川普時代的先知 杭廷頓
Samuel Huntington, a prophet for the Trump era
The writings of the late Harvard political scientist
anticipate America's political and intellectual battles -- and point to the
country we may become.
<谷歌翻譯>
有時，先知可以說將來會是正確的，但是是否應該撕裂。
川普總統最近在華沙的講話中，呼籲歐洲和美國人維護西方文明免遭暴力極端主義和野蠻流亡的部落，不可避免地引起了塞繆爾·亨廷頓的“文明衝突” - 超級大國的對抗將讓西方普遍主義伊斯蘭武裝和中國人的自信。亨廷頓在1993年的著名作品中擴展了一本書，將文明描述為最廣泛和最關鍵的身份認同水平，涵蓋宗教，價值觀，文化和歷史。他寫道，冷戰後的世界最重要的問題是“你是誰？”
所以當總統呼籲西方國家“召喚勇氣和捍衛文明的意志”的時候，堅持只接受“分享我們的價值觀，愛我們的人民”的移民，當他敦促跨大西洋的時候聯盟“永遠不會忘記我們是誰”，堅持“歷史，文化和記憶的紐帶”，我想像亨廷頓，在2008年底在哈佛大學長期職業教學之後逝世，從超越之下點點頭。
閱讀這些評論
華盛頓郵報最好的對話
這可能是一個證明的點頭，也許，但主要是一個嚴峻的認可。川普的文明修辭只是亨廷頓今天共鳴的一個原因，甚至不是最有趣的一個原因。亨廷頓在二十世紀二十年代中期的工作貫穿到21世紀初期，對美國的意義和目的進行了長時間的論證，解釋了川普時代的緊張局勢以及任何事情。亨廷頓編年史，並期待美國與其創始地位的戰鬥，爭取川普的上升加劇。亨廷頓預見，坦率地說，斯塔克斯 - 白人本土主義對西班牙裔移民的響應的興起。他捕捉到2016年運動中發生的工人階級和精英之間的民族主義與國際主義之間的不和諧。而且他警告說，民粹主義的煽動者如何呼籲疏遠群眾，然後與他們打破信念。
這是川普的總統職務，但更是如此，這是亨廷頓的美國。川普可能相信自己是一個實用的人，不受任何智力影響，但他是一個已經失敗的政治學家的奴隸。
亨廷頓的書在過去幾十年間相互對峙;你在另一個人的未回答的問題中找到一個人的起源。但他們也揭示了深刻的矛盾。不止是文明的衝突，亨廷頓的衝突是顯而易見的。一個亨廷頓認為美國人是一個不是血而不是信仰的特殊人物。另一個不贊成的想法是讚成一個在信仰，語言，文化和邊界上發現其本質的美國。一個亨廷頓認為進入政治舞台的新團體和身份是振興美國民主。另一個認為這樣的身份有害，反美。
這些作品體現了美國在川普年代以外的智力和政治挑戰。在亨廷頓的著作中，美國的理想主義願景與其最基本的衝動相結合，美國價值觀的雄辯辯護背叛了對國家核心的多元化的恐懼。哪個願景勝出將決定我們成為什麼國家。
***
為了了解我們當前的動盪，亨廷頓書籍中最相關的不是“文明的衝突和世界秩序的重演”（1996），甚至是“我們是誰？美國國家認同的挑戰“（2004），其粉絲據報導包括自稱白人民族主義者理查德·斯潘塞（Richard Spencer）。 36年前發表的這個不太知名和非常有前途的“美國政治：不和諧的承諾”。
在這項工作中，亨廷頓指出了美國信仰自由，平等，個人主義，民主，立憲主義的價值觀與政府為維護美國生活中心緊張的價值觀念而努力的差距。 “有時，這種不和諧是潛伏的;在其他時候，當信仰的激情高漲的時候，它是殘酷的，在這樣的時代，美國政治的承諾變成了中心的痛苦。“
無論是辯論保健，稅收，移民還是戰爭，美國人總是引用創始價值來挑戰感到不公。改革不僅僅是必要或明智的;他們必須在信條方面進行表達和辯護。這就是為什麼川普的對手攻擊他的政策，不僅宣布他們是錯誤的，而且說“那不是我們是誰”。正如亨廷頓所說：“美國人最大程度地將他們聚集在一起。”
[是的，川普是一個民粹主義者。但是，這是什麼意思？]
