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Who Are We: The Challenges to America's National Identity
(From the book flap): This book looks at the domestic cultural rifts in the US. Huntington examines the impact other civilizations and their values are having on our own country.
America was founded by British settlers who brought with them a distinct culture including the English language, Protestant values, individualism, religious commitment, and respect for law. The waves of immigrants that later came to the United States gradually accepted these values and assimilated into America's Anglo-Protestant culture. More recently, however, national identity has been eroded by the problems of assimilating massive numbers of primarily Hispanic immigrants, bilingualism, multiculturalism, the devaluation of citizenship, and the "denationalization" of American elites.
September 11 brought a revival of American patriotism and a renewal of American identity. but already there are signs that this revival is fading, even though in the post-September 11 world, Americans face unprecedented challenges to our security.
Who Are We? shows the need for us to reassert the core values that make us Americans. Nothing less than our national identity is at stake.
Once again Samuel Huntington has written an important book that is certain to provoke a lively debate and to shape our national conversation about who we are.
America was founded by British settlers who brought with them a distinct culture including the English language, Protestant values, individualism, religious commitment, and respect for law. The waves of immigrants that later came to the United States gradually accepted these values and assimilated into America's Anglo-Protestant culture. More recently, however, national identity has been eroded by the problems of assimilating massive numbers of primarily Hispanic immigrants, bilingualism, multiculturalism, the devaluation of citizenship, and the "denationalization" of American elites.
September 11 brought a revival of American patriotism and a renewal of American identity. but already there are signs that this revival is fading, even though in the post-September 11 world, Americans face unprecedented challenges to our security.
Who Are We? shows the need for us to reassert the core values that make us Americans. Nothing less than our national identity is at stake.
Once again Samuel Huntington has written an important book that is certain to provoke a lively debate and to shape our national conversation about who we are.
448 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2004
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2299 people want to read
About the author
Samuel P. Huntington
71 books678 followersSamuel Phillips Huntington was an American political scientist who gained prominence through his "Clash of Civilizations"(1993, 1996) thesis of a new post-Cold War world order. Previously, his academic reputation had rested on his analysis of the relationship between the military and the civil government, his investigation of coups d'etat and for his more recent analysis of threats posed to the U.S. by contemporary immigration.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 75 reviews
December 26, 2012
i am going to simplify Huntington ideas from this book and the clash of civilization so you dont waste your time and money: muslims are the main external threat to America an mexicans are the main internal threat. Their shish kebabs and taquitos are building a massive you know what in our white anglo saxon bellies. This is no different of what my stupid, smelly, fat, white neighbor thinks. When you send a redneck to Harvard this is the final product.
February 1, 2017
Huntington gives a persuasive account of American identity and the threats it faces. There is very little to argue with in this book. Every claim Huntington makes, comes with a ton of statistical and historical data. Here's some facts that will cause for surprise, irrespective of whether you're a multiculturalite or a nationalist:
1. America's bloodiest war in terms of deaths and destruction per capita was not the Civil War, it was King Philip's war. Fought in the 167o's against a coalition of indians, it saw almost 50% of colonials settlements attacked, roughly a quarter pillaged and 10% completely razed to the ground. Also 1 in 10 men fit for military service died. Huntington thinks this conflict was pivotal in the shaping of shared identity among the Thirteen colonies.
2. At the end of the 18th century, after the independence had been achieved, 98% of the American population was protestant, of which the largest part was English (ca. 60%) and supplemented by Scots, Germans and Dutchmen. Again, I think Huntington fairly concludes that this almost 200 year period (recall Jamestown, the first colony, was settled in 1607) has left a huge mark on American identity.
3. 49% of Americans are descended, not from those who came to America in the waves of immigration in the 19th and 20th centuries, but from the settler population of the 17th and 18th centuries. Huntington is therefore right to say that America is just as much a nation of immigrants as one of settlers.
4. Since 1980, there have been 12 referenda on the relation between English and Spanish in the U.S. in several states, inter alia: Florida, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Texas, and in 11 of these, there were sizeable majorities who voted against the promotion of the Spanish language in education, local politics and other areas, despite the resistance of the moneyed elites, academics and business interests.
5. Another interesting fact is the level of religiosity in America. In various polls Americans consistently rank as one of the most religious peoples on this planet, with the vast majority still identifying as Christian and believing in God or "a universal spirit". Other religions like judaism, Islam, buddhism and hinduism together do not make up more than a few percent and probably won't in the coming fifty years. You might not like it, and as an atheist I would indeed rather have it the other way, but it is a given that religion still is a key component of the American identity.
In the latter part of the book Huntington documents the recent history of immigration, starting from the '60s. Here, he shows how utterly different this has been so far from previous periods, which were punctuated by long periods of immigration restrictions, consisted of immigrants from relatively more similar cultures (Italy and Ireland are culturally closer than Mexico), and which saw a successful model of assimilation (i.e. learning the language, loosening ties with the mother country).
Most importantly, Huntington shows that, in contrast to earlier immigration waves, the recent immigration is not equally distributed among different nations, but is dominated by one country in particular: Mexico. Sure, there are Cubans, Salvadoreans, Nicaraguans and Haitians, but the overwhelming proportion of immigrants is Mexican. The risk of this, Huntington argues, is that this may lead to the forming of large diaspora's, enclaves if you will, in which it will not be necessary to adjust to American mainstream culture, to speak English, or to intermarry and mingle with Americans from other ethnic origins. And to some degree this is already happening in many Southern states and cities such as L.A. and New Mexico. Eventually, as Mexican immigrants identify more with Mexico and reject American mainstream culture, the Souther United States may turn into a de facto Greater Mexican transitional zone between the U.S. and Mexico and the U.S. may become a bicultural bilingual nation.
Not only would this be bad because the majority of Americans think it so and do not desire this outcome, there is also an abundance of evidence that bi- or multicultural (note: not multi-ethnic or multiracial!) countries that are only united by shared political institutions and the rule of law are
more segregated, more prone to separate, less supportive of welfare and redistributive programs, and ultimately less democratic than culturally and linguistically united nations. One quick scan of the most prosperous nations in the world is a case in point: Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Austria, Iceland, the Netherlands, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and so forth.*
*The obvious counterexample would be Switzerland, a multilingual country that seems to be very stable, democratic and prosperous. Even so, one could argue that this is largely due to its peculiar Swiss referendum-type local democracy, and its status as one of the older and organically (i.e. steadily) grown countries in Europe (the Old Swiss Confederacy dates back to 1513).
1. America's bloodiest war in terms of deaths and destruction per capita was not the Civil War, it was King Philip's war. Fought in the 167o's against a coalition of indians, it saw almost 50% of colonials settlements attacked, roughly a quarter pillaged and 10% completely razed to the ground. Also 1 in 10 men fit for military service died. Huntington thinks this conflict was pivotal in the shaping of shared identity among the Thirteen colonies.
2. At the end of the 18th century, after the independence had been achieved, 98% of the American population was protestant, of which the largest part was English (ca. 60%) and supplemented by Scots, Germans and Dutchmen. Again, I think Huntington fairly concludes that this almost 200 year period (recall Jamestown, the first colony, was settled in 1607) has left a huge mark on American identity.
3. 49% of Americans are descended, not from those who came to America in the waves of immigration in the 19th and 20th centuries, but from the settler population of the 17th and 18th centuries. Huntington is therefore right to say that America is just as much a nation of immigrants as one of settlers.
4. Since 1980, there have been 12 referenda on the relation between English and Spanish in the U.S. in several states, inter alia: Florida, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Texas, and in 11 of these, there were sizeable majorities who voted against the promotion of the Spanish language in education, local politics and other areas, despite the resistance of the moneyed elites, academics and business interests.
5. Another interesting fact is the level of religiosity in America. In various polls Americans consistently rank as one of the most religious peoples on this planet, with the vast majority still identifying as Christian and believing in God or "a universal spirit". Other religions like judaism, Islam, buddhism and hinduism together do not make up more than a few percent and probably won't in the coming fifty years. You might not like it, and as an atheist I would indeed rather have it the other way, but it is a given that religion still is a key component of the American identity.
In the latter part of the book Huntington documents the recent history of immigration, starting from the '60s. Here, he shows how utterly different this has been so far from previous periods, which were punctuated by long periods of immigration restrictions, consisted of immigrants from relatively more similar cultures (Italy and Ireland are culturally closer than Mexico), and which saw a successful model of assimilation (i.e. learning the language, loosening ties with the mother country).
Most importantly, Huntington shows that, in contrast to earlier immigration waves, the recent immigration is not equally distributed among different nations, but is dominated by one country in particular: Mexico. Sure, there are Cubans, Salvadoreans, Nicaraguans and Haitians, but the overwhelming proportion of immigrants is Mexican. The risk of this, Huntington argues, is that this may lead to the forming of large diaspora's, enclaves if you will, in which it will not be necessary to adjust to American mainstream culture, to speak English, or to intermarry and mingle with Americans from other ethnic origins. And to some degree this is already happening in many Southern states and cities such as L.A. and New Mexico. Eventually, as Mexican immigrants identify more with Mexico and reject American mainstream culture, the Souther United States may turn into a de facto Greater Mexican transitional zone between the U.S. and Mexico and the U.S. may become a bicultural bilingual nation.
Not only would this be bad because the majority of Americans think it so and do not desire this outcome, there is also an abundance of evidence that bi- or multicultural (note: not multi-ethnic or multiracial!) countries that are only united by shared political institutions and the rule of law are
more segregated, more prone to separate, less supportive of welfare and redistributive programs, and ultimately less democratic than culturally and linguistically united nations. One quick scan of the most prosperous nations in the world is a case in point: Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Austria, Iceland, the Netherlands, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and so forth.*
*The obvious counterexample would be Switzerland, a multilingual country that seems to be very stable, democratic and prosperous. Even so, one could argue that this is largely due to its peculiar Swiss referendum-type local democracy, and its status as one of the older and organically (i.e. steadily) grown countries in Europe (the Old Swiss Confederacy dates back to 1513).
February 12, 2021
It seems to me that this book is a bit anti-Semitic. It's been many years since I read this book ...
October 11, 2023
Talán illő előrebocsátanom: nem sok mindenben értek egyet Huntingtonnal, ami a nemzeti identitást illeti. Bizonyára a tapasztalatok különbözőségéből is fakad, de én gyanakvóbb vagyok. Ha azt mondják, "nemzeti identitás", azt hallom: "nekünk nem elég jó a te identitásod, cseréld le a miénkre". De az identitás szerintem nem olyan, mint a menzaétkeztetés, hogy azt egyem, amit elém raknak - sokkal inkább az otthoni főzéshez hasonlatos. Az ember beszerzi a hozzávalókat, és kotyvaszt valami finomat, ami a saját ízléséhez passzol. Nyilván vannak, akiknek megfelel a menzakoszt, mert nincs idejük főzőcskézni, de ne akarják, hogy folyton a napi menün kelljen csámcsognom. Oké, elismerem: a nemzeti identitás ettől függetlenül lehet fontos, lehet a társadalom cementje, satöbbi - de amint az egyén döntési lehetőségeinek szűkítésére akarják felhasználni, máris a finomfőzelék szintjére kerül. Mint minden dolog, ami példátlanul komplex és zavaros, rosszul tűri, amikor a politikusok megpróbálják leegyszerűsíteni.
Van azért ebben a könyvben bőséggel olyasmi, amiért megérte elolvasni. Kiváló, informatív passzusok vannak benne arról, hogyan alakult át az USA-ba érkező bevándorlók összetétele, és ez milyen következménnyel járt. Releváns problémákra világít rá a jellemzően mexikói latino migrációval kapcsolatban, ami valóban teljesen új kihívást jelent az asszimilációt tekintve. Az első kábé kétszáz oldal is megfizethetetlen: Huntington itt végigvezet minket az amerikai identitás kialakulásának történetén. Értelmezésében az amerikai identitás magja a "Hitvallás", ami erősen támaszkodik a protestáns szellemiségre, beleértve annak munkamorálját és közösséghez való viszonyát. Ezt a Hitvallást pediglen az Alapító Atyák hagyták ránk, ebből nőtt ki a jellegzetes föderatív demokrácia, és - mivel nem etnikai alapú - kiválóan alkalmas arra, hogy a különböző országokból érkező bevándorlók (németek, írek, olaszok, magyarok, japánok, stb.*) néhány generáció alatt belesimuljanak a nemzettestbe**.
Szóval ezek a jó dolgok. Aztán vannak azok a dolgok, amik zavarnak. Például az, ahogy Huntington az érdemi részeket felhabosítja olyan fejezetekkel, amelyeket csak ventilálásként tudok értelmezni. Van egy 60 oldalas szakasz a pozitív diszkrimináció hátulütőiről, ami hosszú és fárasztó ostorozása valaminek, amit 1.) talán diverzifikáltabban is meg lehetett volna közelíteni 2.) és amúgy is, ha már ostorozzuk, akkor ostorozzuk röpke 10 oldalban. Aztán itt van a "faj" kifejezés, amit H. egyes szakaszokban két mondatonként használ, ami egy idő után igazán idegesített. (Bár itt alighanem a fordító is ludas.) Vagy az olyan definitív pontatlanságok, mint hogy H. egyáltalán nem igyekszik elkülöníteni egymástól a "nacionalizmus" és a "patriotizmus" fogalmát.
