The Paranoid Style in American Politics by Richard Hofstadter: An Appreciation & Reflection for July 4, 2022

 

From a piece first published in Harper's in 1964

I like to celebrate July 4, Independence Day, by reading ( or most often re-reading) a great work in American history. This year, I re-read Richard Hofstader's essay "The Paranoid Style in American Politics." Now whatever might have led me to choose this particular essay for this time, you might ask--if you've been living in a cave far from any inkling about contemporary American politics. And note the original publication date: 1964. This date might not mean much to you, but for me, it marked the start of a political coming of age story. In that year, my father, a life-long Republican party loyalist got in the midst of the battle for the soul of the Republican Party. He was a "moderate" Republican in the year when Barry Goldwater and his more radical (so-called "conservative") supporters sought to gain the Republican presidential nomination and take over the party. My dad took a leave from his regular job (in a public opinion research firm) to work for the campaign of Gov. William Scranton (R-PA), who became the leading moderate candidate after the collapse of Gov. Nelson Rockefeller's campaign for the nomination. As a result of his position with the Scanton campaign, my dad went to San Francisco to the Republican National Convention, and he took my mom and I with him. My mom had lived and worked in San Francisco during and after the war before returning to her small hometown in Iowa to marry and raise four kids, thus, this was a great treat for a wife and mother. And me? As the oldest of their four kids, it was really a part of an ongoing apprenticeship in politics. And, in the course of the education, I learned a bit about Goldwater, Phyllis Shafley (Not a Choice But an Echo), and John Stormer's None Dare Call It Treason. Not that I read these books (I was neither that nerdy nor that bright), but I had a sense of how whacky these folks were. Yet, in the spirit of full disclosure, I must inform you that my dad, as a loyal Republican, worked on behalf of the Republican ticket that year in which LBJ crushed Goldwater. (Goldwater only carried his home state of Arizona and the Deep South.) I, as the young apprentice, debated on behalf of the right-wing Goldwater against a classmate for a mock election in my 6th-grade class. LBJ crushed Goldwater in our mock election even worse than in the national popular vote--in a town and county that Goldwater carried! An inauspicious start to my career in advocacy, to say the least. In sum, it's all very personal. 

But to return to the point, Hofstader's essay is not just informative, but it takes me back and allows me to appreciate the fact that the "paranoid style in American politics" is nothing new, although now it has now developed into an acute, life-threatening variant. Can we learn something from the foray into American history? Indeed we can. 

(N.B. I will quote liberally from Hofstadter's essay: he makes his case better than I can explain it, and given that most readers won't go read the entire original, you can at least get the Cliff Notes version here (with more quotes that Cliff Notes can print). 

Hofstader opens his essay with these terms and observations: 

Behind such movements [referring to the "far right wing" in 1964] there is a style of mind, not always right-wing in its affiliations, that has a long and varied history. I call it the paranoid style simply because no other word adequately evokes the qualities of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy that I have in mind. . . It is the use of paranoid modes of expression by more or less normal people that makes the phenomenon significant. . . .In the paranoid style, as I conceive it, the feeling of persecution is central, and it is indeed systematized in grandiose theories of conspiracy.

I trust that from these three opening quotes you can appreciate the reason that I find this topic and this essay so pertinent to today. In short, what we're experiencing currently isn't so unique, though I have to say that the threat from the paranoid right is much greater then it was even then. 

[T]here is a vital difference between the paranoid spokesman in politics and the clinical paranoiac: although they both tend to be overheated, oversuspicious, overaggressive, grandiose, and apocalyptic in expression, the clinical paranoid sees the hostile and conspiratorial world in which he feels himself to be living as directed specifically against him; whereas the spokesman of the paranoid style finds it directed against a nation, a culture, a way of life whose fate affects not himself alone but millions of others. (Location 58)

Indeed, clinical paranoia is an individual phenomenon; political paranoia is a political phenomenon. The greatest question, in either instance, is the source of this disorder. Is it deeply rooted in all humans and only waiting to emerge, or is it an emergent phenomenon that is dependent upon circumstances and perceptions? I'd venture (and I don't believe that Hofstader would disagree) that it's a combination of both human "nature" and the human situation.

Style has to do with the way in which ideas are believed and advocated rather than with the truth or falsity of their content. (Location 68) [Emphasis added.]

