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CRESCENTOLOGY
Hasan Yahya, Ph.D
CHAPTER ONE
Introduction
"There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things."
Nicolo Machiavelli (The Prince).
Constructing a new order of things is the purpose of Crescentology or Theory C. of normalization among World Cultures. Let me echo Einstein's saying and begin this subject with an article of faith, it runs as follows: social science is made for human beings in their totality, not to serve certain culture or certain ideology. This article is not practiced in social sciences. Much of the existed social science serves limited audience which I might call " servants of their interests" or in terms of Karl Mannheim, servants of their "Ideology". For this reason, I believe, science has lost its objectivity and credibility in terms of serving humanity. As a result, scientists as well as people, tend to be directed ( or institutionalized socially) to conform to their "A" ideology as the best, and to stand firmly against "B" ideology as not the best. Further, Bertrand Russell, the British Philosopher, describes how scientists should deal with issues close to theory C, or Crescentology. He states:
"We must devote ourselves, to showing, not how to secure victory for our side, nor how desirable our victory would be, but how disastrous to everybody on all sides a war must be. In the West, where free discussion is possible, important men, especially scientists, of all shades of political opinion, should meet together. It should be agreed that never in their discussions, must any one raise the question as to which system is best....." Russell (1961:71)
Crescentology, or theory C. postulates this vision-not only on peace and war- but on all cultural aspects on broader boundaries to close the gap between cultures on the grounds of common future which is the product of all civilizations together. Russell have shown certain methods to close the gap of hostility among agents of mind among cultures, namely, schools. He wrote:
"I would have the schools in India teach the virtues of Muhammadans, and the schools in Pakistan teach vitrues of Hindus, I would have Zionists taught the merits of Arabs, and the Arabs taught the merits of Jews. I would have the West taught that even Russians are human beings, and the Russians taught that not all Westerners are lackeys of capitalism." Russell (1961:71)
Arnold Toynbee shares some of these ideas and shows how Western outlook is narrow towards other world culture and history. He wrote fifty years ago:
"Our present Western outlook on history is an extrordinarily contradictory one. While our historical horizon has been expanding vastly in both the space dimension and the time dimension, our historical vision-what we actually do see, in contrast to what we now could see if we chose-has been contracting rapidly to the narrow field of what a horse sees between its blinkers or what a U-boat commander sees through his periscope." Toynbee (1948:150)
While in fact, Easterners also share the Westerners in such view of history, Crescentology, or Theory C. is expected to promote individuals as well as nations coherence and integration with each other on new grounds of exchanging Knowledge, Understanding, Appreciation, and Compromising. The above excerpts stand against the deviation from Theory C. and Crescentology. Because the existed crystalization of national identity and normative cultural values usually show the positive characteristics of "WE" culture as positive, and show the negative characteristics of "OTHER" culture as negative and may ignore the positive characteristics of the "OTHER" culture. Theory C. in this regard, or what I termed "Crescentology", will combine both "WE" and "THEY" images in a new constructed image of C. zone which may include both positive and negative of WE and THEY characteristics.
Theories of Conflict
It is apparent for social scientists that the statements "there is no understanding of events is possible, without theory." stands true. Brown Jr. (1981:xi) To be sure, there are good theories as well as bad theories, but the very act of explaining something demands a theoretical context. For this purpose, in order to construct a body of ideas that may connect the disintegrated incoherent parts not in terms of A. or B. ideology, but rather in terms of Crescentology or Theory C. of cultural and social understanding which include both A and B ideologies for the purpose of human survival against hunger, war, famine, and disease.
Supporting this argument, it is a common neglected knowledge of reality that each individual, group, nation, or culture possess negative as well as positive qualities and values. Political powers of these bodies direct almost all its energy to educate and socialize the new generations only those positive aspects of "WE" and only those negative aspects of "THEY" instead of educating and socializing their new generations of positive qualities in both A and B versus negative qualities of A and B identities as Crescentology postulates. Crescentology or Theory C. is a method of acquiring knowledge for the construction of new reality expected to promote global peace. Such an attempt by itself is worthwhile to be supported, with the fact that such an idea is too difficult and perilous to conduct with certain success. Crescentology or Theory C. is an intellectual call for policy makers on both macro and micro levels for introducing a new order of relationships among human beings to live in peace. Crescentology with its broad understanding of cultures is different from other limited theories. Compared with other theories, it would be grand theory of culture. This implies description of the conflict theories exist in the literature.