De a legtöbb ellenérzésem abból fakadt, hogy H. a nemzeti identitást a priori olyan dolognak tartja, ami nélkül a nemzet a Pokol feneketlen bugyraiba zuhan. Illetve pontosítok: konkrétan a Hitvallás alapú amerikai identitáshoz rendel ilyen funkciót. Ebből több ellentmondás fakad.
a.) A szerző leírásából az a benyomásunk támadhat, hogy a fenn említett identitás organikusan, mondhatni természetesen alakult ki - alapvetően ez egy tősgyökeres konzervatív megközelítés. Ugyanakkor minden, ami a felbontására törekszik, egy szűk, a néppel szembehelyezkedő elit machinációja. Szerintem ez bizonyításra szorulna. Hisz nagyon is valószínű, hogy a Hitvallás alapú identitást is politikai termékként erőltették a nemzetre (legalábbis bizonyos történelmi periódusokban), anélkül, hogy megkérdezték volna, ízlik-e nekik. Másrészről az se lehetetlen, hogy ennek az identitásnak a felbomlása nem felülről irányított, hanem ugyancsak természetes folyamat. Hisz a nemzeti identitások nincsenek bazaltba faragva, a változó világ gyakran gyökeresen átalakítja őket - nyilván ez az átalakulás nagyon komoly problémák forrása lehet, de ettől függetlenül olyasvalamiként interpretálni, ami szükségszerűen vezet katasztrófához, enyhén tudománytalan eljárásnak tűnik.
b.) H. identitásértelmezéséhez elég egyértelműen hozzátartozik a "másik" jelenléte, vagyis egy ellenségkép, ami összetartja a közösséget. Ez bizonyos szempontból érthető, hisz valóban, ahhoz, hogy kik vagyunk "mi", meg kell határoznunk azt is, miben vagyunk mások, mint az "ők". Ugyanakkor ez a szemlélet néha elég különös bikaborjat szül - például határozottan az volt a benyomásom, a szerző direkt hálás szeptember 11-nek, amiért felébresztette a Hitvallást és összekovácsolta a nemzetet. Ha el is fogadom tehát, hogy a nemzeti identitás Huntington-féle értelmezése olyasvalami, ami szükséges az amerikai nemzet megmaradásához, a jövőre nézve látok riasztó következményeket. Hisz egy világban, ahol mindenki ezt az identitásfelfogást vallja, mindenkinek meglesz a maga ellenségképe is - ez viszont egy olyan jövőt vetít előre, ahol a háborúk lehetősége állandó. Nem tudom, lehet, ellenségkép nélkül nemzeti identitás sincs - de nem akarjuk mégis megpróbálni, hogy legyen? Vagy ha tényleg nem lehet, akkor találjunk ki valami mást.
Minden összevetve: nem volt elégetett idő. Betekintést nyertem valakinek a gondolkodásmódjába, aki teljesen mást gondol a nemzeti identitásról, mint én. Korzóztam hosszan kígyózó érvrendszerei között, igyekeztem jó alaposan szemrevételezni azokat. Aztán kijöttem onnan, és láss csodát: továbbra sem értek egyet vele. De legalább tudom, mivel nem értek egyet.
* Hogy mennyire "nem etnikai" alapú ez az identitás, arról persze lehet vitatkozni. Az afroamerikai közösséget például valamiért sokkal kevésbé fogadta tárt karokkal a Hitvallás, mint a "rendes" fehér európaiakat.
** Ennek a Hitvallás alapú identitásnak kétfajta megnyilvánulása lehet. Az egyik az országot az Ígéret földjeként képzeli el, ahová mindenki törekszik, de csak az arra méltók nyernek bebocsátást - ez a szemlélet megengedi a passzivitást. Aztán van az aktív értelmezés, ami szerint az ország arra hivatott, hogy terjessze a Hitvallást - magyarán keresztes háborút kell viseljen a megtévedt külvilággal szemben.
Van azért ebben a könyvben bőséggel olyasmi, amiért megérte elolvasni. Kiváló, informatív passzusok vannak benne arról, hogyan alakult át az USA-ba érkező bevándorlók összetétele, és ez milyen következménnyel járt. Releváns problémákra világít rá a jellemzően mexikói latino migrációval kapcsolatban, ami valóban teljesen új kihívást jelent az asszimilációt tekintve. Az első kábé kétszáz oldal is megfizethetetlen: Huntington itt végigvezet minket az amerikai identitás kialakulásának történetén. Értelmezésében az amerikai identitás magja a "Hitvallás", ami erősen támaszkodik a protestáns szellemiségre, beleértve annak munkamorálját és közösséghez való viszonyát. Ezt a Hitvallást pediglen az Alapító Atyák hagyták ránk, ebből nőtt ki a jellegzetes föderatív demokrácia, és - mivel nem etnikai alapú - kiválóan alkalmas arra, hogy a különböző országokból érkező bevándorlók (németek, írek, olaszok, magyarok, japánok, stb.*) néhány generáció alatt belesimuljanak a nemzettestbe**.
Szóval ezek a jó dolgok. Aztán vannak azok a dolgok, amik zavarnak. Például az, ahogy Huntington az érdemi részeket felhabosítja olyan fejezetekkel, amelyeket csak ventilálásként tudok értelmezni. Van egy 60 oldalas szakasz a pozitív diszkrimináció hátulütőiről, ami hosszú és fárasztó ostorozása valaminek, amit 1.) talán diverzifikáltabban is meg lehetett volna közelíteni 2.) és amúgy is, ha már ostorozzuk, akkor ostorozzuk röpke 10 oldalban. Aztán itt van a "faj" kifejezés, amit H. egyes szakaszokban két mondatonként használ, ami egy idő után igazán idegesített. (Bár itt alighanem a fordító is ludas.) Vagy az olyan definitív pontatlanságok, mint hogy H. egyáltalán nem igyekszik elkülöníteni egymástól a "nacionalizmus" és a "patriotizmus" fogalmát.
De a legtöbb ellenérzésem abból fakadt, hogy H. a nemzeti identitást a priori olyan dolognak tartja, ami nélkül a nemzet a Pokol feneketlen bugyraiba zuhan. Illetve pontosítok: konkrétan a Hitvallás alapú amerikai identitáshoz rendel ilyen funkciót. Ebből több ellentmondás fakad.
a.) A szerző leírásából az a benyomásunk támadhat, hogy a fenn említett identitás organikusan, mondhatni természetesen alakult ki - alapvetően ez egy tősgyökeres konzervatív megközelítés. Ugyanakkor minden, ami a felbontására törekszik, egy szűk, a néppel szembehelyezkedő elit machinációja. Szerintem ez bizonyításra szorulna. Hisz nagyon is valószínű, hogy a Hitvallás alapú identitást is politikai termékként erőltették a nemzetre (legalábbis bizonyos történelmi periódusokban), anélkül, hogy megkérdezték volna, ízlik-e nekik. Másrészről az se lehetetlen, hogy ennek az identitásnak a felbomlása nem felülről irányított, hanem ugyancsak természetes folyamat. Hisz a nemzeti identitások nincsenek bazaltba faragva, a változó világ gyakran gyökeresen átalakítja őket - nyilván ez az átalakulás nagyon komoly problémák forrása lehet, de ettől függetlenül olyasvalamiként interpretálni, ami szükségszerűen vezet katasztrófához, enyhén tudománytalan eljárásnak tűnik.
b.) H. identitásértelmezéséhez elég egyértelműen hozzátartozik a "másik" jelenléte, vagyis egy ellenségkép, ami összetartja a közösséget. Ez bizonyos szempontból érthető, hisz valóban, ahhoz, hogy kik vagyunk "mi", meg kell határoznunk azt is, miben vagyunk mások, mint az "ők". Ugyanakkor ez a szemlélet néha elég különös bikaborjat szül - például határozottan az volt a benyomásom, a szerző direkt hálás szeptember 11-nek, amiért felébresztette a Hitvallást és összekovácsolta a nemzetet. Ha el is fogadom tehát, hogy a nemzeti identitás Huntington-féle értelmezése olyasvalami, ami szükséges az amerikai nemzet megmaradásához, a jövőre nézve látok riasztó következményeket. Hisz egy világban, ahol mindenki ezt az identitásfelfogást vallja, mindenkinek meglesz a maga ellenségképe is - ez viszont egy olyan jövőt vetít előre, ahol a háborúk lehetősége állandó. Nem tudom, lehet, ellenségkép nélkül nemzeti identitás sincs - de nem akarjuk mégis megpróbálni, hogy legyen? Vagy ha tényleg nem lehet, akkor találjunk ki valami mást.
Minden összevetve: nem volt elégetett idő. Betekintést nyertem valakinek a gondolkodásmódjába, aki teljesen mást gondol a nemzeti identitásról, mint én. Korzóztam hosszan kígyózó érvrendszerei között, igyekeztem jó alaposan szemrevételezni azokat. Aztán kijöttem onnan, és láss csodát: továbbra sem értek egyet vele. De legalább tudom, mivel nem értek egyet.
* Hogy mennyire "nem etnikai" alapú ez az identitás, arról persze lehet vitatkozni. Az afroamerikai közösséget például valamiért sokkal kevésbé fogadta tárt karokkal a Hitvallás, mint a "rendes" fehér európaiakat.
** Ennek a Hitvallás alapú identitásnak kétfajta megnyilvánulása lehet. Az egyik az országot az Ígéret földjeként képzeli el, ahová mindenki törekszik, de csak az arra méltók nyernek bebocsátást - ez a szemlélet megengedi a passzivitást. Aztán van az aktív értelmezés, ami szerint az ország arra hivatott, hogy terjessze a Hitvallást - magyarán keresztes háborút kell viseljen a megtévedt külvilággal szemben.
February 12, 2020
It was easy to laugh at Samuel Huntington for being a pessimistic crank during the 1990s and the 2000s. After the 2010s, it's become a little....uh....less easy. There really were many global wars of identity and religion, as well as internal fragmentation of countries along such lines. In the ideological void left by the fall of communism, liberalism has now been hollowed out by an exploitative and venal form of economics. We are indeed looking more like a world of ethnic tribes, as well as atomized individuals pledging allegiance to globalized networks.
This book is essentially a restatement of his Clash of Civilizations thesis reframed down to the domestic level of American social cohesion. Instead of national security, he's talking about societal security. These are the internal threats to a people's identity and established way of life rather than the threats that come from a foreign enemy. This book was written over a decade a half ago and frankly many of its themes are so familiar by this point that I could have read most of it with my eyes closed. Huntington believes that Hispanics (primarily) and Muslims (secondarily) are threats to the societal security of America because they are undermining its essentially Anglo-Protestant character. The supporting villains in this story are the cultural deconstructionists of the left who have been waging war against America's assimilative core culture. Huntington states all this rather crudely and doesn't hedge or drape his arguments in veils of nuance. This tends to make his points less effective in my opinion.
Huntington seems to hold out hope that religion, specifically Christianity, will save America from becoming a binational and fractured society. He implicitly endorses Emile Durkheim's idea of religion as a "social cement" that binds together people into common cause and solidarity. Americans are certainly more religious than, say, Western Europeans. But I think that Huntington actually overstates their religiosity in this book. It also seems that religious identification has gone down in the years since he wrote it. I do not see a mass religious awakening on the horizon in the United States, except perhaps under some new cult of technology or sexuality. Huntington did correctly predict the white-majority backlash against immigration and the decline of America's core culture that is now taking place under Donald Trump. The role of religion in this backlash has been limited however.
Huntington should not be vilified or dismissed, even if you disagree and frequently cringe at him as I do. The idea of an assimilative core culture wielded by a successful society can indeed be genuinely attractive, including to immigrants. One should not support every endeavor of the deconstructionists, especially since it doesn't seem like they have a clear end goal in mind for their project. Although he is crude, Huntington was more or less right in predicting that identity would become the main driver of conflict after the ideological battles of the Cold War. I do not denigrate his work, even if I often chafe at what feels like his over-simplistic constructions. Instead I would like to see a world that proves him wrong and in which people find new grounds of solidarity with one another rather than fragmenting behind barricades of hatred, chauvinism and fear. It is hard to foresee a world that returns to nation-states as extended families. At least not in the old way, which didn't end up so well anyways.
This book is essentially a restatement of his Clash of Civilizations thesis reframed down to the domestic level of American social cohesion. Instead of national security, he's talking about societal security. These are the internal threats to a people's identity and established way of life rather than the threats that come from a foreign enemy. This book was written over a decade a half ago and frankly many of its themes are so familiar by this point that I could have read most of it with my eyes closed. Huntington believes that Hispanics (primarily) and Muslims (secondarily) are threats to the societal security of America because they are undermining its essentially Anglo-Protestant character. The supporting villains in this story are the cultural deconstructionists of the left who have been waging war against America's assimilative core culture. Huntington states all this rather crudely and doesn't hedge or drape his arguments in veils of nuance. This tends to make his points less effective in my opinion.
Huntington seems to hold out hope that religion, specifically Christianity, will save America from becoming a binational and fractured society. He implicitly endorses Emile Durkheim's idea of religion as a "social cement" that binds together people into common cause and solidarity. Americans are certainly more religious than, say, Western Europeans. But I think that Huntington actually overstates their religiosity in this book. It also seems that religious identification has gone down in the years since he wrote it. I do not see a mass religious awakening on the horizon in the United States, except perhaps under some new cult of technology or sexuality. Huntington did correctly predict the white-majority backlash against immigration and the decline of America's core culture that is now taking place under Donald Trump. The role of religion in this backlash has been limited however.
Huntington should not be vilified or dismissed, even if you disagree and frequently cringe at him as I do. The idea of an assimilative core culture wielded by a successful society can indeed be genuinely attractive, including to immigrants. One should not support every endeavor of the deconstructionists, especially since it doesn't seem like they have a clear end goal in mind for their project. Although he is crude, Huntington was more or less right in predicting that identity would become the main driver of conflict after the ideological battles of the Cold War. I do not denigrate his work, even if I often chafe at what feels like his over-simplistic constructions. Instead I would like to see a world that proves him wrong and in which people find new grounds of solidarity with one another rather than fragmenting behind barricades of hatred, chauvinism and fear. It is hard to foresee a world that returns to nation-states as extended families. At least not in the old way, which didn't end up so well anyways.
September 13, 2024
Does no one read history any more? The author's entire idea is 19th century Nativism and the eugenic hysteria of Madison Grant's 'The Passing of the Great Race' rejigged for the 21st century. Do Americans know how incredibly stupid they sound describing 'Hispanics' as an alien, non white (as if that mattered) race. Does no one see the warmed over anti-catholicism of its Anglo-protestant heritage clap trap? I rather prefer Madison Grant, he was at least honest in his prejudices.
June 30, 2021
"[A]t the end of the twentieth century the [American] Creed was the principal source of national identity for most Americans. Two factors enhanced its importance. First, as ethnicity and race lost salience and Anglo-Protestant culture came under serious attack, the Creed was left as the only unchallenged survivor of the four major historical components o American identity. Second, the Creed had acquired renewed status, comparable to what it had in the Revolution, as the defining characteristic distinguishing America from the ideologies of its German, Japanese, and Soviet enemies. Hence many Americans came to believe that America could be multiracial, mutiethnic, and lack any cultural core, and yet still be a coherent nation with its identity defined solely by the Creed. Is this, however, really the case? Can a nation be defined only by a political ideology? Several considerations suggest the answer is no. A creed alone does not a nation make."
