Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

"Clash of Civilizations" author Samuel Huntington dies
Reuters ^ | December 27, 2008 | Muralikumar Anantharaman

Posted on 12/27/2008 6:43:54 PM PST by rmlew

BOSTON (Reuters) - Political scientist Samuel Huntington, whose controversial book "The Clash of Civilizations" predicted conflict between the West and the Islamic world, has died at age 81, Harvard University said on Saturday.

Huntington, who taught for 58 years at Harvard before retiring in 2007, died Wednesday at a nursing facility in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, the university said on its website.

In his 1996 "The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order," which expanded on his 1993 article in Foreign Affairs magazine, Huntington divided the world into rival civilizations based mainly on religious traditions such as Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Confucianism and said competition and conflict among them was inevitable.

His focus on religion rather than ideology as a source of conflict in the post-Cold War world triggered broad debate about relations between the Western and Islamic worlds, especially in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

(Excerpt) Read more at uk.reuters.com ...


TOPICS: Books/Literature; History; Religion
KEYWORDS: clashofcivilizations; clashofcivs; godsgravesglyphs; huntington; islam; obituary; pages; rop; samhuntington; samuelhuntington; samuelphuntington; thewest; wot
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-23 next last
I almost forgot Samuel P Huntington served in the Carter administration. He was a liberal who never adapted to the increasingly left wing political and academic culture.

The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order was one of the best books on international affairs. Although I may disagree with his oversimplification of Japan and Israel, his general points remain.

Who Are We? The Challenges to America's National Identity deserves at least as much attention.

It took many of us until 9/11 to realize the truth of what Huntington wrote in his 1993 Foreign Affairs article, "The Clash of Civilizations?".

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.


And how many supposed conservatives would be as forthright as to speak on culture the way the liberal Huntington did?

Cultural America is under siege. And as the Soviet experience illustrates, ideology is a weak glue to hold together people otherwise lacking racial, ethnic, and cultural sources of community. Who Are We? America's Great Debate,

1 posted on 12/27/2008 6:43:54 PM PST by rmlew
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: rmlew

Huntington’s views replaced the kindly, fatherly, Greek-studying-the-Barbarian understanding of Bernard Lewis. Lewis’ work was seminal in its day.

http://www.princeton.edu/~nes/faculty_lewis.html

http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/4124.html

I guess future work will be written by the other side. Ibn Khaldun would be proud.


2 posted on 12/27/2008 6:55:48 PM PST by combat_boots ("In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."Aldous Huxley)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: rmlew; All
I haven't followed too much of Huntington's work but I think he was a JFK/Scoop Jackson kind of Democrat who was somewhat liberal but believed in a strong defense and a strong US stance in the world?

Just the fact that the excecrable Edward Said whined about SH makes me think there was something right about the "clash of civilizations" thesis. Leftists always whine about "simplistic" etc. when anyone shows clearly how great the dangers facing us might be, whether from communist-scum or Islamo-scum or other leftist-scum.....

"Despite criticism his thesis was simplistic or in the words of Middle East scholar Edward Said promoted the idea of "West versus the rest....""

Considering that Said spent most of his life promoting "the rest vs. the West" it is amusing that he was critical of SH on this point, but it is a reminder that leftists like Said are continually working to undermine our resolve to defend ourselves.

3 posted on 12/27/2008 7:02:28 PM PST by Enchante (Bernie Madoff Learned His Investment Strategy from our Social Security System!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: rmlew

Son of Astoria, Queens, like Chris Walken, Tony Bennett, and Patrick McGoohan.


4 posted on 12/27/2008 7:03:59 PM PST by Clemenza (Red is the Color of Virility, Blue is the Color of Impotence)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

Huntington was one of the truly great political scientists. He was unashamedly pro-American. His great work, “Political Order in Changing Societies” may be dated now, but it was highly influential for many years. RIP.


5 posted on 12/27/2008 7:12:44 PM PST by RandyGH (Democrats--So far left they've left America)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: Clemenza
Also Whitey Ford. And Tony Bennett has turned into a raving moonbat. Seems the water in Frisco has rotted his brain.
6 posted on 12/27/2008 7:24:01 PM PST by JimC214
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: JimC214

Antonio Benedetto has been a flaming lefty since at least the 1960s. Greatest delivery of any male vocalist of the 20th century, exceeded only by the Chairman.


