文明的冲突：一元文化还是多元文化异中求同？The Clash of Civilizations: Universalism or Commonalities?

美国学者亨登顿以提出文明的冲突的命题而闻名于世。他所提出的解救方案，在今天的世界局势下，益显得重要和有见解。

目前西方推行以西方文化为中心的世界单一文化，可以说是文明冲突的导火线，其后果是相当严重的。

亨登顿认为，与其只推行某一种文化中所谓的普遍特色，不如寻找和推行各文明文化中的共同点，这样所有个别文化才能继续共存。

在这个多元文化的世界，积极的作法应该是：放弃一元文化主义，接受多样性，和寻找共同点。这就是我们华人所说的异中求同，孔子所说的和而不同吧。

他还特别以新加坡为例。新加坡自上个世纪90年代就开始寻找国内各民族的共同价值观。这些共同价值观代表新加坡人的特性，和其个别种族本身的价值观是没有冲突的，是可以共存的。

新加坡寻找新加坡人文化特征的方式是劲头十足和有启发性的。

世界主要的宗教--西方基督教，正统教，兴都教，佛教，回教，孔教，道教，犹太教--固然分裂人类，可是他们也有共同的地方。如果人类有朝一日想发展一个单一文明，看来只能由这些共同点中慢慢的演变和展现。

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Samuel P. Huntington offered his thought on resolving the clash of civilizations and the following is extracted from his book published in 1996:
Instead of promoting the supposedly universal features of one civilization, the requisites for the cultural coexistence demand a search for what is common to most civilizations. In a multicivilizational world, the constructive course is to renounce universalism, accept diversity, and seek commonalities.
A relevant effort to identify such commonalities in a very small place occurred in Singapore in the early 1990s.......
It is neccesary, .... to identify the core values which Singapore's different ethnic and religious communities had in common and 'which capture the essence of being a Singaporean'.....
The Singapore project was ambitious and enlightened effort to define a Singaporean cultural identity which was shared by its ethnic and religious communities.......

... whatever the degree to which they divided the humankind, the world's major religions - Western Chrisianity, Orthodoxy, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Confucianism, Taoism, Judaism - also share key values in common.

If humans are ever to develop a universal civilization, it will emerge gradually through the exploration and expansion of these commonalities.