Samuel Huntington has been provoking me since I first read (and met) him in college. It's been a long time since I've read anything by him but this 2004 books is as or more relevant--and provoking--as when he wrote it. Some of the references are a bit dated (the aftermath of 9/11 looms large in the book) but overall the struggle over what American identity is and ought to be is even stronger today than it was when Huntington wrote.
Huntington's argument is that the United States as we know it was founded with Anglo-Protestant values that gave rise to a set of political beliefs. He does not sugarcoat America's history, writing about the pervasive racism and exclusion that helped created the country--for example pointing out that Irish, Italian, Slavic and Jewish immigrants all became "white" but by "accept[ing] the racial distinctions prevalent in America and embrace the exclusion of Asians and the subordination of blacks."
He chronicles the peak of those views as the period after World War II where the entire country came together but then their fragmentation when elites gave up on them and instead supported both a multiple-identity version of Americans divided by race and ethnicity at the same time that they embraced a transnational vision of either a cosmopolitan world where everyone shared the same values--either because America imported them or because it imperialistically exported them.
In the course of this Huntington discusses the rise of hispanic immigration, bilingualism, affirmative action, and many other hot button topics and how they changed rapidly in the 1960s and 1970s.
He also documents the increasing gap between elites who are unpatriotic, don't see America as special/different and the people who, according to the polls he cites, are more comfortable with basic patriotism and less comfortable with immigration, affirmative action, liberalism and cosmopolitanism. He argues that the decline in trust for government and other elites is because of this increasing disconnect.
He presciently warns about the rise of a Trump-like figure who tries to define America as literally about a particular ethnic group and argues that the antidote to this is to explicitly embrace more of the importance of religion in national life and the values of anglo-protestantism but not the group itself because he hopes "the WASPish descendants of the founders [will] become a small and uninfluential minority."
As someone who is not remotely religious but ethnically Jewish I find something off-putting about the notion that religion and culture should be the backbone of American life. I do not think Huntington himself intends to exclude anyone but it is hard to understand how his cultural vision could be implemented while retaining the subtlety that prevents that from happening. The America Huntington is worried about seems wonderful to me--cosmopolitan, diverse, welcoming of immigrants, and more.
But, I am also mindful of his warning that political ideologies are not enough to tie a people together. And that if people do not feel a sense of shared kinship and nationality they will lose any ability to work together, to support each other, to engage in redistribution and investment in opportunity and more. I am also mindful that I am more like one of the rootless cosmopolitan elites that Huntington is concerned about than the people as a whole.
I'm not sure of the solution. One part has to be a strong celebration of the American Creed, something that has been called more into question lately. This need not be triumphalism or naive acceptance, instead treating the creed as an incomplete, imperfect project that America is forced to live up to. Another part is a certain patriotism, like you feel in a baseball park when they sing the national anthem or do "hats off for heroes" celebrating a member of the military or honor nurses who were at the frontlines fighting COVID.
That may not be enough. I don't think Huntington's solution is viable but a lot of his data, evidence, history and challenges are definitely worth seriously reckoning with.
Samuel Huntington has been provoking me since I first read (and met) him in college. It's been a long time since I've read anything by him but this 2004 books is as or more relevant--and provoking--as when he wrote it. Some of the references are a bit dated (the aftermath of 9/11 looms large in the book) but overall the struggle over what American identity is and ought to be is even stronger today than it was when Huntington wrote.
Huntington's argument is that the United States as we know it was founded with Anglo-Protestant values that gave rise to a set of political beliefs. He does not sugarcoat America's history, writing about the pervasive racism and exclusion that helped created the country--for example pointing out that Irish, Italian, Slavic and Jewish immigrants all became "white" but by "accept[ing] the racial distinctions prevalent in America and embrace the exclusion of Asians and the subordination of blacks."
He chronicles the peak of those views as the period after World War II where the entire country came together but then their fragmentation when elites gave up on them and instead supported both a multiple-identity version of Americans divided by race and ethnicity at the same time that they embraced a transnational vision of either a cosmopolitan world where everyone shared the same values--either because America imported them or because it imperialistically exported them.
In the course of this Huntington discusses the rise of hispanic immigration, bilingualism, affirmative action, and many other hot button topics and how they changed rapidly in the 1960s and 1970s.
He also documents the increasing gap between elites who are unpatriotic, don't see America as special/different and the people who, according to the polls he cites, are more comfortable with basic patriotism and less comfortable with immigration, affirmative action, liberalism and cosmopolitanism. He argues that the decline in trust for government and other elites is because of this increasing disconnect.
He presciently warns about the rise of a Trump-like figure who tries to define America as literally about a particular ethnic group and argues that the antidote to this is to explicitly embrace more of the importance of religion in national life and the values of anglo-protestantism but not the group itself because he hopes "the WASPish descendants of the founders [will] become a small and uninfluential minority."
As someone who is not remotely religious but ethnically Jewish I find something off-putting about the notion that religion and culture should be the backbone of American life. I do not think Huntington himself intends to exclude anyone but it is hard to understand how his cultural vision could be implemented while retaining the subtlety that prevents that from happening. The America Huntington is worried about seems wonderful to me--cosmopolitan, diverse, welcoming of immigrants, and more.
But, I am also mindful of his warning that political ideologies are not enough to tie a people together. And that if people do not feel a sense of shared kinship and nationality they will lose any ability to work together, to support each other, to engage in redistribution and investment in opportunity and more. I am also mindful that I am more like one of the rootless cosmopolitan elites that Huntington is concerned about than the people as a whole.
I'm not sure of the solution. One part has to be a strong celebration of the American Creed, something that has been called more into question lately. This need not be triumphalism or naive acceptance, instead treating the creed as an incomplete, imperfect project that America is forced to live up to. Another part is a certain patriotism, like you feel in a baseball park when they sing the national anthem or do "hats off for heroes" celebrating a member of the military or honor nurses who were at the frontlines fighting COVID.
That may not be enough. I don't think Huntington's solution is viable but a lot of his data, evidence, history and challenges are definitely worth seriously reckoning with.
August 26, 2025
“We have to know who we are before we can know what our interests are.”
--Samuel P. Huntington, Who Are We?
An overstated, yet still fascinating read. Huntington stands (stood, rather) at the very end of a long line of old-school Truman Democrats who recognized the need for "A bit of Sparta in the midst of Babylon." This distinctive worldview is tethered to Huntington's distinctive writing - which varies from startling ambiguity to non-PC frankness - often within the same paragraph.
At its most elemental, the novice SH reader will find it very difficult to analyze SH's works in modern polemical terms, as he's not writing in easily divided left/right dichotomies (although I suspect isolationist right-wingers would take the most immediate comfort from his words, barring serious contemplation of his thoughts).
In the end, Huntington's arguments for a traditional understanding of the word patriotism (as having vital components to the very survival of the nation) are far more compelling than is his (possibly overstated) conclusion about Latin American immigration and its potentially devastating effects on America as a nation-state.
In the end, Huntington was at heart a true-political scientist - not a latent academic racist - as some leftist critics have charged. His concern was with America as a nation, with nation-building, and the almost mechanistic (in his treatment) components that a nation must have at its cultural core in order to survive and thrive in a rapidly shrinking world.
--Samuel P. Huntington, Who Are We?
An overstated, yet still fascinating read. Huntington stands (stood, rather) at the very end of a long line of old-school Truman Democrats who recognized the need for "A bit of Sparta in the midst of Babylon." This distinctive worldview is tethered to Huntington's distinctive writing - which varies from startling ambiguity to non-PC frankness - often within the same paragraph.
At its most elemental, the novice SH reader will find it very difficult to analyze SH's works in modern polemical terms, as he's not writing in easily divided left/right dichotomies (although I suspect isolationist right-wingers would take the most immediate comfort from his words, barring serious contemplation of his thoughts).
In the end, Huntington's arguments for a traditional understanding of the word patriotism (as having vital components to the very survival of the nation) are far more compelling than is his (possibly overstated) conclusion about Latin American immigration and its potentially devastating effects on America as a nation-state.
In the end, Huntington was at heart a true-political scientist - not a latent academic racist - as some leftist critics have charged. His concern was with America as a nation, with nation-building, and the almost mechanistic (in his treatment) components that a nation must have at its cultural core in order to survive and thrive in a rapidly shrinking world.
June 15, 2014
Yet another well researched offering from the author of "The Clash of Civilization". This is not so much about the clash as of American identity. However, the focus is again on identifying "fault-lines". The author is just unable to discern any harmony. That is perhaps how he thinks. For him, any religious, linguistic or cultural diversity is a threat to American identity. One shudders at the thought if he had written about India where diversity is celebrated. An Indian (most of them) takes pride in the diversity of this country, be it linguistic, social, cultural, religious of geographical. Huntington is mortally afraid, reflecting the paranoia that has set in in the American mind consequent to 9/11. He is apprehensive that "the cultural division between Hispanics and Anglos will replace the racial division blacks and whites as the most serious cleavage in the American society". His obsession with "fault-lines" makes him believe that as he "determines" the clash of civilizations in his previous offering. He refuses to believe that these could co-exist, leave alone co-exist harmoniously.
One may disagree with a lot that Huntington has to see but he presents his case brilliantly and cogently.
One may disagree with a lot that Huntington has to see but he presents his case brilliantly and cogently.
February 3, 2008
How far the mighty fall. Someone once described Huntington me as a person who manages to come up with ideas so crazy that we can't quite disprove them. This book sees multicultral America as a suspicious development, likely to lead to our dissolution. He argues that we in America are not a nation of immigrants, but of settlers--we founded a new national covenant, and anyone who is not a descendant of those settlers is not necessarily automatically allowed to come in. He also claims that the flux of Mexican immigrants will eventually lead California and the American southwest to break away from the States and become a great Mexico. While I am the world's worst political prognosticator, I have to say that I really think that is unlikely. Now, if you want a Huntington book that will knock your socks off, read "The Common Defense." THERE is a book!
September 7, 2018
If you want to understand this country's immigration history and problem then this book is a must read. If you have read Huntington's Clash of Civilization then you know that this book is well researched and you will walk understanding nuanced differences that will make you think. For example, the difference between a settler and an immigrant makes a world of a difference when dealing with arguments about who founded this country. The key issue(s), what makes us "American" and the effects of recent immigration policy on the American identity, are not easy issues to define without first providing a history of the founding of our nation, the religious and socio political influences that brought about our nation and finally the mixing of protestantism with cultural expansion. Even if you disagree with Samuel Huntington, he provides a useful framework for debate. I found 'Who Are We,' to be most useful. This is the very rare book for all Americans to read. Written in 2004, four years before his death, Huntington, like in Clash of Civilization, virtually predicts much that has happened to this country. While to some he may come across as right-of-center, his real aim is to draw out how the USA was, and still is, headed toward a bi-cultural and bi-lingual society. Informally he gives a timeline writing that America was the most unified under the "American creed". His charts on countries of origin of immigrants comparing 1960 to 2000 show the very large impact of the 1965 Immigration Act. He shows this contrast to the very high assimilation of immigrants who arrived from the middle of the 19th century to roughly the 1920s. I could write a lot more but would recommend that you read this book. EXCELLENT!
June 1, 2024
A controversial but essential work on American identity for the twenty first century. Huntington mentioned in his The Clash of Civilizations that questions of identity will become the most important in the post-Cold War world for identifying the nation's interests. Huntington wrote this book after the 9/11 attacks when the country felt a renewed sense of patriotism after decades of social division and culture war but still saw the underlying cracks even as a Democrat himself.
Huntington discusses what makes a nation. A nation in one sense is what Benedict Anderson called an 'imagined community.' A nation is comprised of people who may not know each other face to face but are united by shared ideas or ethnicity. Nationalism is in part a modern phenomenon strengthened by mass media and communication which makes shared experience stronger. The nation was also as described by Ernest Renan as a "daily plebiscite" in which people on some shared basis decide they want to live together under some common government. The nation is rooted in something older and common. This is enumerated in the Federalist Papers by John Jay:
"Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people- a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs, and who, by their joint counsels, arms, and efforts, fighting side by side throughout a long and bloody war, have nobly established liberty and independence."
A nation is defined by who the original settlers are. If the United States were founded by the Spanish, the Portuguese, or the French it would be a very different country with say catholic Christianity. Centuries onward the values and traditions of the founding population influences the direction the nation and its institutions take.
Many will disagree that there is even an American nation. We're a nation of immigrants right? Not quite. A nation is a place people immigrate to, a people and place which already exists. The founders of the United States were settlers and conquerors and brought new identities to the North American continent from Europe which displaced the native populations. Northwest Europe and certain areas of that in particular: southern England and to an extent the Netherlands. It is the Anglo culture that predominates in language, custom, religion and law. The religious tradition these settlers came from was Protestant Christian, and much more of the dissenter tradition than in the Europe they left. Ideals of self-government from the Old Testament and Anglo Saxon common law. The nuclear family model of northwest Europe of a husband wife and children who live apart from extended family in their own property is the ideal. From the Protestant Calvinist is a strong value of the work ethic and moral prudery. The substantial slave population was brought from west Africa starting with the Dutch and with the cavalier elite developed a more aristocratic society in the south. Scots-Irish immigrants brought the frontiersman spirit settling inland into the Appalachians as well as more emotional charismatic Christianity.
American national identity is something different than what is called the American creed. The American creed is found in the preamble of the Declaration of Independence, 'We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator certain inalienable rights, among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." The American creed which been contested on its meaning throughout history is based on classical small-l liberalism and republicanism, the enlightenment view of human nature as espoused by Whig philosopher John Locke and the classical models of representative government of Ancient Greece and Rome. The two components of the American creed are individualism and egalitarianism: individualism not as egoism but as in personal responsibility and independence, and egalitarianism in the sense of equality of opportunity not equality of result. The problem with a purely civic identity is that ethnicity is not as fungible as civics which is also subject to profound disagreement particularly if not rooted in one’s culture.
