Warriors for Civilisation: Naguib Mahfouz, Andrei Tarkovsky, Tu Weiming and their Western Counterparts

Abstract

This thesis covers the decline and fall of the civilisation narrative in 20th Century Western humanities before exploring the work of three non-Western figures - Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz, Russian film director Andrei Tarkovsky and Chinese philosopher Tu Weiming - who defend the concept of civilisation in their work. The views of Mahfouz, Tarkovsky and Tu can be viewed as consistent with each other and with those of contemporary Western intellectuals including John Armstrong, Martha Nussbaum, Peter Hitchens and others who defend the idea of civilisation against those who would attack it. In the spirit of the Global Ethic movement, a new model for civil society based on respect for this idea of civilisation as encountered in both Eastern and Western high cultures is presented.