In other words, and as Hofstader states specifically, the paranoid style can be found on both the extreme right and the extreme left. It's a style, not a substance; or at least not a substance that's an articulated political stance anchored in a coherent rational argument.

[T]he paranoid style has had a consummatory triumph [that] occurred not in the United States but in Germany. It is a common ingredient of fascism, and of frustrated nationalisms, though it appeals to many who are hardly fascists and it can frequently be seen in the left-wing press. The famous Stalin purge trials incorporated, in a supposedly juridical form, a wildly imaginative and devastating exercise in the paranoid style.

(Location 94)

Thus, regardless of its place on the political spectrum from left to right (if we choose to use this popular but limited metaphor), the paranoid style can emerge. Again, it's not a set of beliefs so much as a style.

A distorted style is, then, a possible signal that may alert us to a distorted judgment, just as in art an ugly style is a cue to fundamental defects of taste. What interests me here is the possibility of using political rhetoric to get at political pathology. One of the most impressive facts about the paranoid style, in this connection, is that it represents an old and recurrent mode of expression in our public life which has frequently been linked with movements of suspicious discontent and whose content remains much the same even when it is adopted by men of distinctly different purposes. (Location 83) [Emphasis added.]

As I emphasized in the quote, Hofstadter finds the "political pathology" revealed in the "political rhetoric." In the course of the essay, Hofstader will range widely over the history of the Republic to identify and explore instances of this pathology. Without directly saying so, Hofstadter demonstrates the old adage that history never repeats itself, but it often rhymes. Or in the words of the Bible, there's nothing new under the sun. ("The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us." Eclessiastes 1:9-10 (KJV).) This is why we read history: not out of mere curiosity, but out of a need to understand ourselves; for self-knowledge, collectively and individually.

The following quote, drawing upon the insights of his American contemporary, the sociologist Daniel Bell, captures the essence of what we're seeing today from the radical right:

But the modern right wing, as Daniel Bell has put it, feels dispossessed: America has been largely taken away from them and their kind, though they are determined to try to repossess it and to prevent the final destructive act of subversion. The old American virtues have already been eaten away by cosmopolitans and intellectuals; the old competitive capitalism has been gradually undermined by socialist and communist schemers; the old national security and independence have been destroyed by treasonous plots, having as their most powerful agents not merely outsiders and foreigners but major statesmen seated at the very centers of American power. Their predecessors discovered foreign conspiracies; the modern radical right finds that conspiracy also embraces betrayal at home. (Location 320) 

Hofstadter goes on:

For the vaguely delineated villains of the anti-Masons, for the obscure and disguised Jesuit agents, the little-known papal delegates of the anti-Catholics, for the shadowy international bankers of the monetary conspiracies, we may now substitute eminent public figures like Presidents Roosevelt, Truman, and Eisenhower, Secretaries of State like Marshall, Acheson, and Dulles, justices of the Supreme Court like Frankfurter and Warren, and the whole battery of lesser but still famous and vivid conspirators headed by Alger Hiss. (Location 329)

Of course, the choice item in this list is Alger Hiss, whom we now know, upon the opening of the Soviet archives, was in a fact an active Soviet agent. In short, Whittaker Chambers and Richard Nixon were actually on to something, which goes to show you (forgive me), but even paranoids have enemies. But as the list above indicates, Joe McCarthy, Robert H. Welch, Jr. and his John Birch Society and their ilk were off their rockers.

After completing a tour of American history with examples of the paranoid style, Hofstadter provides us with a summing-up:

LET US NOW ABSTRACT the basic elements in the paranoid style. The central image is that of a vast and sinister conspiracy, a gigantic and yet subtle machinery of influence set in motion to undermine and destroy a way of life. One may object that there are conspiratorial acts in history, and there is nothing paranoid about taking note of them. This is true. All political behavior requires strategy, many strategic acts depend for their effect upon a period of secrecy, and anything that is secret may be described, often with but little exaggeration, as conspiratorial. The distinguishing thing about the paranoid style is not that its exponents see conspiracies or plots here and there in history, but that they regard a “vast” or “gigantic” conspiracy as the motive force in historical events. History is a conspiracy, set in motion by demonic forces of almost transcendent power, and what is felt to be needed to defeat it is not the usual methods of political give-and-take, but an all-out crusade. The paranoid spokesman sees the fate of this conspiracy in apocalyptic terms—he traffics in the birth and death of whole worlds, whole political orders, whole systems of human values. He is always manning the barricades of civilization. He constantly lives at a turning point: it is now or never in organizing resistance to conspiracy. Time is forever just running out. Like religious millenarians, he expresses the anxiety of those who are living through the last days and he is sometimes disposed to set a date for the apocalypse. . . . .

