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Calvinism and American National Identity

David Little

in John Calvin's American Legacy

Samuel P. Huntington argued that American national identity was and still is profoundly influenced by what he called Anglo-Protestant culture. He attributed the major part of that influence to ... More

Samuel P. Huntington argued that American national identity was and still is profoundly influenced by what he called Anglo-Protestant culture. He attributed the major part of that influence to Calvin’s heirs, the New England Puritans. In particular, Huntington drew a connection between the Puritans and what is known as the American creed, which is a collection of legal and political ideals associated with American constitutionalism. Huntington concluded that America was from the start and still is a Christian nation. John Witte’s work, however, shows that, while some Puritans (John Winthrop and John Cotton, for example) were close to Huntington’s point of view, others (Roger Williams, for example) were not. This chapter argues that the deep division over religion and national identity did not originate with the New England Puritans. Rather, that ambivalence is at the root of the Calvinist tradition, going back to John Calvin.Less

How Wide Is Our Lens?

Douglas A Hicks

in With God on All Sides: Leadership in a Devout and Diverse America

This chapter examines the predominant vision many political leaders have articulated post-September 11, 2001: a narrow and embattled vision of the collective American identity. It draws on Samuel ... More

This chapter examines the predominant vision many political leaders have articulated post-September 11, 2001: a narrow and embattled vision of the collective American identity. It draws on Samuel Huntington’s “clash of civilizations,” a global image in which “the West” is and will increasingly be engaged in a struggle with other cultural-political blocs around the world, most notably “the Islamic World.” At home, this civilization-based perspective requires defining the essentials of an American or Western identity, which in its totality marginalizes or begrudgingly tolerates people outside the mainstream. For some, including Huntington and George W. Bush, this connects to a vision of America as a Christian nation. What does it mean to see America as a Christian nation? For some, it means conforming the laws of society to the coming Kingdom of Christ or to some set of “Judeo-Christian values.” For others, it means something less directly political. This vision privileges Christian identity over other religious or moral affiliations.Less

Chaotic epic: Samuel Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order revisited

James Dunkerley

in American Foreign Policy: Studies in Intellectual History

As a core interpretative text of the immediate post-Cold War period, The Clash of Civilizations acquired an almost infamous status amongst liberal circles on account of a perceived melange of ... More

As a core interpretative text of the immediate post-Cold War period, The Clash of Civilizations acquired an almost infamous status amongst liberal circles on account of a perceived melange of cultural essentialism, conservative realist thinking, and a confidently negative appraisal of world trends. In this chapter, James Dunkerley reviews the initial, often critical reception of Clash of Civilizations and seeks to explain why the text has continued to enjoy such widespread attention. He agrees with the view that, alongside Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History and John Mearsheimer’s The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, it forms part of distinct ‘moment’ following the collapse of the USSR and the complex challenges of the USA becoming, at least transiently, a ‘unipolar power’. However, he also identifies the continued salience of the text in Huntington’s often adept assessment of regional political trends, even when these are entirely divorced from his underlying civilizational thesis.Less

Muslim-Christian Dialogue in Difficult Times

Daniel A. Madigan

in Catholicism and Interreligious Dialogue

This chapter argues that in the current geopolitical realities Muslim-Christian dialogue takes place in a very difficult, but hardly hopeless time. What is often overlooked is that religions can’t ... More

This chapter argues that in the current geopolitical realities Muslim-Christian dialogue takes place in a very difficult, but hardly hopeless time. What is often overlooked is that religions can’t dialogue; only believers can. Moreover, if, for example, someone objects to such a dialogue by claiming that no Muslim can speak for Islam, one may reply by asking whether any one Christian can speak for all of Christianity. Moreover, various Christian churches, especially since Vatican II, have carried on fruitful discussions with Jews, even though there is no single voice that can speak for Judaism, given the diversity among religious Jews. Why, then, could there not also be fruitful discussions with Muslims? The chapter explains why it is simply false to assert that Muslims do not have a history of Qur’anic interpretation, and a very sophisticated one at that. After a series of comments on Samuel Huntington’s widely quoted (but not so widely read) 1996 book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order, it singles out for criticism a number of bad habits that impede dialogue, including the use of labels such as “we” and “they,” the ignorance of the very different political situations in which some Christians and some Muslims live, and the dubious nature of the call for “reciprocity” in dialogue. The chapter concludes by noting that both cultural and theological dialogue between Catholics and Muslims is not only possible, but is actually taking place.Less