Demographically by the time of the founding in 1790 the new American nation was about 62% European (mostly British) 22% Native American, and 15% African. 98% were Protestant. Even in 1990 nearly half of Americans could trace their ancestry to this population. Immigration was largely from Europe until the latter twentieth century which had the effect of making the country whiter. The first immigration law in 1790 only allowed naturalization of free whites of good character. By 1950 about 90% of the population was European descent and 10% black. The 1924 immigration act restricted immigration from southern and Eastern Europe and along with social assimilation expanded American identity to eventually include whites, catholic and Jewish as well as Protestant. The civil rights era ended de jure white supremacy and began an attempt to integrate black Americans into American life as social equals. In 1965 immigration laws were changed to stop favoring northwest Europeans after 40 years of native backlash to increase immigration from outside of Europe from nonwhite countries, mainly Latin America (Mexico) and Asia. By the 21st century the non-Hispanic white population had fallen below 70% of the population and was projected since the 1990s to be majority non-white (non-Hispanic white) by the mid twenty first century.
America since 1965 has seen a weakening of national identity. The Cold War meant that the United States identified itself as leader of the larger free capitalist western world against communism led by the USSR who struggled over the fate of the rest of the world. Unlike after World War One there wasn't a return to isolationism but a permanent war footing under the military industrial complex. Another major force weakening national identity has been multiculturalism in which the dominant Anglo-Protestant culture was deemphasized for non-whites and immigrants to maintain their unique identities. This was the direction taken after the civil rights movement of the 1960s which at first fought and attained legal equality and went more toward equality of outcome which requires focusing on the effects of past discrimination. What has happened is that disparities between groups despite formal equality is blamed on the past or on unconscious racism which requires more positive government action and is usually one sided. This seriously undermines the ideal of equal treatment and generates resentment in the white population, which produced decades of conservative backlash politics.
Huntington's most proximate worry in the book is that of Hispanic immigration and social influence. Hispanics, mostly from Mexico, are largely nonwhite (mestizo) and culturally are Catholic. Huntington claims, citing some Mexican/Hispanic sources, that Latin-Catholic culture is fatalist in comparison to the Anglo-Protestant. Poverty is taken to be a requirement to serve god, as it is supposed to be for the clergy, in contrast to Protestant cultures in which there is no clergy and success in ones calling is worldly sign of god's approval. Latin societies are comparatively low trust and little less history of successful democracy.
Hispanic migration is different for Huntington than past migration waves in that Mexico and Latin America are not separated by the Atlantic Ocean as it was for European immigrants. This means a continual stream of people who are closer to their country of origin, in the case of Mexico right across the border. The large numbers of Hispanics in communities in the southwest and Florida, reinforced by immigrants disincentives assimilation. Compounding this is the strong support for multiculturalism and against assimilation which wasn't present a century ago along with the welfare state. A third of immigrants from Europe went back home because they couldn't support themselves. Huntington also does not see Hispanic assimilation as going very well given the influx of new immigrants and presence of Spanish speaking media. Huntington's worry is that the United States will bifurcate like Canada into different ethnic linguistic cultures. Educational attainment and class mobility are still unequal. Since the book came out things have probably improved and I think Huntington overstates the case.
Another and I think more worrying challenge to American identity is the denationalization of elites. This is the consequence of economic globalization and improvements in communication and travel. Economic and cultural elites see themselves more as citizens of the world and identify less with their fellow countrymen. These elites are less religious, more socially liberal, urban, educated, and more internationalist in foreign and economic policy.
The denationalization of elites is I think the most significant challenge as a reassertion of common American identity is essentially locked out of important institutions like academia, big business, much of the judiciary and media. American patriots can achieve electoral victories and yet not change institutions. This was the case with California's Prop 187 initiative in the 1990s which banned welfare to illegal immigrants but which was overturned in court and is often blamed for the irrelevancy of the Republican Party in California since. Still, political action on the populist level has been effective when it comes to immigration. Several times since 2006 congress has attempted to implement a pathway to citizenship, what critics call amnesty, for undocumented immigrants but each of these attempts were stopped by conservative populist uprisings with the help of talk radio.
There are three ways the United States can see its global role in response: as a cosmopolitan civilization, and imperial one, and as a nation. The cosmopolitan vision is that of progressives and the Democratic party since Clinton. Under Bush and the neoconservatives the US took on the imperial vision of the United States as representative of western liberal-democratic-capitalist civilization versus radical Islam and dictatorships left over from the Cold War like North Korea and Baathist Iraq which resulted in failure. The national vision is that of the paleoconservatives/libertarians led by Pat Buchanan Ron Paul and carried forward by Trump as populism which is more non-interventionist, civic nationalist, and protectionist on trade. The cosmopolitans and nationalists are the two major factions since the imperial project fizzled out and the US imperium is Atlanticist, reliant on NATO and third world labor, whereas in the past the US was internally expansionist under the Monroe doctrine and largely abstained from major power affairs. The cosmopolitans have corporate America and cultural elites on their side, but largely alienated the working class from mainstream politics.
Huntington discusses what makes a nation. A nation in one sense is what Benedict Anderson called an 'imagined community.' A nation is comprised of people who may not know each other face to face but are united by shared ideas or ethnicity. Nationalism is in part a modern phenomenon strengthened by mass media and communication which makes shared experience stronger. The nation was also as described by Ernest Renan as a "daily plebiscite" in which people on some shared basis decide they want to live together under some common government. The nation is rooted in something older and common. This is enumerated in the Federalist Papers by John Jay:
"Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people- a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs, and who, by their joint counsels, arms, and efforts, fighting side by side throughout a long and bloody war, have nobly established liberty and independence."
A nation is defined by who the original settlers are. If the United States were founded by the Spanish, the Portuguese, or the French it would be a very different country with say catholic Christianity. Centuries onward the values and traditions of the founding population influences the direction the nation and its institutions take.
Many will disagree that there is even an American nation. We're a nation of immigrants right? Not quite. A nation is a place people immigrate to, a people and place which already exists. The founders of the United States were settlers and conquerors and brought new identities to the North American continent from Europe which displaced the native populations. Northwest Europe and certain areas of that in particular: southern England and to an extent the Netherlands. It is the Anglo culture that predominates in language, custom, religion and law. The religious tradition these settlers came from was Protestant Christian, and much more of the dissenter tradition than in the Europe they left. Ideals of self-government from the Old Testament and Anglo Saxon common law. The nuclear family model of northwest Europe of a husband wife and children who live apart from extended family in their own property is the ideal. From the Protestant Calvinist is a strong value of the work ethic and moral prudery. The substantial slave population was brought from west Africa starting with the Dutch and with the cavalier elite developed a more aristocratic society in the south. Scots-Irish immigrants brought the frontiersman spirit settling inland into the Appalachians as well as more emotional charismatic Christianity.
American national identity is something different than what is called the American creed. The American creed is found in the preamble of the Declaration of Independence, 'We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator certain inalienable rights, among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." The American creed which been contested on its meaning throughout history is based on classical small-l liberalism and republicanism, the enlightenment view of human nature as espoused by Whig philosopher John Locke and the classical models of representative government of Ancient Greece and Rome. The two components of the American creed are individualism and egalitarianism: individualism not as egoism but as in personal responsibility and independence, and egalitarianism in the sense of equality of opportunity not equality of result. The problem with a purely civic identity is that ethnicity is not as fungible as civics which is also subject to profound disagreement particularly if not rooted in one’s culture.
Demographically by the time of the founding in 1790 the new American nation was about 62% European (mostly British) 22% Native American, and 15% African. 98% were Protestant. Even in 1990 nearly half of Americans could trace their ancestry to this population. Immigration was largely from Europe until the latter twentieth century which had the effect of making the country whiter. The first immigration law in 1790 only allowed naturalization of free whites of good character. By 1950 about 90% of the population was European descent and 10% black. The 1924 immigration act restricted immigration from southern and Eastern Europe and along with social assimilation expanded American identity to eventually include whites, catholic and Jewish as well as Protestant. The civil rights era ended de jure white supremacy and began an attempt to integrate black Americans into American life as social equals. In 1965 immigration laws were changed to stop favoring northwest Europeans after 40 years of native backlash to increase immigration from outside of Europe from nonwhite countries, mainly Latin America (Mexico) and Asia. By the 21st century the non-Hispanic white population had fallen below 70% of the population and was projected since the 1990s to be majority non-white (non-Hispanic white) by the mid twenty first century.
America since 1965 has seen a weakening of national identity. The Cold War meant that the United States identified itself as leader of the larger free capitalist western world against communism led by the USSR who struggled over the fate of the rest of the world. Unlike after World War One there wasn't a return to isolationism but a permanent war footing under the military industrial complex. Another major force weakening national identity has been multiculturalism in which the dominant Anglo-Protestant culture was deemphasized for non-whites and immigrants to maintain their unique identities. This was the direction taken after the civil rights movement of the 1960s which at first fought and attained legal equality and went more toward equality of outcome which requires focusing on the effects of past discrimination. What has happened is that disparities between groups despite formal equality is blamed on the past or on unconscious racism which requires more positive government action and is usually one sided. This seriously undermines the ideal of equal treatment and generates resentment in the white population, which produced decades of conservative backlash politics.
Huntington's most proximate worry in the book is that of Hispanic immigration and social influence. Hispanics, mostly from Mexico, are largely nonwhite (mestizo) and culturally are Catholic. Huntington claims, citing some Mexican/Hispanic sources, that Latin-Catholic culture is fatalist in comparison to the Anglo-Protestant. Poverty is taken to be a requirement to serve god, as it is supposed to be for the clergy, in contrast to Protestant cultures in which there is no clergy and success in ones calling is worldly sign of god's approval. Latin societies are comparatively low trust and little less history of successful democracy.
Hispanic migration is different for Huntington than past migration waves in that Mexico and Latin America are not separated by the Atlantic Ocean as it was for European immigrants. This means a continual stream of people who are closer to their country of origin, in the case of Mexico right across the border. The large numbers of Hispanics in communities in the southwest and Florida, reinforced by immigrants disincentives assimilation. Compounding this is the strong support for multiculturalism and against assimilation which wasn't present a century ago along with the welfare state. A third of immigrants from Europe went back home because they couldn't support themselves. Huntington also does not see Hispanic assimilation as going very well given the influx of new immigrants and presence of Spanish speaking media. Huntington's worry is that the United States will bifurcate like Canada into different ethnic linguistic cultures. Educational attainment and class mobility are still unequal. Since the book came out things have probably improved and I think Huntington overstates the case.
Another and I think more worrying challenge to American identity is the denationalization of elites. This is the consequence of economic globalization and improvements in communication and travel. Economic and cultural elites see themselves more as citizens of the world and identify less with their fellow countrymen. These elites are less religious, more socially liberal, urban, educated, and more internationalist in foreign and economic policy.
The denationalization of elites is I think the most significant challenge as a reassertion of common American identity is essentially locked out of important institutions like academia, big business, much of the judiciary and media. American patriots can achieve electoral victories and yet not change institutions. This was the case with California's Prop 187 initiative in the 1990s which banned welfare to illegal immigrants but which was overturned in court and is often blamed for the irrelevancy of the Republican Party in California since. Still, political action on the populist level has been effective when it comes to immigration. Several times since 2006 congress has attempted to implement a pathway to citizenship, what critics call amnesty, for undocumented immigrants but each of these attempts were stopped by conservative populist uprisings with the help of talk radio.
There are three ways the United States can see its global role in response: as a cosmopolitan civilization, and imperial one, and as a nation. The cosmopolitan vision is that of progressives and the Democratic party since Clinton. Under Bush and the neoconservatives the US took on the imperial vision of the United States as representative of western liberal-democratic-capitalist civilization versus radical Islam and dictatorships left over from the Cold War like North Korea and Baathist Iraq which resulted in failure. The national vision is that of the paleoconservatives/libertarians led by Pat Buchanan Ron Paul and carried forward by Trump as populism which is more non-interventionist, civic nationalist, and protectionist on trade. The cosmopolitans and nationalists are the two major factions since the imperial project fizzled out and the US imperium is Atlanticist, reliant on NATO and third world labor, whereas in the past the US was internally expansionist under the Monroe doctrine and largely abstained from major power affairs. The cosmopolitans have corporate America and cultural elites on their side, but largely alienated the working class from mainstream politics.
June 3, 2022
At this point, it has become cliche to say that this or that book is essential for understanding Trump's rise and appeal. Nevertheless, I want to make that claim here, for Who Are We? First, though, I feel compelled to briefly explain my high regard for Huntington's work, in large part due to the prevalence of impassioned caricatures of his ideas and arguments that I see both on Goodreads and in other media. Having now finished 3 of his books thus far, it is apparent to me that many ardent critics of Huntington have failed to read, let alone charitably consider, his work.
Huntington spends most of this book adeptly contextualizing American national identity and contemporary politics (e.g., the misleading partial truths that America is a nation of immigrants and defined primarily by a political creed). America, he argues, is at a crossroads in its national identity. It faces three major future possibilities, which he calls cosmopolitanism, imperialism, and nationalism. He does not explicitly advocate for one view, per se, but he is clearly deeply sympathetic towards a liberal nationalist conception of American identity. His main positive thesis is that American society is inextricable from its historical roots in Anglo-Protestant culture and religion.
The aspect that seems to draw the most criticism and vitriol is the chapter on "Mexican Immigration and Hispanization," which coincidentally I think is the weakest part of the book. He raises several interesting differences between Mexican immigration today and immigration in the past and suggests that America may become bifurcated into separate Anglo and Hispanic societies. I think some of his arguments are compelling (e.g. his emphasis on the importance of English as a unifying lingua franca for American society) but I question, for instance, the extent to which "bilingual" initiatives and institutions genuinely threaten national cohesion. Regardless, though, his arguments and ideas even when unconvincing are those of a serious, reflective scholar, not a rabid apologist for white supremacy as some seem to suggest.
This brings me to the Trump connection. Throughout the book, Huntington makes several insightful points that I think get at the salvageable heart of Trumpism (detached of course from the grotesque person himself): (1) the importance of identity, and particularly national identity, for most people's political sensibilities, (2) the particularist cultural roots and influences of identity and politics, and (3) the increasingly wide gap between popular and elite commitments to American identity and nationalism. These are all deeply important issues, and I highly recommend Huntington's work to anyone interested in understanding them and our volatile contemporary political world more generally.