The apocalypticism of the paranoid style runs dangerously near to hopeless pessimism, but usually stops short of it. Apocalyptic warnings arouse passion and militancy, and strike at susceptibility to similar themes in Christianity. Properly expressed, such warnings serve somewhat the same function as a description of the horrible consequences of sin in a revivalist sermon: they portray that which impends but which may still be avoided. They are a secular and demonic version of adventism. . . . Since what is at stake is always a conflict between absolute good and absolute evil, the quality needed is not a willingness to compromise but the will to fight things out to a finish. Nothing but complete victory will do. 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 theater of operations to which the paranoid directs his attention. This demand for unqualified victories leads to the formulation of hopelessly demanding and unrealistic goals, and since these goals are not even remotely attainable, failure constantly heightens the paranoid’s frustration. Even partial success leaves him with the same sense of powerlessness with which he began, and this in turn only strengthens his awareness of the vast and terrifying quality of the enemy he opposes.

This enemy is clearly delineated: he is a perfect model of malice, a kind of amoral superman: sinister, ubiquitous, powerful, cruel, sensual, luxury-loving. Unlike the rest of us, the enemy is not caught in the toils of the vast mechanism of history, himself a victim of his past, his desires, his limitations. He is a free, active, demonic agent. He wills, indeed he manufactures, the mechanism of history himself, or deflects the normal course of history in an evil way. He makes crises, starts runs on banks, causes depressions, manufactures disasters, and then enjoys and profits from the misery he has produced. The paranoid’s interpretation of history is in this sense distinctly personal: decisive events are not taken as part of the stream of history, but as the consequences of someone’s will.

Hofstader goes on the identify the importance of converts who have defected from the side of the enemy--the Free Masons, the Catholics, the Communists, and have converted to the side of righteousness. Hofstadter comments

Another recurring aspect of the paranoid style is the special significance that attaches to the figure of the renegade from the enemy cause. The anti-Masonic movement seemed at times to be the creation of ex-Masons; it certainly attached the highest significance and gave the most unqualified credulity to their revelations. Similarly anti-Catholicism used the runaway nun and the apostate priest, anti-Mormonism the ex-wife from the harem of polygamy; the avant-garde anti-Communist movements of our time use the ex-Communist. In some part the special authority accorded the renegade derives from the obsession with secrecy so characteristic of such movements: the renegade is the man or woman who has been in the secret world of the enemy, and brings forth with him or her the final verification of suspicions which might otherwise have been doubted by a skeptical world. But I think there is a deeper eschatological significance attached to the person of the renegade: in the spiritual wrestling match between good and evil which is the paranoid’s archetypal model of the world struggle, the renegade is living proof that all the conversions are not made by the wrong side. He brings with him the promise of redemption and victory. In contemporary right-wing movements a particularly important part has been played by ex-Communists who have moved rapidly, though not without anguish, from the paranoid left to the paranoid right, clinging all the while to the fundamentally Manichean psychology that underlies both.

Thus, for instance, the infatuation of the anti-Communists with someone like Whittaker Chambers and the loathing of his evil doppleganger, Alger Hiss (who really was of the devil's party).

Hofstader next turns to the elaborate "proofs" undertaken by those working in the paranoid style:

One of the impressive things about paranoid literature is precisely the elaborate concern with demonstration it almost invariably shows. One should not be misled by the fantastic conclusions that are so characteristic of this political style into imagining that it is not, so to speak, argued out along factual lines. The very fantastic character of its conclusions leads to heroic strivings for “evidence” to prove that the unbelievable is the only thing that can be believed. Of course, there are highbrow, lowbrow, and middlebrow paranoids, as there are likely to be in any political tendency, and paranoid movements from the Middle Ages onward have had a magnetic attraction for demi-intellectuals [e.g., Steve Bannon]. But respectable paranoid literature not only starts from certain moral commitments that can be justified to many non-paranoids but also carefully and all but obsessively accumulates “evidence.” . . . .

