Peter Balakian at Literary Hub:
Some books written decades ago return to us, with a renewed relevance, in critical times. Richard Hofstadter’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book of 1964 Anti-Intellectualism in American Life is one. The eminent American historian, who taught at Columbia University in the 1950s and 60s, analyzed a strain in American culture that can help us understand some of the underpinnings of Donald Trump’s assaults on higher education, intellectuals, culture, and free speech. Anti-intellectualism is more than a descriptive term, it’s a concept that Hofstadter developed having studied the roots of the “national disrespect of the mind.” His study was prompted by the virulent assaults on intellectuals, liberalism, and higher education unleashed by Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s in his tyrannous, anti-communist crusade, in which he claimed “commies” were infiltrating the government (even President Eisenhower was a suspect).
Hofstadter traced anti-intellectualism to the following sources: 1) evangelical religion with its disdain for modernity, science, and rational thought, 2) pioneer individualism with its libertarian worship of practical skills and anti-institutionalism, and 3) businessman culture grounded in the practical life in pursuit of wealth and materialism.
More here.
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