More On Samuel Huntington and Fouad Ajami

“Critics who branded (Huntingdon’s) 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.'”

Faoud Ajami
Wall Street Journal Article On Huntington

1.) It is difficult to see how one can get to Anglo-Protestant culture apart from a majority of Anglo-Protestant people. Huntington desired A native America maintaining its original meaning but manned by a people shaped and drawn by a plethora of alien cultures. This is the ridiculous notion of America as a “proposition nation.” Now certainly people from other cultures and nations can become American but only as America remains a majority of Anglo-Protestant people. When America becomes a majority of non Anglo-Protestant people America will no longer have a Anglo-protestant culture.

2.) The third sentence of that quote above is also questionable. During the war of Northern Aggression many immigrants did not honor the creed of the founding settlers and did not shed their old affinities but instead forced those old socialistic affinities on the South and the country through the war and the reconstruction that followed. An argument might be made that what happened in the war of Northern aggression was that America was battered by the use of those immigrants who had no deep attachment to America’s national identity.

This can be seen in how the Union cause attracted to itself numerous German revolutionaries who had fled to America after collapse of the European uprisings of 1848. Though they had left the Deutschland behind, these Germans had not abandoned a radicalism that was anything but American. As a result they were among the greatest haters of all things American. Professor Clyde Wilson reminds us of an encounter between one of these German radicals and Confederate General Richard Taylor. In his elegant memoir, “Destruction and Reconstruction,” General Taylor recalled the occasion in 1865 when the duty fell to him to surrender the last Confederate army east of the Mississippi River. At Union headquarters, a German, wearing the uniform of a Yankee general and speaking in heavily accented English, lectured General Taylor that now that the war was over, Southerners would be taught “the true American principles.” To which General Taylor — the son of Zachary Taylor — replied that he regretted that his grandfather, an officer in the Revolution, and his father, President of the United States, had not passed on to him these “true American principles.”

It is not politically correct or multi-culturally proper but the fact of the matter is that you can not sustain Anglo-Protestant culture apart from a clear majority of Anglo-Protestant people who have been trained to cherish what makes them uniquely them which includes their ethnicity, family ties, faith, language, traditions, customs, and land. If this is not pursued what will result is that those who are Anglo-Protestant will be ashamed of their own unique culture and exchange their unique culture for the mono-culture of multi-culturalism.

Author: jetbrane

I am a Pastor of a small Church in Mid-Michigan who delights in my family, my congregation and my calling. I am postmillennial in my eschatology. Paedo-Calvinist Covenantal in my Christianity Reformed in my Soteriology Presuppositional in my apologetics Familialist in my family theology Agrarian in my regional community social order belief Christianity creates culture and so Christendom in my national social order belief Mythic-Poetic / Grammatical Historical in my Hermeneutic Pre-modern, Medieval, & Feudal before Enlightenment, modernity, & postmodern Reconstructionist / Theonomic in my Worldview One part paleo-conservative / one part micro Libertarian in my politics Systematic and Biblical theology need one another but Systematics has pride of place Some of my favorite authors, Augustine, Turretin, Calvin, Tolkien, Chesterton, Nock, Tozer, Dabney, Bavinck, Wodehouse, Rushdoony, Bahnsen, Schaeffer, C. Van Til, H. Van Til, G. H. Clark, C. Dawson, H. Berman, R. Nash, C. G. Singer, R. Kipling, G. North, J. Edwards, S. Foote, F. Hayek, O. Guiness, J. Witte, M. Rothbard, Clyde Wilson, Mencken, Lasch, Postman, Gatto, T. Boston, Thomas Brooks, Terry Brooks, C. Hodge, J. Calhoun, Llyod-Jones, T. Sowell, A. McClaren, M. Muggeridge, C. F. H. Henry, F. Swarz, M. Henry, G. Marten, P. Schaff, T. S. Elliott, K. Van Hoozer, K. Gentry, etc. My passion is to write in such a way that the Lord Christ might be pleased. It is my hope that people will be challenged to reconsider what are considered the givens of the current culture. Your biggest help to me dear reader will be to often remind me that God is Sovereign and that all that is, is because it pleases him. View all posts by jetbrane