America as a symptom? Johan Huizinga’s Declinist Tribulations of American Culture and Civilization

Abstract

The Dutch cultural historian Johan Huizinga published two books about the United States, Men and the Masses in America (1918) and America: A Dutch Historian's Vision, from Afar and Near (1927), respectively. While his first book epitomized a widespread interest of the Dutch intelligentsia and media towards the United States in the troubling context of the first World War, unveiling the overall changing perceptions about the New World, the second book was the reflective output of Huizinga’s visit to the United States between April 14 and June 19, 1926. In full acknowledgement of the western decline, Huizinga’s apprehensive entanglement with the New World – far from being frugal or irresponsible – was highly consistent with finger pointing America as the hamper of cultural frailties and decadence. The present study attempts to elucidate on Huizinga’s caustic and pessimistic narrative about the United States from a three-folded perspective. Firstly, Huizinga’s tirade is explained within the framework of his epistemological and methodological thinking, akin to historical formalism. Secondly, the present investigation argues that the United States stood for Huizinga’s pretext of turning from his austere devotion to cultural history towards a more public posture in cultural criticism. Thirdly, both historical formalism and cultural criticism in Huizinga had fomented his unaltered views on the United States as a symptom of western cultural decline.