7 posted on 12/27/2008 7:28:41 PM PST by Clemenza (Red is the Color of Virility, Blue is the Color of Impotence)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Clemenza

Oh yes a great voice. No argument about that.


8 posted on 12/27/2008 7:34:39 PM PST by JimC214
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: rmlew

RIP.


9 posted on 12/27/2008 7:41:37 PM PST by fieldmarshaldj (~"This is what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps !"~~)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Clemenza

> Antonio Benedetto has been a flaming lefty since at least the 1960s. Greatest delivery of any male vocalist of the 20th century, exceeded only by the Chairman. <

Agreed. And ironically, TB’s singing got better as his politics got worse! The stuff he recorded in the 1950’s was usually awful — crooner-pop music at its worst.


10 posted on 12/27/2008 7:43:01 PM PST by Hawthorn
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: Enchante
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.

This alone should have been an indication that it is no as simple as "the West vs. the rest". Perhaps, "the civilized vs the tribal religious fanatics" might be closer to the mark. Watch a short video of Gaza and decide.

11 posted on 12/27/2008 9:46:47 PM PST by JimSEA
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: Clemenza
None of them sound Greek or Indian. ;-)
Gotta love NYC. If you are bored with a neighborhood, come back in a decade and its a different place.
12 posted on 12/28/2008 12:33:32 AM PST by rmlew (The loyal opposition to a regime dedicated to overthrowing the Constitution are accomplices.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: rmlew
At roughly the same time as The Clash of Civilizations was published, Francis Fukujama's The End of History also came out. For a few years the optimistic Fukujama's prediction of a future universally enlightened and democratic world competed with Huntington's much darker view. These days it is pretty clear that Huntington was basically right.
13 posted on 12/28/2008 4:08:10 AM PST by Lucius Cornelius Sulla (Just because I am an Oogedy-Boogedy kind of guy!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: JimSEA

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.

This alone should have been an indication that it is no as simple as “the West vs. the rest”. Perhaps, “the civilized vs the tribal religious fanatics” might be closer to the mark. Watch a short video of Gaza and decide.

If I may...

The radical loser (Long Read)
Der Spiegel ^ | 1/12/05 | Hans Magnus Enzensberger
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1694568/posts

(snip)

But what happens when the radical loser overcomes his isolation, when he becomes socialized, finds a loser-home, from which he can expect not only understanding but also recognition, a collective of people like himself who welcome him, who need him?

Then, the destructive energy that lies within him is multiplied – his unscrupulousness, his amalgam of death-wish and megalomania – and he is rescued from his powerlessness by a fatal sense of omnipotence.

For this to take place, however, a kind of ideological trigger is required to ignite the radical loser and make him explode. As history shows us, offers of this kind have never been in short supply. Their content is of the least importance. They may be religious or political doctrines, nationalist, communist or racist dogmas – any form of sectarianism, however bigoted, is capable of mobilizing the latent energy of the radical loser.

(snip)

To date, few loser-collectives have operated on a global scale, even if they were able to count on international flows of cash and weapon supplies. But the world is teeming with local groupings whose leaders are referred to as warlords or guerrilla chiefs. Their self-appointed militias and paramilitary gangs like to adorn themselves with the title of a liberation organization or other revolutionary attributes. In some media, they are referred to as rebels, a euphemism that probably flatters them. Shining Path, MLC, RCD, SPLA, ELA, LTTE, LRA, FNL, IRA, LIT, KACH, DHKP, FSLN, UVF, JKLF, ELN, FARC, PLF, GSPC, MILF, NPA, PKK, MODEL, JI, NPA, AUC, CPNML, UDA, GIA, RUF, LVF, SNM, ETA, NLA, PFLP, SPM, LET, ONLF, SSDF, PIJ, JEM, SLA, ANO, SPLMA, RAF, AUM, PGA, ADF, IBDA, ULFA, PLFM, ULFBV, ISYF, LURD, KLO, UPDS, NLFT, ATTF ...

“Left” or “Right”, it makes no odds. Each of these armed rabbles calls itself an army, boasts of brigades and commandos, self-importantly issuing bureaucratic communiqués and boastful claims of responsibility, acting as if they were the representatives of “the masses”.