The typical procedure of the higher paranoid scholarship is to start with such defensible assumptions and with a careful accumulation of facts, or at least of what appear to be facts, and to marshal these facts toward an overwhelming “proof” of the particular conspiracy that is to be established. It is nothing if not coherent—in fact, the paranoid mentality is far more coherent than the real world, since it leaves no room for mistakes, failures, or ambiguities. It is, if not wholly rational, at least intensely rationalistic; it believes that it is up against an enemy who is as infallibly rational as he is totally evil, and it seeks to match his imputed total competence with its own, leaving nothing unexplained and comprehending all of reality in one overreaching, consistent theory. It is nothing if not “scholarly” in technique. McCarthy’s 96-page pamphlet McCarthyism contains no less than 313 footnote references, and Mr. Welch’s fantastic assault on Eisenhower, The Politician, is weighed down by a hundred pages of bibliography and notes. The entire right-wing movement of our time is a parade of experts, study groups, monographs, footnotes, and bibliographies.

          . . . .  

What distinguishes the paranoid style is not, then, the absence of verifiable facts (though it is occasionally true that in his extravagant passion for facts the paranoid occasionally manufactures them), but rather the curious leap in imagination that is always made at some critical point in the recital of events.

            . . . . 

What is missing is not veracious information about the organization, but sensible judgment about what can cause a revolution.

            . . . . 

The singular thing about all this laborious work is that the passion for factual evidence does not, as in most intellectual exchanges, have the effect of putting the paranoid spokesman into effective two-way communication with the world outside his group—least of all with those who doubt his views. He has little real hope that his evidence will convince a hostile world. His effort to amass it has rather the quality of a defensive act which shuts off his receptive apparatus and protects him from having to attend to disturbing considerations that do not fortify his ideas. He has all the evidence he needs; he is not a receiver, he is a transmitter.

What triggers the paranoid style. Hofstadter weighs this question and ventures an answer after having noted Norman Cohen's The Pursuit of the Millenium, which documents extreme religious and political movements in medieval times: 

The recurrence of the paranoid style over a long span of time and in different places suggests that a mentality disposed to see the world in the paranoid’s way may always be present in some considerable minority of the population. But the fact that movements employing the paranoid style are not constant but come in successive episodic waves suggests that the paranoid disposition is mobilized into action chiefly by social conflicts that involve ultimate schemes of values and that bring fundamental fears and hatreds, rather than negotiable interests, into political action. Catastrophe or the fear of catastrophe is most likely to elicit the syndrome of paranoid rhetoric. (Location 522) 

Are we now in fear of catastrophe? For different reasons and with varying degrees of probability, we are (and in some instances should hold such fears).

As much as I've quoted from Hofstadter's essay, there's a good deal more to it (although it's not very lengthy). Reading and reflecting on this essay reinforces my intuition that it would prove relevant (if I may use that 60s term) to our own times.

. . . .

. . . .

 

Thoughts: 8 October 2021

 

2021 publication,.It will remain relevant for a long time

The Constitution of Knowledge

Jonathan Rauch

The Scottish philosopher David Hume, writing in the 1740s, completed the skeptical demolition of absolute certainty begun by Montaigne. In a tour de force of reasoning which stands unrefuted to this day, he showed that no prediction or causal attribution can ever be certain, even in principle; and that no invocation of miraculous or supernatural causes could ever be justified rationally, even in principle. If no naturalistic explanation can be true beyond any possibility of doubt, and if no supernatural explanation is within bounds, what basis for knowledge could there possibly be?

sng: Great question. Pursue the answer.

The Constitution of Knowledge

Jonathan Rauch

The new Bigs [tech giants] were more efficient at converting information into dollars than, say, a reputable statewide paper such as the Arizona Republic was in its heyday, and they could move content in quantities and at speeds which mocked traditional media. But with a crucial difference: they trafficked in information, not in knowledge, and in content rather than truth. They monetized eyeballs and clicks without pausing for reality checks, so that virality and profitability were a closed loop. The economic advantage of real news vaporized.

