reading:anti-intellectualism_in_american_life

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reading:anti-intellectualism_in_american_life [2022-08-21 22:54] – [The Revolt against Modernity] finished section 3 notes asdfreading:anti-intellectualism_in_american_life [2023-05-29 21:15] (current) – inline edit asdf
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 ====== Anti-Intellectualism in American Life ====== ====== Anti-Intellectualism in American Life ======
-Bear in mind while working through this book that Hofstadter was a centrist interested in moving academic discourse away from materialism and toward psychoanalysis.+It's amazing to realize that Hofstadter was writing about a time now more than 60 years past; many of the issues he discusses feel lifted straight out of today's political climate. In this book, he highlights various strands of American hostility to intellect and intellectuals, arguing that this feature is deeply entrenched in the American identity. 
 + 
 +===== Questions ===== 
 +  * How can we build a highly democratic society without discounting expertise? 
 +  * Can we have a church that values learning and discourse while remaining accessible to the congregation and without becoming overly ritualistic?
  
 ===== Chapter notes ===== ===== Chapter notes =====
 +Bear in mind while working through this book that Hofstadter was something of a centrist interested in moving academic discourse away from materialism and toward psychoanalysis.
 +
 ==== Anti-intellectualism in Our Time ==== ==== Anti-intellectualism in Our Time ====
   * this work, like others in Hofstadter's bibliography, exists very much in the shadow of 1950s McCarthyism   * this work, like others in Hofstadter's bibliography, exists very much in the shadow of 1950s McCarthyism
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   * So what can we take from this to apply to today's political environment? This mindset has not at all dissipated in the intervening 60 years, but it does feel more pervasive. It would be cliché to blame the internet; but today's media landscape does allow people to exist entirely within a bubble that not only refuses to challenge these views but reinforces them and prevents ever more extreme versions.   * So what can we take from this to apply to today's political environment? This mindset has not at all dissipated in the intervening 60 years, but it does feel more pervasive. It would be cliché to blame the internet; but today's media landscape does allow people to exist entirely within a bubble that not only refuses to challenge these views but reinforces them and prevents ever more extreme versions.
  
 +  * while Protestantism has been the major focus thus far, American Catholicism has also contributed notably to anti-intellectualism
 +  * despite strong anti-Catholic sentiment, it has been growing in size and acceptance
 +  * American Catholicism has focused on Americanizing itself and denouncing the aspects of American life it could not approve
 +  * in other areas where it holds comparable influence, the Church holds some intellectual prestige
 +  * because of the early anti-Catholic sentiment in the US, the Church had to prove its Americanism; this was done through vigorous polemicism
 +  * footnote 5 (p. 137): French Catholics are apparently taught to think through modern problems in Catholic ways rather than through strict courses in apologetics
 +  * the Church also had to expend considerable resources to accommodate a massive influx of immigrants, so that what was left over for higher culture was spent on Catholic culture
 +  * footnote 6 (p. 138): Hofstadter argues that education can serve as a barrier between parents and upwardly-mobile children: "Parents often hope to give their children the social and vocational advantages of college without at the same time infusing in them cultural aspirations too remote from those of the home environment in which they have been reared."
 +  * Catholicism in the US had more adherents among immigrants; to American Catholics, the true Church seemed to be in Europe
 +  * 
 ==== The Decline of the Gentleman ==== ==== The Decline of the Gentleman ====
 ==== The Fate of the Reformer ==== ==== The Fate of the Reformer ====
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 ===== Related works ===== ===== Related works =====
-  * [[The Civil War as a Theological Crisis]]: should provide additional detail on inter- and intra-denominational schisms, particularly where the issue of slavery was concerned+  * [[the_civil_war_as_a_theological_crisis|The Civil War as a Theological Crisis]]: should provide additional detail on inter- and intra-denominational schisms, particularly where the issue of slavery was concerned 
 +  * [[:reading:Jesus and John Wayne|Jesus and John Wayne]]: expands on the heavy masulinization of evangelical Christianity 
 + 
 +{{tag>history politics}}
 ---- struct data ---- ---- struct data ----
 +readinglist.author   : Hofstadter
 +readinglist.title    : Anti-Intellectualism in American Life
 +readinglist.summary  : It's amazing to realize that Hofstadter was writing about a time now more than 60 years past; many of the issues he discusses feel lifted straight out of today's political climate. In this book, he highlights various strands of American hostility to intellect and intellectuals, arguing that this feature is deeply entrenched in the American identity.
 +readinglist.status   : reading
 +readinglist.subjects : history, politics
 ---- ----
  
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