Starr On Huntington

“If Samuel P. Huntington’s new book is right,” Paul Starr writes in his recent New Republic review (subscribers only) of Huntington’s WHO WE ARE: THE CHALLENGES TO AMERICA’S NATIONAL IDENTITY, “the United States is at grave risk of cracking apart.”

That may be true, but it also appears that merely considering the possibility that Huntington may be right has pushed Starr himself to the edge of cracking up. To his credit, Starr tries to be fair, but he simply can’t restrain his invective. He writes that “[t]his book is not an intemperate rant…. [I]t is always interesting and often insightful.” But (you knew there would be a “but”)…

But it is also distorted in its judgments, exaggerated in its fears, and disingenuous about its intentions. It is the work of a serious man gone seriously wrong.

Not only is Huntington’s argument distorted, exaggerated, disingenuous, and wrong, but it is “repugnantly wrong.” Well, at least it’s not an intemperate rant.

I do not write here to defend Huntington’s book. First, I haven’t read it. More importantly, I probably disagree with it, which is to say that I actually agree with some of Starr’s criticism. According to this and other reviews, Huntington argues that our national identity is rooted fundamentally in a rapidly disappearing cultural homogeneity. His “central theme,” as Starr puts it, is that “Anglo Protestantism is the ‘core’ of American national identity.” Huntington rejects the arguments of those who believe that “America is defined solely by a set of principles, the American Creed.” “A creed alone,” he says, “does not a nation make.”

I don’t know about “solely,” but I do believe that “a set of principles” — call them the American Creed — lie much closer to the core of American identity than English ethnicity and religion. But (and you probably suspected this “but” was coming as well) it is precisely because of my belief in the fundamental, identity-providing nature of those core principles that I ultimately disagree with Starr as much as I do with Huntington. (That sentence is interestingly ambiguous: I both believe in those core principles myself, and I also believe that they are core principles, a fact [if it is a fact] independent of my personal belief in them).

Starr’s views are interesting, I think, because they represent what may be the prevailing view among liberals today, which should not be surprising inasmuch as Starr is co-editor of The American Prospect. Consider the following:

[Huntington’s] attack on the whole panoply of policies aimed at encouraging greater social inclusiveness–such as affirmative action and changes in school curricula to reflect the contributions of African Americans and other minorities–is based on the premise that these policies undermine national identity and loyalty. But social and cultural exclusion is far more likely to have that effect.

Social and cultural exclusion? What on earth is Starr talking about? Does he really believe that, say, eliminating racial preferences at selective colleges would lead to social and cultural exclusion? Sure, it would lead to smaller numbers of minorities attending selective schools, but would that amount to “social and cultural exclusion”? I don’t think so.

For many people “diversity,” “inclusion,” even proportional representation have become the essence of a new sense of fairness, a new principle, if you will, that they find preferable to the old principle of non-discrimination, but it is not clear that Starr agrees with them. At least here, “diversity” is justified on much more pragmatic than principled grounds. Thus:

In the recent University of Michigan affirmative-action case, the Supreme Court received amici briefs from a variety of groups, including military officers, saying that affirmative action was necessary to make their institutions work because without it their leadership would not enjoy legitimacy. Diversity, these officers were saying, strengthens patriotism.

This sounds strangely similar to atheist or agnostic defenses of religion as necessary to a democracy.

Indeed, Starr not only disagrees that Hispanics and other immigrants are a threat to the cohesiveness of American culture; he also maintains that they share our traditional “civic ideals.”

America’s cultural integrity is scarcely in jeopardy. From one end of the country to the other, Americans shop at the same stores, listen to the same music, follow the same sports, read about and watch the same celebrities–and largely honor the same ideals.

Yes, but (there’s that “but” again) exactly what “ideals” would those be? There is abundant evidence, both from surveys and common observation, that one of the most fundamental of those ideals is the principle that every person should be judged “without regard” to race, creed, or color. Yet the racial preferences that Starr explicitly defends defy that principle. That’s why such substantial majorities have opposed them on virtually all surveys and the few popular votes that have been allowed (and why liberals are so determined to keep that question off the ballot in Michigan, where recent surveys have found support for the non-discrimination principle running about three to one).

Starr doesn’t confront this problem. Instead, he falls back on another common pragmatic argument. “Huntington’s vision of America,” Starr writes, meaning among other things his rejection of “special privileges” based on race and ethnicity, “would be deeply divisive.”

Does Starr not see that the state’s playing favorites among races and ethnic groups is also, among other bad things, “deeply divisive”? In fact, I believe it is much more divisive than holding all groups and individuals to the same standards regardless of their race.

The pragmatic argument in favor of Starr’s position, in short, is as weak as the principled argument against it is strong.

Of course, anyone for whom an absence of divisiveness is the highest virtue would have had a hard time supporting the civil rights movement in the 1960s. Thus perhaps Starr, in supporting racial prefernce and thereby rejecting the non-discriminatory principle embedded in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, is only being consistent.

Say What?