Last Best Hope

George Packer

Anti-intellectualism, Richard Hofstadter wrote in his study of the subject, has been a defining American trait from the Puritan beginnings: “It made its way into our politics because it became associated with our passion for equality.”

sng: Anti-intellectualism & resentment of the educated elite have always been a part of the American experience, but in some periods, such as now, it's much worse. And, as Packer argues in his book, not without some justification.

Last Best Hope

George Packer

The shining city on a hill was supposed to replace remote big government with a community of energetic and compassionate citizens, all engaged in a project of national renewal. But nothing held the city together. It was hollow at the center, a collection of individuals all wanting more. Free America measured civic health by gross domestic product. It saw Americans as entrepreneurs, employees, investors, taxpayers, and consumers—everything but citizens.

sng: See the MacIntosh quote following & compare.

Developmental Politics

Steve McIntosh

Moral systems are the product of collective agreements enforced through social norms, peer pressure, and the expectations of the larger community. And the effectiveness of these cultural agreements depends on a communitarian ethos—a binding sense of solidarity that emphasizes the sacrifice of the self for the sake of the larger group.

sng: Cf. Packer above and, for instance, Alasdair MacIntyre (After Virtue) and William Ophuls.

The Inevitability of Tragedy

Barry Gewen

Disagreements among sovereign states,” Kissinger starkly put it, “can be settled only by negotiation or by power,” and as for those whose instinctive preference in the Cold War was for the second he also said, “The nuclear age has changed both the significance and the role of power.”

sng: True in some measure, but a limited concept of "power." Cf. Hannah Arendt on power & James Hillman's Kinds of Power.

Encyclical on Climate Change and Inequality

Pope Francis

The earth’s resources are also being plundered because of short-sighted approaches to the economy, commerce and production. The loss of forests and woodlands entails the loss of species which may constitute extremely important resources in the future, not only for food but also for curing disease and other uses.

Conservatism

Edmund Fawcett

Puzzling as it sounds, conservatism’s ultimate reward for compromising with liberal democracy was domination of liberal democracy.

Doom

Niall Ferguson

And the “chorus”—not so much public opinion as expert opinion—can fall victim to a different set of biases: the craving for certainty (randomized controlled trials, peer-reviewed papers), the habit of debunking any novel theory, or the sunk cost of being invested in “settled science,” not to mention the temptation to make countless false prophecies on opinion pages and talk shows.

sng: To wit, science is a human enterprise subject to all of our foibles & fallibilities.

Decoding Jung's Metaphysics

Bernardo Kastrup

Jung defines ‘consciousness’ in a much more specific and restrictive manner. For him, consciousness is a relatively small subset of phenomenality, defined on the basis of three key properties. The first we have already encountered when discussing the psyche proper: only mental states under the control of deliberate personal volition are conscious. But then Jung adds: because of its empirical freedom of choice, the will needs a supraordinate authority, something like a consciousness of itself … Volition presupposes a choosing subject who envisages different possibilities. (ONP: 110, emphasis added) This is an allusion to what modern psychology calls ‘meta-consciousness’ (Schooler 2002) or ‘self-reflection.

This America: The Case for the Nation by Jill Lepore

I don't know if American historian Jill Lepore had her book in mind as a perfect read to help us celebrate Independence Day (aka The 4th). I consider the 4th  a lovely (or more likely, hot and muggy) day to sit and read a thoughtful reflection about our nation, an appropriate way to celebrate the holiday--at least until later in the day, when it's time for some barbeque and fireworks.

This short work allowed me to finish my American history reading project early. At 138 pages of text, it's a brief read. But don't let its brevity fool you: it packs an essential and well-considered argument into a small space. In fact, as I write this on July 4th, I realize that it provides a perfect reflection and celebration and accounting of America's virtues and vices. I'll quote liberally from her text because it provides a pithy consideration of our nation's history. (And quite a significant word this is--nation.) 

Lepore defines her undertaking as “ three outsize tasks, things I haven't done much lately, things that seemed to me in need of doing. It explains the origins of nations. It offers a brief history of American nationalism. And it makes the case for the nation, and the enduring importance of the United States and of American civic ideals, but arguing against nationalism, and for liberalism." (Preface). We realize with her opening that Lepore isn't reluctant to jump into to the fray, especially given the willingness of some now in power to celebrate nationalism. She goes on to describe her project as "at once an argument and a plea, a reckoning with American history, the nation at its worst, and a call for a new Americanism, as tough-minded and openhearted as the nation at its best." [Preface].

