I did not bring it up this time

Bruno Maçãn wrote “Samuel Huntington, who is often thought of as having written about civilizations, in fact wrote about identity. The two concepts have nothing in common.” I beg to differ, but I will continue reading Bruno Maçãn on the topic Noēma in their article As Western Liberalism Declines, Civilization States Return: The civilization state is reemerging and taking us beyond the opposition between liberalism and nationalism  and be open to Maçãn’s argument.

The article expresses it this way:  “Identity is the mutilated corpse of civilization.”  I agree that identity has taken a bashing from postmodern and postcolonial thought.  However, we need to restore identity as a distinguishing feature of Western thought.  Identity is lost in other cultures, which certainly we should be aware of and respect, but the backbone of democracy is individual effort and responsibility.  These are not exempt from the idea of identity.  Unless you are Buddhist, for whom the self is an illusion, you must understand identity in the Western sense to motivate the next generation toward excellence. If one can understand that the self is an illusion and still be PRODUCTive, then more power to them. We need generations that will be successful and have excellence, especially Christian men and women.

The article goes on to say: “it (has become) clear that the national state would never give way to the liberal state” The idea that there is no tolerance in the national state and that it lends no credence to liberal democracy is a lie.  Nations give and receive in appropriate way, in chosen ways.  Otherwise, we would have a one world order.