Huntington spends most of this book adeptly contextualizing American national identity and contemporary politics (e.g., the misleading partial truths that America is a nation of immigrants and defined primarily by a political creed). America, he argues, is at a crossroads in its national identity. It faces three major future possibilities, which he calls cosmopolitanism, imperialism, and nationalism. He does not explicitly advocate for one view, per se, but he is clearly deeply sympathetic towards a liberal nationalist conception of American identity. His main positive thesis is that American society is inextricable from its historical roots in Anglo-Protestant culture and religion.
The aspect that seems to draw the most criticism and vitriol is the chapter on "Mexican Immigration and Hispanization," which coincidentally I think is the weakest part of the book. He raises several interesting differences between Mexican immigration today and immigration in the past and suggests that America may become bifurcated into separate Anglo and Hispanic societies. I think some of his arguments are compelling (e.g. his emphasis on the importance of English as a unifying lingua franca for American society) but I question, for instance, the extent to which "bilingual" initiatives and institutions genuinely threaten national cohesion. Regardless, though, his arguments and ideas even when unconvincing are those of a serious, reflective scholar, not a rabid apologist for white supremacy as some seem to suggest.
This brings me to the Trump connection. Throughout the book, Huntington makes several insightful points that I think get at the salvageable heart of Trumpism (detached of course from the grotesque person himself): (1) the importance of identity, and particularly national identity, for most people's political sensibilities, (2) the particularist cultural roots and influences of identity and politics, and (3) the increasingly wide gap between popular and elite commitments to American identity and nationalism. These are all deeply important issues, and I highly recommend Huntington's work to anyone interested in understanding them and our volatile contemporary political world more generally.
January 3, 2025
From the author of The Clash of Civilizations, those theories are applied to the case of America. Far from being a nation of immigrants, this country was founded by settlers. The majority of the population has always opposed high levels of immigration. Furthermore, modern immigration is very different from what it was in the past. Previously, European immigrants of various ethnicities could be absorbed and assimilated into American society. But now an undigestible and ever-increasing mass of Mexicans threatens to create a parallel society inside America. Other alien minorities of different races from us and little compatability with our Anglo-Protestant culture (as well as no desire to assimilate) exacerbate the problem. Modern immigrants form transnational diasporas. The denationalized globalist elites who see all the common people as interchangeable economic units are only too happy to encourage this. The threat we face is perhaps best described in Huntington's vivid sections on Hispanization (i.e. the Great Replacement). Mexico continues to demographically reconquer the lands taken from them in the Mexican War, while Miami has long since ceased to be an American city – instead it is the hegemonic capital of Greater Cuba.
April 10, 2013
Couldn't get into it...my relatives came over on a boat around the turn of the last century, Eastern European, schismatic version of Catholicism,hard working peasant stock. I found Dr. Huntingdon's work to be respectfully offensive. Perhaps this started out as a good idea but it went downhill fast.
June 4, 2007
This astonishing atrocity of a book is made even worse by the fact that trees were killed to make it. This man is a pox upon the human race.
February 23, 2026
Far too right wing for my taste but absolutely essential for understanding the modern MAGA movement.
June 10, 2007
Is patriotism passe? Not so says academic extraordinaire Samuel Huntington. In fact, he thinks that it's essential to the very extistence of the nation state itself.
In particular, Huntington sets his sites on America for no other reason than that he's an American and he perceives a profound crisis looming in America's future. Namely, the enormous influx of Mexican and other Latin American immigrants who either refuse to or are unable to adapt to the U.S.'s mainstream culture pose an existential problem.
The crisis is that the fact a large percentage of the population is culturally, linguistically, and perhaps politically un(der)assimilated and concentrated primarily in one geographic location has the potential to sunder the country politically, in which case the problems are obvious (Civil War II) or culturally, in which case the problems are, I believe, less obvious. Regardless, I agree with Huntington that more needs to be done to assimilate the Mexican population with America's mainstream culture. Of course, there is a lot of debate about whether this is even a problem at all, and what you think about this issue will determine your opinion of this book.
Hungtington is not a right wing nut and this book is not partisan polemics. That doesn't mean this book won't piss you off if you consider yourself far left or right on the political spectrum (to put it simply). But if you are open-minded, this is a good book about the subject of immigration and its potential effects on the country. Hungtington is first and foremost a scholar and his aim is to present his argument with precision and clarity with as much appeal to logic and as little appeal to emotion as possible.
However, this book is not without its faults. His emphasis on ethnicities and cultural distinctions propels him to single out militant Islam as the major foreign policy threat for the foreseeable future. Whereas, I, as a dyed-in-the-wool realist, cannot but believe the whole Islamic terror thing is just a blip on the radar as the next great power conflict approaches (U.S.-China?, Japan-China?, China-India?). In fact, Hungtington compares the Communist threat after WWII to the Islamic threat now when he should've contrasted the two. However, I do side with him in that culture and ethnicity are much more powerful forces in the domestic political arena and need to be heeded.
In particular, Huntington sets his sites on America for no other reason than that he's an American and he perceives a profound crisis looming in America's future. Namely, the enormous influx of Mexican and other Latin American immigrants who either refuse to or are unable to adapt to the U.S.'s mainstream culture pose an existential problem.
The crisis is that the fact a large percentage of the population is culturally, linguistically, and perhaps politically un(der)assimilated and concentrated primarily in one geographic location has the potential to sunder the country politically, in which case the problems are obvious (Civil War II) or culturally, in which case the problems are, I believe, less obvious. Regardless, I agree with Huntington that more needs to be done to assimilate the Mexican population with America's mainstream culture. Of course, there is a lot of debate about whether this is even a problem at all, and what you think about this issue will determine your opinion of this book.
Hungtington is not a right wing nut and this book is not partisan polemics. That doesn't mean this book won't piss you off if you consider yourself far left or right on the political spectrum (to put it simply). But if you are open-minded, this is a good book about the subject of immigration and its potential effects on the country. Hungtington is first and foremost a scholar and his aim is to present his argument with precision and clarity with as much appeal to logic and as little appeal to emotion as possible.
However, this book is not without its faults. His emphasis on ethnicities and cultural distinctions propels him to single out militant Islam as the major foreign policy threat for the foreseeable future. Whereas, I, as a dyed-in-the-wool realist, cannot but believe the whole Islamic terror thing is just a blip on the radar as the next great power conflict approaches (U.S.-China?, Japan-China?, China-India?). In fact, Hungtington compares the Communist threat after WWII to the Islamic threat now when he should've contrasted the two. However, I do side with him in that culture and ethnicity are much more powerful forces in the domestic political arena and need to be heeded.
May 27, 2017
This was cruising toward three stars until the final chapter in which Huntington made predictions based on his analysis in the rest of the book. It sure felt like most of what he predicted in 2004 started to become apparent in 2016, with white Americans starting to publicly identify with their European identity, resenting American elites for what's perceived as a too lax immigration policy and other globalist views, the increasing schism in a caused by not having a clear shared identity, etc. Unlike Clash of Civilizations where Huntington was describing the world as he saw it, here Huntington gives a stronger sense of "ought", providing a prescription for increasing America's sense of solidarity. I can see why that does not sit well with people, especially as he is particularly blunt about the negative impact of mass, unassimilated immigration that is regionally clustered and monolingual. And his prescription is to return to an English speaking society centered around Anglo Protestant values. Some people will automatically take that as a racist wish that the minorities would fall in line. A more charitable view would acknowledge the historical accuracy of the idea that the U.S. in its history has been formed most clearly by English and Protestant world views. In that sense, they are our foundational ideas and give us our constitutional principles. Huntington seems resigned, at least in one portion of the book, acknowledging that some clearly want to break with this past, but he cautions that they should be aware that it does represent a major break that might have unintended consequences. Still, there are those who just want to write Huntington off as a racist. My concern is that if you do that, you might get stuck with the Richard Spencers of the world, as Huntington clearly foresaw.
October 2, 2015
Samuel P Huntington has a pedigree a mile long. He graduated from Yale University with distinction at the age of 18, served in the U.S. Army and graduated from the University of Chicago with a masters degree and earned his Ph.D. at Harvard at 23 and began teaching there in government. Huntington tells the narrative of Who We Are, a solid nonfiction book of the American civilization as it progresses along the future of America and what will likely become of us. He is the right man for the job (no leanings intended). This book continues the fortunes and misfortunes of America with the end of the cold war bringing a new age where "civilizations" will replace ideologies in the study of international politics. He reviews America's identities in the year 2000 listed on the US timeline as Post Sept. 2001. He tells of Robert Frost at John Kennedy's inauguration speaking of the coming of a golden age of poetry and power and America as one nation striving for liberty and justice for all. Frost was a great poet but an ill fated seer.
October 31, 2007
While there were some strengths in the author's arguments, as well as a wealth of historical and foreign policy related information, Huntington comes off as alarmist and ethnocentric, as well as just plain archaic in his thinking. He espouses the need to maintain the fundamentals of the American Creed while while implicitly endorsing undemocratic and wholly un-American ideas. His views on current immigration, particularly Mexican, and its threats to the American national identity are often inflammatory and border on prejudiced.
It's a thought-provoking book, but deeply flawed and narrowly focused.
It's a thought-provoking book, but deeply flawed and narrowly focused.
August 27, 2007
Regardless of your thoughts on Huntington - and his writing seems to provoke quite a bit of controversy - this book brings some important issues to the forefront of public discourse.
He raises arguably the most important issue we face as a nation - the issue of our cultural and political identity. Essentially - what values and norms are - and should be - central to the American polity?
He raises arguably the most important issue we face as a nation - the issue of our cultural and political identity. Essentially - what values and norms are - and should be - central to the American polity?
April 5, 2013
Samuel Huntington seems like a bitter old man in this examination of American Identity. Most of his arguments look and feel like they are rooted in the 1950's. Huntington's nostalgia for WASP complete cultural dominance is apparent and his lines of thinking are convoluted at best.
December 15, 2020
Really a 2.5, but Huntington is worth arguing with, even though I almost never agree with him. This book flaws are manifest, but I'll focus on 2. The first is highly selective history. SH argues that the United States has defined itself in many ways: a creed, a race, a culture especially. He argues that racial identity collapsed first and that today we are left with a cultural and creedal identity. For him, our creedal identity rests on a deeper Anglo-Protestant cultural core. This makes the United States an essentially Protestant, somewhat bourgeois, English-speaking, individualist nation to which all newcomers must assimilate. He gives the metaphor not of a melting pot but of tomato soup: new immigrants can add cultures like you add parsley, spices, cheese, or whatever to tomato soup, but it remains recognizably tomato soup. He sees this cultural core as under assault from without and within: multiculturalism, identity politics, mass immigration without assimilation, Hispanization.
I agree with SH that the ANglo-Protestant heritage of the US is crucial to out development, but he makes this into a path-dependent thing based on only 1 variable. We are not just dissenting Protestantism embodied and transported to the new world; dozens of other factors must be incorporated into explaining American culture: the social leveling of our culture, the vast and relatively "open" nature of the continent, the Enlightenment's effects on our thinking. SH sees us as being founded informally as a Protestant nation, but he ignores that the founding generation was considerably more skeptical and Enlightenment-influenced that its predecessors and descendants. Any founder quote that supports his case is include; those that don't are excluded. His accounts of the Civil Rights movement are equally bad: like too many conservatives, he thinks the CRM should have just ended in 1965 with the Voting Rights Act, as if African-Americans were now just free and equal to compete with whites who had centuries of advantages. LBJ got this right in his HOward Unitversity speech, as did King (obviously), and just because affirmative action got out of hand doesn't man that African-Americans suddenly became a protected and privileged group, as if racism just went poof in the 60s and there was no continued residential segregation, mass incarceration, etc. Ultimately, a great deal of this book is an argument in bad faith, a jamming of complicated history into a simplistic framework that fits his political goals in the present.
The second big flaw of this book is sheer hyperbole. SH seems to think that as Hispanic immigrants form enclaves in some parts of the southwest and Florida where Spanish is a major language are about to return to Mexico. For all the problems we have in our relations with Mexico, we need level-headed analysis, not an intellectualized Trumpian freakout like this. I think what really frustrates me about this argument is not that assimilation is always a bad thing (some level of it must occur), but that assimilation seems to occur somewhat automatically over time, especially if the existing system and people are welcoming. This doesn't mean a full on embrace of multiculturalism or bilingualism, but there's no doubt that harassing a group of people makes them cling to their identities more. That's the paradox of identity politics, which SH is a practitioner of whether he thinks he is or not: by rooting one's politics in culture and identity (non-negotiable) over ideas and policies (more negotiable) you incentivize your opponents to do the same, rendering each other more fearful of and unintelligible to the other.
Still, for the many flaws of this book, it is still worth reading for scholars of race, identity, nationalism, and immigration in modern US history because it aptly demonstrates the growing gap between the way the average American (esp but not exclusively white American) thinks about identity, America's role in the world, assimilation, etc. SH makes a good case that the American people have remained pretty darn patriotic, pro-assimilation, skeptical of mass immigration, and anxious about "societal security," or the ability/right of a society to continue with roughly its same values, structures, etc over time. The elite of both parties, at least at that time, were increasingly cosmopolitan, pro-multiculturalism, pro-Pax Americana, pro-globalization. SH lays this out in exhaustive detail, helping you see the elite-public gap that spawned the Tea Party and DJT.
I don't think this book is racist, but I would forgive someone for feeling suspicious about SH, esp with the way he writes about Hispanic Americans. This book did make me think about American culture, immigration, etc, in different ways even though it didn't really persuade me.