Lepore opens her argument by considering the history of nationalism, which doesn't come into use at all until the late 18th-century and that doesn't really come into common use until well into the 19th-century, and then mostly in Europe. This is the era in which the nation-state--the idea of a political entity defined by a particular people--came into fruition. Before this, religions and dynastic families established larger political entities (i.e., holdings of great families like Hapsburgs, Romanovs, and (until the French Revolution), the Bourbons, for instance). Lapore is quick to note that this enthusiasm for the nation-state and its attendant nationalism became entangled with the idea of patriotism. But Lapore acts quickly to separate these two. She writes: 

[S]ometimes people confuse nationalism with patriotism. There is nothing wrong and all kinds of things right with loving the place where you live and the people you live with and wanting that place and those people to thrive so it's easy to confuse nationalism and patriotism, especially because they once meant more or less the same thing. But in the early decades of the 20th century, with the rise of fascism in Europe, nationalism has come to mean something different from patriotism something fierce something violent: less a love of your own country than a hatred of other countries and their people and hatred of people within your own country who don't belong to an ethnic, racial, or religious majority. 22- 23. 

This assessment is if anything too weak. I prefer the more focused contrast drawn by John Lukacs: 

Patriotism is defensive; nationalism is aggressive. Patriotism is the love of a particular land, with its particular traditions; nationalism is the love of something less tangible, of the myth of a “people”, justifying many things, a political and ideological substitute for religion. Patriotism is old-fashioned (and, at time and in some places, aristocratic); nationalism is modern and populist. In one sense patriotic and national consciousness may be similar; but in anther sense, more and more apparent after 1870, national consciousness began to affect more and more people who, generally, had been immune to that before—as, for example, many people within the multinational empire of Austria-Hungary. It went deeper than class consciousness. Here and there it superseded religious affiliations, too. John Lukacs, Democracy and Populism: Fear and Hatred, 36. 

 But however carefully one parses the distinction between nationalism and patriotism, there's no doubt that nationalism became the dominant trend. Lepore describes the creation of the nation-state as the attempt to create a common people (by ties of language and history) and to graft a state upon such a people. The problem, however, is that there are no "pure" peoples. Languages, cultures, religions, and were diverse throughout Europe and in the Americas as well (and everywhere else as the idea of the nation-state spread throughout the world). As Lepore aptly describes the process, "Histories of nation-states are stories that hide the seems that stitched the nation to the state." 26-27.

The history of the United States of America provides an exemplary case in point. As Lepore notes, 

"The American Revolution was an extraordinary turning point in the history of the world, a new beginning. But had but it had little to do with the idea of an American nation. . . . 'We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights; That among these are life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness .' for all its soaring, hallowed pros, the Declaration of Independence never described the United States as a nation and it invoked not national but universal ideas.” 29.

Much of early American history, up through the time of the Civil War, can be seen as the effort (of some) to transform These United States of America into The United States of America. The struggles were political and cultural--the cultural side was undertaken by historians, lexicographers (Webster), writers, and artists. The effort was to create a consciousness among the people that they were a part of a single nation. Lepore, however, also notes that some were not eager to join the national bandwagon, including some provincials (here and in Europe), and many of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, some of whom, such as the Iroquois, had their own sense of nationhood. 

Lepore shifts her focus to introduce "liberalism" into the equation. Such a fraught word demands an definition and justification, and she provides both: 

Liberalism is the belief that people are good and should be free, and the people erect governments in order to guarantee that freedom. Nineteenth-century nationalism and modern liberalism were formed out of the same clay. Nations are collectives and liberalism concerns individuals; liberal nations are collections of individuals whose rights as citizens are guaranteed by the nation. Liberal governments require a popular mandate to rule: Liberal nations are self-governed. Their rise marked the end of monarchical rule. 40 

But if formed out of the same client, nationalism and liberalism were molded into different shapes. Liberalism embraced a set of aspirations about liberty and democracy believed to be universal. . .  But nationalism promotes attachment to a particular place, by insisting on national distinctions. How can a set of ideas believed to be universal undergird a national identity? Only if the people who subscribe to that setup ideas believe that, sooner or later, they will be everywhere adopted. 41 