這本書回顧了革命戰爭，傑克遜時代，進步時代和20世紀60年代作為高信仰激情的時刻，亨廷頓的描述捕捉了美國。在這樣的時刻，他寫道，不滿是普遍的，權威和專長被質疑;公共辯論的自由，個人主義，平等和民眾控制的傳統價值主導著公共辯論;政治的特點是高極化和不斷的抗議;對權力，財富和不平等的敵意增加;社會運動著重於婦女權利和刑事司法等諸多原因的蓬勃發展;新形式的媒體湧現出來，專門用於宣傳和對抗性新聞。
亨廷頓甚至預測了美國下一場戰鬥的時機：“如果過去的時期普遍存在，”他寫道，“在二十一世紀的二三十年裡，將會發生一個重大的持續信條的激情。
我們正在按計劃進行。
亨廷頓認為，我們的激情有周期性。憤慨不能忍受很長時間，所以憤世嫉俗取而代之的是一切都是腐敗的信念，我們學會容忍理想與現實之間的差距。 （今天我們可以稱之為“無所事事”）。最終虛偽接管，我們完全否認差距，直到下一波道德浪潮。在川普時代，道德主義，玩世不恭和虛偽共存。不安靜
信條不僅僅是因為它產生美國的分歧和願望，而是因為它提供了一個備用的，優雅的定義，意味著成為美國人。亨廷頓寫道，關於政治信仰，並不是民族認同或宗教信仰。 “我們堅持這些真理是不言而喻的，”獨立宣言“第二段開始，亨廷頓用這條線來界定我們。 “誰擁有這些真理？美國人堅持這些真理。誰是美國人？堅持這些真理的人。民族認同和政治原則是不可分割的。“
在這個講話中，美國夢是最重要的，因為它永遠不會實現，自由和不平等的和解永遠不會完成。即使如此，“美國政治”也不是一個完全悲觀的書。 “評論家說，美國是一個謊言，因為它的現實如此缺乏理想，”亨廷頓寫道。 “他們錯了美國不是謊言這是一個失望。但這只能是一個失望，因為它也是一個希望。“
***
在接下來的二十年中，亨廷頓失去了希望。在他的最後一本書“誰是我們”中，他強調，他不僅像一個學者一樣反映他的觀點，而且反映了他的愛國者，亨廷頓修改了他對美國和美國人的定義。而一旦信仰至為重要，這裡只是英 - 新教文化的副產品 - 英文，基督信仰，工作倫理以及個人主義和異議的價值觀
- 他現在所說的形式是美國身份的真正核心。
亨廷頓寫道，威脅這個核心是多元文化主義的意識形態;來自拉丁美洲，特別是墨西哥的移民新浪潮，亨廷頓認為，移民比過去移民不太能夠吸收;以及西班牙語的威脅，亨廷頓認為這是一種感染美國文化和政治完整性的疾病。 “沒有美洲夢，”他斷言。 “只有美國的夢想是由盎格魯 - 新教社會創造的。墨西哥裔美國人只有在英語夢想的時候才能分享這個夢想和社會。“
[誰是拉丁美洲人？]
1981年的亨廷頓，顯然是錯誤的。當列舉不精確的學者時，他現在堅持以政治信仰界定美國人，亨廷頓引用了一位無名的學者，曾經雄辯地將美國人描述為與“宣言”不言而喻的真相不可分割。除非你認識到“美國政治”的段落，或者打擾檢查尾註，否則你不知道他在引用自己。就像你在亨廷頓的憤世嫉俗的書中所發現的那樣，就像一個眨眼。
信仰的原則只是“如何組織社會的標誌”，亨廷頓決定。 “他們沒有界定社會的程度，邊界或組成。”他認為，你需要親戚和文化;你必須屬於他聲稱拉美移民和他們的後代不像以前的移民那樣徹底地分散在全國各地，擔心他們只尋求福利，並警告他們會為本地工人留下更少的機會。亨廷頓還以刻板印象，甚至引用了墨西哥的“mañana綜合徵”。
也許墨西哥人是懶惰的，除非他們正在接受每個人的工作。
我不知道亨廷頓為什麼改變主意。也許他覺得信仰的抽像不能再忍受美國的多樣性，或者也許混合的獎學金和愛國主義對兩者都是不利的。無論哪種方式，任何爭吵邊界和驅逐出境勢力的人都會在這個新化身中找到很多東西，因為亨廷頓用軍國主義的形象描述西班牙裔威脅。他說，墨西哥移民正在引導美國人在1830年代和1840年代以武力從墨西哥帶來的人口統計數據。“他寫道，美國正在經歷”非法入侵人口“。
亨廷頓指責堅持多元化的優雅政客和知識分子，這是美國新的主要美國價值觀，主要是因為對被指稱的壓迫受害者的誤導罪。他說，所以他們鼓勵多元文化主義對一個更傳統的美國身份，儘管公眾的保護主義偏好，他們也擁抱自由貿易和多邊界。這是2016年的戰爭的一個不可思議的預覽。譴責多元文化主義是“反歐洲文明”，亨廷頓要求重新建立民族主義，致力於維護和加強“自成立以來確定美國的素質”。
