One of the primary tests of the mood of a society at any given time is whether its comfortable people tend to identify, psychologically, with the power and achievements of the very successful or with the needs and sufferings of the underprivileged. Rejecting his earlier communist approach to history, in the 1950s he came closer to the concept of "consensus history", and was epitomized by some of his admirers as the "iconic historian of postwar liberal consensus." As the evangelical impulse became more widespread and more dominant, the selection and training of ministers was increasingly shaped by the revivalist criterion of ministerial merit. 1179 Words 5 Pages. Every thinker puts some portion of an apparently stable world in peril, and no one can wholly predict what will emerge in its place." “The American Political Tradition: And the Men Who Made it”, p.231, Vintage, Richard Hofstadter (2012). “Anti-Intellectualism in American Life”, p.28, Vintage, Richard Hofstadter (2012). It is possible that the distinction between moral relativism and moral absolutism has sometimes been blurred because an excessively consistent practice of either leads to the same practical result — ruthlessness in political life. “The Paranoid Style in American Politics: An Essay: from The Paranoid Style in American Politics”, p.19, Vintage, Richard Hofstadter (2012). In using the terms play and playfulness, I do not intend to suggest any lack of seriousness; quite the contrary. The Puritan ideal of the minister as an intellectual and educational leader was steadily weakened in the face of the evangelical ideal of the minister as a popular crusader and exhorter. Filled with obscure and ill-directed grievances and frustrations, with elaborate hallucinations about secrets and conspiracies, groups of malcontents have found scapegoats at various times in Masons or abolitionists, Catholics, Mormons, or Jews, Negroes, or immigrants, the liquor interests or the international bankers. Richard Hofstadter Quotes 17 of 22 The intellectual’s... playfulness, in its various manifestations, is likely to seem to most men a perverse luxury; in the United States the play of the mind is perhaps the only form of play that is not looked upon with the most tender indulgence. Richard Hofstadter quotes Showing 1-30 of 46 “To those who suspect that intellect is a subversive force in society, it will not do to reply that intellect is really a safe, bland, and emollient thing. The late James Shenton, a colleague of Hofstadter's at Columbia, told Brown that Hofstadter did not take a stand against firing Communists because"Dick was afraid at the time." Richard Hofstadter (2012). Richard Hofstadter — American Historian born on August 06, 1916, died on October 24, 1970. It was during that decade that the word "intellectual" became a term of abuse. Richard Hofstadter Quotes American - Historian August 6, 1916 - October 24, 1970 The delicate thing about the university is that it has a mixed character, that it is suspended between its position in the eternal world, with all its corruption and evils and cruelties, and the splendid world of our imagination. Douglas Hofstadter Quotes ... Bio: Douglas Richard Hofstadter is an American professor of cognitive science whose research focuses on the sense of "I", consciousness, analogy-making, artistic creation, literary translation, and discovery in mathematics and physics. Improve yourself, find your inspiration, share with friends. To be sure, intellectuals, contrary to the fantasies of cultural vigilantes, are hardly ever subversive of a society as a whole. Immediately download the Richard Hofstadter summary, chapter-by-chapter analysis, book notes, essays, quotes, character descriptions, lesson plans, and more - everything you need for studying or teaching Richard Hofstadter. Richard Hofstadter quotes Popularity: “A university's essential character is that of being a center of free inquiry and criticism-a thing not to be sacrificed for anything else.” Intellectualism, though by no means confined to doubters, is often the sole piety of the skeptic. There has always been in our national experience a type of mind which elevates hatred to a kind of creed; for this mind, group hatreds take a place in politics similar to the class struggle in some other modern societies. Simple dogmatic formulations were considered sufficient. Harper's Magazine, November 1964. In considerable measure the churches withdrew from intellectual encounters with the secular world, gave up the idea that religion is a part of the whole life of intellectual experience, and often abandoned the field of rational studies on the assumption that they were the natural province of science alone. The meaning of his intellectual life lies not in the possession of truth but in the quest for new uncertainties. The”, “The first truly powerful and widespread impulse to anti-intellectualism in American politics was, in fact, given by the Jacksonian movement. Quotes Richard Hofstadter (1916 – 1970). Intellect is resented as a form of power or privilege. Pin. Further, there is no way of guaranteeing that an intellectual class will be discreet and restrained in the use of its influence; the only assurance that can be given to any community is that it will be far worse off if it denies the free uses of the power of intellect than if it permits them. Be the first to learn about new releases! Neither is it a political society, nor a meeting … Historian Richard Hofstadter won the Pulitzer Prize in 1964 for his now-legendary book, "Anti-Intellectualism in American Life." "Anti-Intellectualism in American Life". It is ironic that the United States should have been founded by intellectuals, for throughout most of our political history, the intellectual has been for the most part either an outsider, a servant or a scapegoat. Hofstadter begins with a series of differentiating remarks on what he considers the paranoid style. iWise brings you popular Richard Hofstadter quotes. The idea of the paranoid style as a force in politics would have little contemporary relevance or historical value if it were applied only to men with profoundly disturbed minds. “Anti-Intellectualism in American Life”, p.20, Vintage, There is a mistake in the text of this quote. “The Age of Reform”, p.16, Vintage, Richard Hofstadter (2012). But reluctantly, year by year, over several decades, it has been drawn into the twentieth century and forced to cope with its unpleasant realities: first the incursions of cosmopolitanism and skepticism, then the disappearance of American isolation and easy military security, the collapse of traditional capitalism and its supplementation by a centralized welfare state, finally the unrelenting costs and stringencies of the Second World War, the Korean War, and the cold war. Anything that seriously diminished the role of rationality and learning in early American religion would later diminish its role in secular culture. