Why we should be critical of Huntington
Patrick Porter at The Duck of Minerva argues that academic jealousy is the only reason Samuel Huntington gets criticized. We just wish we were more famous!
No, academics like to dismiss these works because the authors have appealed to a mass market, made meta-scale interpretations and predictions, and come as close to intellectual celebrity as possible for anyone who isn't Stephen Hawking or Albert Einstein. In an academic world that cherishes specialism and hair-splitting, that largely devotes its energy to internalised dialogues in exclusionary language, and which looks on fame and glory with envious suspicion, its no wonder that the mention of all three causes respectable scholars to roll their eyes.
He goes on to defend Huntington specifically. Maybe I am just showing my own jealousy, but I have read Clash of Civilizations and Who Are We? and the reason I don't like them is because you cannot read them in tandem and come to any conclusion but that Huntington ignores a lot of empirical evidence and is convinced that people of Latin American descent are inferior and ruining the United States. It is pure xenophobia.
3 comments:
Did you ever read the Bernard Henri Levy article in the Atlantic in which he interviewed Huntington? It's been seven or eight years since I read it, so my memory may be a bit off, but basically it came across as SH stripped of all the academic formulations and speaking from the heart about Latinos, and it was ugly.
Good article Mr Weeks and it inspired me to write this :
About the "Great Difference" betweeen American Whites or Anglos and the "Illegal Aliens" or other forms of Alienhood that came speaking Spanish, Portuguese or French into U. S Territory from 1510 and later
Too many pundits and gurus of "Culture" and too many prophets of Separation and Apartheid - And very few people finding similarities or building bridges between "Cultures".
Scientific Facts :
1) English, Spanish and French are not so distant languages. England was conquered by the Normans that spoke Middle Age French in 1066, the high classes of England spoke French for two centuries. The interaction between England, Spain and France has been very constant for thousands of years, thanks to the short distances, Wars, Fashions, Books, Commerce, Travelers, etc...
2) It has been established that England and the larger United Kingdom was genetically conquered by some Iberians or Primitive Basques after the Ice Age 12,000 or less years ago. According to the Leading Geneticists of England that was the most important influence in English DNA and the subsequent genetic influences of "Celts", Romans and Anglo-Saxons are much less important than previously thought. Some English linguists believe that the Anglo-Saxons were a wider germanic population from Belgium, Netherlands, etc... Many doubts about the big or small number of Anglo-Saxons.
The "Anglo-Saxon" genes are more Germanic than "Anglo-Saxon" and only have some small influence in East Anglia or Eastern England. They are never the dominant pool of genes, even in the "Anglo-Saxon" area.
So, you can not judge Human Genetic Relationships by the Exterior Aspect or apparent Phenotypes of Humans, because changes can be extremely exterior and shallow and evolve very fast under climate, environment, social forces, social selection, etc .... ( this is Darwinian Evolution )..
This is like races of dogs that appear very different but are extremely closely related ( genetically ) .... All of them coming from wild wolves, not long ago.
I could develop similar theories about Law, Constitutions, Government, Art, Religion, Philosophy, etc.... but this would become tiring and boring. And at the end, extremely idiotic.
Vicente Duque
Totally right. I had to read "The Third Wave" in college (which came out in 1991) two years ago. It wasn't that it was terrible... (no "Clash of Civilizations" shit here) as it was so out of date. Huntington was as irrelevant in 1974 as he is posthumously today.
And lolz on Vincente...! Random!
Post a Comment