Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for Professor Richard Hofstadter.
Book Review
Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, Richard Hofstadter, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1969
As Professor Hofstadter’s book most dramatically points out plebeian, and patrician, anti-intellectualism has a long pedigree in the United States. This trend goes back to the foundation colonies and their Puritan theocratic social organization premised as they were more on religious obedience than critical thinking. Thus, this latest wave of anti-intellectualism, at least the publicly visible and in your face 24/7/365 anti-intellectualism, highlighted by Tea Party ideology, climate change anti-scientism, exotic “medical” remedies, and a turning away from defense of the public square and scholarly research has many forebears. And, oh yes, add in the rising belief in angels, witches, goblins, gremlins and other dark night phenomena more reminiscent of the 15th century than the 21st. This latest wave of hard-bitten anti-intellectualism, as it has taken form over the past several years, drew me into a re-reading of the good professor’s work published almost half a century ago to see what his take was on those roots. And to see if there was anything new under the sun since that time.
Of course 1964, the time of this book, was a watershed period, just that period when public optimism has not soured as a result of the John Kennedy/Lyndon Johnson/Richard Nixon Vietnam nightmare and the remnant reaction (read countercultural reaction by those who sought a “newer world”) that set off the current long wave of anti-intellectualism. Although the United States had just prior to this time gone, in the McCarthy, Nixon, and know-nothing friends red scare nightmare, through a short wave anti-intellectual period, this Hofstadter moment was one still driven by belief in the possibilities that science was our friend and that intellectuals could be trusted to not sell us out, whatever there was to sell out, and to whom.
Professor Hofstadter spends plenty of time on this period reflecting on the Adlai Stevenson campaign as the epitome of the rejection of “egghead” leadership and of the the “victory” of plebeian virtues of one Dwight David Eisenhower. Also reflected during this period are the various plebeian and patrician moves to isolate intellectuals after their heyday in the early years of the Franklin Roosevelt administration. So this part of his analysis has some common features with today’s anti-intellectualist movements. Also the various anti-intellectualist segments of society that were predominant during most of the 20th century: businessmen more interested in profits than arcadia (except to pick brains to increase profits); farmers more interested in harvests than non-farm public policy; those reformers (of a sort now familiar) who wanted to limit public education, low and high, to essentially vocational pursuits; and, of course, politicians, low and high, who rode the various waves of these movements.
Although many of the social groups that the professor highlighted still retain their anti-intellectual bent today I believe that the dramatic rise of the expert since the 1960s, and the media’s dependence on this element is something that might have surprised the professor. It is the one area that seems to me runs counter to the know-nothingness pull of American society in general. That said, the strength of this work, an academic work after all, and an intellectual historian’s academic work, are the parts dealing with the early roots the Puritan, and later, the post-American revolutionary plebeian democratic roots of the United States. He draws his line of continuity straight though that very clear trend to his time.
And one half century later, I believe, the professor would be able to continue to draw that line. That said, on this re-reading of the book, frankly, the professor's writing style, and some of the datedness of the material referenced, made this a less exciting read than when I stayed up quite a few nights until late to read every page it is the best source to start from when tracing the anti-intellectual current in American life. A current that appears is to be with us for a while. Again.
Book Review
Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, Richard Hofstadter, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1969
As Professor Hofstadter’s book most dramatically points out plebeian, and patrician, anti-intellectualism has a long pedigree in the United States. This trend goes back to the foundation colonies and their Puritan theocratic social organization premised as they were more on religious obedience than critical thinking. Thus, this latest wave of anti-intellectualism, at least the publicly visible and in your face 24/7/365 anti-intellectualism, highlighted by Tea Party ideology, climate change anti-scientism, exotic “medical” remedies, and a turning away from defense of the public square and scholarly research has many forebears. And, oh yes, add in the rising belief in angels, witches, goblins, gremlins and other dark night phenomena more reminiscent of the 15th century than the 21st. This latest wave of hard-bitten anti-intellectualism, as it has taken form over the past several years, drew me into a re-reading of the good professor’s work published almost half a century ago to see what his take was on those roots. And to see if there was anything new under the sun since that time.
Of course 1964, the time of this book, was a watershed period, just that period when public optimism has not soured as a result of the John Kennedy/Lyndon Johnson/Richard Nixon Vietnam nightmare and the remnant reaction (read countercultural reaction by those who sought a “newer world”) that set off the current long wave of anti-intellectualism. Although the United States had just prior to this time gone, in the McCarthy, Nixon, and know-nothing friends red scare nightmare, through a short wave anti-intellectual period, this Hofstadter moment was one still driven by belief in the possibilities that science was our friend and that intellectuals could be trusted to not sell us out, whatever there was to sell out, and to whom.
Professor Hofstadter spends plenty of time on this period reflecting on the Adlai Stevenson campaign as the epitome of the rejection of “egghead” leadership and of the the “victory” of plebeian virtues of one Dwight David Eisenhower. Also reflected during this period are the various plebeian and patrician moves to isolate intellectuals after their heyday in the early years of the Franklin Roosevelt administration. So this part of his analysis has some common features with today’s anti-intellectualist movements. Also the various anti-intellectualist segments of society that were predominant during most of the 20th century: businessmen more interested in profits than arcadia (except to pick brains to increase profits); farmers more interested in harvests than non-farm public policy; those reformers (of a sort now familiar) who wanted to limit public education, low and high, to essentially vocational pursuits; and, of course, politicians, low and high, who rode the various waves of these movements.
Although many of the social groups that the professor highlighted still retain their anti-intellectual bent today I believe that the dramatic rise of the expert since the 1960s, and the media’s dependence on this element is something that might have surprised the professor. It is the one area that seems to me runs counter to the know-nothingness pull of American society in general. That said, the strength of this work, an academic work after all, and an intellectual historian’s academic work, are the parts dealing with the early roots the Puritan, and later, the post-American revolutionary plebeian democratic roots of the United States. He draws his line of continuity straight though that very clear trend to his time.
And one half century later, I believe, the professor would be able to continue to draw that line. That said, on this re-reading of the book, frankly, the professor's writing style, and some of the datedness of the material referenced, made this a less exciting read than when I stayed up quite a few nights until late to read every page it is the best source to start from when tracing the anti-intellectual current in American life. A current that appears is to be with us for a while. Again.