奇怪的是，很久以前，川普培養了右派，希拉里·克林頓在我們中間譴責“可悲的人”，亨廷頓預見了白人美國人對多元文化的反彈。 “一個非常合理的反應將是排外主義的社會政治運動的出現，”他寫道，“主要組成，但不僅是白人男性，主要是工人階級和中產階級，抗議和企圖阻止或扭轉這些變化，他們認為是否準確地減少他們的社會和經濟地位，他們失去對移民和外國的工作，他們的文化的顛覆，語言的流離失所，以及他們的歷史身份的侵蝕甚至蒸發國家。這種運動既可以是種族主義和文化上的啟發，也可能是反西班牙，黑黑和反移民。“亨廷頓指出，這種運動中更為極端的因素是擔心”將美國偉大的白色文化取代黑色或棕色的文化。 。 。在他們看來，在智力和道德上劣等。
是的，在2004年，亨廷頓警告說，種族主義潮流側重於保護美國的偉大。
***
重新定義了美國身份的實質，亨廷頓將持續的突顯與戰爭聯繫起來。他在“我們是誰”中寫道：“革命產生了美國人民，美國內戰，第二次世界大戰，美國人對他們國家的認同，”他原來寫道，美國身份現在以鋼鐵生存。當蘇聯的威脅消失時，美國需要一個新的敵人，而在2001年9月11日，亨廷頓宣布：“本·拉丹結束了美國的搜查。”
這是他長期預料的衝突。他在1996年發表文明衝突的書中寫道，西方將繼續相對亞洲和伊斯蘭世界的緩慢下降。雖然經濟活力推動了亞洲的崛起，穆斯林國家的人口增長為原教旨主義，恐怖主義，叛亂和移民提供了新兵。“正如川普模仿拒絕譴責”激進的伊斯蘭恐怖主義“的政治人物，亨廷頓批評美國領導人比爾·克林頓認為西方與伊斯蘭教沒有爭吵，只有暴力的極端主義分子。他說：“有一百四十年的歷史證明了這一點。”
亨廷頓的衝突已被諷刺的是對穆斯林的武裝的單一呼籲，當然這個論點既不狹隘也不簡單。如果華盛頓挑戰北京成為亞洲的霸主地位，他可能更關心中國，擔心“大戰”。然而，亨廷頓從穆斯林世界看到的威脅遠遠超出了恐怖主義或宗教極端主義。他擔心更廣泛的伊斯蘭復興，政治伊斯蘭教只是“伊斯蘭教思想，做法和修辭更加廣泛的複興和穆斯林人口對伊斯蘭教的重新譴責”的一部分。亨廷頓引用學者警告伊斯蘭法律的傳播在西方的概念中，譴責民主的“伊斯蘭文化不適宜的性質”，並表明伊斯蘭教在反對基督教的數字遊戲中將佔上風。從長遠來看，“穆罕默德贏了，”他說。 “基督教的傳播主要是通過轉換，伊斯蘭教通過轉換和繁殖。
[為什麼美國在使世界變得更好的地方是可怕的]
這個想法喚起了川普政治策略師斯蒂芬·班農（Stephen K. Bannon）的零和言辭，他是政府針對穆斯林多數國家的旅行禁令背後的力量，還有前國家安全顧問邁克爾·弗林（Michael Flynn）撰寫了一本2016年的書，美國的代際衝突是對伊斯蘭教的“失敗的文明”的打擊。亨廷頓，至少有恩典考慮到雙方的衝突。
他寫道：“西方的根本問題不是伊斯蘭原教旨主義。 “這是一個不同文明的伊斯蘭教，人們相信他們的文化的優越性，並且痴迷自己的權力。伊斯蘭教的問題不是中央情報局或美國國防部。西方是一個不同的文明，人們相信他們文化的普遍性，並相信他們的優越，如果下降的權力強加了他們在全世界擴大這種文化的義務。“
他不認為西方價值觀是普遍的。他們是我們一個人。
***
雖然亨廷頓預計美國是自相矛盾的白人民族主義和反對伊斯蘭教的敵意，但他並沒有預測美國川普式的領導人的興起。
但他會認出這種類型。
考慮他最早的書。在“改變社會的政治秩序”（1968）中，亨廷頓研究了拉美，非洲和亞洲國家在經濟現代化建設中如何努力改變政治態度，把新的群體納入新的需求。亨廷頓解釋說，結果不是政治發展，而是“政治衰退”。
什麼樣的權威人士化這個衰變？在發展中國家，亨廷頓看到“不穩定的個人主義領導者的統治地位”，他們的政府充滿了公然的腐敗。 。 。任意侵犯公民的權利和自由，官僚效率和表現的標準下降，城市政治團體的普遍疏遠，立法機關和法院的權力喪失，以及基礎廣泛的政黨的分裂和有時完全解體。“
