>The Significance of Samuel Huntingdon
On the 24th of December, 2008 Samuel P Huntingdon died. He served as one of the great political theorists of our generation. It is impossible to sum up adequately the contribution of such an intellectual in a few short lines so we will restrict ourselves to commenting upon some aspects of his work that have made a profound impression and for which we will remain thankful and indebted.
Huntingdon’s theories stirred great controversy in modern liberal academic Athens. True, he was one of them—but he was like another branch of the family that no-one really wants to talk about. A great deal of modern Athenian thinking is deterministic in some way or other. Men are seen as behaving in a certain way because they have been shaped or conditioned to behave that way. External factors are seen as governing human behaviour. Huntingdon was clearly a determinist: but his particular take on what determined human action and behaviour was offensive to most of his generation.
The most pervasive deterministic theory in Athens today is marxism and its socialist derivatives. Here, human action is shaped and conditioned by economic forces and conditions. Crudely put, marxism asserts that if someone is well fed and clothed relatively comfortably he will be a happy chappie. The solution of all the world’s problems, then, lies in ensuring that everyone is fed, watered, and clothed. Socialism sees that all the wars of the world, all the crime in the world, is over material goods and their ownership: if we ensure that everyone has an adequate and a “just” distribution of material goods, nirvana will break out.
The second most pervasive deterministic theory in Athens is the liberal-democratic theory. This particular form of determinism is the darling of the right-wing, of the neo-conservatives, of the libertarians, and their fellow-travelers. The idea is that if you just give people a taste of political liberty and freedom, it will result in significant improvements in their society, growing prosperity, respect for law and order, reduction in crime, and so forth. Here, a political order of liberty and freedom to be and do determines the well-being of man and society.
It was “neocon” determinism that helped persuade the US to invade Iraq. If Saddam were to be toppled and the Iraqi people given a taste of political freedom, the transformation of that country into a modern western liberal democracy complete with economic prosperity would be the eventual result.
Huntingdon was a more profound deterministic thinker than most of his generation. He rejected the reductionism of his “economic man” opponents and argued instead that human action is determined by cultures and that cultures are very complex, deeply rooted, visceral—and above all, shaped by religion. It is his insistence upon the power of religion that was so offensive to modern materialists–whether marxists or neocons. He argued that the clashes and wars to come would be fought not between communism and capitalism, nor between the tyrants and the democrats, but between opposed civilisations—in particular, the clash between Christianity and Islam.
He wrote:
It is my hypothesis that the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic. The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. Nation-states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future.
And again:
In Eurasia the great historic fault lines between civilizations are once more aflame. This is particularly true along the boundaries of the crescent-shaped Islamic bloc of nations, from the bulge of Africa to central Asia. Violence also occurs between Muslims, on the one hand, and Orthodox Serbs in the Balkans, Jews in Israel, Hindus in India, Buddhists in Burma and Catholics in the Philippines. Islam has bloody borders.
Islam’s borders are bloody and so are its innards. The fundamental problem for the West is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is Islam, a different civilisation whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power.
Huntingdon was writing this in the 1990’s, long before 9/11, in his famous “Clash o f Civilisations” paper in Foreign Affairs, later expanded into a book. After 9/11 he achieved for a time the status of a prophet.
One of the distinctive features of his work is Huntingdon’s rejection of meta-history, or the idea that mankind is part of a cosmic plan of some kind. He refused to see in the United States a manifest destiny for the whole world; he argued instead that the US was a the product of a unique set of historical circumstances, unlikely to be replicated elsewhere. Attempts to “export” the US as a political and economic system were therefore doomed to failure.
He argued, and was hated for it by the liberal Left, that immigration should be restricted in the United States. A nation cannot cohere, he reasoned, without a common culture. It is culture that is the fundamental determiner of human society. Without a common culture, a nation will break apart. When the New York Times argued that the US historically had been built upon immigration, he replied that US immigration up to the mid-twentieth century had been predominantly Christian, and therefore shared the same attributes of US culture itself.
Huntingdon was wrong in rejecting meta-history; but he was right in rejecting any possibility of a coherent meta-history from within humanity itself. Had he understood the Christian faith better, he would have discerned that indeed the human race has a meta-history, but that it belongs not to man but to the Man, Christ Jesus, our Lord to Whom the Father has granted all authority and power.
Huntingdon was wrong in asserting the determinism of culture, but was right in stressing that mankind is powerfully conditioned and shaped by deeply held cultural beliefs, manifested in particular religions—whether truthful or idolatrous—and that these influences are far more powerful in shaping nations and society than a western liberal education or food in the belly. However, culture is deeply powerful but not ultimately deterministic, since when the light of the glory of God shines upon a people, they come from darkness to light.
Cultures are ultimately religious—yes, Huntingdon was right in this—but by the power of the Spirit of God, people can and do change from Unbelief (whether of the Islamic or modern secular Athenian liberal stripe). When their religion changes, their culture changes. But the change must come from God, not from men. Men are weak and their hearts are deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Only God can change the hearts of men through the Gospel, which is the power of God unto salvation.
We mark the passing of an Athenian giant. He was an embarrassment to many in that City. He was not liked amongst the effete liberals nor the gung-ho neocons. But his estrangement from parts of that City tells us more about Athens than it does about Huntingdon. We salute you and mark your passing from the sight of mortal men, with respect.
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