Is America a Primitive Culture?

Disputing the claim that Americans are "abysmally primitive in the world of senses, feelings, and behavior"

In 1948, a young Egyptian man named Sayyid Qutb came to America on a scholarship. He lived in the States for two years, first studying at Colorado State College for Education and then at Stanford. Traveling widely across the country, he took in as much American culture as he could during his visit.

Qutb would go on to become a leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood and is largely responsible for the jihadist ideology underpinning al-Qaeda and ISIS.

How does a guy go straight from taking a scholarly tour of America to founding an ideology that seeks to destroy everything it stands for?

Lucky for us, we know exactly how, as Qutb wrote it all down in a document titled, “The America that I Have Seen” (fittingly published on the CIA’s website).

So, what was so bad about America? Well, the women’s clothes were too revealing. The football was too rough. The churches were too social and joyous (“They go to church for carousal and enjoyment, or, as they call it in their language ‘fun’.”). There was too much trust in science. There was too much “desire for freedom” from “rigid traditions.”

In other words, America was far too liberal and decadent for Mr. Qutb.

And this was America in the late 1940s—a time we look back on as being highly religious and deeply prudish. Just imagine what Qutb would think of American decadence today!

But Qutb isn’t writing to critique American decadence (although he spills quite a lot of ink complaining about it). Qutb’s primary reason for writing is to admonish Americans for being distinctly primitive. He writes:

The researcher of American life will stand at first puzzled before a wondrous phenomenon, a phenomenon that exists nowhere else on earth. It is the case of a people who have reached the peak of growth and elevation in the world of science and productivity, while remaining abysmally primitive in the world of senses, feelings, and behavior. A people who have not exceeded the most primordial levels of existence, and indeed, remain far below them in certain areas of feelings and behavior.

It's true Americans aren’t particularly refined in our manners. We are a bit juvenile. We lean into youth culture and obsess over material wealth and physical beauty. But we’re not that bad, are we? I mean, primordial maybe, but sub-primordial? Really?

According to Qutb, the “true value” of a civilization has nothing to do with technological ability, resource wealth, or military power. Instead, civilizations should be judged for “what universal truths and worldviews they have achieved.” Why is this so important? Because, he writes, “These achievements elevate feelings, edify consciences, and add depth to man’s perception of the values of all life, and human life in particular. They increase the distance between man and animal in feelings and behavior, through man’s estimation of life and things.”

Nothing about this strikes me as convincing. What do the phrases “elevate feelings” and “edify consciences” even mean? And sure, it’s great to perceive life as having value, but evolution hard-wired this perception into us already. Anyone alive today is alive because their ancestors, going back thousands upon thousands of years, fought to survive and to procreate. All else being equal, “life is valuable” is our default setting. Humans all inhabit this mode on autopilot.

And where are we supposed to achieve “universal truths” in Qutb’s view? From religious texts that are glaringly full of contradictions, spiritual mumbo-jumbo, and moral principles that justify slavery and the subjugation of women? No thanks…

Qutb perceives himself to be quite enlightened, but throughout “The America that I Have Seen,” he shows his true colors as a small-minded religious zealot. A few points on this:

1)    He’s highly selective in his evidence against American culture and is eager to generalize about strange anecdotes. For example, he claims that Americans celebrate death because one time he heard someone say that they saw someone laugh during a funeral. (Qutb makes a huge deal out of this anecdote; it’s incredibly bizarre to read.)

2)    He has a superficial view of spirituality and zero curiosity about the version of spirituality practiced by Protestant Christians. Protestantism isn’t as gloomy and prudish as Islam, so, in his view, that inherently means it must be less profound.

3)    He is deeply intolerant of the idea that women should in any way be liberated from patriarchal religious norms. He is, as they say in my country, sexist.

4)    He disparages African-American culture (referring to jazz as the “music that the savage bushmen created to satisfy their primitive desires”) in a way that makes me suspect he’s probably quite deeply racist.

5)    He arbitrarily (and conveniently) grants higher value to Islamic spirituality and culture and lesser value to things that are foreign to him and fall outside his area of expertise (like science and technology).

Weak as Qutb’s argument is about Americans being spiritually primitive, it’s worth taking seriously because it’s the same argument that America’s very own Christian conservatives level against secular society. Outspoken commentators like Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro, and Dennis Prager constantly claim that secular Americans have lost their sense of meaning and their sense of the value of life. They talk about suicide and mass shootings almost entirely in spiritual terms, dismissing other relevant factors. They rave about how our hedonism and decadence (often referred to as “wokeness”) are leading to our downfall.

There is a place for these arguments. Religious people and social conservatives certainly have valuable perspectives to offer. But I would recommend for American conservatives to read Qutb and ask themselves if they really want to take his side of the argument. I would have them remember that Qutb, who died in 1966, was writing about America’s decadence and moral depravity before the women’s liberation movement, before the civil rights movement, before the rise of the non-religious and the steep decline in church attendance, and (forget jazz) before rap and hip hop.

Take half a second to compare our spiritually primitive society to the Middle-Eastern societies Qutb held out as spiritually mature. Consider that maybe, just maybe, the pursuit of spiritual advancement through religion is a total scam cooked up by puritans as a way to make themselves feel superior to societies that clearly have them beat on every level.