Cultural Pluralism and National Identity

Rebecca Tillett

in American Thought and Culture in the 21st Century

This essay provides an historical context for considering ethnicity, immigration and American identity. Beginning with early positive cultural identities as found in de Crèvecoeur and de Tocqueville, ... More

This essay provides an historical context for considering ethnicity, immigration and American identity. Beginning with early positive cultural identities as found in de Crèvecoeur and de Tocqueville, the author identifies anxieties over the ability of recently arrived immigrants to assimilate in the writings of Benjamin Franklin and in US legislature throughout the late nineteenth century. These fears regarding immigration and assimilation are traced through the twentieth century to 1990s immigration acts and policies which were introduced as an apparent response to a resurgence of nativism. The author, Rebecca Tillett, explores the contours of nativist theories put forward by the likes of Samuel Huntington and Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and examines their impact upon government policy. The chapter concludes with a consideration of a very public image of American national identity, in the figure of Private Jessica Lynch, juxtaposed with ‘other’ hidden American identities, Specialist Shoshana Johnson and Private Lori Ann Piestewa.Less

Conclusion

Karine V. Walther

in Sacred Interests: The United States and the Islamic World, 1821-1921

The conclusion summarizes how these arenas contributed to larger American narratives about the Islamic world and how they translated into specific policies. It then details the profound repercussions ... More

The conclusion summarizes how these arenas contributed to larger American narratives about the Islamic world and how they translated into specific policies. It then details the profound repercussions of these policies for the peoples of the Middle East, North Africa and Asia continuing into the twenty-first century. It analyzes how perceptions about Islam continued during the Cold War, when Israel and oil became the two pillars of American foreign policy. The chapter concludes by analyzing the resurgence of Islamophobia in the 21st century, focusing on the theory of the “Clash of Civilizations,” authored by Samuel Huntington in 1993, which resonated so deeply in the American psyche after 9/11, during the Global War on Terror, led by George W. Bush.Less

History: From the ‘Clash of Civilizations’ to ‘New Empire Revisionism’

David Holloway

in 9/11 and the War on Terror

Chapter 1, on historical contexts, includes detailed discussion of Samuel Huntington's “The Clash of Civilizations?”, Michael Ignatieff's “The American Empire”, Anonymous' (Michael Scheuer's) Through ... More

Chapter 1, on historical contexts, includes detailed discussion of Samuel Huntington's “The Clash of Civilizations?”, Michael Ignatieff's “The American Empire”, Anonymous' (Michael Scheuer's) Through Our Enemies' Eyes, Andrew Bacevich's American Empire, and David Harvey's The New Imperialism. It also includes supporting discussion of Niall Ferguson's Colossus, Chalmers Johnson's Blowback, Deepak Lal's In Praise of Empires, and a range of other contemporary source material. The chapter notes that a revisionist analysis of American empire, and critical discussion of “Blowback”, was widespread in mainstream American thought and culture after 9/11.Less

9/11 And US Foreign Policy

David Ryan

in American Thought and Culture in the 21st Century

This chapter makes the case that the events of 11 September 2001 did not represent a major turning point in American diplomatic history. Taking a long historical view, the author, David Ryan, ... More

This chapter makes the case that the events of 11 September 2001 did not represent a major turning point in American diplomatic history. Taking a long historical view, the author, David Ryan, contends that the reaction of the Bush administration in invading Iraq harkened back to old ideas and ideologies associated with the US’s defeat in the Vietnam War and with Cold War tendencies to think in dualistic terms. Concurrent with the resurgence of such mid-to-late twentieth-century ideological positions is the revivification of the 1990s theses of Francis Fukuyama and Samuel Huntington, the ‘end of history’ and ‘the clash of civilisations’ respectively. Ryan argues that their ideas and their constructed notion of ‘the West’, founded on nostalgic and triumphal histories of the Cold War, informed the 2002 National Security Strategy and at a meta-level represent a yearning to inject a particular purpose and morality into American foreign policy.Less

Introduction

David Pedersen

in American Value: Migrants, Money, and Meaning in El Salvador and the United States

In his 2004 book Who Are We? The Challenges to America's National Identity, Samuel P. Huntington argued that America's national culture was at risk due to the recent decades of large-scale population ... More

In his 2004 book Who Are We? The Challenges to America's National Identity, Samuel P. Huntington argued that America's national culture was at risk due to the recent decades of large-scale population migration from Latin America, particularly Mexico. As an example, he noted that 20 percent of the town of Intipucá in El Salvador lived in the Washington DC, neighborhood of Adams Morgan, suggesting that the town appeared to have “colonized” part of America's capital city. This book investigates the relations between El Salvador and the United States during the past five decades. It examines how and why El Salvador has shifted from growing and exporting high-quality coffee beans to sending remittances of more than two billion US dollars annually, courtesy of migrants living in the Washington DC, metropolitan area. Drawing from Karl Marx's approach to capitalist value determination and Charles Peirce's semeiotic logic, the book explores how people and the objective expressions of their social world have together helped shape the overall hemispheric transformation.Less