(snip)

The movement’s list of favourite foes is also short on surprises: America, the decadent West, international capital, Zionism. The list is completed by the unbelievers, that is to say the remaining 5.2 billion people on the planet. Not forgetting apostate Muslims who may be found among the Shiites, Ibadhis, Alawites, Zaidites, Ahmadiyyas, Wahhabis, Druze, Sufis, Kharijites, Ishmaelites or other religious communities.

(snip)

Contrary to what the West appears to believe, the destructive energy of Islamist actions is directed mainly against Muslims. This is not a tactical error, not a case of “collateral damage”. In Algeria alone, Islamist terror has cost the lives of at least 50,000 fellow Algerians. Other sources speak of as many as 150,000 murders, although the military and the secret services were also involved. In Iraq and Afghanistan, too, the number of Muslim victims far outstrips the death toll among foreigners. Furthermore, terrorism has been highly detrimental not only to the image of Islam but also to the living conditions of Muslims around the world.

The Islamists are as unconcerned about this as the Nazis were about the downfall of Germany. As the avant-garde of death, they have no regard for the lives of their fellow believers. In the eyes of the Islamists, the fact that most Muslims have no desire to blow themselves and others sky high only goes to show that they deserve no better than to be liquidated themselves. After all, the aim of the radical loser is to make as many other people into losers as possible. As the Islamists see it, the fact that they are in the minority can only be because they are the chosen few.

(snip)


14 posted on 12/28/2008 4:49:01 AM PST by Valin
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: Enchante
I read Clash of Civilizations back in 2005 after my adviser at grad school recommended it to me. It's really excellent. It was written in 1996, yet it explains the causes of 9/11 better than anything I've read after the attacks.
15 posted on 12/28/2008 12:15:16 PM PST by Right_Wing_Madman
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: Berosus; Fred Nerks; Convert from ECUSA; dervish; Ernest_at_the_Beach

· join list or digest · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post a topic ·

 
Gods
Graves
Glyphs
I have a feeling this topic will be a troll magnet, so no ping, just adding to the catalog as a "Pages" topic.
Political scientist Samuel Huntington, whose controversial book "The Clash of Civilizations" predicted conflict between the West and the Islamic world, has died at age 81, Harvard University said on Saturday. Huntington, who taught for 58 years at Harvard before retiring in 2007, died Wednesday at a nursing facility in Martha's Vineyard... In his 1996 "The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order," which expanded on his 1993 article in Foreign Affairs magazine, Huntington divided the world into rival civilizations based mainly on religious traditions such as Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Confucianism and said competition and conflict among them was inevitable.
To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.
GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach
 

· Google · Archaeologica · ArchaeoBlog · Archaeology · Biblical Archaeology Society ·
· Discover · Nat Geographic · Texas AM Anthro News · Yahoo Anthro & Archaeo ·
· The Archaeology Channel · Excerpt, or Link only? · cgk's list of ping lists ·


16 posted on 12/28/2008 2:26:06 PM PST by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/_______Profile finally updated Saturday, December 6, 2008 !!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: AdmSmith; george76; Seadog Bytes; texasredhead8712; TexKat; ValerieTexas

The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order The Clash of Civilizations
and the
Remaking of World Order

by Samuel P. Huntington


17 posted on 12/28/2008 2:43:09 PM PST by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/_______Profile finally updated Saturday, December 6, 2008 !!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: combat_boots
Lewis is an Orientalist. He likes Islam and has lied about Dhimmitude.
In a sane world, he would be considered the problem. Sadly thanks to cultural marxism, Third Worldism, and Saudi co-opting of the academy he seems mainstream.
18 posted on 12/28/2008 4:18:17 PM PST by rmlew (The loyal opposition to a regime dedicated to overthrowing the Constitution are accomplices.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Lucius Cornelius Sulla

A few years after that Thomas L. Friedman wrote the even sillier “Lexus and Olive Tree”. Fortunately, Friedman works for the NY Times so intelligence and results are irrelevant.


19 posted on 12/28/2008 4:20:14 PM PST by rmlew (The loyal opposition to a regime dedicated to overthrowing the Constitution are accomplices.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: neverdem

I think I had the first post on Huntington’s passing. I was a little freaky for me, since I had spend Christmas day reading “Who Are We?”.


20 posted on 01/03/2009 1:00:45 PM PST by rmlew (The loyal opposition to a regime dedicated to overthrowing the Constitution are accomplices.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-23 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson