<p><pre><code> > In 1981, Huntington predicted that the next moral
> convulsion would hit America around the second or
> third decade of the 21st century—that is, right
> about now. And, of course, he was correct.
</code></pre>
That "of course"! Huntington, of course, is widely known for his <i>Clash of Civilizations</i>, one of several highly publicized attempts in the early 90s to explain post-Cold War geopolitics with a single thesis. Francis Fukuyama (<i>The End of History</i>) and, less notorious in the popular press, John Mearsheimer, are some of the other authors of grand geopolitical theories of the early post-Soviet period.<p>They are grand and sweeping theories that seem to have as much empirical support as the concept of "a generation" does in sociology. Depending on how you hard squint, you can find lots of facts that both support and refute these grand theories, at any level of abstraction. Edward Said, in particular, wrote passionately about Huntington's thesis at the time of 9/11. As predictive tools, these theories aren't terribly useful.<p>The appeal to Huntington is pretty tangential to the bulk of the essay at hand, but it did leave me with a suspicious taste in my mouth.