Thinking Barbarism Today

in Barbarism and Its Discontents

This chapter examines the current discursive landscape around culture, civilization, and barbarism in the turn it took after the Cold War and the collapse of communist regimes in Europe, and ... More

This chapter examines the current discursive landscape around culture, civilization, and barbarism in the turn it took after the Cold War and the collapse of communist regimes in Europe, and especially after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 in the United States. It presents examples from recent Western political rhetoric, especially the rhetoric of the U.S. government after 9/11, and considers some critical responses to this rhetoric. The striking frequency with which the terms “barbarism” and “barbarian” come up in political rhetoric since 9/11 implies a rekindling of debates around the notions of culture, civilization, and barbarism. After 9/11, Mahmood Mamdani argues that culture is projected as “the dividing line between those in favor of a peaceful, civic existence and those inclined to terror.” This “culturalization” of political conflict goes hand in hand with a moralization of global conflicts and is expressed in Samuel Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (1996). This chapter also explores the rhetoric of “zero tolerance” and its relation to a discursive strand that advocates tolerance and human rights.Less

Utilitarian Humanism: “We Other Humans” Regulated by Culture

J. Paul Narkunas

in Reified Life: Speculative Capital and the Ahuman Condition

Through a critical analysis of UNESCO’s instrumentalization of culture, this chapter describes how culture, often defined as a third way between states and markets, functions as a utilitarian ... More

Through a critical analysis of UNESCO’s instrumentalization of culture, this chapter describes how culture, often defined as a third way between states and markets, functions as a utilitarian cash-nexus for policing the limit on useful and non-useful cultures. The author calls this utilitarian humanism, with utility measuring what forms of life are recognized as human. With an extended engagement of utilitarianism, the chapter outlines how oppositional cultural critics and realpolitik figures like Samuel Huntington share the same notions of culture as ontologically given that instrumentalizes life and generates a hierarchy of life based on utilitarian categories. This chapter ends by delineating a type of immanent ahuman agency through Giambattista Vico, Deleuze and the stoics notions of “haeccity,” or “thisness” as an antidote to cultural normativity.Less

The Protestant ethic revisited: conservative Christianity and the quality of American democracy

John Anderson

in Christianity and Democratisation: From Pious Subjects to Critical Participants

This chapter examines the developments in Anglo-Protestant culture, with particular reference to its likely consequences for the evolution of American democracy. The factors contributing to the ... More

This chapter examines the developments in Anglo-Protestant culture, with particular reference to its likely consequences for the evolution of American democracy. The factors contributing to the emergence of the Christian Right correspond to those underlying the wider rise of political religion in various parts of the world. The Christian Right threatened American democracy. It promotes a socially conservative agenda. The argument of the Christian Right is that post-war ‘judicial tyranny’ has reinterpreted the First Amendment in such as way as to distort the intention of the founders by creating ever-larger hurdles to religious involvement in politics. There is an interesting parallel between Samuel Huntington's argument that Anglo-Protestant culture is somehow central to American identity and Christian Right claims that good governance requires Christian input into the political process. Christian Right leaders are concerned with their loss of power and authority.Less

Introduction the Next American Century?

Martin Halliwell and Catherine Morley

in American Thought and Culture in the 21st Century

The introduction traces the changing patterns of American thought and culture in its transition into the early twenty-first century, looking particularly at two perceived turning points: the ... More

The introduction traces the changing patterns of American thought and culture in its transition into the early twenty-first century, looking particularly at two perceived turning points: the political swing back towards the right represented by the election of George W. Bush in November 2000 and the attacks of 11 September 2001. Considering whether the early events of the new century represented a rupture or continuity with the closing years of the twentieth century, the authors, Martin Halliwell and Catherine Morley, go on to discuss ideas of nationhood, the transnational, and the ideological and geographical reconfiguration of the United States with reference to historical figures like Randolph Bourne and contemporary commentators such as Janice Radway, Thomas Friedman and Samuel Huntington. All eighteen of the contributing chapters are introduced in overview in order to remap the United States in the early century and to reassess the nation’s place within world affairs.Less

“Ghost in the House”: Muhammad Ali and the Rise of the “Green Menace”

Sohail Daulatzai

in Black Star, Crescent Moon: The Muslim International and Black Freedom beyond America