I agree with SH that the ANglo-Protestant heritage of the US is crucial to out development, but he makes this into a path-dependent thing based on only 1 variable. We are not just dissenting Protestantism embodied and transported to the new world; dozens of other factors must be incorporated into explaining American culture: the social leveling of our culture, the vast and relatively "open" nature of the continent, the Enlightenment's effects on our thinking. SH sees us as being founded informally as a Protestant nation, but he ignores that the founding generation was considerably more skeptical and Enlightenment-influenced that its predecessors and descendants. Any founder quote that supports his case is include; those that don't are excluded. His accounts of the Civil Rights movement are equally bad: like too many conservatives, he thinks the CRM should have just ended in 1965 with the Voting Rights Act, as if African-Americans were now just free and equal to compete with whites who had centuries of advantages. LBJ got this right in his HOward Unitversity speech, as did King (obviously), and just because affirmative action got out of hand doesn't man that African-Americans suddenly became a protected and privileged group, as if racism just went poof in the 60s and there was no continued residential segregation, mass incarceration, etc. Ultimately, a great deal of this book is an argument in bad faith, a jamming of complicated history into a simplistic framework that fits his political goals in the present.
The second big flaw of this book is sheer hyperbole. SH seems to think that as Hispanic immigrants form enclaves in some parts of the southwest and Florida where Spanish is a major language are about to return to Mexico. For all the problems we have in our relations with Mexico, we need level-headed analysis, not an intellectualized Trumpian freakout like this. I think what really frustrates me about this argument is not that assimilation is always a bad thing (some level of it must occur), but that assimilation seems to occur somewhat automatically over time, especially if the existing system and people are welcoming. This doesn't mean a full on embrace of multiculturalism or bilingualism, but there's no doubt that harassing a group of people makes them cling to their identities more. That's the paradox of identity politics, which SH is a practitioner of whether he thinks he is or not: by rooting one's politics in culture and identity (non-negotiable) over ideas and policies (more negotiable) you incentivize your opponents to do the same, rendering each other more fearful of and unintelligible to the other.
Still, for the many flaws of this book, it is still worth reading for scholars of race, identity, nationalism, and immigration in modern US history because it aptly demonstrates the growing gap between the way the average American (esp but not exclusively white American) thinks about identity, America's role in the world, assimilation, etc. SH makes a good case that the American people have remained pretty darn patriotic, pro-assimilation, skeptical of mass immigration, and anxious about "societal security," or the ability/right of a society to continue with roughly its same values, structures, etc over time. The elite of both parties, at least at that time, were increasingly cosmopolitan, pro-multiculturalism, pro-Pax Americana, pro-globalization. SH lays this out in exhaustive detail, helping you see the elite-public gap that spawned the Tea Party and DJT.
I don't think this book is racist, but I would forgive someone for feeling suspicious about SH, esp with the way he writes about Hispanic Americans. This book did make me think about American culture, immigration, etc, in different ways even though it didn't really persuade me.
August 9, 2017
Book trying to figure out what will be future of the USA based on the past.
A long story the short USA is changing mosty from the influx of Mexicans.
I have several complaints to this book, mostly you sometimes are forced to believe Huntington, or arguments just because they are his.
But overall good book how and why the USA is changing.
A long story the short USA is changing mosty from the influx of Mexicans.
I have several complaints to this book, mostly you sometimes are forced to believe Huntington, or arguments just because they are his.
But overall good book how and why the USA is changing.
July 19, 2025
“Does it take an Osama bin Laden, as it did for Rachel Newman, to make us realize that we are Americans?”
“'America, more than any other nation, may have been born to die.' Yet some societies, confronted with serious challenges to their existence, are also able to postpone their demise and halt disintegration, by renewing their sense of national identity, their national purpose, and the cultural values they have in common.”
“Modernization, economic development, urbanization, and globalization have led people to rethink their identities and to redefine them in narrower, more intimate, communal terms. Subnational cultural and regional identities are taking precedence over broader national identities.”
“Nationalist movements affirmed the equality of citizens, thereby undermining class and status distinctions.”
“The seventeenth and eighteenth-century settlers came to America because it was a tabula rasa. Apart from Indian tribes, which could be killed off or pushed westward, no society was there; and they came in order to create societies that embodied and would reinforce the culture and values they brought with them from their origin country. Immigrants came later because they wanted to become part of the society the settlers had created.”
“The American Creed, in short, is Protestantism without God, the secular credo of the ‘nation with the soul of a church.’”
“Civil religion converts Americans from religious people of many denominations into a nation with the soul of a church.”
“The American civil religion is Christianity without Christ.”
“No nation exists in the absence of a national history, enshrining in the minds of its people common memories of their travails and triumphs, heroes and villains, enemies and wars, defeats and victories.”
“The Civil War, Woodrow Wilson said in his 1915 Memorial Day A address, 'created in this country what had never existed before, a national consciousness.'”
“Americanization made immigration acceptable to Americans.”
“The governments of nation-states, in contrast, attempted to promote the unity of their people, the development of national consciousness, the suppression of subnational regional and ethnic loyalties, the universal use of the national language, and the allocation of benefits to those who conform to the national norm.”
"'Racial classifications of any sort,' she wrote, 'pose the risk of lasting harm to our society. They reinforce the belief, held by too many for too much of our history, that individuals should be judged by the color of their skin.' Race conscious districts 'may balkanize us into competing racial factions...'”
“The substantial benefits from immigration in terms of economic growth, demographic revitalization, and maintenance of international status and influence may be countered by the costs of higher spending on government services, fewer jobs, lower wages, and reduced benefits for native workers, social polarization, cultural conflict, decline in trust and community, and erosion of traditional concepts of national identity. The immigration issue may produce serious divisions among elite groups, arouse popular opinion against immigrants and immigration, and offer opportunities for nationalist and populist politicians and parties to exploit these sentiments.”
“American policy has thus been based on the assumption that assimilation requires dispersion.”
“Businesses have supported English language training to meet their own very immediate needs, not as a result of, a more general concern with Americanization or as part of a broader Americanization movement. In some measure, the general lack of interest of businesses in the broader aspects of Americanization undoubtedly reflected their international involvements and the transnational and cosmopolitan identities of their leaders.”
“In the earlier phase, businesses were more concerned with making immigrants into efficient producers of their products than making them consumers of those products. In the consumer society of a hundred years later, however, as immigrant numbers and purchasing power expanded, businesses had to appeal to that growing market.”
“Those governments, first, want to encourage their emigrants to maintain contacts with their origin societies and, in particular, to provide remittances to their families and localities in those societies. Second, they want their migrants to become American citizens so they can participate in the American political processes and advance the interests of the sending country.”
“The vitality of a democracy depends on the extent to which its citizens participate in civic associations, public life, and politics. Most citizens are stretched to take an interest in and participate in the public affairs of a single community and a single country. Giving them the opportunity and the incentives to be involved in the public life of a second community and a second country means they will either neglect one and focus on the other or only marginally and intermittently participate in both. Citizenship becomes less a matter of identity and more one of utility.”
“The billions of dollars that ampersands send abroad are also billions of dollars they do not invest in building homes, establishing businesses, creating jobs, and improving their communities in the United States.”
“In 1994, Mexican-Americans vigorously demonstrated against California's Proposition 187, limiting welfare benefits to children of illegal immigrants, by marching through the streets of Los Angeles waving scores of Mexican flags and carrying American flags upside down.”
"'Mexican-Americans,' as David Kennedy says, will have open to them possibilities closed to previous immigrant groups. They will have sufficient coherence and critical mass in a defined region so that, if they choose, they can preserve their distinct culture indefinitely. They could also eventually undertake to do what no previous immigrant group could have dreamed of doing: challenge the existing cultural, political, legal, commercial, and educational systems to change fundamentally not only the language but also the very institutions in which they do business."
“The American economy is becoming one of highly segmented markets with sales appeals tailored to the specialized tastes and preferences of particular groups. These two trends have provided powerful incentives for American corporations to direct special appeals to the Hispanic market.”
“The absence of an other until 2001, the spread of democracy, the denationalization of elites, and the rise of diasporas all blur the distinction between national and transnational identities.”
“In 84 BC, when Rome defeated its last serious enemy, Mithradates, Sulla asked: 'Now that the universe offers us no more enemies, what may be the fate of the Republic?'”
"What happens to a nation's sense of identity when its enemies are utterly vanquished, and no longer provide the energizing force of a threat to that nation's very existence?"
“The end of the Cold War, two scholars warned in 1994, will 'erode national political cohesiveness as ethnic and sectional differences come to the fore' and 'make the achievement of internal social equity and welfare more dificult, reinvigorating class divisions.'”
“Paul Peterson saw the end of the Cold War leading to, among other things, an 'ever more foggy sense of the national interest,' 'decreasing willingness to incur sacrifices for one's country;' 'dwindling trust in government,' 'softening of moral commitment,' and 'declining perceived need for experienced political leadership.' In the absence of an external enemy, individual self-interest trumps national commitment.”
“American elites, government agencies, businesses, and other organizations have been far more important in the globalization process than those of other countries. Hence their commitments to national identities and national interests could be relatively weaker.”
“The economic globalizers are fixated on the world as an economic unit. For them home is the global market, not the national community.”
“As the global market replaces the national community, the national citizen gives way to the global consumer.”
"The challenge to national citizenship posed by multiculturalism pales before the creation of truly global corporations that put their faith in the bottom line before their love of country." 'The cosmocrats,' John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge say, 'are increasingly cut off from the rest of society'”
“These leftists have done 'a great deal of good for women, African-Americans, gay men and lesbians....But there is a problem with this left: it is unpatriotic.' It 'repudiates the idea of a national identity, and the emotion of national pride.' If the left is to have influence, it must recognize that a 'sense of shared national identity..is an absolutely essential component of citizenship.' Without patriotism the left will be unable to achieve its goals for America.”
“Governments see it in their interest to encourage emigration, to expand, mobilize, and organize their diasporas, and to institutionalize their homeland connections so as to promote homeland interests in host countries. Developed countries exert influence in world affairs through the export of capital, technology, economic aid, and military power. Poor overpopulated countries exert influence through the export of people.”
“Increased and diversified immigration to America is multiplying, however, the numbers of diasporic communities and their actual and potential political influence. As a result, conflicts abroad between opposing homelands increasingly become conflicts in America between opposing diasporas.”
“One very plausible reaction would be the emergence of exclusivist sociopolitical movements composed largely but not only of white males, primarily working-class and middle-class, protesting and attempting to stop or reverse these changes and what they believe, accurately or not, to be the diminution of their social and economic status, their loss of jobs to immigrants and foreign countries, the perversion of their culture, the displacement of their language, and the erosion or even evaporation of the historical identity of their country. Such movements would be both racially and culturally inspired and could be anti-Hispanic, anti-black, and anti-immigration.”
“For several decades interest groups and nonelected governmental elites have promoted racial preferences, affirmative action, and minority language and cultural maintenance programs, which violate the American Creed and serve the interests of blacks and nonwhite immigrant groups. The globalization policies of business elites have shifted jobs overseas and contributed to growing income inequality and a decline in real wages of working-class Americans. The liberal establishment media is seen by some whites as using double standards in reporting crimes against blacks, gays, and women, as compared to those against white males. The large and continuing influx of Hispanics threatens the preeminence of white Anglo-Protestant culture and the place of English as the only national language. White nativist movements are a possible and plausible response to these trends, and in situations of serious economic downturn and hardship they could be highly probable.”
“In America, white nativism is likely to materialize not in a new political party but in a new political movement that will aim to influence the choice of candidates and policies by the two dominant parties.”
“The orientation of businesses to Hispanic customers means that they increasingly need bilingual employees. For many it also symbolized a reversal of the expectation that the newcomers must adjust to the dominant language and culture. Even worse, it conferred upon immigrants a labor market advantage based on a need that had been created by their own presence.”
"Social science faculties at elite institutions are overwhelmingly liberal and cosmopolitan or on the Left. Almost any form of civic loyalty or patriotism is considered reactionary."
“Prior to World War II, American business, social, and political elites often opposed immigration, and, of course, were responsible for the 1921 and 1924 laws restricting it. In the late twentieth century, however, elite opposition decreased markedly. Adherents of neoliberal economics, such as Julian Simon and the Wall Street Journal, argued that the free movement of people was as essential to globalization and economic growth as the free movement of goods, capital, and technology. Business elites welcomed the depressing effect immigration would have on the wages of workers and the power of unions. Leading liberals supported immigration for humanitarian reasons and as a way of reducing the gross inequalities between rich and poor countries. Restrictions on the immigration of any particular nationality were viewed as politically incorrect, and efforts to limit immigration generally were at times thought to be inherently suspect as racist attempts to maintain white dominance in America.”
“Without that inheritance, no nation exists, and if the plebiscite rejects that inheritance, the nation ends. America is 'a nation with the soul of a church.' The soul of a church, however, does not exist solely or even primarily in its theological dogma, but in its rituals, hymns, practices, moral commandments and prohibitions, liturgy, prophets, saints, gods, and devils. So also a nation may, as America does, have a creed, but its soul is defined by the common history, traditions, culture, heroes and vilains, victories and defeats, enshrined in its 'mystic chords of memory.'”
“America cannot become the world and still be America.”
“'America, more than any other nation, may have been born to die.' Yet some societies, confronted with serious challenges to their existence, are also able to postpone their demise and halt disintegration, by renewing their sense of national identity, their national purpose, and the cultural values they have in common.”
“Modernization, economic development, urbanization, and globalization have led people to rethink their identities and to redefine them in narrower, more intimate, communal terms. Subnational cultural and regional identities are taking precedence over broader national identities.”
“Nationalist movements affirmed the equality of citizens, thereby undermining class and status distinctions.”
“The seventeenth and eighteenth-century settlers came to America because it was a tabula rasa. Apart from Indian tribes, which could be killed off or pushed westward, no society was there; and they came in order to create societies that embodied and would reinforce the culture and values they brought with them from their origin country. Immigrants came later because they wanted to become part of the society the settlers had created.”
“The American Creed, in short, is Protestantism without God, the secular credo of the ‘nation with the soul of a church.’”
“Civil religion converts Americans from religious people of many denominations into a nation with the soul of a church.”
“The American civil religion is Christianity without Christ.”
“No nation exists in the absence of a national history, enshrining in the minds of its people common memories of their travails and triumphs, heroes and villains, enemies and wars, defeats and victories.”
“The Civil War, Woodrow Wilson said in his 1915 Memorial Day A address, 'created in this country what had never existed before, a national consciousness.'”
“Americanization made immigration acceptable to Americans.”
“The governments of nation-states, in contrast, attempted to promote the unity of their people, the development of national consciousness, the suppression of subnational regional and ethnic loyalties, the universal use of the national language, and the allocation of benefits to those who conform to the national norm.”
