Pike and Strong Summaries

Pike’s Wild People in Wild Lands and Strong’s The Anglo-Saxon and the World’s Future both center around very opinionated claims of Anglo-Saxons and the named or unnamed other. In Pike’s case, stereotyping is his focus as he discusses how every group has a set of stereotypes by which they judge other groups of people. He discusses how one group is seen as better, and that this “asymmetrical” relationship provides the ability to the “lesser” group to defame the better. Through the publication of his study, he hopes to show that Latinos have been equally “bigoted, extreme, irrational, and self-serving” in belittling North Americans, as North Americans have been to Latinos. This is an extremely strong statement, and he follows through by providing instances of 19th-century stereotyping that has continued into modern times, and listing the common stereotypes that many Americans hold of Latinos. These include “sexual abandon,” and profuse alcoholism. While citing evidence that these images are not completely unfounded, Pike ends by saying that many Americans have never traveled to Latin America, and therefore, are more likely to have pinned these stereotypes on the Latinos from travel accounts of others, which may or may not be truthful. Strong’s argument focuses more on what creates a successful society, which he claims are the two defining traits of Anglo-Saxon morality: “civil liberty” and “pure ‘spiritual’ Christianity.” He continues by stating that in order to compete with the advancement of Anglo-Saxon society, other societies must adapt and most likely adopt some aspects of Anglo-Saxon societies. Their arguments are not similar in evidence, but rather in the underlying point they make about Latin American societies needing to better themselves by standards set by Anglo-Saxon, or North American (named the “great home of Anglo-Saxons by Strong) population. Pike and Strong’s arguments are quite opinionated in that there is little room for counterargument, and very little, if any, is provided in either piece.