Clashing On
Pierre Hassner and Samuel Huntington
Pierre Hassner
The exchange (one can hardly call it a debate) provoked by SamuelHuntington's savage reaction to my review (Spring 1997) is at thesame time sad, funny, and boring. Sad, because he chose to consideran article that started by calling him "perhaps the most brilliant,articulate, versatile, and creative living political scientist" andended by stating that "nobody would be better able to provide thissynthesis" (between modernization, culture, and democracy) "thanSam Huntington himself" as, in his words, a "mixture ofdisingenuousness, inaccuracy, misrepresentation, and calumny."Rather than rising to the challenge of indicating how one mightintegrate his new theory with his earlier work, or put thecontradictory dimensions of our situation into perspective, heresponds with a violent attack on my professional standards, mygood faith, and my personal integrity, which of course I had neverdreamed of doing to him. Funny, because his rage leads him to suchblatant contradictions and unsupported insults that he inevitablyexposes himself to the very accusations he levels against me. And,above all, boring, because, due partly to my naivete andnegligence, partly to his pettiness and paranoia, this response hasto use the limited space available on irrelevant questions ofdetail concerning inaccurate quotes, supposed intentions, anddistant events, rather than on central, substantive issues.
I must start with two completely artificial accusations to whichHuntington gave prominence at the beginning and at the end of hisdiatribe.
