How to Think About Civilizations - The Watson Institute for ...

can instead simply begin working in media res, intervening into an already-ongoing set
of contentious conversations and exploring a novel combination of commitments or a
unique place within the overall disciplinary landscape.
I would like to suggest that the same kind of analysis of the ongoing
conversation about civilizations in world politics would be useful in at least two ways.
First, by identifying the commonplaces over which we contend and the distinctions that
unite us in a single conversation by giving us all places to stand relative to one another,
it may be possible to better characterize the whole discussion as something of a group
effort—Shotter would call it “joint action” (1993b:3-4)—to make plain the implications
of adopting different combinations of analytical orientations towards social action.
Indeed, I will illustrate that the commonplaces over which we are wrestling in this book
are not really unique to the study of civilizations, or of civilizational states, but are
instead much broader considerations pertinent to the analysis of social life as a whole,
and in particular to the analysis of community and communities. Civilizations have
certain empirical peculiarities that exacerbate some issues, but there is nothing like a
“civilizational theory” on offer here or, for that matter, in many of the authors on whom
the contributors to this conversation draw.
Second, if Dewey is right that the value of social science lies in its refining of
conceptual tools, then the lack of consensus on offer here is a positive development,
since the conversation as a whole then offers a plethora of options from which the
reader may choose. Each have their characteristic strengths and weaknesses, and none
perfectly captures everything of interest in a complex and ambiguous world—but that
How to Think About Civilizations • P. T. Jackson • Page 6