Once in a while, one is privileged to hear, at first-hand, a talk by a scholar whose ideas destroy one of the cherished self-images of the age.

Geoffrey Lloyd, speaking today at the Valletta Campus of the University of Malta, is the author of erudite works on the development of classical Greek and Chinese science.

Arcane though those works of this distinguished Cambridge scholar might sound, they are of the utmost relevance to our contemporary culture and politics (which is one reason why his works have been translated into languages as diverse as French and Japanese).

Essentially, Lloyd has shown, in painstaking detail, how the idea of ‘cultural mentality’ cannot explain the diverse interests and methods of philosophy and science in classical Greece and China. The idea that they had different ‘mentalities’ just doesn’t make sense of what took place and did not.

It’s not that they did not have, respectively, different beliefs or interests. Greece (at least for a period) laid great store by seeking out the fundamental axioms of a subject; China did not.

Greece drew a great distinction between literal and metaphoric meanings; China did not. Greece also drew a distinction between proving something and persuading people; China did not emphasise this.

Chinese mathematics did not lack a concept of proof. But the emphasis was on practical demonstration, not proving a point in the abstract.

The Greek distinctions were known but showing the correspondence between different areas of knowledge was pursued more.

Before I get to how Lloyd explains the differences, let’s pause on the implications of being persuaded by him that there’s no such thing as a cultural mentality.

The idea of different mentalities – and their innate tendency to clash with other mentalities – is the basis on which there rests one of the political ideas that has had a wide impact on our contemporary politics: the clash of civilisations.

It was first proposed a quarter of a century ago by a historian of the Middle East, Bernard Lewis, to account for differences between the West and the lands of Islam (particularly the Arab world).

It was soon after taken up by Samuel Huntington, who took the clash – or, at least, the potential one looming large after the collapse of communism – to be one between the West and China, as well as the Middle East.

Since then, the idea has had an active life in popular politics. It’s not just the US, especially after 9/11. Even Europe, riven by debate about immigration and multiculturalism, as much as by Islamism and extreme nationalism, has been clearly shaped by it.

It’s not difficult to point out the holes in Huntington’s argument, not least the factual errors, and many have done so.

But the critics have often shared one assumption with Huntington and his popular followers: Civilisations display different mentalities – coherent, stand-alone world views – which their members have, and which contrast with the mentalities of members of other civilisations.

The ‘superiority’ of the West – its logic, its science, its values of tolerance – is asserted in aggressive soundbites that leave little space for logic, for proof or tolerance

And, given the differences between mentalities, there are unbridgeable gaps between one civilisation and another – at least, unless and until one civilisation changes its mentality (if it can) and adopts that of the other.

He doesn’t say so himself but it is this entire debate – not one side or another – that needs to be recast in the light of Lloyd’s arguments.

He shows, in persuasive detail, that the difference in styles and subjects of enquiry depended a great deal on the political context, not least the modes of communication.

Classical Greece was divided not just into different city-states but into entirely different types of political systems. This led to an ongoing interest in the foundations that justified one or the other.

Popular participation in debate also meant that standards of proof were developed and distinguished to a high degree. Persuasion was obviously different from proving – you could manage the first without the second.

It’s not that the Chinese were not capable of this. But the context in which discoveries and innovation were made was different.

There were many kingdoms but not many types of political systems.

Persuading and proving something to a prince was a more blurred activity in practice.

The interest in practical demonstration and utility was naturally higher than that in theoretical generalisation.

For Lloyd, it’s the civilisation of intellectual clashes, not the clash of civilisations, which provides the key to our intellectual and cultural differences. What we have are practical contexts, in which attention is directed in one way or another, for reasons that need to be understood on a case-by-case basis, not by declarations of unbridgeable, holistic mentalities.

Even this superficial presentation of Lloyd’s work indicates his relevance to the political context of our time.

If what divides us is not unbridgeable mentalities but contexts of communication, then the way we do politics will have to change.

There is a pathos to how, currently, the ‘superiority’ of the West – its logic, its science, its values of tolerance – is asserted in aggressive soundbites that leave little space for logic, for proof or tolerance.

But, worse, it suggests that this context of communication may actually be not just an irony. It may be contributing to the formation of a society and attitudes that flatly undermines that very values being championed.

This goes as much for the championing of a certain kind of multiculturalism, as well as a certain kind of nationalism. It also goes for a way of championing science that, in its polemics, jeers and scorn, undermines the intellectual humility needed for true science.

The clash of civilisations might be bunk. But the civilisation of clashes remains the most important clue to how our minds work and where our future lies.

• Professor Sir Geoffrey Lloyd will be giving a public lecture today at 6pm at the Goody Library of the Valletta Campus, University of Malta.

ranierfsadni@europe.com