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.

• this work, like others in Hofstadter's bibliography, exists very much in the shadow of 1950s McCarthyism
• quoting Time: “[Eisenhower's 1952 victory] discloses an alarming fact long suspected: there is a wide and unhealthy gap between the American intellectuals and the people”
• Hofstadter identifies a key conflict between intellectuals and business, citing the increasing influence of business as a motivating factor driving anti-intellectualism of the time (New Dealers vs car dealers)
• quoting Schlesinger: “Anti-intellectualism has long been the anti-Semitism of the businessman.”
• “the McCarthyite rage, confronted by a Republican president, burned itself out…”

  • look for clarification: does he mean McCarthy's theories lost credibility once a Republican was elected? While many parts of that interpretation track with recent nonsense about the “deep state”, the latter event concluded much differently
• the Sputnik launch resulted in calls for improvements to American education, if only to outdo the Soviets and not for its own sake
• this book aims to illustrate that anti-intellectualism is not a new force in America but is in fact older than our national identity
• look into: American Paradox (Merle Curti)
• “As an attitude, [anti-intellectualism] is not usually found in pure form but in ambivalence — a pure and unalloyed dislike of intellect or intellectuals is uncommon.”
• “The common strain which binds together the attitudes and ideas which I call anti-intellectual is the resentment and suspicion of the life of the mind and of those who are considered to represent it; and a disposition constantly to minimize the value of that life.”
• Hofstadter is not interested in examining criticism of intellectuals by other intellectuals, a function he regards as an essential responsibility; rather, he is interested on shallow critiques from outside the community intended to diminish or dismantle it altogether
• the definition of “egghead” Hofstadter cites (p. 9) sounds remarkably similar to that used in the 2010s to describe so-called “special snowflakes”

  • in part: “a person of spurious intellectual pretensions…Fundamentally superficial. Over-emotional and feminine in reactions to any problem…surfeited with conceit and contempt for the experiences of more sound and able men…A doctrinaire supporter of Middle-European socialism as opposed to Greco-French-American ideas of democracy and liberalism…A self-conscious prig, so given to examining all sides of a question that he becomes thoroughly addled while remaining always in the same spot. An anemic bleeding heart.”
  • note specifically the disdain for considering other viewpoints; the implicit contrast between socialism and liberal democracy; and the anti-feminine image of their targets
• look into: “McCarthyism and the Conservative” (Immanuel Wallerstein)
• Hofstadter calls particular attention to right-wing characterization of intellectuals, “a categorical folkish dislike of the educated classes and of anything respectable, established, pedigreed, or cultivated.”
• quoting The Freeman: “The truly appalling phenomenon is the irrationality of the college-educated mob descending on Joseph R. McCarthy…It must be something in McCarthy's personal makeup…which repels alumni of Harvard, Princeton, and Yale. And we think we know what it is: This young man is constitutionally incapable of deference to social status.” (emphasis mine)
• quoting McCarthy: “It has not been the less fortunate or members of minority groups who have been selling this Nation out, but those who have had all the benefits that the wealthiest nation on earth has had to offer…the bright young men who are born with silver spoons in their mouths are the ones who have been worst.” (emphasis mine)
• clearly, social factors, monetary social factors, are at play here; Hofstadter calls attention to repeated attacks on the Ivy League (despite beliefs that all universities were hotbeds of communism)
• many of the highlighted comments betray a sense of being lost in the complexities of modern life; many commentators argue that a nebulous “common sense” should be sufficient for a complete understanding of the world, which is simply untrue
• unsurprisingly, they also have a hard-on for (that is, are strongly opposed to) modern art movements, treating them as foreign invasions meant to undermine American spirit
• friendly reminder that when these people say things like “our artistic inheritance”, there's some white supremacy lurking nearby
• cue Billy Graham completely ignoring that large chunks of philosophy seek to provide foundations for morality that are independent of religion (Euthyphro, anyone?)
• I have mixed feelings about Hofstadter's Exhibits J, K, and L. On the one hand, the current status quo of American (secondary and earlier) education is predicated on reducing students to oversimplified metrics that come to stand in for their aptitudes as human beings (see Joshua Katz's talk “Toxic Culture of Education”). This feeds into a network of structural incentives that work to keep material coverage shallow — relative to rote retention of facts, it is difficult to measure critical thinking and high-level reasoning skills with standardized tests. Moreover, the canonization of subtopics within the traditional “three R's” is heavily driven by business interests rather than pure intellectual exercise. This absolutely sucks, and so I am inclined to be open to alternative experiments. However, I share Hofstadter's condemnation of the conception of academic pursuits as inherently decadent or socially destructive. I do believe that mass education is a moral good, and I do find communicating with the inarticulate frustrating. I expected that those who came up with me through the same degree program would exhibit a similar capacity for the material, an expectation of which my peers often fell short.
• once again, Hofstadter emphasizes that anti-intellectualism typically manifests as ambivalence rather than pure hostility, even noting that its spokesmen are often fiercely devoted to specific ideas
• its diffusion into our culture, he argues, is often linked to good or defensible causes (e.g., egalitarianism)

