Different Cultures Different People

Above The Cultures: The Civilizations Theory

The word civilization comes from the ‘civilis’ Latin adjective. It referred to a citizen. According to social, religious, legal, financial or political status, views or purposes these citizens gathering into groups (Latin Dictionary). Civilization is “The action or process of civilizing or of being civilized; a developed or advanced state of human society.” as the Oxford Dictionary explains (Oxford English Dictionary). Among political scientists, Samuel P. Huntington conducted one of the most comprehensive researches in this field. He defines civilization on the following way: „A civilization is thus the highest cultural grouping of people and the broadest level of cultural identity people have short of that which distinguishes humans from other species. It is defined both by common objective elements, such as language, history, religion, customs, institutions, and by the subjective self-identification of people.” (The Post, 1990) Huntington makes difference between countries not in terms of their political and economic development, but the cultural and civilizational affiliation. By these metrics he emphasized the following world regions: Western (Christian), Orthodox (Christian), Islamic, Islamic/Hindu, Hindu, African, Latin American, Sinic (Chinese), Buddhist and Japanese (Huntington, 1993). Focusing on the countries of this research, Hungary belongs to the Western Christian, Russia belongs to the Orthodox Christian civilization.