The tradition of the new. Yesterday's avant-gard-experiment is today's chic and tomorrow's cliche. Richard Hofstadter More Quotes by Richard Hofstadter More Quotes From Richard Hofstadter A university's essential character is that of being a center of free inquiry and criticism - a thing not to be sacrificed for anything else. Richard Hofstadter being-free criticism character It is ironic that the United States should have been founded by intellectuals, for throughout most of our political history, the intellectual has been for the most part either an outsider, a servant or a scapegoat. Richard Hofstadter political intellectual should-have If for every error and every act of incompetence one can substitute an act of treason, many points of fascinating interpretation are open to the paranoid imagination. Richard Hofstadter incompetence errors imagination If there is anything more dangerous to the life of the mind than having no independent commitment to ideas, it is having an excess of commitment to some special and constricting idea. Richard Hofstadter independent education commitment We are all sufferers from history, but the paranoid is a double sufferer, since he is afflicted not only by the real world, with the rest of us, but by his fantasies as well. Richard Hofstadter fantasy real world The idea of the paranoid style as a force in politics would have little contemporary relevance or historical value if it were applied only to men with profoundly disturbed minds. It is the use of paranoid modes of expression by more or less normal people that makes the phenomenon significant. Richard Hofstadter expression men ideas One of the primary tests of the mood of a society at any given time is whether its comfortable people tend to identify, psychologically, with the power and achievements of the very successful or with the needs and sufferings of the underprivileged. Richard Hofstadter honesty compassion successful To the reactionary ear every whispered criticism of the elite classes has always sounded like the opening shot of an uprising. Richard Hofstadter uprising criticism class There has always been in our national experience a type of mind which elevates hatred to a kind of creed; for this mind, group hatreds take a place in politics similar to the class struggle in some other modern societies. Richard Hofstadter hatred struggle class As with the pursuit of happiness, the pursuit of truth is itself gratifying whereas the consummation often turns out to be elusive. Richard Hofstadter turns pursuit-of-happiness truth A university is not a service station. Neither is it a political society, nor a meeting place for political societies. With all its limitations and failures, and they are invariably many, it is the best and most benign side of our society insofar as that society aims to cherish the human mind. Richard Hofstadter failure political men In using the terms play and playfulness, I do not intend to suggest any lack of seriousness; quite the contrary. Anyone who has watched children, or adults, at play will recognize that there is no contradiction between play and seriousness, and that some forms of play induce a measure of grave concentration not so readily called forth by work. Richard Hofstadter adults play children The nation seems to slouch onward into its uncertain future like some huge inarticulate beast, too much attainted by wounds and ailments to be robust, but too strong and resourceful to succumb. Richard Hofstadter beast too-much strong Intellectualism, though by no means confined to doubters, is often the sole piety of the skeptic. Richard Hofstadter sole doubters mean Intellect is resented as a form of power or privilege. Richard Hofstadter intellect privilege form It is a poor head that cannot find plausible reason for doing what the heart wants to do. Richard Hofstadter reason want heart It is possible that the distinction between moral relativism and moral absolutism has sometimes been blurred because an excessively consistent practice of either leads to the same practical result — ruthlessness in political life. Richard Hofstadter moral-absolutism political practice It has been our fate as a nation not to have ideologies but to be one. Richard Hofstadter has-beens fate ideology The American farmer, whose holdings were not so extensive as those of the grandee nor so tiny as those of the peasant, whose psychology was Protestant and bourgeois, and whose politics were petty-capitalist rather than traditionalist, had no reason to share the social outlook of the rural classes of Europe. In Europe land was limited and dear, while labor was abundant and relatively cheap; in America the ratio between land and labor was inverted. Richard Hofstadter land class europe Whatever the intellectual is too certain of, if he is healthily playful, he begins to find unsatisfactory. The meaning of his intellectual life lies not in the possession of truth but in the quest for new uncertainties. Richard Hofstadter quests intellectual lying