• intellect and intelligence have entirely different connotations in popular usage; the former is often regarded with suspicion, while the latter is universally praised
• intelligence, in the common understanding, is more of a practical matter, where intellect is critical, creative, and contemplative
• consider the difference in value placed on inventive skill (intelligence) versus pure science (intellect)
• intellect is intertwined in the public consciousness with vocation (“an intellectual is one who carries a briefcase”), but it is more a quality of mind
• what distinguishes the intellectual is their quasi-religious dedication to ideas in the abstract (Hofstadter calls this the intellectual's “piety”)
• “What everyone else is willing to admit, namely that ideas and abstractions are of signal importance in human life, he imperatively feels.”
• intellectuals have often sought to serve as society's moral antenna and have tended to defend the less privileged
• a certain measure of playfulness helps prevent the dedication to ideas from becoming too constricted and morphing into zealotry
• this playfulness keeps the pursuit of truth ongoing and drives the quest for new questions
• quoting Harold Rosenberg: “the intellectual is one who turns answers into questions”
• play is neither unserious nor impractical
• attacks on intellect tend to target its supposed impracticality, but the intellectual is interested first and foremost in the exercise of the mind for its own sake; “practical” applications simply may or may not follow from this exercise
• “It is, in fact, the ability to comprehend and express not only different but opposing points of view, to identify imaginatively with or even to embrace within oneself contrary feelings and ideas that gives rise to first-rate work in all areas of humanistic expression and in many fields of inquiry.”
• these two qualities, piety and playfulness, must exist in balance
• the dual heritage of intellectualism — aristocracy and priesthood — is often at odds with a nation that values egalitarianism and faith disconnected from institutions
• society values intellectuals for their products (e.g., popular entertainment, weapon designs) and not for their piety and playfulness, which are instead seen as useless or dangerous
• anti-intellectualism has shifted with the perception of intellect's practicality
• academic schooling viewed in the 19th century as “unworldly, unmasculine, and impractical”; indeed, there was a certain disconnection between intellectual pursuits and the realities of daily American life
• the vastly more complex 20th century more or less rules out the American conception of omnicompetent layman
• “Intellect is resented as a form of power or privilege.”
• whether as experts or ideologues, the intellectual evokes profound fears, that of being manipulated (expert) and of subversion (ideologue)
• note that not all intellectuals take on these roles
• “A large segment of the public willingly resigns itself to political passivity in a world in which it cannot expect to make well-founded judgments.”

  • I would argue that this is ceasing to be the case (expound on this)
• businessmen and legislators now require the advice of experts and thus feel less in control of their affairs than before
• even when they actually work the levers of society's machinery, its inner workings elude them, and that disconnect fosters suspicion of those who do understand it
• the failures of expert-initiated policy are often interpreted as conspiracy and manipulation, heightened by those like Alger Hiss
• look into: The Torment of Secrecy (Edward Shils)
• does Hofstadter consider these resentments growing pains of modernity or its perpetual results?
• hence the popular approval of McCarthy-esque witch hunts: we are forever to be reliant on experts we do not trust, and these inquiries serve as vicarious revenge for the citizen
• those particularly susceptible to conspiratorial thinking have now added public intellectuals to their list of scapegoats
• while the intellectual as expert must be grudgingly accepted by the public, the intellectual as ideologist is often believed to have already destroyed a piece of American society
• the sense of intellectuals as a separate class emerged in France around the Dreyfus affair
• quoting William James: “We 'intellectuals' in America must all work to keep our precious birthright of individualism, and freedom from these institutions [church, army, aristocracy, royalty]. Every great institution is perforce a means of corruption — whatever good it may also do. Only in the free personal relation is full ideality to be found.”

