>When I was in college, late 80s, early 90s, my lefty professors were
>pretty condescending towards Hofstadter as a consensus historian and
>proto-neocon. But I remember liking his psychological angle (I also
>liked Christopher Lasch.) Besides, I never got the extreme hostility
>to the "consensus" approach. There are obviously things that hold
>most Americans together.
I like the psycho-angle myself, of course. And Americans believe, or say they believe, a lot of things out of a spirit of belonging. I wish they didn't, but they do, so we might as well understand it.
Doug