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of, The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It, The Paranoid Style in American Politics and Other Essays. By 1853 an outstanding clergyman complained that there was 'an impression, somewhat general, that an intellectual clergyman is deficient in piety, and that an eminently pious minister is deficient in intellect.”, “The American mind was shaped in the mold of early modern Protestantism. Explore some of Richard Hofstadter best quotations and sayings on Quotes.net -- such as 'The delicate thing about the university is that it has a mixed character, that it is suspended between its position in the eternal world, with all its corruption and evils and cruelties, and the … "The Paranoid Style in American Politics". We have learned so well how to absorb novelty that receptivity itself has turned into a kind of tradition- "the tradition of the new." American historian, Professor of American History at Columbia University and public intellectual of the mid-20th century. It was held to … Since the enemy is thought of as being totally evil and totally unappeasable, he must be totally eliminated–if not from the world, at least from the theatre of operations to which the paranoid directs his attention. “Anti-Intellectualism in American Life”, p.30, Vintage, Richard Hofstadter (2012). If there is anything more dangerous to the life of the mind than having no independent commitment to ideas, it is having an excess of commitment to some special and constricting idea. We are all sufferers from history, but the paranoid is a double sufferer, since he is afflicted not only by the real world, with the rest of us, but by his fantasies as well. Richard Hofstadter (2012). The local minister was judged either by his charismatic powers or by his ability to prepare his congregation for the preaching of some itinerant ministerial charmer who would really awaken its members. Richard Hofstadter was an American historian and public intellectual of the mid-20th century. by Richard Hofstadter 79 afford to ignore it. Mass communications have made it possible to keep the mass man in an almost constant state of political mobilisation.”, “Any historian of warfare knows that it is in good part a comedy of errors and a museum of incompetence; but if for every error and every act of incompetence one can substitute an act of treason, we can see how many points of fascinating interpretation are open to the paranoid imagination: treason in high places can be found at almost every turning -- and in the end the real mystery, for one who reads the primary works of paranoid scholarship, is not how the United States has been brought to its present dangerous position, but how it has managed to survive at all.”, “The intellectual as ideologist, having had a leading role in purveying to the country each innovation and having frequently hastened the country into the acceptance of change, is naturally felt to have played an important part in breaking the mold in which America was cast and in consequence he gets more than his share of the blame.”, “The truly creative mind is hardly ever so much alone as when it is trying to be sociable. Neither is it a political society, nor a meeting place for political societies. Here you will find all the famous Richard Hofstadter quotes. "Let us admit the case of the conservative," John Dewey once wrote. Richard Hofstadter | Refcard PDF ↑ 2 It is ironic that the United States should have been founded by intellectuals, for throughout most of our political history, the intellectual has been for the most part either an outsider, a servant or a scapegoat. If for every error and every act of incompetence one can substitute an act of treason, many points of fascinating interpretation are open to the paranoid imagination. But intellect is always on the move against something: some oppression, fraud, illusion, dogma, or interest is constantly falling under the scrutiny of the intellectual class and becoming the object of exposure, indignation, or ridicule.”, “It is a poor head that cannot find plausible reason for doing what the heart wants to do.”, “Tocqueville saw that the life of constant action and decision which was entailed by the democratic and businesslike character of American life put a premium upon rough and ready habits of mind, quick decision, and the prompt seizure of opportunities - and that all this activity was not propitious for deliberation, elaboration, or precision in thought.”, “If for every error and every act of incompetence one can substitute an act of treason, many points of fascinating interpretation are open to the paranoid imagination.”, “A large segment of the public willingly resigns itself to political passivity in a world in which it cannot expect to make well-founded judgments.”, “...the danger that American society as a whole will over-esteem intellect or assign it such a transcendent value as to displace other legitimate values is one that hardly troubles us.”, “To be confronted with a simple and unqualified evil is no doubt a kind of luxury....”, “All this is the more maddening, as Edward Shils has pointed out, in a populistic culture which has always set a premium on government by the common man and through the common judgement and which believes deeply in the sacred character of publicity. 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