  • think on this quote some more
• the majority of American intellectuals from the Progressive era onward fell left of (American) center
• this tendency was shared by much of the public during the Progressive era and New Deal
• the right has always attempted to compress the political left into one “radical” glob
• in the 1930s, a number of intellectuals allied themselves with Communism, a fact seized on by the right wing

  • “Communism” is capitalized throughout the text; I will share this convention when referring to national regimes rather than to the political system on which they are ostensibly modeled (that is, little-C “communism” will represent its Platonic ideal)
  • for what it's worth, Hofstadter makes no distinction between the two (yet); I believe that the fellow travelers of the time were drawn to the latter and trusted that there was no distinction
  • indeed, the actual failures of Communism (as far as I'm aware, though I require further reading on the topic) follow from its authoritarianism, a feature not accounted for on a one-dimensional conception of the political spectrum
• Hofstadter claims that the intellectuals are guilty as charged when it comes to Communist sympathies in the 1930s, though he says their real crime was outpacing the populace in this regard (and very infrequently did an espionage)
• likewise, shame over their mischaracterization of the USSR prevented them from launching a solid counterattack to McCarthyism
• even with the dearth of Communists in the US by the time of the book's writing, the right still craved a Communist scapegoat
• the real goal of the 1950s Great Inquisition was not to expose hidden Communists but instead to discharge resentments; hence the preference for respectable targets over the odd actual Communist
• here's a snippet that sounds descriptive of recent times: “The McCarthyist fellow travelers who announced that they approved of the senator's goals even though they disapproved of his methods missed the point: to McCarthy's true believers what was really appealing about him were his methods, since his goals were utterly nebulous. To them, his proliferating multiple accusations were a positive good…his bullying was welcomed because it satisfied…a desire to discredit the type of leadership the New Deal had made prominent…McCarthy did not trouble himself much over an obscure radical dentist promoted by the army when he could use the case to strike at the army itself, and beyond the army at the Eisenhower administration. The inquisitors were trying to give satisfaction against liberals, New Dealers, reformers, internationalists, intellectuals, and finally even against a Republican administration that failed to reverse liberal policies. What was involved, above all, was a set of political hostilities in which the New Deal was linked to the welfare state, the welfare state to socialism, and socialism to Communism.”

  • OK, there's a bit to unpack there. First, a wide swath of the public was mobilized (many perhaps unwittingly) to support conservative causes under the guise of anti-Communism. Second, weakly asking for civility in the pursuit of terrible ends is an absolute concession to the entire beast. You cannot ask someone to be kind as they exercise hostility.
• Hofstadter identifies the real concerns of those behind the Great Inquisition: racism, bigotry, opposition to modernity, resistance to social programs, dislike of income tax
• the stresses of modernity were significant shocks to an America that had been immersed in national isolation, village culture, and fundamentalist Christianity; the heartland regions, dominated by those attitudes continue to simmer in resentment of the changes brought by the 20th century

  • so why are these elements still animated by the same exact forces 60 years later?
• often at the forefront of these changes, the intellectual as ideologist is imagined to bear some blame for them
• America's self-image holds that it has resisted “foreign isms” and that this resistance is to thank for its exceptional nature; the undeniable strength of the USSR, which did take form under such an ism, painfully challenged this notion

  • it was never the case that the US was free from ideology; we have been known, as Hofstadter himself notes, to impose our societal model onto other nations (and this book predates some of the worst offenses). These actions have been tautologically justified because of our supposed exceptionalism
• it's easier for those aggrieved by these changes to believe they are the result of active sabotage instead of more complex forces, and the intellectual makes an easy scapegoat
• intellect is indeed a dangerous force, not usually to societies as a whole but rather to oppression, fraud, dogma
• the anti-intellectual case is built upon a set of fictional antagonisms: vs feeling (warm emotion is incompatible with intellect), vs character (intellect = cleverness, which becomes slyness), vs practicality (raw theorists are disinterested in applications), vs democracy (intellect = distinction, which defies egalitarianism)
• these antagonisms are based on a zero-sum understanding of human traits — that is, that cultivating intellect necessarily requires neglecting the others, when this is not at all the case
• Hofstadter describes evangelical Christianity, primitivism, business interests, and aggressive egalitarianism as leading forces driving American anti-intellectualism

  • I look forward to more details on these points

• we begin our coverage with a discussion of American evangelicalism
• much of American (secular) anti-intellectualism can be traced to threads in American Protestantism
• the role of intellect in Christianity has long been heavily debated

  • reflect on those trends within my own upbringing
• in the American environment, the more institutional sects waned in influence relative to the revivalist/enthusiastic movements and with them the learned professional clergy
• anti-intellectualism in the US is so pervasive in large part because of its religious features, particularly its competitive evangelical sectarianism and lack of intellect-friendly religious institutions
• social class greatly influences church/sect style; the wealthier have generally preferred greater ritual, whereas emotion has generally been favored among the lesser educated