Thus, with the introduction of the inherent tension between liberalism and nationalism, between the universal and the particular, we have the conflict that will drive much of the narrative of American history and Lepore's work here. High ideals and realities of human finitude do not readily mix, and the nation has both. Idealists and strivers ready to exploit the vast resources that the land provides--later translated into immense technical achievements--mark one side of the American story, sometimes with nefarious ends. Lepore sums the problem up neatly: 

A nation founded on the idea that all men are created equal and endowed with inalienable rights and offering asylum to anyone suffering from persecution is a beacon to the world. This is America at its best: a nation that welcomes dissent, protects free speech, nurtures invention, and makes possible an almost unbelievable growth and prosperity. But a nation founded on ideals, universal truths, also opens itself to charges of hypocrisy at every turn . These charges did not lie outside the plot of the story of America, or underneath it. They are its plot, the history on which any twenty-first-century case for the American nation has to rest, a history of struggle and agony and courage and promise. 45-46.

This conflict between universal ideas and realities of particular groups and places found its bloodiest and most dramatic clash in the Civil War. Lepore has a somewhat different take on the secession by the Southern states, often described as "sectionalism." Lepore describes the situation as "The outbreak of the civil war led to charges of sectionalism against the rebellious South, but Lepore has a different take: "Southerners were nationalist, too. It's just that their nationalism, at the time, was what would now be termed illiberal, or ethnic, as against another liberal, or civic, nationalism. ” 57. And as Lepore goes on to document, this illiberal strain continues with Jim Crow laws and other forms of racism, the eugenics movement, and anti-immigration laws and movements. 

Lepore briefly considers the historians of the early Cold War period (roughly from 1945 to about 1970),  where men [sic] such as Arthur Schlesinger, Lionel Trilling (literary critic)  Louis Hartz, and Richard Hofstadter set much of the tone of national debate. Lepore quotes from the Hofstadter review of Hartz’s The Liberal Tradition in America, “It has been our fate as a nation not to have ideologies but to be one.” 102.  But as Lepore notes, these leading figures--all liberal in the sense that she defines--became overly optimistic about the decline of nationalism and illiberalism and the end of ideology (Daniel Bell) that they foresaw. Some today argue that liberalism and nationalism can thrive together. Israeli political philosopher and former cabinet member Yael Tamir, writing in his book, Liberal Nationalism, that “the liberal tradition, with its respect for personal autonomy, reflection, and choice, and the national tradition, with its emphasis  on belonging, loyalty, and solidarity, although generally seen as mutually exclusive, can indeed accommodate one another.” 130. But the likes of Judith Shklar, Martha Nussbaum, and Tony Judt hold positions to the contrary. Lepore notes Judt’s conclusion that liberal nationalism is “nothing more than a thought experiment,” but still, she argues, the nation-state (or state-nation in the case of the U.S.), isn’t likely to disappear. The two ideals may find an uneasy truce. Lepore argues the in American history, “liberals have failed., time and again, to defeat illiberalism accept by making appeals to national aims and ends.” [131] In short, Lepore seems to accept that this troubles marriage must continue. 

I'll end my review with an extended quote of Lepore from her peroration in the section she entitles "The New Americanism." Once you read it, consider its value and implications. 

The United States is a nation founded on a revolutionary, generous, and deeply moral commitment to human equality and dignity. In the very struggles that constitute this nation’s history, in the very struggles that lie ahead, the United States holds to these truths: all of us are equal, we are equal as citizens, and we’re equal under the law.  For all the agony of the nation’s past, these truths remain.  Anyone who affirms these truths and believes that we should govern our common life together belongs in this country.  This is America’s best idea. 135.

