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777ffea 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. In a certain sense, the suspicious Tories and militant philistines are right: intellect is dangerous. Left free, there is nothing it will not reconsider, analyze, throw into question. "Let us admit the case of the conservative," John Dewey once wrote. "If we once start thinking no one can.. criticism intellectual radicalism intellectualism intellectuals Richard Hofstadter
2aa2815 It is a poor head that cannot find plausible reason for doing what the heart wants to do. Richard Hofstadter
b8a1f82 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. introversion Richard Hofstadter
1b28c25 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. Richard Hofstadter
a04b96c As a member of the avant-garde who is capable of perceiving the conspiracy before it is fully obvious to an as yet unaroused public, the paranoid is a militant leader. He does not see social conflict as something to be mediated and compromised, in the manner of the working politician. Since what is at stake is always a conflict between absolute good and absolute evil, what is necessary is not compromise but the will to fight things out to a.. Richard Hofstadter
6e026e1 To be confronted with a simple and unqualified evil is no doubt a kind of luxury.... Richard Hofstadter
935cf27 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. politics politics-of-the-united-states Richard Hofstadter
c56d6db 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. Here the politician expresses what a large part of the public feels. The citizen cannot cease to need or to be at the mercy of experts, but he can achieve a kind of revenge by ridiculing the wild.. politics intellectual intellectualism politics-of-the-united-states Richard Hofstadter
f27775a If mind is seen not as a threat but as a guide to emotion, if intellect is seen neither as a guarantee of character nor as an inevitable danger to it, if theory is conceived as something serviceable but not necessarily subordinate or inferior to practice, and if our democratic aspirations are defined in such realistic and defensible terms as to admit of excellence, all these supposed antagonisms lose their force. character intellectual intellectualism sentimentality intellectuals democracy Richard Hofstadter
7eafa1a Get action, do things; be sane," he once raved, "don't fritter away your time; create, act, take a place wherever you are and be somebody: get action." Richard Hofstadter
d58d592 Finally, the work of the minister tended to be judged by his success in a single area - the saving of souls in measurable numbers. 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. The 'star' system prevailed in religion before it reached the theater. As the evangelical impulse became more w.. christianity great-awakening revivalism pastors evangelism ministry evangelicalism church Richard Hofstadter
04b4918 they found it easier to reject what they could not have than to admit the lack of it as a deficiency in themselves. Richard Hofstadter
ed2d52a 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 scholarshi.. Richard Hofstadter
cf1aebf 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. intellectualism intellectuals Richard Hofstadter
25f88e6 However, in a populistic culture like ours, which seems to lack a responsible elite with political and moral autonomy, and in which it is possible to exploit the wildest currents of public sentiment for private purposes, it is at least conceivable that a highly organized, vocal, active, and well-financed minority could create a political climate in which the rational pursuit of our well-being and safety would become impossible. Richard Hofstadter
4979eb5 purity of a sort is easily had where responsibilities are not assumed. The Richard Hofstadter
11cb837 Ideally, the pursuit of truth is said to be at the heart of the intellectual's business, but this credits his business too much and not quite enough. As with the pursuit of happiness, the pursuit of truth is itself gratifying whereas consummation often turns out to be elusive. Truth captured loses its glamour; truths long known and widely believed have a way of turning false with time; easy truths are bore and too many of them become half t.. happiness truth playfulness playful intellectual intellectualism intellectuals uncertainty play questions Richard Hofstadter
35ce4fe As a consequence, the heartland of America, filled with people who are often fundamentalist in religion, nativist in prejudice, isolationist in foreign policy, and conservative in economics, has constantly rumbled with an underground revolt against all these tormenting manifestations of our modern predicament. Richard Hofstadter
2862f83 What came in the end was only a small war and a quick victory; when the farmers and the gentlemen finally did coalesce in politics, they produced only the genial reforms of Progressivism; and the man on the white horse turned out to be just a graduate of the Harvard boxing squad, equipped with an immense bag of platitudes, and quite willing to play the democratic game. politics progressivism reform populism Richard Hofstadter
7c29a9b They thought man was a creature of rapacious self-interest, and yet they wanted him to be free- free, in essence, to contend, to engage in an umpired strife, to use property to get property. man free freedom monster human-nature Richard Hofstadter
3c68412 Major parties have lived more for patronage than for principles; their goal has been to bind together a sufficiently large coalition of diverse interests to get into power; and once in power, to arrange sufficiently satisfactory compromises of interests to remain there. major-parties republicans Richard Hofstadter
7f4c0d2 There seems to be such a thing as the generically prejudiced mind. Studies Richard Hofstadter
1c9610a Herbert] Hoover, had he been challenged with the overpowering implausibility of his notion that economic life is a race that is won by the ablest runner, would have had a ready answer from his own biography: had he not started in life as a poor orphan and worked in the mines for a pittance, and had he not become first a millionaire and then President of the United States? There are times when nothing is more misleading than personal experie.. Richard Hofstadter
354cc98 The truly creative mind is hardly ever so much alone as when it is trying to be sociable. The Richard Hofstadter
3d59c4d 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. Richard Hofstadter
dfcda6e John C.] Calhoun was a minority spokesman in a democracy, a particularist in an age of nationalism, a slaveholder in an age of advancing liberties, and an agrarian in a furiously capitalistic country. His weakness was to be inhumanly schematic and logical, which is only to say that he thought as he lived. His mind, in a sense, was too masterful - it imposed itself upon realities. The great human, emotional, moral complexities of the world e.. Richard Hofstadter
e0743ce Once great men created fortunes; today a great system creates fortunate men. Richard Hofstadter
036a1cd Today, partly because many "conservative" schools have borrowed discriminatingly from progressive innovations, we may easily forget how dismal and self-satisfied the older conservative pedagogy often was, how it accepted, or even exploited, the child's classroom passivity, how much scope it afforded to excessively domineering teachers, how heavily it depended on rote learning. The main strength of progressivism came from its freshness in me.. Richard Hofstadter
ecf578e The deeper historical sources of the Great Inquisition are best revealed by the other enthusiasms of its devotees: hatred of Franklin D. Roosevelt, implacable opposition to New Deal reforms, desire to banish or destroy the United Nations, anti-Semitism, Negrophobia, isolationism, a passion for the repeal of the income tax, fear of poisoning by fluoridation of the water system, opposition to modernism in the churches. McCarthy's own expressi.. Richard Hofstadter
e604560 Grover} Cleveland, this product of good conscience and self-help, with his stern ideas of purity, efficiency, and service, was a taxpayer's dream, the ideal bourgeois statesmen for his time: out of heartfelt conviction he gave to the interests what many a lesser politician might have sold them for a price. He was the flower of American political culture in the Gilded Age. Richard Hofstadter
c80074d Progressivism, in short, was to a very considerable extent led by men who suffered from the events of their time not through a shrinkage in their means but through the changed pattern in the distribution of deference and power. Richard Hofstadter
8b17053 Third parties are like bees: once they have stung, they die. Richard Hofstadter
31880fa Anti-Catholicism has always been the pornography of the Puritan. Richard Hofstadter
69c912a Intellectualism, though by no means confined to doubters, is often the sole piety of the skeptic. Richard Hofstadter
61cd928 Intellect is neither practical nor impractical; it is extra-practical. Richard Hofstadter
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