  • does this hold as true today?
• emotional religion is sometimes viewed by its participants as a revolt against the upper-class church style, effectively a revolt against aristocratic manners
• lower-class sects often have apocalyptic focus, stress validity of inner religious experience versus formalized religion, simplify liturgical forms, and reject learned and/or professional clergy
• look into: The Social Sources of Denominationalism (H. Richard Niebuhr)
• religious “enthusiasm” flourished in early America, which had attracted many of lower social status
• enthusiasts retained theological beliefs and sacraments but focused primarily on inner communion with God
• they often viewed art and music as impediments and tended to reject traditional religious authority
• that said, authority in enthusiastic movements was fragmented instead of entirely absent; their problem was not with authority but with institutional authority, hence the tendency toward sectarian division
• the stabler evangelical denominations held that true religious authority lay with the Bible, properly interpreted
• those last two words were the sticking point: some believed strongly in scholarship, and others were extremely individualist and subjective
• the Milennarians, Anabaptists, Seekers, Ranters, and Quakers in England fought against an educated clergy, choosing lay preachers and intuition over professional clergy and learning
• most Puritans preferred an educated clergy, but those like the Levellers and Diggers argued that education did nothing to make man less sinful, calling universities “standing ponds of stinking water” and calling for egalitarianism

  • again, is egalitarianism good or bad in Hofstadter's eyes? Does he believe it inevitably leads to anti-intellectualism or simply that it's a fertile breeding ground for such attitudes?
• the American Anglicans, Presbyterians, and Congregationalists (all highly organized) were quickly met with dissent
• many in the southern frontiers abandoned church connections
• in New England, there was agitation against these denominations
• radical Puritans were very against the universities
• the Great Awakening of the 18th century brought a shift in favor of the enthusiasts across the colonies and set the precedent for the evangelicalism of the 19th century (and its comorbid anti-intellectualism)
• the Puritan clergy came as close to an intellectual ruling class as America has ever had
• the Puritan ministry is popularly remembered for its faults (e.g. the Salem witch trials), but they by and large expected their clergy to be educated
• the Massachusetts Bay colony was extremely in favor of learning and intellect, setting aside funds very early in its history to build a university
• contrary to popular belief, the early American universities were not simple seminaries; they believed in no distinction between liberal and clerical education
• distinct seminaries arose much more recently as a product of sectarianism and the threat of secularism in colleges
• the Puritan scholarship that emerged as the settlements grew more established strongly emphasized rational discourse in Biblical interpretation over emotionalism
• Puritan popular education sought to train a laity that could understand such discourse
• the early Puritan clergy valued enlightenment and science as much as religion and theology
• that said, they did share the intolerances of their time, and they committed grave excesses in the pursuit of a unified and commanding creed
• there was, however, a certain diversity of thought among the Puritan clergy, especially as more came up at the end of the 17th century
• generally, the more learned among them promoted greater tolerance, broader pursuit of learning, the cultivation of science, and restraint of the more bigoted elements of their society
• the late 17th century educated clergy were more liberal in thought than the uneducated laymen or the fundamentalists
• most scientific inquiries were led by the clergy, leading the push for smallpox inoculation
• in fact, though most clerics believed in the idea of witchcraft, they more strongly opposed the extremely loose criteria for evidence in the Salem trials than did lay judges; a group wrote to the governor advising caution in this regard, a protest that was ignored
• despite their liberal attitude toward scholarship, their religious practice was cold and formal compared to the enthusiasts, setting the stage for the revivalism of the 18th century
• the Great Awakening set a precedent for later attacks upon the learned clergy
• similar movements had taken place in Europe (German pietism, English Methodism)
• large numbers of Americans were either unchurched or in dissenting churches (e.g. Baptists)
• look into: The New England Mind: from Colony to Province (Perry Miller)
• the long-standing traditions of the established churches had lost reach with common people, their sermons often dull and sleepy
• the Great Awakenings began in 1720 with Theodore Frelinghuysen in New Jersey's Dutch Reformed Church
• William Tennent established his Log College theological school in 1726, where he trained men to integrate revivalism with Presbyterianism
• revivalism appeared independently in New England in 1734 with Jonathan Edwards, who fused Puritan doctrine and written sermon with revivalist zeal
• George Whitefield's 1738-39 sermons attracted thousands from the countrysides
• James Davenport, during his tours of CT and MA, was arrested multiple times for slandering established ministers and singing while walking to meetings; each time he was released after being found “disturbed in the rational faculties of the mind”; he was sharply criticized by fellow awakener Gilbert Tennent
• established ministers at first welcomed the revivalists but soon realized that the latter viewed them as enemies; they found it difficult to compete with the awakeners within the bounds of their church principles
• the awakeners were largely uninterested in issues of great doctrinal import, instead focusing on the hellfire and damnation with large helpings of loud, often frightening, emotion
• the revivalists challenged standing notions of order and learning in the established churches, deeply dividing their congregations

  • can we have a church that values learning and discourse while remaining accessible to the congregation and not overly ritualistic?