這些自我風格的革命者在分裂上蓬勃發展。亨廷頓解釋說：革命的目標是使政治偏向化，所以他試圖簡化，戲劇化和把政治問題合併成一個單一的，明確的二分法。“這些領導人通過”種族“來吸引新的農村選民和宗教呼籲“以及經濟論據，只能快速背叛他們的願望。
“亨廷頓寫道：”一個受歡迎的煽動者可能會出現，“發展廣泛但組織不良的下一代，威脅到富貴貴族的既定利益，被投入政治職位，然後被他所攻擊的利益消滅。他解釋說：“這些利益包括領導人近親的利益，因為他們”對國家的義務和對家庭的義務沒有區別“。
亨廷頓的“士兵與國家”（1957年）是對軍民關係的研究，對於這種領導人的自我尊重，特別是當作者將軍官的專業精神與法西斯強者的霸權相比較時，是有啟發性的。 “法西斯主義強調領導人的最高權力和能力，以及從屬於他的意志的絕對義務，”亨廷頓寫道。法西斯主義直觀，“少有使用或需要有序的知識和實踐，經驗現實主義。他慶祝意志勝過外界的障礙。“
唐納德·川普如何反對美國文學的虛構獨裁者？]
這種障礙採取民眾抗議不受歡迎的領導人的形式。今天，一些作家甚至在我們的國家動盪中找到了安慰，認為川普的選舉所進行的活動和能量將加強美國的民主。但在一本題為“民主危機”（1975）的書中，亨廷頓考察了類似的公民複興時期，並沒有得到結果的鼓舞。
亨蒂頓寫道：“二十世紀六十年代，美國的民主精神大大復興。他不贊成身份政治，讚揚那個時代的非裔美國人，拉丁美洲人，學生和婦女的“自我意識明顯提高”，動員起來，指出“平等的精神和揭露和糾正國外的不平等現象。“他解釋說，問題在於，政治制度也受到美國機構的普遍不信任而受到壓制。他寫道：“20世紀60年代民主的活力，提出了關於20世紀70年代民主政治的問題。”
最大的問題涉及最高的辦公室。亨廷頓寫道，“20世紀60年代和70年代的發展可能不如美國政治的未來有更大的進口，而不是總統權力下降，地位，影響力和有效性。他害怕一個專制行政人員不僅威脅國家凝聚力，而且威脅到國家安全。 “如果美國公民不信任政府，為什麼要友好的外國人？如果美國公民挑戰美國政府的權威，為什麼不要不友好的政府呢？
亨廷頓在水門醜聞的寫作中寫道，現在白宮面臨著自己的信譽危機。川普，因此痴迷於他的選舉勝利，最近在白宮發現了2016年結果的框架圖，會很好地註意到有關可持續性的警告。
“一旦他當選總統，”亨廷頓寫道，“總統的選舉聯盟在某種意義上是服務於其目的。在他當選後的第二天，他的大多數幾乎 - 如果不是完全 - 與他管理國家的能力無關。 。 。 。那麼他的能力就是動員社會和政府關鍵機構領導的支持。“
***
寫出川普作為亨廷頓人的感覺很奇怪。一個是本能和反智識;另一個是故意和理論的。一個通過不確定的脈衝串進行通信;另一個人寫了幾本書。我想像亨廷頓呢，會對一個總統總理這樣對外交大臣對美國選舉制度的抨擊漠不關心，而且對亨廷頓羨慕的法治工作的倫理和尊重也是如此。
什麼使教授成為我們這個時代的先知不僅僅是他的視野部分地反映在川普的信息和吸引力，而且他很好地理解了川普政治風格的危險。
我相信，他們聚在一起，是對美國獨特的懷舊狹隘的觀點。亨廷頓，像川普，希望美國是偉大的，並且渴望恢復價值觀和身份，他認為這個國家不僅是偉大的，而且是一個國家。但是，如果這個道路涉及到關閉自己，妖魔化新人，要求文化素養，那麼我們真的從其他地方有多不同？川普時代的中心痛苦是，美國不是變得越來越大，而是變得越來越稀鬆平常。
這不是文明的衝突。這是文明的崩潰。
Samuel Huntington, a prophet for the Trump era
The writings of the late Harvard political
scientist anticipate America's political and intellectual battles -- and point
to the country we may become.
