ভূমিকা
It is very unreasonable that one who professes a concern for virtue should be constantly guilty of unfairness in argument. Unfairness here consists in not observing the distinction between a debate and a conversation.
A debate need not be taken seriously and one may trip up an opponent to the best of one's power, but a conversation should be taken in earnest; one should help out the other party and bring home to him only those slips and fallacies that is due to himself or to his earlier instructors.
If you follow this rule, your associates will lay the blame for their confusions and perplexities on themselves and not on you; they will like you and court your society, and disgusted with themselves, will turn to philosophy, hoping to escape from their former selves and become different men .[^1] To enter into dialogue, we, too, must be ready to become different men, just as we must be ready to assist those with whom we engage in dialogue to become different men.
If civilizations are to enter into dialogue, it would seem, by analogy, that they should be ready to escape from their former selves and become different civilizations. But is this analogy cogent? I think it is, but I think it is also beneficial to reflect on the metaphor of civilizations in dialogue.
Metaphor Vs Political Analysis Samuel Huntington[^2] offers a political analysis of the contemporary world as divided into several civilizations with different religions, histories, identities and values. He describes the relations among these cultural groups as the clash of civilizations because the differences in values and other cultural factors give rise to conflict. He also sees Islamic civilization as the main adversary of the modern liberal West.
He suggests that policy makers in the US should make a more concerted effort to consciously defend and promote Western civilization. Huntington's book has attracted much attention and provoked considerable criticism, as well. His division of the civilizations has been criticized as being somewhat arbitrary.