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however, the most important usually is religion, as the Athenians
emphasized. (Huntington 1996. p.86.)
For those who want to point to a connection, this is important
for that reason. For those who want to point to differences, it is
important for that reason. Religion can also be used in many ways.
Religion is one of the segments of culture, but only one of them.
In a secularized world, its role transforms. In a culture where,
however, secularization is absent or hardly present, religion can
indeed be a decisive factor, to say nothing of fundamentalism. It
is very interesting and weird that Unamuno, reflecting on different
skin colors, writes the following explanation, which seems very
typical these days: “The yellow peril? Black peril? Peril has no
colour. In so far as they participate in history, become civic and
political - and warfare is, as Treitschke so aptly said, politics par
excellence — desert-bred Mohammedans are being Christianized,
becoming Christian. Which it to say, agonistic.” Then the whole
situation becomes “agonistic.” (Unamuno 1928. p.121.) The @yov
means struggle. The word “agony” derives from it.
The new millennium also brings with it new phenomena, and
together with them new questions, new possible answers, and as
we have seen even extreme emotions. Nietzsche’s prophecy applies
partly to the crisis of European (which we can also call Western)
culture. It is worth listening to him:
What I relate is the history of the next two centuries. I describe what is
coming, what can no longer come differently: the advent of nihilism.
This history can be related even now; for necessity itself is at work
here. This future speaks even now in a hundred signs, this destiny
announces itself everywhere; for this music of the future all ears are
cocked even now. For some time now, our whole European culture has
been moving as toward a catastrophe, with a tortured tension that is
growing from decade to decade: restlessly, violently, headlong, like a
river that wants to reach the end, that no longer reflects, that is afraid
to reflect (sich besinnen). (Nietzsche 1968. Preface 2., KSA 13. p.189.)