The Real Threat: An Essay on Samuel Huntington

Abstract

Examining the most recent book by Samuel Huntington, Wlho Are We?: The Challenges to America's National Identity, raises a question that applies to similar publications, like The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life by Charles Murray: How should such books be reviewed? Who Are We? is one of a small number of volumes that look like works of social science and have the appearance of scholarship but actually appeal to, reinforce, and help to legitimate one form of prejudice or another. Some of these works, we shall see, merely agitate against democratic forms of government; others reflect various anti-feelings-anti-Black, Mexican (and more generally immigrants), or Muslim (and more generally foreigners)-just as certain films seem at first glance to be works of art but actually appeal to prurient interests. Should one treat such works the