• About Kathy Shaidle
  • Kathy Shaidle: Donate
  • Kathy Shaidle: Privacy policy

5 Feet of Fury

Kathy Shaidle's blog. Est. 2000

Remembering Samuel Huntington’s other book

December 30, 2008 By admin

Fouad Ajami on Who Are We: The Challenges to America’s National Identity :

He wrote in that book of the “American Creed,” and of its erosion among the elites. Its key elements — the English language, Christianity, religious commitment, English concepts of the rule of law, the responsibility of rulers, and the rights of individuals — he said are derived from the “distinct Anglo-Protestant culture of the founding settlers of America in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.”

Critics who branded the book as a work of undisguised nativism missed an essential point. Huntington observed that his was an “argument for the importance of Anglo-Protestant culture, not for the importance of Anglo-Protestant people.” The success of this great republic, he said, had hitherto depended on the willingness of generations of Americans to honor the creed of the founding settlers and to shed their old affinities. But that willingness was being battered by globalization and multiculturalism, and by new waves of immigrants with no deep attachments to America’s national identity. “The Stars and Stripes were at half-mast,” he wrote in “Who Are We?”, “and other flags flew higher on the flagpole of American identities.”

More from my site

  • Shocka! ‘The vaunted 25-54 demo is malarkey’Shocka! ‘The vaunted 25-54 demo is malarkey’
  • ‘As usual, people are now accusing her of being (…) a bigot…’‘As usual, people are now accusing her of being (…) a bigot…’
  • Everything you’ve heard is true: Zach Paikin really is a dickheadEverything you’ve heard is true: Zach Paikin really is a dickhead
  • My NEW Taki’s column on smart women and ‘studies’My NEW Taki’s column on smart women and ‘studies’

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: :entry:fivefeet-2008-12-30-0010

« United 93 disgrace: families of hijacking victims want to hijack another guy’s stuff
UPDATED: Russia battles Islam within its borders: my latest in FrontPage Magazine »
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Archives

Copyright © 2022 · Magazine Pro Theme On Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in