"'Racial classifications of any sort,' she wrote, 'pose the risk of lasting harm to our society. They reinforce the belief, held by too many for too much of our history, that individuals should be judged by the color of their skin.' Race conscious districts 'may balkanize us into competing racial factions...'”
“The substantial benefits from immigration in terms of economic growth, demographic revitalization, and maintenance of international status and influence may be countered by the costs of higher spending on government services, fewer jobs, lower wages, and reduced benefits for native workers, social polarization, cultural conflict, decline in trust and community, and erosion of traditional concepts of national identity. The immigration issue may produce serious divisions among elite groups, arouse popular opinion against immigrants and immigration, and offer opportunities for nationalist and populist politicians and parties to exploit these sentiments.”
“American policy has thus been based on the assumption that assimilation requires dispersion.”
“Businesses have supported English language training to meet their own very immediate needs, not as a result of, a more general concern with Americanization or as part of a broader Americanization movement. In some measure, the general lack of interest of businesses in the broader aspects of Americanization undoubtedly reflected their international involvements and the transnational and cosmopolitan identities of their leaders.”
“In the earlier phase, businesses were more concerned with making immigrants into efficient producers of their products than making them consumers of those products. In the consumer society of a hundred years later, however, as immigrant numbers and purchasing power expanded, businesses had to appeal to that growing market.”
“Those governments, first, want to encourage their emigrants to maintain contacts with their origin societies and, in particular, to provide remittances to their families and localities in those societies. Second, they want their migrants to become American citizens so they can participate in the American political processes and advance the interests of the sending country.”
“The vitality of a democracy depends on the extent to which its citizens participate in civic associations, public life, and politics. Most citizens are stretched to take an interest in and participate in the public affairs of a single community and a single country. Giving them the opportunity and the incentives to be involved in the public life of a second community and a second country means they will either neglect one and focus on the other or only marginally and intermittently participate in both. Citizenship becomes less a matter of identity and more one of utility.”
“The billions of dollars that ampersands send abroad are also billions of dollars they do not invest in building homes, establishing businesses, creating jobs, and improving their communities in the United States.”
“In 1994, Mexican-Americans vigorously demonstrated against California's Proposition 187, limiting welfare benefits to children of illegal immigrants, by marching through the streets of Los Angeles waving scores of Mexican flags and carrying American flags upside down.”
"'Mexican-Americans,' as David Kennedy says, will have open to them possibilities closed to previous immigrant groups. They will have sufficient coherence and critical mass in a defined region so that, if they choose, they can preserve their distinct culture indefinitely. They could also eventually undertake to do what no previous immigrant group could have dreamed of doing: challenge the existing cultural, political, legal, commercial, and educational systems to change fundamentally not only the language but also the very institutions in which they do business."
“The American economy is becoming one of highly segmented markets with sales appeals tailored to the specialized tastes and preferences of particular groups. These two trends have provided powerful incentives for American corporations to direct special appeals to the Hispanic market.”
“The absence of an other until 2001, the spread of democracy, the denationalization of elites, and the rise of diasporas all blur the distinction between national and transnational identities.”
“In 84 BC, when Rome defeated its last serious enemy, Mithradates, Sulla asked: 'Now that the universe offers us no more enemies, what may be the fate of the Republic?'”
"What happens to a nation's sense of identity when its enemies are utterly vanquished, and no longer provide the energizing force of a threat to that nation's very existence?"
“The end of the Cold War, two scholars warned in 1994, will 'erode national political cohesiveness as ethnic and sectional differences come to the fore' and 'make the achievement of internal social equity and welfare more dificult, reinvigorating class divisions.'”
“Paul Peterson saw the end of the Cold War leading to, among other things, an 'ever more foggy sense of the national interest,' 'decreasing willingness to incur sacrifices for one's country;' 'dwindling trust in government,' 'softening of moral commitment,' and 'declining perceived need for experienced political leadership.' In the absence of an external enemy, individual self-interest trumps national commitment.”
“American elites, government agencies, businesses, and other organizations have been far more important in the globalization process than those of other countries. Hence their commitments to national identities and national interests could be relatively weaker.”
“The economic globalizers are fixated on the world as an economic unit. For them home is the global market, not the national community.”
“As the global market replaces the national community, the national citizen gives way to the global consumer.”
"The challenge to national citizenship posed by multiculturalism pales before the creation of truly global corporations that put their faith in the bottom line before their love of country." 'The cosmocrats,' John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge say, 'are increasingly cut off from the rest of society'”
“These leftists have done 'a great deal of good for women, African-Americans, gay men and lesbians....But there is a problem with this left: it is unpatriotic.' It 'repudiates the idea of a national identity, and the emotion of national pride.' If the left is to have influence, it must recognize that a 'sense of shared national identity..is an absolutely essential component of citizenship.' Without patriotism the left will be unable to achieve its goals for America.”
“Governments see it in their interest to encourage emigration, to expand, mobilize, and organize their diasporas, and to institutionalize their homeland connections so as to promote homeland interests in host countries. Developed countries exert influence in world affairs through the export of capital, technology, economic aid, and military power. Poor overpopulated countries exert influence through the export of people.”
“Increased and diversified immigration to America is multiplying, however, the numbers of diasporic communities and their actual and potential political influence. As a result, conflicts abroad between opposing homelands increasingly become conflicts in America between opposing diasporas.”
“One very plausible reaction would be the emergence of exclusivist sociopolitical movements composed largely but not only of white males, primarily working-class and middle-class, protesting and attempting to stop or reverse these changes and what they believe, accurately or not, to be the diminution of their social and economic status, their loss of jobs to immigrants and foreign countries, the perversion of their culture, the displacement of their language, and the erosion or even evaporation of the historical identity of their country. Such movements would be both racially and culturally inspired and could be anti-Hispanic, anti-black, and anti-immigration.”
“For several decades interest groups and nonelected governmental elites have promoted racial preferences, affirmative action, and minority language and cultural maintenance programs, which violate the American Creed and serve the interests of blacks and nonwhite immigrant groups. The globalization policies of business elites have shifted jobs overseas and contributed to growing income inequality and a decline in real wages of working-class Americans. The liberal establishment media is seen by some whites as using double standards in reporting crimes against blacks, gays, and women, as compared to those against white males. The large and continuing influx of Hispanics threatens the preeminence of white Anglo-Protestant culture and the place of English as the only national language. White nativist movements are a possible and plausible response to these trends, and in situations of serious economic downturn and hardship they could be highly probable.”
“In America, white nativism is likely to materialize not in a new political party but in a new political movement that will aim to influence the choice of candidates and policies by the two dominant parties.”
“The orientation of businesses to Hispanic customers means that they increasingly need bilingual employees. For many it also symbolized a reversal of the expectation that the newcomers must adjust to the dominant language and culture. Even worse, it conferred upon immigrants a labor market advantage based on a need that had been created by their own presence.”
"Social science faculties at elite institutions are overwhelmingly liberal and cosmopolitan or on the Left. Almost any form of civic loyalty or patriotism is considered reactionary."
“Prior to World War II, American business, social, and political elites often opposed immigration, and, of course, were responsible for the 1921 and 1924 laws restricting it. In the late twentieth century, however, elite opposition decreased markedly. Adherents of neoliberal economics, such as Julian Simon and the Wall Street Journal, argued that the free movement of people was as essential to globalization and economic growth as the free movement of goods, capital, and technology. Business elites welcomed the depressing effect immigration would have on the wages of workers and the power of unions. Leading liberals supported immigration for humanitarian reasons and as a way of reducing the gross inequalities between rich and poor countries. Restrictions on the immigration of any particular nationality were viewed as politically incorrect, and efforts to limit immigration generally were at times thought to be inherently suspect as racist attempts to maintain white dominance in America.”
“Without that inheritance, no nation exists, and if the plebiscite rejects that inheritance, the nation ends. America is 'a nation with the soul of a church.' The soul of a church, however, does not exist solely or even primarily in its theological dogma, but in its rituals, hymns, practices, moral commandments and prohibitions, liturgy, prophets, saints, gods, and devils. So also a nation may, as America does, have a creed, but its soul is defined by the common history, traditions, culture, heroes and vilains, victories and defeats, enshrined in its 'mystic chords of memory.'”
“America cannot become the world and still be America.”
March 2, 2026
Review title: E pluribus unum
E pluribus unum
"Out of many, one." Or could it mean "out of one, many"? Or "Within one, many"? Samuel P. Huntington, a Harvard professor of international studies considers the meaning of being American in this 2004 book. While some of the research may be dated, the debate is very much alive, with our current president taking an extreme position on the requirement for racial, ethnic, linguistic, and religious purity to be considered American. And yet as I watched the Olympics I was reminded as I always am during this international event at how ethnically diverse the United States is, based on the names and appearances of so many of the athletes who don't "look like me." It is a great source of pride for me to see this diversity representing America and it is a distinguishing characteristic that makes us "who we are."
"The principal theme of this book is the continuing centrality of Anglo-Protestant culture to American national identity," an identity which Huntington labels civic nationalism vs ethnic nationalism (p. 30). Huntington defines culture as"language, religious beliefs, social and political values, assumptions as to what is right and wrong, appropriate and inappropriate, and to the objective institutions and behavioral patterns that reflect these subjective elements." His term for this is the American Creed. "The principles of the Creed—liberty, equality, democracy, civil rights, nondiscrimination, rule of law—are markers of how to organize a society. They do not define the extent, boundaries, or composition of that society" (p. 338-339). In fact Huntington finds in the great success of the American Creed through the globe that it is "in theory applicable to people everywhere. If this is the case, however, [it] cannot be the only basis for distinguishing Americans from other people."
What does make us a people, then?
We are a publicly moral people.
Huntington makes a prescient point here (he died in 2008, long before Trump's political career): Donald Trump, despite his personal and political position far removed from any moral or ethical background, has wielded his popularity to influence a large bloc of American evangelicals to use their numerical and political power to drive this negative aspect of what Huntington calls the "Anglo-Protestant Culture."
But our government and politics are powerfully yet indeterminately religious. The Constitution makes no mention of religion, and the First Amendment by establishing an absolute right to freedom of religion and not to an established state religion proved "spectacularly successful" in creating "an extraordinary expansion of denominational institutions, new means to reach great numbers of individuals and groups, and a new confidence to shape society and it's values." (p. 84-85). Evangelical Christians who today push to write their religious faith into Constitutional language to "defend Christianity" or "reflect American history" are perhaps revealing a loss of confidence in their doctrine and institutions and a lack of knowledge and trust in American history.
Where did "we" come from? It is easy to point to the Constitution declaration of "We the people of the United States", but Huntington reaches further back to show the sources of the rise of the perception of a national identity during the colonial period. Interestingly he cites historians who note that British politicians and newspapers were referring to "America" as a singular entity before "we" were: "In a word, America was Britain's idea" (p. 111). It was only after the Civil War that the usage switched fully from "the United States are" (a federation of states) to "the United States is" (a singular nation). After reading Jill Lepore's history of the Constitution, it makes Huntington's question of who we are, as well as who we are, both relevant, pertinent, and important to answer as the American constitutional republic ages and potentially ossifies.
And just how "we" are we? Huntington identifies World War II as the peak of American national identity (p. 136-137), with a slow but steady decline since then, with a rise in national feeling after September 11 that by the publication of this book in 2004 Huntington noted had already started to flatten. And with the collapse of the Soviet Union and end of the Cold War, Huntington posits that the absence of such an external enemy weakens national identity (p. 258). Is this a plausible explanation for Donald Trump's unprovoked attacks on Venezuela and now Iran? It hardly seems likely given the erratic and ahistorical nature of Trump's policies, but it does seem true that the United States' superior position of strength in most global political, economic, and military engagements encourages what Huntington calls immigrant diasporas within the US to attempt to influence American decision-making: "The more power the United States has in world politics, the more it becomes an arena of world politics, the more foreign governments and their diasporas attempt to influence American policy, and the less able the United States is to define and to pursue its own national interests when these do not correspond with those of other countries" (p. 291).
Huntington researched and wrote a book asking some serious questions that demand thought from his readers, and as such is worth reading. But I also found myself responding with visceral anger at some of his answers to those questions. In a chapter titled "Deconstructing America" (p. 141ff) Huntington identifies affirmative action, bilingual education and cultural diversity as the tools used by political, economic, and academic elites to drive this "deconstruction" against the wishes of the middle-class workers and voters, i.e. the rest of "us". If attempting to finally extend the self-evident human rights and liberties our foundational documents have claimed for the white Protestant males who wrote them is considered "deconstruction" of America, then we are not who I thought we were. While Huntington has rigorously adhered to his sources and research to this point, I found this chapter distressingly polemic and dedicated to the worst angels of our national identity that for 400 years has been intent on excluding black, female, and native Americans, and immigrants of color, from participating in those self-evident truths. This is the mindset driving armed and masked agents of a United States government agency into the streets to arrest, deport, and kill American citizens and immigrants here legally. I pray this is not who we are.
On the topic of Mexican immigration, both legal and illegal, Huntington is also extremely negative. After discussing his concerns about the huge influx of Mexican people entering the southwestern states and Cubans in South Florida, he posits risks associated with slow adoption of English language, declining educational achievement, clustering in low income occupations, and low rates of American identity. Then Huntington imagines a thought experiment where "Mexican immigration abruptly stopped":
None of these risks that Huntington supposed his thought experiment would divert have happened in the 20 years since. See, instead, stories like this one that popped up as I wrote this review with anecdotal and statistical evidence to the exact opposite. This is the kind of thinking driving Trump's war against a true vision of "us", that vision of the diversity of our Olympic teams that gives me such pride in who "we" really are.
So read Huntington, but read him with your mind and eyes open to understand and critically examine what he describes of our past and what he envisions as possible future directions. You might find E pluribus unum.
E pluribus unum
"Out of many, one." Or could it mean "out of one, many"? Or "Within one, many"? Samuel P. Huntington, a Harvard professor of international studies considers the meaning of being American in this 2004 book. While some of the research may be dated, the debate is very much alive, with our current president taking an extreme position on the requirement for racial, ethnic, linguistic, and religious purity to be considered American. And yet as I watched the Olympics I was reminded as I always am during this international event at how ethnically diverse the United States is, based on the names and appearances of so many of the athletes who don't "look like me." It is a great source of pride for me to see this diversity representing America and it is a distinguishing characteristic that makes us "who we are."
