myth of harmony reigning in the countries of Western democracy. Religious contradictions in this region are connected with ideological and ethnic ones. The Irish Republican Army, which is at the forefront of the resistance, has adopted a radical socialist ideology.

By the way, many left-wing ideas are actively used by European "separatists". For example, a terrorist organization that fights for the independence of the Basques and secession from Spain, professes Marxism, combined with radical nationalism. Radical socialist sentiments are very active in the Kosovo Liberation Army, bordering on nationalism and Islamism.