Re: Why Richard Hofstadter Is Still Worth Reading butNotfor the Reasons the Critics Have in Mind
On Oct 10, 2006, at 5:23 PM, Jesse Lemisch wrote:
What those of us arguing against Hofstadter are saying — and I just don’t think Doug is
listening – is that there was and is no truth to the idea of H and of so many
others that popular movements are necessarily fascist,
Let me try this again. I’ve just read five (5) of his books, and I
didn’t encounter anything like that. Could you please provide some
cites for this rather extreme claim?
and that’s what’s there in his argument for the continuity between a supposed right-wing
Populism and a supposed grassroots McCarthyism. I hope that Doug might reconsider his romanticization of bad guys like Hofstadter and envision the
possibility of a left-wing populism.
He’s not a bad guy. Christ. We live in a country with a deep-seated
competitive, individualist culture. It is not fertile ground for
collectivist movements. Hell, it’s not even all that friendly to
unions. It’s not just elites who shove this down the throats of the
masses. Read Liza’s book and the quotes from Wal-Mart workers in it.
And they’re women, who are generally less individualistic than men.
Doug