David S. Brown’s book, Richard Hofstadter, An Intellectual Biography reminded me why I so appreciated Hofstadter’s writings and political beliefs in my younger days. He takes a balanced and appropriately ironic view to both the Left and Right when they plant themselves in ideological certainties, which he dismisses. He found himself “oppositional” and “skeptical” by nature throughout his career, from different vantage points in terms of emphasis, including being no fan of Roosevelt, even though he agreed with many of his policies’ and, of course, being bitterly opposed to McCarthy and the far Right.
He would be dismayed by what exists today, a too-far-left progressive wing of the Democratic Party and an entrenched right wing of the Republican Party fueled and caricatured by Trump himself, with an eroding middle in the values he most appreciated: “Intellectual autonomy, scientific enquiry, individual freedom, and cultural latitude,” or, in my words, open-minded consideration of different cultural views.
Late in his career, probably close to his death in 1970, Hofstadter wrote presciently in terms of our current moment: “The United States began with the heritage of slavery and with White Anglo-Saxon Protestant domination…” “The upsurge of new immigrants, the Catholics and now finally the Negroes has made our 20th century history into a story of ethnic wars of various kinds, war incidental to transforming the old America into a multi-ethnic, multi-religious urban society.”
The arc of Hofstadter’s career in thinking was in effect a pilgrimage from the Left to the liberalist center.
Late in his career, Hofstadter raised the issue of violence. He, together with a number of other historians, contributed original essays to the New York Times magazine on the topic, “Is America by Nature a Violent Society?” Hofstadter’s brief piece, produced only days after the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King, saw more darkness than light. He lashed out at the “feebleness of our efforts at gun control” and the ease with which “any zealot, any maniac, could purchase a firearm.” Disturbed by the New Left posturing, and concerned with the fate of pluralism and a political system crippled by sharp ideological divisions, Hofstadter saw little promise for a peaceful society. Quoting from D.H. Lawrence, he concluded that, “The sacred rites of American manhood” to arm oneself have led to a deeper and more ominous truth—“The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic and a killer.” This is going too far. Yet, 54 years later, sadly and truthfully these words ring with more truth than we wish, as we witness the even greater prevalence of guns, outbreak of mass shootings, and the removal by the Supreme Court of the state’s right to control the concealed carrying of handguns.
Irony permeated Hofstadter’s writing and thinking. He used irony to shed light on the confusing and often absurd episodes of the past. This struck many scholars as a strategy of careful detachment or evasion—imposing an artificial sense of complexity as a means of avoiding or rationalizing away conflict. That’s not how he intended, nor do I; it’s to show the reality of conflict and, yes, the absurdity of unintended consequences which pursuit of ideals often produces.
Hofstadter lamented unreflecting, all-knowing and close-minded pronouncements on both the Left and Right. He saw the irony in student protests on campus at a time when they had more freedom and more rights than ever before.
And yet, knowing where to draw the line on this is difficult. For if it were not for what Hofstadter probably would have called intemperate protests, progressive social change of which he approves would not have taken place, certainly not on the timing that it did. That’s true when it comes to women’s suffrage, the abolition of slavery, the approval of fair labor and childcare policies, securing the right to vote. Progress, like it or not, will often depend, if not always, especially when it comes to the big changes on what those in the middle (and I am often there) would describe as intemperate.
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