    • I would argue yes, but not as a fundamentalist sect; stuffiness and formality are matters of affect, but a dogmatic foundation admits no other ideas
    • consider my singular college philosophy course: the professor wanted to talk about his ideas, but he found it important to expose us to the tradition upon which those ideas were built
    • if you wish to assert that a single book contains the entirety of human truth, then studying and thinking about anything else is only a distraction from that truth
    • that is to say, there must be room for a certain amount of interpretive disagreement; and in that, we have greater democratization — if the preacher (lay or educated) is not treated as the sole valid Biblical interpreter, if the congregants are given space to ask and debate thorny questions, then is there not
    • I think this also rules out megachurches, not just because they're basically all fundamentalist, but also because they're driven heavily by a single authoritative personality
• the core tension between the revivalists and the establishment was emotion versus reason; quoting Charles Chauncy: “They pleaded there was no need of learning in preaching, and that one of them could by the Spirit do better than the minister by his learning, as if the Spirit and learning were opposites.”

  • which is largely how modern evangelicals frame it: thinking is not only inhibitory to movement of the spirit but is also somehow antithetical to it; “turn off your brain and just, like, go with the flow, man”
• Hofstadter says that “conservatives” had problems with this new mode of preaching; I'll assume he means this as a (questionable) synonym for “the establishment ministry” rather than its political meaning
• the revivalists did rail against the colleges and even occasionally organized book burnings
• that said, their objection was not against colleges as a whole; rather, each faction wanted its own college to push its own specific message
• the Great Awakening served mostly as foreshadowing for the excesses of future revivals; the above events were minority happenings notable within the context of 1740s New England, but they were not to be so restrained in the rougher edges of the American frontier
• the movement's appeal to the common man and its struggle against the establishment were democratizing forces, and Hofstadter mentions that the revivalists were mobilized to humanitarian ends (though he lists conversion of slaves and Native Americans as examples, which is…questionable)
• it's wild to me how early the seeds of the modern evangelical movement were planted, how early they developed some of their particular fixations
• as Americans moved further west and south, civilization grew thinner and rougher
• the later circuit-riding preachers had to adopt some rougher mannerisms to be heard by the people (and often just to survive in those locations)

• early 19th-century America, in part as a product of its diverse settlers, was not an environment suitable for a strong, coercive central religious establishment
• religious groups that began as sects started growing into stronger organizations, though still less formal than earlier churches
• look into: “Denominationalism: The Shape of Protestantism in America” (Sidney E. Mead)
• this competitive religious environment has been called denominationalism; under such, church membership was optional and voluntarily entered
• as many as 90% of Americans were unchurched in the 1790s, though this number rapidly decreased in the following years
• to the American mind, Europe represented past corruptions to be surmounted; American Protestant denominations were based in a similar feeling about the Christian past
• it was strongly felt that Christianity's history was one of corruption and degeneration polluting the purity of primitive Christianity

  • ah, hence the fundamentalist attitude of “the only book I need is the Bible” — because the Bible is ostensibly free of said corruptions
• most denominations were held together not by a historical tradition of doctrine but by their goals and motives; rational discussion of theology was regarded as divisive and distractionary
• their sole goal was the acquisition of converts
• the potential converts over which they fought had not been held by previous liturgical forms, so reproducing those would be a no-go; what did work was emotional appeal
• rather than reach out with theological complexities, they impressed upon the public the simple choice of heaven versus hell
• quoting Dwight L. Moody: “It makes no difference how you get a man to God, provided you get him there.”
• that is, any method or device that could bring a sinner into the fold was good, full stop
• the minister's success in winning converts was taken as evidence that he preached the truth

  • brings to mind the NWC conception of a “life-giving church”; those that, for whatever reason, failed to grow beyond some implied rate were somehow compromised or “dead”
  • I don't mean to completely reject the concept; these churches could have legitimate shortcomings limiting growth (e.g. toxic environments/personalities), but the “dead” label was pressed upon them purely due to lack of growth, that growth being seen as self-evidently good
  • following this fallacious idea (good church ⇒ growth, therefore growth ⇒ good church) to its logical conclusion, megachurches must be among the best churches out there
• American religion often has a focus on (Christian) faith in the abstract; quoting Eisenhower: “Our government makes no sense, unless it is founded in a deeply felt religious faith—and I don't care what it is.”

