I had never heard of the historian, Richard J. Hofstadter, or his essay, The Paranoid Style in American Politics, published in the November 1964 edition of Harper's Magazine, before I got into a political discussion by email with my youngest brother. During our exchange he cited the aforementioned article which shared Hofstadter's newly coined term for a political personality he called the “paranoid style.” And that stoked my interest.
Hofstadter admitted his use of a clinical psychiatric term to describe a political personality was "pejorative". Then he attempted to appear "fair and balanced" by allowing that someone on the left side of the political spectrum could be paranoid, but his actual focus was on labeling conservatives as such. He intentionally promoted the idea that the "paranoid style" is more aptly applied to right-wingers.
When I read the article it was obvious to me that Mr. Hofstadter was liberal and godless (which don't always go together). He wrote about "angry minds at work mainly among extreme right-wingers". Then he made the statement, "The paranoid’s interpretation of history is distinctly personal: decisive events are not taken as part of the stream of history, but as the consequences of someone’s will."
In other words, he labeled a person as paranoid if that person was mentally capable of drawing personal conclusions about the causes of "decisive events" in history. Hofstadter claimed that only a paranoid person (or group of people) could believe that "the stream of history" is affected by willful choices. Keep your eyes on the puppets, folks, forget about the puppeteers!
Whether he truly believed his own propaganda or not would be hard to say but Richard Hofstadter promoted the idea that in the political realm things just happen by chance! As I read the article, I noticed that he was just talking off the top of his head. His ivory tower speculations were without foundation. And later, when I read about his life, scholarly critics confirmed my observation.
Well, I happen to believe that God's will is done in heaven and sometimes on earth. And, I believe that Satan's will is never done in heaven but is often done on earth. And, I believe mankind is in the middle and has a huge part to play since he often facilitates either the will of God or the will of Satan being fulfilled on earth. Thus, I believe the "stream of history" is not the result of mere chance but is the outcome of willful choices. And, I do not believe my beliefs are paranoid!
So, I decided to study Richard Hofstadter's life to learn more about where he was coming from and I found that he joined the Communist Party USA, as a young adult, hoping to bring that "dog-eat-dog" capitalism he hated to an end. Yes, I discovered that he was an American academic working to destroy America from within. (How did McCarthy overlook him?)
His article, which labels conservatives as paranoid, was demeaning right-wingers because they actually believed in the destructive influence of liberal professors and politicos like him!
In his latter years when American students started practicing what their professors had been preaching and things got ugly and scary, he decided to moderate his views and got a little more conservative. You think, maybe, he didn't want to lose his capitalistic lifestyle and benefits?
Let me share some quotes with you from the following article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Hofstadter.
Richard Hofstadter (6 August 1916 – 24 October 1970) was an American public intellectual of the 1950s, an historian and ... Professor of American History at Columbia University.
(He) ...became the "iconic historian of postwar liberal consensus"
(He) was born in Buffalo, New York, in 1916 to a German American Lutheran mother and a Polish Jewish father, who died when he was ten.
(He) was a Communist, and a member of the Young Communist League at university,
... In 1938, he joined the Communist Party of the USA, yet realistically qualified his action:
"I join without enthusiasm, but with a sense of obligation.... My fundamental reason for joining is that I don't like capitalism and want to get rid of it. I am tired of talking.... The party is making a very profound contribution to the radicalization of the American people.... I prefer to go along with it now."
In late 1939, he ended the Communist stage of his life... He remained anti-capitalist: "I hate capitalism and everything that goes with it".
...1944 published his dissertation Social Darwinism in American Thought, 1860–1915, a ...critique of late 19th century American capitalism and those who espoused its ruthless "dog-eat-dog" economic competition and justified themselves by invoking the doctrine of Social Darwinism...
The Progressive... Turner... said that, as an historian, Richard Hofstadter no longer was a useful guide, because his ideas were too isolationist, and too often had "a pound of falsehood for every few ounces of truth".
Consequent to the radical politics of the 1960s, and especially because of the student occupation and temporary closing of Columbia University in 1968, Hofstadter became more conservative.
His friend David Herbert Donald said: "He was appalled by the growing radical, even revolutionary, sentiment that he sensed among his colleagues and his students. He could never share their simplistic, moralistic approach".
The sharpest criticism of Social Darwinism in American Thought, 1860–1915 focused on Hofstadter's weakness as a research scholar: he did little or no research into manuscripts, newspapers, archival, or unpublished sources. Instead, he primarily relied upon secondary sources augmented by his lively style and wide-ranging interdisciplinary readings, this producing very well-written arguments based upon scattered evidence he found by reading other historians.
Hofstadter showed scant interest in his students. ... Hofstadter had few disciples and founded no school of history writing.
Conservative commentator George Will called Richard Hofstadter "the iconic public intellectual of liberal condescension", who "dismissed conservatives as victims of character flaws and psychological disorders — a 'paranoid style' of politics rooted in 'status anxiety', etc."
"Conservatism rose on a tide of votes cast by people irritated by the liberalism of condescension."
You may wonder why I shared this information with you and why it matters. I think it matters because it is a glimpse into the inner workings of the leftist elite academic cadre which is having such a deleterious effect on our nation. The anti-capitalistic mindset which is currently destroying this once prosperous nation has sprung from the treasonous seeds which have been sown for decades now by communistic/socialistic professors in our colleges and universities.
I experienced it personally when I took a government class at a Jr. College in Oklahoma City back in the early 1980s. I wanted to learn more about the country I was proud of. To my dismay, the professor ended the course with a lecture predicting that the USA would end up turning to Fascism or Socialism because Capitalism just wasn't working! (A self-fulfilling prophecy?)
No one in the class spoke up to disagree. We were just a bunch of clueless young students unprepared to hear such words-- much less to refute them. After gathering my thoughts, I wrote to the professor to share my disappointment and disagreement. I knew it was not likely to impact him, but I tried.
I thought about his words through the years and wondered why he was allowed to teach like that. I also wondered what impact his words were having on young malleable minds. I think it's clear now.
The stream of history is not the result of mere chance but is the outcome of willful choices.
And it's not over. We still have some choices to make.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways submit to Him,
and He will make your paths straight.
Proverbs 3:5-6 NIV
and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways submit to Him,
and He will make your paths straight.
Proverbs 3:5-6 NIV
