A review by judyward
Anti-Intellectualism in American Life by Richard Hofstadter

4.0

I first read this book in my Intellectual History of the United States class when I was in college a hundred years ago and I've felt the need to revisit it about every decade. In light of the level of what constitutes political, social, and cultural discourse in the United States today and out of total frustration with my college students who have emerged from schools that want them to "feel good about themselves" and have both lowered expectations and inflated grades, it was time to pull it off the bookshelf, dust it off, and give it a reread. Richard Hofstadter won the Pulitzer Prize in History for this book in 1964 and much of what he says is true today. He highlights a thread of "resentment and suspicion of the life of the mind and of those who are considered to represent it" and traces that thread from early American history to the period in which he was writing. Hofstadter demonstrates that some social movements in the U.S. have divorced intellect from other human virtues and treated it as if it is a vice and in doing so he sees much of American history in education, politics, business, and religion as a pitting of intellect against emotion, character, practicality, and democracy. This anti-intellectualism has had a long history and staying power. It has been used to disparage individuals throughout our history such as Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Adlai Stevenson. And, in Hofstadter's view, it has fostered an unshakable belief in "the superiority of inborn, intuitive, folkish, wisdom over the cultivated, oversophisticated, and self-interested knowledge of the literati". And these attitudes have consequences. Hofstadter believes that an intellectual approach to life accepts the premise that conflict is a constant and there is a need for spirited discussion and an openness to compromise. But, again in his view, the anti-intellectual bias has produced a society that "looks upon the world as an arena for conflict between absolute good and absolute evil, and, accordingly, it scorns compromise (who would compromise with Satan?) and can tolerate no ambiguities." Sadly, this conclusion seems as current in 21st century America as it has been in our past.