"The principal theme of this book is the continuing centrality of Anglo-Protestant culture to American national identity," an identity which Huntington labels civic nationalism vs ethnic nationalism (p. 30). Huntington defines culture as"language, religious beliefs, social and political values, assumptions as to what is right and wrong, appropriate and inappropriate, and to the objective institutions and behavioral patterns that reflect these subjective elements." His term for this is the American Creed. "The principles of the Creed—liberty, equality, democracy, civil rights, nondiscrimination, rule of law—are markers of how to organize a society. They do not define the extent, boundaries, or composition of that society" (p. 338-339). In fact Huntington finds in the great success of the American Creed through the globe that it is "in theory applicable to people everywhere. If this is the case, however, [it] cannot be the only basis for distinguishing Americans from other people."
What does make us a people, then?
We are a publicly moral people.
Every movement to make America more fully realize its professed values has grown out of some form of public theology, from the abolitionists to the social gospel and the early socialist party to the civil rights movement under Martin Luther King and the farm workers' movement under César Chávez. But so has every expansionist war and every form of oppression of racial minorities and immigrant groups. (p. 76)
Huntington makes a prescient point here (he died in 2008, long before Trump's political career): Donald Trump, despite his personal and political position far removed from any moral or ethical background, has wielded his popularity to influence a large bloc of American evangelicals to use their numerical and political power to drive this negative aspect of what Huntington calls the "Anglo-Protestant Culture."
But our government and politics are powerfully yet indeterminately religious. The Constitution makes no mention of religion, and the First Amendment by establishing an absolute right to freedom of religion and not to an established state religion proved "spectacularly successful" in creating "an extraordinary expansion of denominational institutions, new means to reach great numbers of individuals and groups, and a new confidence to shape society and it's values." (p. 84-85). Evangelical Christians who today push to write their religious faith into Constitutional language to "defend Christianity" or "reflect American history" are perhaps revealing a loss of confidence in their doctrine and institutions and a lack of knowledge and trust in American history.
Where did "we" come from? It is easy to point to the Constitution declaration of "We the people of the United States", but Huntington reaches further back to show the sources of the rise of the perception of a national identity during the colonial period. Interestingly he cites historians who note that British politicians and newspapers were referring to "America" as a singular entity before "we" were: "In a word, America was Britain's idea" (p. 111). It was only after the Civil War that the usage switched fully from "the United States are" (a federation of states) to "the United States is" (a singular nation). After reading Jill Lepore's history of the Constitution, it makes Huntington's question of who we are, as well as who we are, both relevant, pertinent, and important to answer as the American constitutional republic ages and potentially ossifies.
And just how "we" are we? Huntington identifies World War II as the peak of American national identity (p. 136-137), with a slow but steady decline since then, with a rise in national feeling after September 11 that by the publication of this book in 2004 Huntington noted had already started to flatten. And with the collapse of the Soviet Union and end of the Cold War, Huntington posits that the absence of such an external enemy weakens national identity (p. 258). Is this a plausible explanation for Donald Trump's unprovoked attacks on Venezuela and now Iran? It hardly seems likely given the erratic and ahistorical nature of Trump's policies, but it does seem true that the United States' superior position of strength in most global political, economic, and military engagements encourages what Huntington calls immigrant diasporas within the US to attempt to influence American decision-making: "The more power the United States has in world politics, the more it becomes an arena of world politics, the more foreign governments and their diasporas attempt to influence American policy, and the less able the United States is to define and to pursue its own national interests when these do not correspond with those of other countries" (p. 291).
Huntington researched and wrote a book asking some serious questions that demand thought from his readers, and as such is worth reading. But I also found myself responding with visceral anger at some of his answers to those questions. In a chapter titled "Deconstructing America" (p. 141ff) Huntington identifies affirmative action, bilingual education and cultural diversity as the tools used by political, economic, and academic elites to drive this "deconstruction" against the wishes of the middle-class workers and voters, i.e. the rest of "us". If attempting to finally extend the self-evident human rights and liberties our foundational documents have claimed for the white Protestant males who wrote them is considered "deconstruction" of America, then we are not who I thought we were. While Huntington has rigorously adhered to his sources and research to this point, I found this chapter distressingly polemic and dedicated to the worst angels of our national identity that for 400 years has been intent on excluding black, female, and native Americans, and immigrants of color, from participating in those self-evident truths. This is the mindset driving armed and masked agents of a United States government agency into the streets to arrest, deport, and kill American citizens and immigrants here legally. I pray this is not who we are.
On the topic of Mexican immigration, both legal and illegal, Huntington is also extremely negative. After discussing his concerns about the huge influx of Mexican people entering the southwestern states and Cubans in South Florida, he posits risks associated with slow adoption of English language, declining educational achievement, clustering in low income occupations, and low rates of American identity. Then Huntington imagines a thought experiment where "Mexican immigration abruptly stopped":
Illegal entries would diminish dramatically. . . . Agricultural and other businesses in the southwest would be disrupted, but the wages of low-income Americans would improve.
Debates over the use of Spanish and whether English should be made the official language of state and national governments would fade away. . . . So also would controversies over welfare and other benefits for immigrants. The debate over whether immigrants were an economic burden on state and federal governments would be decisively resolved in the negative. The average education and skills of the immigrants coming to America and those continuing to come would rise to levels unprecedented in American history. The inflow of immigrants would again become highly diverse, which would increase incentives for all immigrants to learn English and absorb American culture. The possibility of a de facto split between a predominantly Spanish-speaking America and English-speaking America would disappear, and with it a major potential threat to the cultural and possibly political integrity of the United States.
(P. 243)
None of these risks that Huntington supposed his thought experiment would divert have happened in the 20 years since. See, instead, stories like this one that popped up as I wrote this review with anecdotal and statistical evidence to the exact opposite. This is the kind of thinking driving Trump's war against a true vision of "us", that vision of the diversity of our Olympic teams that gives me such pride in who "we" really are.
So read Huntington, but read him with your mind and eyes open to understand and critically examine what he describes of our past and what he envisions as possible future directions. You might find E pluribus unum.
April 4, 2021
This essay aged incredibly well, Huntington foresaw as early as 2004 the challenges to its identity America would face a decade later such as the resurgence of identity politics, a massive immigration from Latin America, and the rapidly growing gap between a cosmopolitan elite and a disenfranchised working class. In this essay, Huntington proposes the reassertion of Anglo-protestant values as the solution to avoid the erosive effects of this tidal wave. He argues that they are the values on which the USA were founded and deem them essential both to the cohesion of the nation and the integration of newcomers.
Fast forward to 2021, it is hardly disputable that these predictions have come true and the Trump era has certainly magnified them. Ethnic tensions are palpable, the hatred between conservatives and progressives undeniable, and the gap between elites and working class has grown bigger. In short, the fracture lines in the American society have become unmistakable and I believe that a secession or a fragmentation of the USA in the future is not unlikely anymore. I don't think it is possible to tie together peoples who do not have much in common and do not wish to live together anymore.
While, I agree with the diagnosis, I am uncertain about the cure suggested by Huntington. Is it realistic? Is it too late? Is it something that would gain approval among the majority of the American population? I don't think so.
Another strength of this essay is that Huntington accurately identified the three forces at work in the USA: cosmopolitans, imperialists and nationalists. All three coexist together while also contradicting each other. Again, these ideological considerations participate to the division within the American society: proponents of the open society vs. advocates of closed borders, hawks vs. isolationists, global economy vs. protectionism, the battlefronts are multiple.
There is a point, however, on which Huntington was completely wrong and that is on the question of Islam that he considered as America's archenemy for the 21st century, somehow as the successor of the Soviet Union and communism. I do not think that the USA and the Islamic world were and are destined for war. Way more are they the result of hazardous American interventionism in the Middle East. On the contrary, Huntington failed to identify the spectacular growth of China and how the USA would react to the unexpected (or longly disregarded) rise of another giant capable of challenging the "pax americana" and to provide an alternative societal model.
To summarise, this book is still worth a read to understand the ongoing trends in the USA in spite of its age.
Fast forward to 2021, it is hardly disputable that these predictions have come true and the Trump era has certainly magnified them. Ethnic tensions are palpable, the hatred between conservatives and progressives undeniable, and the gap between elites and working class has grown bigger. In short, the fracture lines in the American society have become unmistakable and I believe that a secession or a fragmentation of the USA in the future is not unlikely anymore. I don't think it is possible to tie together peoples who do not have much in common and do not wish to live together anymore.
While, I agree with the diagnosis, I am uncertain about the cure suggested by Huntington. Is it realistic? Is it too late? Is it something that would gain approval among the majority of the American population? I don't think so.
Another strength of this essay is that Huntington accurately identified the three forces at work in the USA: cosmopolitans, imperialists and nationalists. All three coexist together while also contradicting each other. Again, these ideological considerations participate to the division within the American society: proponents of the open society vs. advocates of closed borders, hawks vs. isolationists, global economy vs. protectionism, the battlefronts are multiple.
There is a point, however, on which Huntington was completely wrong and that is on the question of Islam that he considered as America's archenemy for the 21st century, somehow as the successor of the Soviet Union and communism. I do not think that the USA and the Islamic world were and are destined for war. Way more are they the result of hazardous American interventionism in the Middle East. On the contrary, Huntington failed to identify the spectacular growth of China and how the USA would react to the unexpected (or longly disregarded) rise of another giant capable of challenging the "pax americana" and to provide an alternative societal model.
To summarise, this book is still worth a read to understand the ongoing trends in the USA in spite of its age.
August 20, 2019
Huntington clearly and wisely articulates the current state of America and its fight over identity before the Trump era had even come along. He shows that, whether you agree or disagree with his conclusions, America is rooted in an Anglo-Protestant culture that has been the primary glue for US national identity. He also shows how American national identity developed slowly over time and that Americans have chosen different attributes to describe themselves at different times. One of the most consistent themes is Protestant Christianity, a connection to land, to British legal tradition, the English language, individualism, white ethnicity, and the American creed of liberty and justice for all. Huntington supports all these attributes except for the ethnic distinction. After summarizing the development of national identity, the author argues that from the 70s up to the present day, politicians, judges, educators and big business have supported preferential treatment for minorities that includes a dismantling of the Anglo-Protestant culture. It’s pretty clear from the negative reviews on this site that most who are upset with this book have failed to understand Huntington’s distinction of race and culture.
I think that Huntington's concerns are valid and are largely ones ignored by both parties. This is a book that helps explain the rise of white nationalism and Donald Trump. But the question for Huntington is do the facts actually support the theory? Huntington gives much statistical data to support his argument, but the statistics come from the 80's and the 90's. Today's stats seem to discredit the idea that Hispanic immigrants are not learning the English language. Huntington may be wrong about assimilation of Hispanic immigrants, but he is certainly right to be concerned about the situation on the border. He is also right that from the 70's and on, we have deconstructed cultural norms that have led to a fracturing of the American people.
I think that Huntington's concerns are valid and are largely ones ignored by both parties. This is a book that helps explain the rise of white nationalism and Donald Trump. But the question for Huntington is do the facts actually support the theory? Huntington gives much statistical data to support his argument, but the statistics come from the 80's and the 90's. Today's stats seem to discredit the idea that Hispanic immigrants are not learning the English language. Huntington may be wrong about assimilation of Hispanic immigrants, but he is certainly right to be concerned about the situation on the border. He is also right that from the 70's and on, we have deconstructed cultural norms that have led to a fracturing of the American people.
June 10, 2019
What does American national identity mean?
Samuel Huntington writes about the various challenges that the American national identity faces.
Historically speaking there have been 4 elements that have defined the American national identity: race, ethnicity, culture and creed.
Nowadays race and ethnicity and not playing a big role in the definition of the American identity, and gradually these two elements are fading away. The Anglo-Protestant culture values and the allegiance to the American creed (represented by a set of political beliefs) is what is defining Americans today according to this author.
Immigration has been a key element in the development of the US, in the early stages of its history; the US absorbed an immense number of immigrants that were quickly assimilated into their mainstream culture. The challenge arises when immigrants are not integrated, creating subcultures, and dual identities that pose a threat to American unity.
Huntington believe that the American identity could evolve in one of the following directions:
(1) a creedal America, lacking its historic cultural core, and united only by a common commitment to the principles of the American creed;
(2) a bifurcated America, with two languages, Spanish and English, and two cultures, Anglo-Protestant and Hispanic
(3) an exclusivist America, once again defined by race and ethnicity and that excludes and/or subordinates those who are not white and European,
(4) a revitalized America reaffirming its historic Anglo-protestant culture, religious commitments and values and bolstered by confrontations with an unfriendly world;
(5) some combination of the previous and other possibilities
This is of course a highly recommended book; hope you enjoy the reading as much as I did!
Samuel Huntington writes about the various challenges that the American national identity faces.
Historically speaking there have been 4 elements that have defined the American national identity: race, ethnicity, culture and creed.
Nowadays race and ethnicity and not playing a big role in the definition of the American identity, and gradually these two elements are fading away. The Anglo-Protestant culture values and the allegiance to the American creed (represented by a set of political beliefs) is what is defining Americans today according to this author.
Immigration has been a key element in the development of the US, in the early stages of its history; the US absorbed an immense number of immigrants that were quickly assimilated into their mainstream culture. The challenge arises when immigrants are not integrated, creating subcultures, and dual identities that pose a threat to American unity.
Huntington believe that the American identity could evolve in one of the following directions:
(1) a creedal America, lacking its historic cultural core, and united only by a common commitment to the principles of the American creed;
(2) a bifurcated America, with two languages, Spanish and English, and two cultures, Anglo-Protestant and Hispanic
(3) an exclusivist America, once again defined by race and ethnicity and that excludes and/or subordinates those who are not white and European,
(4) a revitalized America reaffirming its historic Anglo-protestant culture, religious commitments and values and bolstered by confrontations with an unfriendly world;
(5) some combination of the previous and other possibilities
This is of course a highly recommended book; hope you enjoy the reading as much as I did!
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