  • obviously I disagree with his general sentiment, but I also doubt this indifference to religious content; today at least, that religion must call itself Christian somehow; see also Christian atheism: “I don't believe in God, but the God I don't believe in is Jehovah”
• denominational fractures turned churches into highly localized affairs as opposed to the local arms of a particular organization
• respect for these ministers was not granted by virtue of their positions but was earned by their soul-winning activities
• ministers often ended up with the skills of politicians; the most successful among them wanted to reform the country and win the West for Christianity
• charisma, then, became a more valuable attribute for the evangelical preacher than intellect
• as the movement progressed, churches increasingly withdrew from intellectual contact with the secular world

• not all major (conservative) churches were influenced by the evangelicals; the Roman Catholic and Lutheran churches were unaffected, the Presbyterian and Congregational churches were internally divided, and the Episcopalians varied in response by geography
• the denominational situation solidified between the Revolution and 1850
• the Methodists and Baptists, once splinter sects, had become the top two Protestant groups by 1850
• the evangelicals were better able to adapt to the conditions on the American frontier
• look into: Modern Revivalism (William G. McLoughlin)
• look into: Revivalism and Social Reform (Timothy L. Smith)
• multiple waves of revivalism swept over the country during the late 18th and the 19th centuries
• the first wave (1795–1835) centered on the New West (TN, KY) and later western NY and the Midwest
• the second wave (1840–1858) took over cities such as New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, etc.
• revivals were accompanied by swaths of mission societies, tract societies, education societies, Sunday-school unions, and temperance organizations
• these groups were often interdenominational; their goal was to convert every American and eventually the whole world
• denominational differences were for a long time set aside to fight the common enemies of skepticism, passivity, and Romanism
• this common effort died out around 1837, in part due to the old grudges and in part because the group effort had achieved its main objectives
• note that church membership is distinct from church attendance
• the Methodists and Baptists accounted for almost 70% of American Protestants

• among the evangelicals, the Presbyterians exhibited the strongest intellectual tendencies
• in the Plan of Union (1801), the Presbyterians and Congregationalists effectively merged the two denominations
• aside: a folk saying of the time was that a Methodist is a Baptist who wears shoes, a Presbyterian is a Methodist who has gone to college, and an Episcopalian is a Presbyterian who lives off his investments
• portions of the Presbyterian ministry began to preach New Haven theology, which expanded divine grace to more of mankind and was more compatible with evangelical revivals
• this led to a schism and heresy trials from 1827–1837 between the stricter Old School Calvinists and this New School
• abolitionist sympathies and interdenominational missionary cooperation within the New School also drove this split
• a major New School “presbygational” revivalist was Charles Grandison Finney, who experienced “a mighty baptism of the Holy Ghost” while praying for guidance in his law office and pivoted completely to ministry after that
• ordained in 1824, Finney conducted a series of revivals in 1825–1835, for which he was well-gifted
• he had no formal education in theology and refused instruction or corrections that disagreed with his own views; “I had read nothing on the subject except my own Bible; and what I had there found upon the subject, I interpreted as I would have understood the same or like passages in a law book…I found myself utterly unable to accept doctrine on the ground authority…”
• indeed, he said he addressed congregations (particularly the educated middle-class congregations) as he would a jury
• his ability to adapt to his audiences—leaning harder on emotion in smaller country towns and harder on reason in larger areas—concerned his peers, who worried he would turn into an “intellectualist”
• Finney was, however, largely true to the revivalist tradition: focused on soul-winning results regardless of method, preferring spontaneous to written sermons, and opposed to secular culture
• his success, given his status as an amateur, was taken as a challenge to the theological schools; he believed that those schools were “spoiling their ministers”, whose sermons “degenerate[d] into literary essays”, which he considered “not preaching…not spiritually edifying”
• he generally believed intellect and piety were incompatible—with the interesting exception of science, which he believed could be a valuable instrument for glorifying God

• the Methodists were vastly more successful than the Presbyterians at converting the American frontier
• unlike the Presbyterians, in whom the evangelical movement diluted the Puritan traditions of educated ministry, the Methodists began with no intellectualist tradition but attracted members whose appreciation for education grew as the church settled
• Methodists of the mid-19th century were often divided between those longing for the uneducated circuit riders and those who wished for an educated clergy
• John Wesley, educated at Oxford, had set creditable intellectual standards for Methodism: “It is a fundamental principle with us that to renounce reason is to renounce religion, that religion and reason go hand in hand, and that all irrational religion is false religion”
• see the second half of footnote 9 on p. 96
• Wesley and Francis Asbury (the first organizer of American Methodism) were committed to itinerant preaching as a matter of principle, believing that a stationary clergy would eventually lose touch with congregations
• this itinerant tradition was particularly well-suited for reaching the dispersing American population; its centerpiece and pride were the Methodist circuit-riding preachers, who braved all weather and terrain in their work
• it was seen as a great strength that this early Methodist clergy and their laity were not significantly different in lifestyle or culture
• in that environment, the circuit-riders had to be pragmatic in their theology; results, as measured in conversions, mattered far more than deep knowledge
• New England was a harder sell for the Methodists, at least at first; in true Methodist form, they managed to adapt
• “We have always been more anxious to preserve a living rather than a learned ministry.”
• see footnote 4 on page 98, which features variations on this sentence: “St. Peter was a fisherman—do you think he ever went to Yale College? Yet he was the rock upon which Christ built his church.”

  • my knee-jerk reaction to this statement is that Yale did not exist in those days, but I think that's missing the point—he is, intentionally or not, arguing against change and progress
• the centralized nature of the Methodists meant that these forces repeatedly clashed over the culture of the whole church
• the Methodist Magazine and Quarterly Review forms a historical record of these battles
• by the 1840s, the drive for respectability and educated clergy was winning out
• their earlier attempts at education were quite pathetic; most Methodists had little capacity for general education, and theological education was unnecessary for the frontier-going circuit-riders
• the 1820s and 1830s saw the first spurt of successful Methodist colleges and academies
• the first two Methodist seminaries were founded as “Biblical Institutes”, since Methodists as a whole still considered seminaries to be fountainheads of heresy (haha)
• extended Peter Cartwright quote (pp. 101–103), described by Hofstadter as “a perfect embodiment of the anti-intellectual position”

  • to paraphrase: the uneducated itinerants were largely responsible for the diffusion of Methodism; meanwhile, the proponents of education lost sight of the real goal (saving souls), as filling all those positions would drain the pool of active preachers; and despite the tones in which proponents of education described the old circuit-riders, they quietly believed the latter's success was due entirely to an ignorant public
• despite Cartwright's objections, his peers noted that it was easier to work among the uneducated

• the Baptists had a similar historical trajectory to that of the Methodists, though they were more decentralized and uncompromising
• all the way through the early 19th century, the Baptists were fiercely opposed to an educated ministry
• the more established Anglican and Congregationalist churches had been sharp critics of the early Baptists
• the Baptist preachers had day jobs (so to speak) and so had neither time for intense study nor patience for competition
• those involved with missionary societies were specifically unwelcome in the Baptist Associations: “We cannot receive into our fellowship either churches or members who join one of those unscriptural societies.”
• the Baptist opposition to missions was rooted in their opposition to authority, fearing becoming “the Pope of Rome and the Mother of Harlots”
• naturally, their unpaid ministry could easily believe that the educated ministries from the East were only in it for the money and fame; they were also sorely aware of their own limitations compared to their counterparts
• the Baptists eventually caved to the demand for educated ministry, in large part due to desires for self-respect and the respect of other denominations

• following the Civil War, the evangelicals increasingly had to focus on the cities; failure to adapt to the urban conditions from country ones would limit the appeal of any revivalist
• Between Finney and Billy Sunday was Dwight L. Moody, who left the world of business in 1860 to pursue independent mission work
• having left school at 13, he never sought ordination
• between 1873 and 75, Moody embarked on a series of evangelical meetings in Britain, which had not seen such preaching since Wesley and Whitefield; he returned to America as the leader of the new phase of American evangelism and remained so until his death in 1899
• Moody's style was softer than Finney's, preferring the promise of heaven to the threat of hell, with a firm simplicity reminiscent of Grant
• though ignorant, especially of grammar, he knew his Bible and his audiences, starting from the simple question of “are you a Christian?”
• his message was nondenominational; nearly every denomination endorsed him at one time or another (except the Catholics, the Unitarians, and the Universalists)
• quoting Moody: “My theology! I didn't know I had any. I wish you would tell me what my theology is.”
• he far preferred the lay ministry, though he did not openly attack the educated ministry
• he felt secular education flattered people rather than showing them how bad they were; he read nothing that didn't help him understand the Bible
• by Moody's time, science had become a threat to religion; “It is a great deal easier to believe that man was made after the image of God than to believe, as some young men and women are being taught now, that he is the offspring of a monkey.”
• prior to Moody, revivalists believed that divine intervention was the essential active ingredient in their work; Finney, on the other hand, argued that, while the spirit was always at work, human will was the primary driver of revivals; Moody's work “belonged to the age of Andrew Carnegie and P.T. Barnum,” requiring massive publicity, finance committees, and occasionally temporary auditoriums to house the attendees
• clearly he brought his business experience to the table, often pitching salvation like a salesman
• Moody's political outlook was consistently conservative; his activities forged the long-standing link between the evangelical and business minds
• “I say to the rich men of Chicago, their money will not be worth much if communism and infidelity sweep the land.”
• this was not pandering so much as the result of his pre-millennial beliefs (pre-millennial dispensationalism?)
• “I have heard of reform, reform, until I am tired and sick of the whole thing. It is a regeneration by the power of the Holy Ghost that we need.”; with humanity's trajectory to certain destruction, why waste time with social progress?

  • I have zero patience for this attitude. Even if you believe that social progress will never approach heaven's perfection, that's no reason to fight for the status quo.
  • adherents of doomsday cults, once prophecy after prophecy fails, frequently decide that it was their responsibility to bring doomsday about. Does a similar effect occur within evangelical Christian circles?

• the revivals of Moody's time, occurring as they did in view of the urban press, had to tone down the “enthusiasm” of the past camp meetings—at least on the audience's part
• the preachers, on the other hand, had begun to transition their preaching from vernacular to vulgar
• Finney had argued well for spontaneous, vernacular preaching: trimmed of elegance and pretense, words could reach more people
• Moody's sermons, while colloquial, stopped short of vulgarity; his contemporaries, not so much
• quoting evangelist Sam Jones: “Half of the literary preachers in this town are A.B.s, Ph.D.s, D.D.s, LL.D., and A.S.S.s.” and “If anyone thinks he can't stand the truth rubbed in a little thicker and faster than he ever had it before, he'd better get out of here.”
• Billy Sunday would imitate this latter style in his preaching career (1896–1935)
• after playing baseball for the Chicago White Stockings, he worked for the YMCA and started preaching
• Sunday, unlike Moody, hungered for ordination; during a 1903 examination with the Chicago Presbytery, he answered several of the questions with something like “that's too deep for me”; the exam was then waived on the ground that he had already made more converts than the examiners
• in 1906 he left the small Midwestern towns for larger cities, and within 3 years was an established evangelist on the level of Moody
• (William Jennings) Bryan, (Woodrow) Wilson, and Theodore Roosevelt each came to endorse him in some fashion; the tycoons heaped money onto him; and he placed 8th (tied with Carnegie) in a 1914 American Magazine poll for the greatest man in the US
• where Moody sought the invitations of local ministers, Sunday often bulldozed hesitant clerics; Moody lived comfortably but without great wealth, while Sunday was a millionaire; Sunday was flashy in clothing (striped suits, diamond pins and studs, patent-leather shoes)
• replying to criticisms of the cost of his revivals: “What I'm paid for my work makes it only about $2 a soul, and I get less proportionally for the number I convert than any other living evangelist.”

  • his financial excesses stood as precedent for prosperity gospel figures
• further Sunday scandals: hiring a circus giant as a doorman, shedding his coat and vest during a heated sermon, imitating his contemporaries, physical stunts on stage
• “What do I care if some puff-eyed little dibbly-dibbly preacher goes tibbly-tibbling around because I use plain Anglo-Saxon words? I want people to know what I mean and that's why I try to get down where they live.”; “The church in America would die of dry rot and sink 49 fathoms into hell if all members were multi-millionaires and college graduates.”; “Jesus could go some; Jesus Christ could go like a six-cylinder engine, and if you think Jesus couldn't, you're dead wrong…[Jesus] was no dough-faced, lick-spittle proposition. Jesus was the greatest scrapper who ever lived.”

  • note the vaguely anti-feminine language here: Jesus was a manly man man man, and he'd kick all of you in each buttcheek individually!

When reading Hofstadter's work, it is easy to forget that he was writing in a time now 60 years past. So many of his observations feel lifted straight out of today's discourse. Take the following definition of “egghead” offered by a right-wing writer:

a person of spurious intellectual pretensions…Fundamentally superficial. Over-emotional and feminine in reactions to any problem…surfeited with conceit and contempt for the experiences of more sound and able men…A doctrinaire supporter of Middle-European socialism as opposed to Greco-French-American ideas of democracy and liberalism…A self-conscious prig, so given to examining all sides of a question that he becomes thoroughly addled while remaining always in the same spot. An anemic bleeding heart.

It bears a striking resemblance to the 2010s pejorative “special snowflake”: the anti-feminine posture, the contempt for alternative viewpoints, the empty contrast of socialism and democracy. This is hardly the only example. The McCarthyist witch hunts play a prominent role, as do evangelical Christian movements dating back to the First Great Awakening of the 1730s. It is painful to realize that many of the nation's prejudices have not shifted much in the intervening decades.

It is precisely that stability of attitudes that Hofstadter sets out to examine. Deeply embedded within the American identity lies a powerful faith in the omnicompetent layman. As time has pulled us further into modernity, however, that faith has drifted further and further from reality while remaining largely intact.

…

Indeed, faith was the first arena for American anti-intellectualism.

• 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