Huntington's warning

"When E.F. Hutton talks," the famous TV ads for the financial firm once declared, "people listen." No one is going to make TV ads on his behalf, but the same deserves to be said of Harvard scholar Samuel Huntington, the most important political scientist in America. His last book, "The Clash of Civilizations," forecast the civilizational tensions that became obvious to everyone in the post-9/11 world. When Huntington writes, people listen -- or they should.

Huntington's prodigious credibility makes his warning of the possible end of the United States as we know it in his new book, "Who Are We?," all the more alarming.

He writes that "few Americans now anticipate the dissolution of ... the United States." But few anticipated the collapse of the Soviet Union either. Huntington warns, "The greatest surprise might be if the United States in 2025 is still the country it was in 2000 rather than a very different country (or countries) with very different conceptions of itself and its identity."

Huntington sees an America gripped in a "crisis of national identity." What is that identity? It is partly based on what Huntington calls The Creed, our belief in liberty, democracy, individual rights, etc. But The Creed has a particular source: America's Anglo-Protestant culture, which includes "the English language; Christianity; religious commitment; English concepts of the rule of law, the responsibility of rulers, and the rights of individuals; and dissenting Protestant values of individualism, the work ethic, and the belief that humans have the ability and the duty to try to create heaven on earth, a 'city on the hill.'"

This culture forged a country where people from across the world could arrive and become rich, happy and free -- if they assimilated. Huntington writes, "Throughout American history, people who were not white Anglo-Saxon Protestants have become Americans by adopting America's Anglo-Protestant culture and political values." He notes that this is "an argument for the importance of Anglo-Protestant culture, not for the importance of Anglo-Protestant people." The continued vibrancy of this culture is crucial for the country's future. Without it, according to Huntington, The Creed that sprung from it is in danger of collapsing -- thus eliminating the two fundamental supports of America as it has been defined for centuries.

But Anglo-Protestant culture has taken a pounding during the past three decades. From multiculturalism, which rejects the idea of a dominant culture. From the assertion of group identities based on race, ethnicity and gender. And from "denationalized" elites, hostile to America's culture and determined to weaken it in myriad ways. "These efforts by a nation's leaders," Huntington writes, "to deconstruct the nation they governed were, quite possibly, without precedent in human history." All these forces have weakened the nation's ability to assimilate immigrants, just as it is experiencing a massive, decades-long wave of immigration. Feeling less pressure to learn English or naturalize, the new, largely Mexican and Hispanic immigrants have been able to establish unassimilated ethnic enclaves.

Huntington worries that this dynamic could create "a country of two languages, two cultures, and two peoples," as America's distinctive culture and The Creed atrophy. Huntington hopes for a better future -- for the sake of all of us. "Americans should," he writes, "recommit themselves to the Anglo-Protestant culture, traditions, and values that for three and a half centuries have been embraced by Americans of all races, ethnicities, and religions and that have been the source of their liberty, unity, power, prosperity, and moral leadership as a force for good in the world."

A world of grief awaits Huntington. He will inevitably be misunderstood and smeared. Only a writer of Huntington's stature has a chance to punch through the oppressive pieties surrounding these issues and force a forthright debate of them. Huntington says he undertook his new book in the spirit of "a patriot and scholar." A courageous one.

Huntington;

Man's brilliant, but unsound. "Clash of Civilizations", indeed!

That said, he is quite correct to see America falling apart. Then again, any beat cop could tell us much the same thing, and would recommend similar, and perhaps better, solutions.

"Recommitment" to our founding principles will make us little more than Amish in Amrika (arabic for my homeland and yours).

The solution, of course, is to commit ourselves to our survival as a nation and a civilization. And i mean our physical survival.

The creeping third-worldism within, the assaults of Islam without, growing domestic anarchy and lawlessness by office-holders (gay marriage is but the latest example) -- these things are direct and existential threats. IN defense of ourselves, nothing is "out of the question".

We will have to deport the multiculturalists in order to survive.

Putting "language" atop that list and "the rights of individuals" at the bottom is problematic.

Not to mention what ever you may mean by "multiculturalists".

There were two "Great Awakenings" in America before this country was America. It seems to me that these fell down the memory hole of America in general. And, let us not forget that the abolition of slavery was carried by a Christian movement in the states.

What am I getting at? This nation needs another Great Awakening! There...I said it. I realize that the Libertarians (and multiculturalists and communists and most liberals and fascists) out there are going to gag on this. But this country was and is a Christian nation. It is those roots that America must get in touch with. And when it does...it will revitalize where it needs to.

I would be highly surprised in the next 10-20 years if there isn't a culture war in this country. The liberals will all hole up in their bastions of power, like California and New York, and become even more polarized, and the same will happen with fly over country and ultra conservatives.

In the end, I hope, moderation will reinstate itself, but I'd rather let the libs have full control over their own stomping grounds and leave the rest of us the hell alone.

Especially when the liberals will find the hispanic majority in California isn't going to return their bleeding heart sympathies.

Good article. Huntington will be crucified by many, but it needs to be said. Another reason America will fall is the pervasive sinfulness it thinks it has a right to. No nation can withstand this immoral onslaught endlessly. The end, I'm afraid, will not be far off.

fly over country and ultra conservatives.

I don't agree with your contrast between liberals and fly over ULTRA conservatives. There is a few in fly over country that may be ultras, however, I believe the contrast is actually between liberals and us regular run of the mill conservatives, people who just want our country back.

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There is no chance. Even here, one is not allowed to discuss any useful answers to the problem. Just vote for Bush and he'll take us the slow scenic route to hell.

I don't doubt it. That's why I say I hope moderates will prevail. Unfortunately, it's usually the squeaky wheels of the ultra left and right who drive this clash, and the rest of us just get sick of hearing it. I figure it'll take fighting between the fanatics on an untolerable scale to finally focus the rest of us as a group and make us all decide to do something about them. I wish we had a third party in this country where so called conservative democrats and moderate republicans could all vote on the same level.

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