[lbo-talk] Why Richard Hofstadter Is Still Worth Reading butNotfor the Reasons the Critics Have in Mind

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

On 10/17/06, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> This is from "Pseudo-Conservatism Revisited - 1965," an essay
> included in the Paranoid Style volume (pp. 69-70):
>
> "Part of McCarthy's strength lay in his ability to combine a mass
> appeal with a special appeal to a limited stratum of the upper
> classes. As compared with Coughlin, whose following had been almost
> entirely from a low-status public, McCarthy was able to win
> considerable support from the middle and upper ranks of society,
> mobilizing Republicans who had never accepted the changes brought by
> the New Deal and whose rage at the long exclusion of the party from
> presidential power was reaching a peak. There is evidence also that
> McCarthy had a special appeal to the postwar newly rich. Most
> prophetic of the future of the right wing was his strong appeal to
> fundamentalist-oriented Protestants...."

Richard Hofstadter wrote: "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" ("The
Pseudo-Conservative Revolt," The American Scholar 24, Winter 1954-55).

Isn't the reason you like Hofstadter that you are yearning for the
same kind of elite: "a responsible elite with political and moral
autonomy," who can check both "a highly organized, vocal, active and
well-financed minority" on the Right and those segments of the
American public who are easily exploited by that minority?
-- 
Yoshie
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