Anti-Intellectualism in American Life
by Richard Hofstadter
To judge from the coverage of the Democratic Party convention in Denver, you might think that the main obstacle to Barack Obama becoming President is not racial prejudice (no, surely not), but the fact that he is perceived as an “egghead”. Watching Michelle Obama trying to convince delegates that her brilliant husband is just a regular guy and that she – a high-flying attorney – is an all-American mom left a saccharine aftertaste. But hell, if that’s what it takes to get Obama to the White House …
Anyone wondering why a creative and resourceful nation founded on the principles of Enlightenment rationalism prefers to think of itself as dumb could do worse than to revisit Richard Hofstadter’s Pulitzer-Prizewinning study Anti-Intellectualism in American Life.
First published in 1963, the book was conceived in the 1950s, during the dark night of McCarthyism, and focuses on the 1952 presidential election in which the urbane and erudite Adlai Stevenson was defeated by the “plain-speaking soldier” Dwight Eisenhower.
Hofstadter believed that American anti-intellectualism had deep roots in the Puritanism of the Founding Fathers, citing the New England minister John Cotton, who wrote in 1642, “The more learned and witty you bee, the more fit to act for Satan will you bee” – a view echoed three centuries later in Billy Graham’s condemnation of “so-called intellectuals” who have substituted “reason, rationalism … humanism” for the word of God.
To this was added the pragmatism of the businessman and the small-town lawyer – the conviction that any branch of knowledge that did not have an immediate application was not worth knowing. A sentimental attachment to the myth of the frontiersman (which bears little relation to the actual lives of most Americans today) gave rise to a suspicion of Easterners who “insult the people of the great Midwest and West, the heart of America”.
Specialists can also incur the wrath of government as a result of their scepticism about simplistic solutions and refusal to disregard inconvenient facts, as can be seen in the Bush administration’s frustration with the UN inspector Hans Blix’s insistence that he had found no WMD in Iraq. And while intellectuals have at times kow-towed to authoritarian governments, they have also been in the forefront of the struggle for human rights. Inclined to an open, inquiring attitude towards the rest of the world, can therefore be characterised as unpatriotic. While intellectuals in the USA were suspected of communism, in the communist world they were accused of “cosmopolitanism” and lack of class solidarity, with murderous consequences in Stalin’s Russia, Mao’s China and the Cambodia of the Khmer Rouge.
Sadly, Obama is right to worry about appearing too brainy. It did for Al Gore in 2000 and for John Kerry in 2004. What is curious is that the beneficiary was George Walker Bush, the Connecticut-born, Yale-education scion of an East Coast political and banking dynasty, who had reinvented himself as a Texas homeboy. In such matters, appearance is everything. But we should ask ourselves if a climate in which candidates for public office are expected to downplay their intellectual attainments is really healthy for the life of a democracy.
Not sure if it is simply anti-intellectualism. I think a lot of great politicians achieved great things before getting involved in politics, nowadays politicians get involved in politics from the moment they leave high school, i know thats often the case in the UK, there are many who have never had a job outside of Parliament. Believe it or not there are actually town councillors in Scotland who are still in their teens. Maybe the public resent this. Not sure if thats the case in America. Interesting theory though, it would certainly explain why bumbling Boris Johnson with his self deprecating humour, has broader appeal than say Cameron, Milliband,Brown etc even though they are of similar intellect and background.
Posted by: graham | Saturday, 30 August 2008 at 02:03 AM
Our lot over here don't have to pretend not to be intellectuals.
Posted by: john problem | Saturday, 30 August 2008 at 07:25 AM
Does this have something to do with the advent of "reality" life in the media? Perhaps the general public want to see a kind of "dumbed down" beast, because they don't feel that someone is talking down to them. The problem with the US and UK, is that intelligence, humility and true beauty are despised, and their replacements yob culture, binge drinking and the dragging down of standards everywhere are being lauded by the majority. All too often our politicians play to the lowest common denominator - Cameron with the hoodie for instance.
When did we first start to be loud and proud about our ignorance?
Posted by: AndyUK | Tuesday, 02 September 2008 at 04:15 PM
The problem w/ us (Americans) is that we have this populist strain in our culture that fetishizes struggle and elevates the "self made man"- this character that comes from the bottom and "pulls himself up by his bootstraps". Republicans often invoke their anti-elitism and their no-nonsense approach to people and politics, all while ravaging the base of existance of the working and middle classes through regressive policy. This plays quite well with with at least half of this country. it is really quite apparently making it difficult to get a Democrat in office. This Palin character really epitomizes this problem and one doesn't have to dig deep (Reagan, W, Huckabee, etc) for further examples.
Posted by: Michael Carlson | Friday, 12 September 2008 at 09:06 PM
I have little to add to Mr. Schuler's comments about this Hofstadter work, and I echo his recommendation for its revisitation (or, perhaps its visitation for the first time) by anyone trying to understand what is happening with American politics. A politician in America -- even one who in fact is self-made and who has pulled himself up by his bootstraps like Sen. Obama -- cannot question or criticize many of the values of "small town America" without being labeled an elitist. And politicians of both parties go to great lengths to demonstrate how common or regular they are, always careful not to overemphasize any educational achievement or general bookishness. One need only contrast the Presidential campaign strategies of John F. Kennedy in 1960 with that of John. F. Kerry in 2004; the former went to great lengths to emphasize the extent to which he was a well-educated intellectual, the latter to emphasize how much he enjoyed hunting. Of course Kennedy won while Kerry lost, but my sense is that a Kerry campaign predicated on his intellectual credentials (vis-à-vis Bush) would have ensured an even greater electoral defeat.
Posted by: Glenn Elliott | Monday, 22 September 2008 at 09:51 PM