President Trump’s recent speech in Warsaw, in which he urged Europeans and
Americans to defend Western civilization against violent extremists and
barbarian hordes, inevitably evoked Samuel P. Huntington’s “clash of
civilizations” — the notion that superpower rivalry would give way to battles
among Western universalism, Islamic militance and Chinese assertiveness. In
a book expanded from his famous 1993 essay, Huntington described civilizations as the
broadest and most crucial level of identity, encompassing religion, values,
culture and history. Rather than “which side are you on?” he wrote, the
overriding question in the post-Cold War world would be “who are you?”
So when the president calls on the nations of the
West to “summon the courage and the will to defend our civilization,” when he
insists that we accept only migrants who “share our values and love our
people,” and when he urges the transatlantic alliance to “never forget who we
are” and cling to the “bonds of history, culture and memory,” I imagine
Huntington, who passed away in late 2008 after a long career teaching at
Harvard University, nodding from beyond.
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It would be a nod of vindication, perhaps, but
mainly one of grim recognition. Trump’s civilizational rhetoric is just one
reason Huntington resonates today, and it’s not even the most interesting one.
Huntington’s work, spanning the mid-20th century through the early 21st, reads
as a long argument over America’s meaning and purpose, one that explains the
tensions of the Trump era as well as anything can. Huntington both chronicles
and anticipates America’s fights over its founding premises, fights that
Trump’s ascent has aggravated. Huntington foresees — and, frankly, stokes — the
rise of white nativism in response to Hispanic immigration. He captures the
dissonance between working classes and elites, between nationalism and cosmopolitanism,
that played out in the 2016 campaign. And he warns how populist demagogues
appeal to alienated masses and then break faith with them.
This is Trump’s presidency, but even more so, it is
Huntington’s America. Trump may believe himself a practical man, exempt from
any intellectual influence, but he is the slave of a defunct political
scientist.
Huntington’s books speak to one another across the
decades; you find the origins of one in the unanswered questions of another.
But they also reveal deep contradictions. More than a clash of civilizations, a
clash of Huntingtons is evident. One Huntington regards Americans as an
exceptional people united not by blood but by creed. Another disowns that idea
in favor of an America that finds its essence in faith, language, culture and
borders. One Huntington views new groups and identities entering the political
arena as a revitalization of American democracy. Another considers such
identities pernicious, anti-American.
These works embody the intellectual and political
challenges for the United States in, and beyond, the Trump years. In
Huntington’s writings, idealistic visions of America mingle with its basest
impulses, and eloquent defenses of U.S. values betray a fear of the pluralism
at the nation’s core. Which vision wins out will determine what country we
become.
***
To understand our current turmoil, the most
relevant of Huntington’s books is not “The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of
World Order” (1996) or even “Who Are We? The Challenges to America’s National
Identity” (2004), whose fans reportedly include self-proclaimed white
nationalist Richard Spencer. It is the
lesser-known and remarkably prescient “American Politics: The Promise of Disharmony,” published
36 years ago.
In that work, Huntington points to the gap between
the values of the American creed — liberty, equality, individualism, democracy,
constitutionalism — and the government’s efforts to live up to those values as
the central tension of American life. “At times, this dissonance is latent; at
other times, when creedal passion runs high, it is brutally manifest, and at
such times, the promise of American politics becomes its central agony.”
