The United States has been an immigrant country. The Hispanics who come here are largely from Mexico and South America. They are Catholics, but that is an American religion. One-third of our population is Catholic so that does not have the same impact as Muslims coming into Europe.

Certainly here in the U.S., we've had fundamentalist movements that have taken very critical and hostile attitudes toward immigration and the assimilation of immigrants into our society and culture. So these tendencies are fairly universal. The problem is what if they get out of hand and become the dominant factor in a society, which can only lead to the oppression of minorities or even to war with neighboring societies with differing cultures. That's why it seems to me it's important to try to keep these tendencies toward extremism under control.

If one of the drafters of the Declaration of Independence came back today, he would not be surprised about what Americans were saying and believing and articulating in their public statements. It would all sound rather familiar.

Countries will cooperate with each other, and are more likely to cooperate with each other when they share a common culture, as is most dramatically illustrated in the European Union. But other groupings of countries are emerging in East Asia and in South America. Basically, as I said, these politics will be oriented around, in large part, cultural similarities and cultural antagonism.

In the emerging world of ethnic conflict and civilizational clash, Western belief in the universality of Western culture suffers three problems: it is false; it is immoral; and it is dangerous.

In 1920, the West ruled huge amounts of the world.

The larger society has to recognize some degree of autonomy for the minority: the right to practice their own religion and way of life and to some extent their language.