Frederick Douglass once offered his understanding of this nation: “A Government founded on justice, and recognizing the equal rights of all men; claiming no higher authority for its existence, or sanction for its laws, than nature, reason, and the regularly  ascertained will of the people; steadily refusing to put its sword and purse in service of any religious creed or family, is a standing offense to most of the Governments of the world, and to some narrow and biggoted people among themselves.” [136]

In a world made up of nations, there is no more powerful way to fight the forces of prejudice, intolerance, and injustice then by a dedication to equality, citizenship, and equal rights, as guaranteed by a nation of laws.  A new Americanism would mean a devotion to equality and liberty, tolerance and inquiry, justice and fairness, along with a commitment to national prosperity inseparable from an unwavering dedication to a sustainable environment the world over.  It would require a clear line reckoning with American history, it’s sorrows no less than its glories.  A lie stands on one foot as Ben Franklin like to say, but truth stands upon two.  A new Americanism would rest on a history that tells the truth, as best it can, about what W. E. B.  DuBois called the hideous mistakes, the frightful wrongs, and the great and beautiful things that nations do.  It would foster a spirit of citizenship and environmental stewardship and a set of civic ideals, and a love for one another, marked by benevalence and hope and a dedication to community and honesty.  Working both backward and forward, it would know that right wrongs no man. [137] 

Can you think of a better manifesto with which to mark Independence Day this July 4, 2019? I can't. Professor Lepore has provided us with a powerful beacon, and I hope we follow it.  

Paul Krugman on fringe politics & Richard Hofstadter

More scary stuff from Krugman. To get a feel for what he's written, I highly recommend the book he cites by the great American historian, Richard Hofstadter, The Paranoid Style in American Politics. Why? Because, as Krugman notes, this styles is back. Like the Invasion of the Body Snatchers (best in the original 1956 production), it's taking over more and more minds, and it's creepier than ever.

David Frum: Good Conservative?

As a former Bush speechwriter, I never expected to like David Frum. I guess we all have our prejudices, and one of mine is George W. Bush. However, this article by Frum in the the NYT Magazine yesterday really struck me as some very good advice. He caught me with the opening truth of his first paragraph: the Democrats won in 2008 because of the economy, and the Republicans won in 2010 because of the economy. It's really that simple. Beyond that, he recognizes the value of the welfare state (picking a fine G.K. Chesterton saying along the way to makes his point); he talks about the need for Republicans (and Democrats) to take off their ideological blinders, and most importantly, he shared this insight about populism that I think really captures a great deal about our current (and much of our past) politics. About the populist divide, he writes:

American populism has almost always concentrated its anger against the educated rather than the wealthy. So much so that you might describe contemporary American politics as a class struggle between those with more education than money against those with more money than education: Jon Stewart’s America versus Bill O’Reilly’s, Barack Obama versus Sarah Palin.

Digging back in memory, this fits with theories of Richard Hofstadter and perhaps Robert Wiebe, whose works I read as an undergraduate, or shortly after. The Tea Party phenomena has been the most interesting and scary item to watch of late. Intellectually, it's incoherent, as Frum recognizes, but it captures feelings, and feelings are much, much stronger than ideas. In thinking about our recent Iowa Supreme Court election vote, I was struck by the attitude of resentment expressed more than the anti-gay aspect. VanderPlats didn't do any overt gay-bashing, he couched his argument in terms of "elites" and "activist judges" "re-writing the Constitution". This is the real problem. The problem of crowds, the uneducated, the demos, the mob, and so on. When do we move from a democracy to a tyranny of the many? The Greeks, like Aristotle and Plato, understood the downside of democracy, and as I learn more, I gain a greater appreciation of their concerns (although I still don't buy any alternative).

Getting back to Frum, it's a really thoughtful piece. Here! Here! to more conservatives like him.

E. J. Dionne on Obama & Steven Johnson on the Future of the Book

E.J. Dionne is one of my favorite political commentators, and not just because he had the smarts to interview my daughter and her friend during the 2000 political campaign. He’s an insightful and sensible “liberal” (I generally don’t care for or trust such labels, but I bow here to popular prejudices). In his column today in the Washington Post, he argues that Obama has both “intellect” (vision, a sense of the whole) and “intelligence” (an ability to get things done). Dionne credits this distinction to Richard Hofstadter, the great American historian, from his Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (1966). Worthwhile.

Steven Johnson wrote in the Wall Street Journal about the future of the book. For all bibliophiles, an interesting and challenging piece. Johnson is generally upbeat; I remain cautious. As much a blogs, and magazines and newspapers offer, nothing matches the extended argument and consideration of a book. Can it withstand all the potential for jumping and hoping? Johnson recognizes the problem, but he glosses over it. Otherwise, the Kindle 2 would certainly be a big temptation. Time will tell.