Whether debating health care, taxes, immigration or
war, Americans invariably invoke the founding values to challenge perceived
injustices. Reforms cannot merely be necessary or sensible; they must be
articulated and defended in terms of the creed. This is why Trump’s opponents
attack his policies by declaring not only that they are wrong but that “that’s
not who we are.” As Huntington puts it, “Americans divide most sharply over
what brings them together.”
The book looks back to the Revolutionary War, the
Jacksonian age, the Progressive era and the 1960s as moments of high creedal
passions, and Huntington’s descriptions capture America today. In such moments,
he writes, discontent is widespread, and authority and expertise are
questioned; traditional values of liberty, individualism, equality and popular
control of government dominate public debates; politics is characterized by
high polarization and constant protest; hostility toward power, wealth and inequality
grows intense; social movements focused on causes such as women’s rights and
criminal justice flourish; and new forms of media emerge devoted to advocacy
and adversarial journalism.
Huntington even predicts the timing of America’s
next fight: “If the periodicity of the past prevails,” he writes, “a major
sustained creedal passion period will occur in the second and third decades of
the twenty-first century.”
We’re right on schedule.
There is a cyclical nature to our passions,
Huntington argues. Indignation cannot endure long, so cynicism supplants it, a
belief that all are corrupt, and we learn to tolerate the gap between ideals
and reality. (Today we might call this the “lol nothing matters” stage.)
Eventually hypocrisy takes over and we deny the gap altogether — until the next
wave of moralizing. In the Trump era, moralism, cynicism and hypocrisy coexist.
Not peacefully.
The creed is relevant not just because it produces
America’s divisions and aspirations, but because it provides a spare, elegant
definition of what it means to be American. It is not about ethnic identity or
religious faith, Huntington writes, but about political belief. “We hold these
truths to be self-evident,” begins the second paragraph of the Declaration of
Independence, and Huntington uses the line to define us. “Who holds these
truths? Americans hold these truths. Who are Americans? People who adhere to
these truths. National identity and political principle were inseparable.”
In this telling, the American Dream matters most
because it is never fulfilled, the reconciliation of liberty and inequality
never complete. Even so, “American Politics” is not an entirely pessimistic
book. “Critics say that America is a lie because its reality falls so short of
its ideals,” Huntington writes in its final lines. “They are wrong. America is
not a lie; it is a disappointment. But it can be a disappointment only because
it is also a hope.”
***
Over the subsequent two decades, Huntington lost
hope. In his final book, “Who Are We?,” which he emphasizes reflect his views
not just as a scholar but also as a patriot, Huntington revises his definitions
of America and Americans. Whereas once the creed was paramount, here it is
merely a byproduct of the Anglo-Protestant culture — with its English language,
Christian faith, work ethic and values of individualism and dissent — that he
now says forms the true core of American identity.
Threatening that core, Huntington writes, is the
ideology of multiculturalism; the new waves of immigrants from Latin America,
especially Mexico, whom Huntington believes are less able to assimilate than
past immigrants; and the threat of the Spanish language, which Huntington
treats as a disease infecting the cultural and political integrity of the
United States. “There is no Americano dream,” he asserts. “There is only the
American dream created by an Anglo-Protestant society. Mexican-Americans will
share in that dream and in that society only if they dream in English.”
The Huntington of 1981, apparently, was just wrong.
When listing academics who had — inaccurately, he now insists — defined
Americans by their political beliefs, Huntington quotes an unnamed scholar who
once eloquently described Americans as inseparable from the self-evident truths
of the Declaration. Unless you recognize the passage from “American Politics”
or bother to check the endnotes, you have no idea he is quoting himself. It’s
as close to a wink as you’ll find in Huntington’s angriest book.
The principles of the creed are merely “markers of
how to organize a society,” Huntington decides. “They do not define the extent,
boundaries, or composition of that society.” For that, he contends, you need
kin and culture; you must belong. He claims that Latin American immigrants and
their offspring do not disperse throughout the country as thoroughly as past
immigrants, worries they seek only welfare benefits, and warns they’ll leave
behind fewer opportunities for native workers. Huntington also trafficks in
stereotypes, even citing Mexico’s supposed “mañana syndrome.”
Maybe Mexicans are lazy except when they’re taking
everyone’s jobs.
I don’t know why Huntington changed his mind.
Perhaps he felt the abstractions of the creed could no longer withstand the din
of America’s multiplicity, or maybe mixing scholarship and patriotism does a
disservice to both. Either way, anyone arguing for border walls and deportation
forces will find much to like in this new incarnation, because Huntington
describes the Hispanic threat with militaristic imagery. “Mexican immigration
is leading toward the demographic reconquista of areas Americans took
from Mexico by force in the 1830s and 1840s,” he writes, stating that the
United States is experiencing an “illegal demographic invasion.”
