Strife-Torn World: Towards a Sociological Explanation

There is hardly any doubt that human history has been marked by sanguinary at various phases, however, at this juncture humankind has been living in a critical conflict-ridden time. Time and again it appears like a series of crises would lead us to a world war. Armed clashes between nations, violent fights within nations, raging hostilities among communities, slaughters of innocent children and women in the name of right to defend, and savage brutalities of opposing groupings in all parts of the world have become normal. Currently more than 100 violent conflicts have been going on in different parts of the world. These conflicts need to be understood and analyzed social-scientifically. Traditional sociological explanations and theories have certain limitations. There would be a merit to go beyond basically materialistic, economic, political or functional explanations. A dated idea of ethnocentrism can be recapitulated to elucidate the socio-psychological process in various power struggles, either between nations or within a nation or a region. These are times of supremacist zeitgeist. Supremacist ideologies are contested by each other determined by race, religion, ethnicity, language, region, nationality, nation, tribe, and gender. A systematic exposition of the conceptual framework for ethnocentrism is called for.