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February 10, 2012
Lisa M. Krieger: Man with defibrillator demands access to his own heart's information
David G. Savage: Why activists may not be in a hurry to have High Court rule on alternative marriage
February 9, 2012
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Kimberly Palmer: How to actually enjoy -- relaxing, financially -- your vacation
February 8, 2012
Warren Richey: Why momentous Prop. 8 ruling might not satisfy gay-rights groups
Menachem Wecker: Though Controversial, LL.M.'s Can Lead to Specialized Legal Jobs
The Kosher Gourmet byDana Velden: Going to the bother of making soup? You know it better be good. This CREAM OF TOMATO SOUP certainly is! And it's a cinch to make, too (Includes techinques and serving secrets)
February 7, 2012
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Caught off-guard? President's Super Bowl interview with Matt Lauer gives those who need a reason not to vote for him, a darn good one
Suzanne Bohan: Leaping lizards! Tiny reptiles advancing robot design
February 6, 2012
Jonathan Tobin: Iran Threatens Israel With Destruction, But the New York Times Doesn't Hear It
Jeffrey Fleishman: In newly democratic Egypt, tens of democracy activists jailed, to stand trial; their groups are 'threatening the stability of the homeland'
Julie Deardorff : Researchers say antioxidants may not be that effective and could do more harm than good
Mark Clayton: How did Anonymous hackers eavesdrop on FBI and Scotland Yard?
February 3, 2012
Edmund Sanders : Israeli official says Iran is creating missile that could reach East Coast of US
Victoria Kim: Immigrant-smuggling ring used black drivers to avoid racial profiling
February 2, 2012
Jim Carney: Wrong number call may have saved her life
Reza Kahlili : Ex-CIA spy in Iran's Revolutionary Guard: What Obama doesn't grasp about striking deals with Tehran
Tina Susman: For woodchuck rescuer, every day is Groundhog Day
February 1, 2012
Brian Bennett: US officials see increasing threat of domestic attack from Iran
Emily Brandon: How to Take Advantage of New 401(k) Fee Disclosures
January 31, 2012
January 30, 2012
Paul Richter and Ramin Mostaghim: Misreading Teheran's limits -- deadly and economically devastating as they may be -- is a risk administration, Europe seem willing to take
Suzanne Bohan: Warning: Nap-deprived tots missing more than sleep, study finds
Meg Handley: Banks Revamping Rewards Programs to Woo Customers
January 27, 2012
Caroline B. Glick: Obama: Of course I intend to prevent a nuclear holocaust . . . in a few months
Yochonon Donn: In liberal New York City, fervently-Orthodox Jews may soon be getting a district to call their own
Jeannine Stein: An inflated ego and thinking you're 'all that' doesn't just make others sick of you, it can make you ill
Katy Hopkins: New budget rules may affect how much money you get for college
January 26, 2012
Ed Koch: To the New York Times, calling for the murder of Jews by those capable of having their incitement taken seriously isn't news
Jeannine Stein: Mental illness struck one in five U.S. adults in 2010: Report
January 25, 2012
Richard Simon: House passes two bills endorsing the use of religious symbols at military memorials
Fred Weir: Putin: Multiethnic Russia cannot survive as a US-style 'melting pot'; must find its own way
Susan Johnston: 5 Sneaky Coupon Strategies Consumers Should Watch Out For
January 24, 2012
Carol Clark: The price of your soul: How your brain decides whether to 'sell out'
Caroline B. Glick: America lost most in 'Arab Spring'. Sadly, many voters still don't grasp the extent
Warren Richey: Drug criminal scores win in GPS ruling from conservative-leaning high court
Erika Bolstad: Black conservatives gather to talk about gaining strength
January 23, 2012
Melissa Dribben: Jewish voters to play a key role in Florida's Republican primary
Jordan Rau: In quest to grow, Catholic hospital system will announce this morning its break from church
Ali Safi: U.S. envoy gives Taliban terms for peace talks
January 19, 2012
January 18, 2012
January 17, 2012
Frank J. Gaffney Jr.: No-kidding red lines: U.S. response to an Iranian nuke may be bluster, but Israel's won't be
David G. Savage: They sued their principals after slandering them online --- now the cases are headed to the Supreme Court
David Francis: Where to Invest in 2012: With stocks expected to rebound, opportunity abounds for investors
January 13, 2012
Ben Lynfield: Israeli lawmakers move to annex Jewish Judea, one museum at a time
Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz: Thriving through touch: Gentle massage helps older people with low mobility improve in mind and body
January 12, 2012
Warren Richey: Landmark Supreme Court ruling a 'resounding win' for religious groups
Warren Richey: Supreme Court says no to new rule on eyewitness testimony
John Fauber : Statins found to raise diabetes risk in postmenopausal women
Katy Hopkins : Consider This Before You Pay for an Online Degree
The Kosher Gourmet by Joseph Erdos: This mushroom and barley soup has an intense -- almost nutty -- flavor that mixes robust with Middle East. It has creaminess without cream
January 11, 2012
Shari Roan: Millions of atrial fibrillation sufferers at risk for devastating, but preventable, stroke
Tom Hussain: Pakistan -- recipient of more than $21 billion in civilian and military aid -- speeds pursuit of Iranian pipeline, defying US
David G. Savage: High court signals it won't be loosening TV's 'indecency' rules
Stephen Ceasar: Oklahoma's Islamic law amendment can't go into effect, court rules
January 10, 2012
Reza Kahlili: From an ex-CIA spy: US must exploit new split in Iran's Revolutionary Guard
Karen Kaplan: Study: Nicotine replacement products ineffective when used in real-life situations
January 9, 2012
Michael Doyle: Put through legal hell over dream home, couple fought back hard --- all the way to Supreme Court
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Jewish World Review
January 5, 2009
/ 9 Teves 5769
Sam Huntington was plainly correct
By
Rod Dreher
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
If 2008 taught us anything, it was the danger of listening to people who tell us what we want to hear. Anybody with a lick of sense should have seen that we were living inside a bubble of Panglossian optimism that had little basis in observable fact. But as George Orwell quipped, "To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle."