Huntington blames pliant politicians and
intellectual elites who uphold diversity as the new prime American value,
largely because of their misguided guilt toward victims of alleged oppression.
So they encourage multiculturalism over a more traditional American identity,
he says, and they embrace free trade and porous borders despite the public’s
protectionist preferences. It is an uncanny preview of the battles of 2016.
Denouncing multiculturalism as “anti-European civilization,” Huntington calls
for a renewed nationalism devoted to preserving and enhancing “those qualities
that have defined America since its founding.”
Little wonder that, long before Trump cultivated the alt-right and
Hillary Clinton denounced the “deplorables” in our midst,
Huntington foresaw a backlash against multiculturalism from white Americans.
“One very plausible reaction would be the emergence of exclusivist
sociopolitical movements,” he writes, “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.” The
more extreme elements in such movements, Huntington notes, fear “the
replacement of the white culture that made America great by black or brown
cultures that are . . . in their view, intellectually and morally
inferior.”
Yes, in 2004, Huntington warned of a racist tide
focused on protecting that which makes America great.
***
Having redefined the substance of American
identity, Huntington ties its continued salience to war. “The Revolution
produced the American people, the Civil War the American nation, and World War
II the epiphany of Americans’ identification with their country,” he writes in
“Who Are We?” Born in principle, American identity now survives by steel. When
the Soviet threat receded, the United States needed a new foe, and “on
September 11, 2001,” Huntington declares, “Osama bin Laden ended America’s
search.”
This is a conflict he had long anticipated. In his
1996 book proclaiming a clash of civilizations, he writes that the West will
continue its slow decline relative Asia and the Islamic world. While economic
dynamism drives Asia’s rise, population growth in Muslim nations “provides
recruits for fundamentalism, terrorism, insurgency, and migration.” Much as
Trump mocks politicians who refuse to decry “radical Islamic terrorism,”
Huntington criticizes American leaders such as Bill Clinton who argued that the
West had no quarrel with Islam, only with violent extremists. “Fourteen hundred
years of history demonstrate otherwise,” he remarks.
Huntington’s clash has been caricatured as a
single-minded call to arms against Muslims, and certainly the argument is
neither so narrow nor so simple. He is probably more concerned with China and
fears a “major war” if Washington challenges Beijing’s rise as Asia’s hegemon.
Yet the threat Huntington sees from the Muslim world goes far beyond terrorism
or religious extremism. He worries of a broader Islamic resurgence, with
political Islam as only one part of “the much more extensive revival of Islamic
ideas, practices, and rhetoric and the rededication to Islam by Muslim
populations.” Huntington cites scholars warning of the spread of Islamic legal
concepts in the West, decries the “inhospitable nature of Islamic culture” for
democracy and suggests that Islam will prevail in the numbers game against
Christianity. In the long run, “Mohammed wins out,” he states. “Christianity
spreads primarily by conversion, Islam by conversion and reproduction.”
The vision evokes the zero-sum rhetoric of Trump
political strategist Stephen K. Bannon, who was a force behind the
administration’s travel ban targeting Muslim-majority countries, and of former
national security adviser Michael Flynn, who authored a 2016 book heralding a multi-generational U.S. conflict
against Islam’s “failed civilization.” Huntington, at least, has the grace to
consider two sides of the clash.
“The underlying problem for the West is not Islamic
fundamentalism,” he writes. “It is Islam, a different civilization whose people
are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the
inferiority of their power. The problem for Islam is not the CIA or the U.S.
Department of Defense. It is the West, a different civilization whose people
are convinced of the universality of their culture and believe that their
superior, if declining, power imposes on them the obligation to extend that
culture throughout the world.”
He does not regard Western values as universal.
They are ours alone.
***
While Huntington foresees an America roiled by
self-doubt, white nationalism and enmity against Islam, he does not predict the
rise of a Trump-like leader in the United States.
But he would have recognized the type.
Consider his earliest books. In “Political Order in Changing Societies” (1968),
Huntington examines how Latin American, African and Asian countries in the
throes of economic modernization struggled to adapt their politics and
incorporate new groups with new demands. The result, Huntington explains, was
not political development but “political decay.”
And what sort of authorities personify this decay?
Across the developing world, Huntington saw “the dominance of unstable
personalistic leaders,” their governments rife with “blatant corruption . . .
arbitrary infringement of the rights and liberties of citizens, declining standards
of bureaucratic efficiency and performance, the pervasive alienation of urban
political groups, the loss of authority by legislatures and courts, and the
fragmentation and at times complete disintegration of broadly based political
parties.”
These self-styled revolutionaries thrive on
divisiveness. “The aim of the revolutionary is to polarize politics,”
Huntington explains, “and hence he attempts to simplify, to dramatize, and to
amalgamate political issues into a single, clear-cut dichotomy.” Such leaders
attract new rural voters via “ethnic and religious appeals” as well as economic
arguments, only to quickly betray their aspirations.
“A popular demagogue may emerge,” Huntington
writes, “develop a widespread but poorly organized following, threaten the
established interests of the rich and aristocrats, be voted into political
office, and then be bought off by the very interests which he has attacked.”
Such interests include those of the leaders’ close relatives, he explains,
because for them “no distinction existed between obligations to the state and
obligation to the family.”
Huntington’s “The Soldier and the State” (1957),
a study of civilian-military relations, is instructive on the self-regard of
such leaders, especially when the author contrasts the professionalism of
military officers with the imperiousness of fascist strongmen. “Fascism
emphasizes the supreme power and ability of the leader, and the absolute duty
of subordination to his will,” Huntington writes. The fascist is intuitive,
with “little use or need for ordered knowledge and practical, empirical
realism. He celebrates the triumph of the Will over external obstacles.”
Such obstacles take the form of popular protests
against unpopular leaders. Today, some writers even find solace in our national
upheaval, arguing that the activism and energy Trump’s election has wrought
will strengthen U.S. democracy. But in a book titled “The Crisis of Democracy” (1975),
Huntington examines a time of similar civic resurgence, and is not encouraged
by the outcome.
“The 1960s witnessed a dramatic renewal of the
democratic spirit in America,” Huntington writes. Not yet dismissive of
identity politics, he praises the “markedly higher levels of
self-consciousness” and mobilization on the part of African Americans, Latinos,
students and women in that era, noting that “the spirit of equality [and] the
impulse to expose and correct inequities were abroad in the land.” The problem,
he explains, is that the political system also became weighed down by popular
mistrust, however deserved, of American institutions. “The vitality of
democracy in the 1960s,” he writes, “raised questions about the governability
of democracy in the 1970s.”
The biggest questions involved the highest office.
“Probably no development of the 1960s and 1970s has greater import for the
future of American politics than the decline in the authority, status,
influence, and effectiveness of the presidency,” Huntington writes. He fears
that a delegitimized executive threatened not just national cohesion but
national security. “If American citizens don’t trust their government, why
should friendly foreigners? If American citizens challenge the authority of
American government, why shouldn’t unfriendly governments?”
Huntington was writing in the aftermath of the
Watergate scandal, and now the current White House faces its own crisis of
credibility. Trump, so obsessed with his electoral victory that a framed map of
the 2016 results was recently spotted in the White House, would do well to heed
warnings about governability.
“Once he is elected president,” Huntington writes,
“the president’s electoral coalition has, in a sense, served its purpose. The
day after his election the size of his majority is almost — if not entirely —
irrelevant to his ability to govern the country. . . .
What counts then is his ability to mobilize support from the leaders of the key
institutions in society and government.”
***
It feels odd to write of Trump as a Huntingtonian
figure. One is instinctual and anti-intellectual; the other was deliberate and
theoretical. One communicates via inarticulate bursts; the other wrote books
for the ages. I imagine Huntington would be apprehensive about a
commander-in-chief so indifferent to a foreign power’s assault on the U.S.
electoral system, and one displaying so little of the work ethic and reverence
for the rule of law that Huntington admired.
What makes the professor a prophet for our time is
not just that his vision is partially reflected in Trump’s message and appeal,
but that he understood well the dangers of the style of politics Trump
practices.
Where they come together, I believe, is in their
nostalgic and narrow view of American uniqueness. Huntington, like Trump,
wanted America to be great, and came to long for a restoration of values and
identity that he believed made the country not just great but a nation apart.
However, if that path involves closing ourselves off, demonizing newcomers and
demanding cultural fealty, then how different are we, really, from anywhere
else? The central agony of the Trump era is that rather than becoming great,
America is becoming unexceptional.
And that’s not a clash of civilizations. It’s a
civilization crashing.
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