Quote Originally Posted by John T. Fishel View Post
Huntington first published the article, then the book.

Marc, I'm afraid I don't see anything genetic in Huntington. My read is that he sees culture writ large as civilization. And it is between these big cultures that he sees conflict. Historically, his thesis holds up best along the Eurpean/Islamic fault line. It falls apart entirely when he argues that the Mediterranean sub-set of Western Culture is a different civilization that he calls Latin American. Then there is the argument that Victor Davis Hanson makes in Carnage and Culture that the really nasty wars are between various enemies from within Western culture - WWI and WWII. We can reject parts of hunington's thesis on grounds other than the genetic argument but it still retains a heuristic utility. (Haven't been able to use "heuristic" in a long time.)

Cheers

JohnT
What's always (or, rather, since reading it) struck me most about Huntington's thesis, and supports it most, is how freaking _merciless_ cross civilizational wars are. Between Brits, French, and Germans we can have something like the spontaneous 1914 Christmas Truce. This never happened between the US Army and AmerInds, nor between us and the Japanese or VC/NVA or Norks or PLA. Instead, we had absolutely ruthless, murderous, merciless slaughter, with very few, if any, instances of humanity to lighten it. It springs, I think, from a lack of feeling, on both sides, that the other side is quite fully human, while the resentment of slaughter has the effect of causing war to go on long after it should be ended. Revenge and all.