This chapter explores the political and cultural history of boxer Muhammad Ali and his status as a national hero in the post-Cold War 1990s, a period when the Muslim International, through hip-hop ... More

This chapter explores the political and cultural history of boxer Muhammad Ali and his status as a national hero in the post-Cold War 1990s, a period when the Muslim International, through hip-hop culture, struggled to rekindle and reinvigorate the legacy of Black Islam. This post-Civil Rights fear of the “Muslim terrorist” gave way to a full-blown ideological paradigm of the “Green Menace” of Islam, replacing the “Red Scare” of communism during the Cold War elaborated in Samuel Huntington’s theory of “Clash of Civilizations.” The chapter draws from Huntington’s theory in examining Muhammad Ali’s recuperation being a symbol for the fear and containment of Black Islam within a narrative of American universalism, stripping Black Islam of its internationalist impulses.Less

Empire of Light

Jason Blakely

in We Built Reality: How Social Science Infiltrated Culture, Politics, and Power

False claims to scientific authority were used to advance the American and British war on terror. In popular rhetoric, President George W. Bush borrowed (and distorted) one of the most influential ... More

False claims to scientific authority were used to advance the American and British war on terror. In popular rhetoric, President George W. Bush borrowed (and distorted) one of the most influential theses of political science, the claim that democracies do not fight with one another. Bush also named prominent political scientists, including Francis Fukuyama—who claimed history had reached its culmination in liberal democracies—to prominent advisory positions in government. In addition, other prominent social scientists, such as Samuel Huntington, provided alternative social scientific justifications for the war on terror and later nationalistic public policy that relied on creating permanent outsider identities for Muslims and Latinos. Scientism helped American and British citizens imagine that their use of military violence was fully rational and objectively justified as the war on terror turned into the rise of ultranationalism.Less

Forging the Sword: Civil–Military Relations and Military Effectiveness

Anit Mukherjee

in The Absent Dialogue: Politicians, Bureaucrats, and the Military in India

This chapter explains the book’s theoretical underpinnings. It begins by discussing the contrasting views of Samuel Huntington and Eliot Cohen on the preferred role and “balance” of civil–military ... More

This chapter explains the book’s theoretical underpinnings. It begins by discussing the contrasting views of Samuel Huntington and Eliot Cohen on the preferred role and “balance” of civil–military relations. Next, it examines patterns of democratic civil–military relations to argue that they are shaped largely by three factors—the struggle over military autonomy, the issue of civilian expertise, and institutional design, specifically the manner in which the Ministry of Defence interacts with the services. The next section discusses the concept of military effectiveness as adopted in this book. Drawing inspiration from previous works, it examines five processes associated with effective militaries. These variables, analyzed subsequently in separate chapters, are weapons procurement, jointness, professional military education, officer promotion policies, and defense planning. The chapter then discusses the study of the Indian military and its effectiveness and concludes by describing the analytical framework adopted in the rest of the book.Less

Modern Usage

Aaron W. Hughes

in Abrahamic Religions: On the Uses and Abuses of History

This chapter examines some of the contemporary uses to which the category has been put in the years after September 11, 2001. No longer perceived in a supersessionist manner (as in chapter two) or as ... More

This chapter examines some of the contemporary uses to which the category has been put in the years after September 11, 2001. No longer perceived in a supersessionist manner (as in chapter two) or as a moral antidote to a contemporary malaise (as in chapter three), we now clearly see “Abrahamic religions” being used to delineate a set of qualities that can subsequently be used in the quest for interfaith understanding. Like its predecessors, however, the term is still every bit as ahistorical and essential.Less

What Is Religion?: Categorical Reconfigurations in a Global Horizon

Richard Madsen

in The Post-Secular in Question: Religion in Contemporary Society

This chapter considers the secular categories used today for understanding or misunderstanding religion across cultures. It first discusses the disputes that arise when Western scholars try to make ... More

This chapter considers the secular categories used today for understanding or misunderstanding religion across cultures. It first discusses the disputes that arise when Western scholars try to make sense out of religious cultures in non-Western societies, and particularly when it comes to defining and classifying religious phenomena. It then explores how the opening of new global horizons is now forcing us to name things anew and to alter the frames of reference that give names their meaning. It also proposes a narrative approach to make intellectual sense out of the vast variety of constantly changing religious cultures that confronts us today. Finally, it explains how the West's forms of dialogue about the “immanent frame” and transcendence are thrown into confusion by citing the debate that started in the 1990s over Samuel Huntington's article and book on the “clash of civilizations”.Less