Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, Volume 713Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 1963 - 434 pages In this award-winning classic work of consensus history, Richard Hofstadter, author of The Age of Reform, examines the role of social movements in the perception of intellect in American life. Professor Hofstadter sets the standard for the dissection of many facets of U.S. history. Here he tells the tale of the intertwining factors of American culture and politics that lead to prevalent anti-intellectualism. Although published in 1963, this remains the definitive work on the distrust of elites and experts and is sadly relevant to the present day. Thanks to Columbia University's Richard Hofstadter we have at last a fresh, forceful, fluent look from "the nether end" at various aspects of anti-intellectualism in America, past and present, and although it is self-styled a fragmentary rather than a formal study, the work is far-ranging, artfully approached and filled with a spirited, sensibility, without pedantry or polemic. It presents both the historical and socio-psychological aspects of its theme, pinpointing the middle-and-low-brow responses via our go-getter economy, the common man's traditional resentment and suspicion of the life of the mind, and the cyclical ambivalence which seems always to have greeted the scholar or expert when venturing into a democratic culture. For although the Founding Fathers, were a worldly elite, starting with Jefferson, too-much-book-larnin' soon became a political black mark. |
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Page 46
... character , because it is widely believed that intellect stands for mere cleverness , which transmutes easily into the sly or the diabolical . ' It is pitted against practicality , since theory is held to be opposed to practice , and ...
... character , because it is widely believed that intellect stands for mere cleverness , which transmutes easily into the sly or the diabolical . ' It is pitted against practicality , since theory is held to be opposed to practice , and ...
Page 208
... character over intellect in politics and life , and the all but universal tendency to assume that the two somehow stand in opposition to each other . His writings continually return to this contrast : " Character is far more important ...
... character over intellect in politics and life , and the all but universal tendency to assume that the two somehow stand in opposition to each other . His writings continually return to this contrast : " Character is far more important ...
Page 251
... character and culture . Although this argument did not disappear , it grew less conspicuous in the business rationale . As business became the dominant motif in American life and as a vast material empire rose in the New World ...
... character and culture . Although this argument did not disappear , it grew less conspicuous in the business rationale . As business became the dominant motif in American life and as a vast material empire rose in the New World ...
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academic Adams agricultural alienation Ameri American intellectuals Andrew Carnegie anti-intellectualism Baptists beatniks became become believe Billy Sunday Boston businessmen Catholic cent century character child church civil service clergy common criticism culture curriculum democracy democratic Dewey Dewey's educa England established evangelical experience farmers fundamentalists Gerald L. K. Smith Gilbert Tennent H. L. Mencken high school ideal ideas institutions intel interest Jefferson kind labor Lawrence Cremin leaders learning lectual less liberal life-adjustment literature living ment mental Methodist mind ministers ministry modern moral movement mugwump party political popular practical preachers preaching problems professors Progressive era Progressivism Protestant pupils Puritan reformers religion religious remarked revivals role Roosevelt Scopes trial secondary education seemed sense social society teachers teaching things thought tion tradition vocational writers wrote York