Samuel P. Huntington, the eminent Harvard political scientist who died on Christmas Eve, was used to being derided for his ability to see what was in front of our collective nose and to describe it to people who didn't want to hear. In 1957, he rankled the academic establishment with his first book, The Soldier and the State, which argued that protecting our liberal political and social order required a professional military that held a far less idealistic view of human nature than many of us tender.
His thesis appalled academic elites of the day, who misread it as a defense of militarism. In fact, Huntington all his life a New Deal Democrat argued that liberals favor individualism because they take security for granted. Conservatives, including soldiers, understand that security is not in the natural order of things and that protecting our liberal order in a hostile world requires rejecting the standard liberal view of good, evil and human nature.
The Soldier and the State, despite its seeming paradoxical, ideologically inconvenient message, went on to become a realist classic and Huntington's brilliant career was launched.
If you've heard of Sam Huntington at all, it's probably because of his 1996 book, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order . He was the Cassandra who showed up at the post-Cold War victory party to point out that history hadn't ended at all and that Western liberal democracy hadn't been vindicated as a universal ideal. In fact, he said, the world was headed into a time of multipolar conflict in which culture was the dominant factor in international relations.
This was heresy to the globalized cosmopolitan elites, who had convinced themselves that capitalism and democracy had trumped older loyalties of race, religion and soil. Huntington struck a particular nerve by drawing attention to what he called "Islam's bloody borders" the plain fact that Muslims were involved in far more intergroup armed conflicts than members of any other of the contemporary world's nine great civilizations.
Far from the smug racist many critics accused him of being, Huntington was attempting to shake arrogant Americans out of their delusion that the rest of the world's people are like them or want to be. Believe that nonsense, he said, and you'll blunder into all kinds of trouble. Within a decade, the 9/11 attacks and the Bush administration's catastrophic moral crusade to turn Muslims into good Western liberals would do much to prove Huntington's point.
His final book, Who Are We? The Challenges to America's Identity (2004), drew the usual caterwauling from multiculturalist bien-pensants. He argued that the essential American identity is rooted in the Anglo-Protestant culture of the founding generations. Immigrants from the world over have been grafted successfully onto this essential culture and its ideals, hence the historical success and dynamism of our nation.
We are at a crossroads now, he contended, because the nation is being overwhelmed by an unprecedented level of Latin American immigration at precisely the moment when its ability to assimilate them to traditional Anglo-Protestant norms (as inculcated in U.S. Catholics, Jews and other non-Anglo, non-Protestants) is flagging because our elites no longer believe in them. Either we figure out how to revitalize our Anglo-Protestant culture which is not the same thing as ethnicity or we could see the fracturing of America along linguistic and cultural lines.
For describing the world as it is, not as elites would like it to be, and for defending liberalism against the mindless orthodoxies of liberals, Huntington was savaged as a bigot. But he had been there before. History suggests that sooner or later, even his critics will catch up to Sam Huntington.
The professor's cant-piercing insights derived from his tragic vision. He deeply believed in liberal values and liberal institutions, but he understood as few Americans of his class do how little we can take for granted in this fallen world. To protect and preserve what is best in our political and social order, we have to see clearly how contingent it all is. Defenders of liberalism had better be conservative about human nature or else.
No wonder his was a solitary path. But then, great men rarely run with the herd.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
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Rod Dreher is assistant editorial page editor of the Dallas Morning News and author of "Crunchy Cons" (Crown Forum).
PREVIOUSLY
11/10/08: Here comes the conservative civil war
10/21/08: Mad men in crazy economic times
10/14/08: The positive act of not voting
10/09/08: The speech John McCain should give
09/30/08: And it was written, our blame
09/22/08: The Beehive buzzes for Sarah Palin
09/08/08: Palin's a fighter and worth fighting for
09/02/08: GOP slouches toward St. Paul
07/18/08: Wall-E Pixar's surprisingly political postmodern masterpiece
06/08/08: Era of cheap airfare is over
05/29/08: What if they're not smart enough?
05/11/08: From horror, a child's loving gift
05/07/08:Will a canary be our last meal?
04/03/08: Economic crisis is of our own making
02/14/08: What child-men need is some tradition
02/05/08: A Republican victory this year could do more long-term damage to the party than a loss
01/22/08: Putting faith in Obama: Do GOPers tempted by him know what they're supporting?
11/20/07: We can't fix the world with The Care Bear Stare
10/17/07: Every father should read this book to his son
10/03/07: Not even our parks are safe … And I lay at least part of the blame on the cultural revolution and our obsession with the individual
08/22/07: The Decalogue, dangerous? Advice for a society that cringes at commandments
08/15/07: Playing the anti-science card
08/01/07: How the U.S. can avoid its own version of the fall of the Roman empire
07/24/07: Conservative author: Big business can be as dangerous a threat as big government
07/09/07: All quiet but the doleful pleas of a father who knows
06/28/07: When we let conspiracy theory masquerade as news, we fall prey to much more than deception
06/20/07: Stranded on Delta: They may love to fly, but it certainly doesn't show
06/13/07: When did conservatism start to mean never having to say you're sorry?
05/08/07: PBS darling gets abused by PC police
05/02/07: Impervious to beauty and deadened to depravity
04/20/07: What I know about being a loner
10/28/05: How the conservatives crumble
© 2007, The Dallas Morning News,
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
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