According to Boulding, almost all social sciences study conflict. For instance, economics studies conflict among economic organizations-firms, unions and so on. Political science studies conflict among states and among subdivisions and departments within larger organizations. Sociology studies conflict within and between families, racial and religious conflict, and conflict within and between groups. Anthropology studies conflict between cultures. Psychology studies conflict within the person. History is largely the record of conflict. Even geography studies the endless war of components of nature, for example, the sea against the land, and of one land form or use against another. Boulding emphasized that "conflict is an important part of the specialized study of industrial relations, international relations, or any other relations." Boulding (1973:113)
From the above statement, we may deduce the following types of conflict theories:
a. Theories claim that the impetus for human conflict springs from
human nature itself or biologically. Psychological theorists argue
that aggressive behavior (conflict) results from a psychological condition of stress and frustration.
b. Other theorists point out that conflict comes usually from the distribution of wealth, goods, and class struggle.
c. A third group of theorists assert that conflict emerges from cultural differences with no common commitment to national symbols and beliefs. Such differences are, for example, race, language, ethnicity, religion, or generational differences.
d. A fourth category of conflict theories states that world growth, technological progress, scientific knowledge supremacy, and consumptions of resources are some of causes of conflict.
As we see all these theories are interested in political or psychological, or economic, or social conflict. Therefore, their assumptions about human nature differ accordingly. For instance, according to the first type of theories, conflict began with Adam after he and Eve left the gates of Aden. As a result, these theories adapted the explanation which says that people have the excuse for their actions without interfering political or social causes. This situation can be described by the English saying: "Let him make use of instinct, who cannot mause of reason."
Brown,(1981:229) Thisview represents an array of disciplines such as literature of human beings, religion, philosophy, psychology, and anthropology. The most proponents of this type are: Sigmund Frued, who embraced the idea that human mind is a veritable battlefield for three subconscious forces: the ID, the EGO, and the SUPEREGO which interplay to make up the human personality as organized by the LIBIDO. In anthropology, Darwin and Spencer depend on the assumption which draw the doubts about humankind origin, and as we may all know that there is no controlled peace among baboon cannibalistic ancestors which still survive after 15 million years is impossible, and the survival is for the fittest. Thomas Hobbes gave a little respect to human beings by pointing out three principal causes of conflict: competition, difference, and glory. To keep people away from conflict among them, he suggested a cruel king have to rule in order to keep peace.Other psychological group of theories suggest that antisocial behavior springs from the innate responses triggered by frustration. This group of theories depends on the assumption that "aggression is always a consequence of frustration."
(Dollard, 1939:1) While aggression is defined as "a condition of causing harm either to oneself or to others." Frustration is "the state of mind that result from the inability to obtain some specific goals." Brown Jr, (1981:248)Hegel and Marx represent the second group of conflict theorists. They claim that materialism and economic class conflict cause the major troubles of societies. In terms of human nature, they claim that economic institutions determine who get what, when, and how not human nature. Their argument is that inequal distribution of material wealth have created class stratification which leads to constant conflict among groups. What resolve this dilemma of capitalism which represent conflict promoter was in one word: Communism, through socialism.
The third group of conflict theories depends on the assumption that different cultural variables create disintegration and disruption. For example, the internal strife within the national structure in South Africa, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in the Middle East, Northern Irland, Communist aggression in Afghanistan, the United States as world police, the Balkans and many other examples represent this group of theories.
The last group of conflict theories depends on the assumption that the impact of technological and scientific progress has had, and is having, and will continue to have on social interaction. Such impact complicates the matter for human beings and push them to live with confusion. In other words, conflict is a result of applying scientific knowledge and inventions implies nuclear family, high divorce rate, weak family ties, and social vertical mobility constrasted with better quality of life satisfaction and life standards. Unfortunately, such theories were faced by the misguided effort to bring the comparatives of "more" or "better" to life through science and technology has, in fact, introduced more conflict and less good life in many areas of the globe under the so called slogans of change as "modernization" or "post-modernization".
What was surveyed so far is the existed conflict theories and their assumptions about human nature and environment. As a conclusion, two directions of such theories can be made: one is that man is conflict maker by nature, the other is that man is not a conflict maker unless his environment presses him to. Environment of course can be described as nature, or human ecology where human beings interact according to their groups, societies, and cultures. Chrescentology believes in the second direction where human beings are born pure good, and their social environment (parents, peer groups, neighbors, and other factors) have different instable impact upon what human beings (as groups or individuals) want, and what they realize in their everyday life, or psychologically speaking, between people's aspirations and their gratification. Where aspiration means: collective wants of society, and gratification is the fulfillment of these wants. Brown Jr,
(1981:248)Each of the above mentioned theories have different conflict resolution (or management) which springs from one-sided theorization of (A) ideology as against (B) ideology. Crescentology, however, is introduced taking into consideration these obstacles of cultural and institutional inputs and calls for a new undertaking of conflict management on the grounds of knowing, understanding, appreciating, and compromising as steps for solving conflicts in a wholistic universal method. Similar attempts, in fact, were made across history. Four examples of these attempts to satisfy the original grounds of the science of crescentology are given in the next section.
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