The Paranoid Style in American Politics

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The Paranoid Style in American Politics is the title of an essay by the American historian Richard J. Hofstadter , which was first published in short form in November 1964 in Harper's Magazine . In 1965 the author published a collection of essays in book form under the same title ( The Paranoid Style in American Politics, and Other Essays ), which contained the more detailed version of the original essay.

Hofstadter defines the paranoid style by “characteristics of heated exaggeration, suspicion and conspiracy fantasies ”.

Hofstadter published the essay after Senator Barry Goldwater won the Republican Party nomination against moderate candidate Nelson A. Rockefeller . On this occasion, Hofstadter examined the influence of conspiracy theories in US history, which he had previously considered to be marginal. Barry Goldwater was for him the expression that right-wing extremist fringe phenomena of society had arrived in the middle of the Republican party.

The essay has been quoted more frequently by its critics in the recent past, especially with regard to Donald Trump's campaign style.

Emergence

Sean Wilentz , who also had access to Hofstadter's papers, explains the genesis of the essay in detail in the foreword to the vintage edition of the essay: The essay was derived directly from the Herbert Spencer lecture of the same name that Hofstadter gave in November 1963 at Oxford University . It was published in the November 1964 issue of Harper's Magazine .

The lecture was based on Hofstadter's concern about the growing right-wing extremism in the USA, for example in the hysteria of the Mc Carthy era and in the increasing number of right-wing organizations such as the John Birch Society . Hofstadter did not regard these movements as the effects of European fascism, but as originally American. While researching the historical roots, he came across the phenomenon of the "paranoid style", which he diagnosed in right and left-wing extremist movements, but also in "good" movements such as the Antislavery movement .

The trigger for Hofstadter's preoccupation with the subject was the election campaign by Barry Goldwaters, who, in his opinion, had paranoid features that were previously only found in right-wing marginalized groups and which Eisenhower had considered "stupid" and meaningless just a few years earlier. In 1958, even in an unpublished essay, Hofstadter assessed the potential of right-wing extremism as low. Although Goldwater's campaign was unsuccessful, Hofstadter was convinced that the features of his election campaign had a lasting and formative character. In his view, the paranoid style had become an impressive factor in politics (“a formidable force in our politics”).

Wilentz sees an early forerunner of the subject of the paranoid style in Hofstadter's essay The Pseudo-Conservative Revolt from 1954, which was printed in 1955 in the anthology The Radical Right . Here Hofstadter differentiates between the traditional conservative-pragmatic orientation of politics and McCarthy's political understanding, which Adorno calls pseudo-conservative , which is only a conservative mask behind which a deep hatred of American society is hidden. The pseudo-conservatives denied their own radicalism and had themselves become subversive in the struggle against alleged subversive forces by demonizing everything that existed in social forces alongside their own position, including Eisenhower's previous direction of conservatism. In doing so, they would even be supported by the electorate who could only expect disadvantages from the new tax and social policy, turning away from the New Deal: the WASP groups at risk of social decline and the long-established German and Irish Catholic immigrants. " Status-oriented politics" has taken the place of interest politics .

Sean Wilentz comments critically that in this early essay Hofstadter overlooked the importance of Protestant fundamentalism and, in his social science orientation and focus on McCarthy, did not recognize how much American history had been shaped by similar phenomena before ( Alien and Sedition Acts , Charles Coughlin etc.).

In 1955, at the request of the Ford Foundation , Hofstadter drew up a memorandum on right-wing extremism in which he used the expression paranoid to irritate colleagues . The presentation of the prehistory now began with the anti-Masonic movement in the 1820s and ended with the Ku Klux Klan . Here Hofstadter also considered the reference to "conspiracy theories" for the first time.

In the collection of essays of the same name, the essay in its original detailed form comes first in the first part, Studies of the American Right , followed by The Pseudoconservative Revolt -1954 , Pseudoconservatism revisited -1965, and Goldwater and Pseudoconservative Politics . The second part, entitled Some Problems of Modern Times, contains the essays Cuba , the Philippines and Manifest Destiny , What Happened to the Antitrust Movement? and Free Silver and the Mind of “Coin” Harvey .

Subject

According to the author, the expression “ paranoid style” is a metaphorical transference of a clinical picture of clinical psychiatry . Hofstadter confirms that the expression should have a pejorative character to describe something that should be rejected. He makes a strict distinction between the individual disease phenomenon related to individual personalities and the meaning transferred to society:

“Although both are overheated, over-suspicious, over-aggressive, grandiose and apocalyptic in their expressions, the clinically ill paranoid sees the hostile world only as directed against himself personally. The representative of the paranoid political style, on the other hand, claims that the hostile and conspiratorial forces are directed against a nation, a culture or a lifestyle, not just against him, but against millions of others. "

Elsewhere he defines the style by “qualities of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy”, characteristics of heated exaggeration, suspicions and conspiracy fantasies.

Hofstädter also found the idea that the whole of world history was controlled by a conspiracy characteristic. Another feature is that the meticulous, fact-oriented and highly coherent reasoning of the theorists often surpasses the usual scientific presentations in accuracy and thoroughness, and differs from them only in one point by a leap into fantasy and illogic.

Psychological projections of the personality of the conspiracy theorist onto the " enemy" are considered Hofstadter to be an essential characteristic of the paranoid political style of the USA:

This enemy seems in many ways a projection of oneself; Both the ideal and the unacceptable aspects of one's own personality are ascribed to him. A fundamental paradox of the paranoid style is imitation of the enemy. The enemy may be the cosmopolitan intellectual, for example, but the paranoids will surpass him in scientific techniques, even in pedantry. (...) The Ku Klux Klan imitated Catholicism right down to priestly clothing, developed a sophisticated ritual and an equally well thought-out hierarchy. The John Birch Society (John Birch Society) mimics communist cells and quasi-secret operations by "front-line groups" and preaches ruthless waging of ideological war in a manner very similar to that of the communist enemy. The speakers of the various fundamentalist anti-communist "crusades" openly express their admiration for the dedication, discipline and strategic ingenuity that the communist cause breeds.

criticism

Michael Paul Rogin criticized Hofstadter's thesis regarding the Populist Party of the 1890s and similar progressive groups in his publication The Intellectuals and McCarthy: The Radical Specter (1967) . The ethnic and religious groups who supported Joseph McCarthy and other “paranoid figures” are, in his opinion, very different from those who supported the populists and their successors. In addition, the origin of the McCarthy movement is not to be found among the radical agrarian groups, as Hofstadter assumed. Despite this criticism and the essential differences between the two directions, right and left populism would continue to be mixed up. This tendency is a long-term consequence of Hofstadter's work.

In his 2013 article Populism, Paranoia, and the Politics of Free Silver , Samuel DeCanio also stated that the political views of the populists were by no means paranoid. Your criticism of the bribery practice of bankers to influence monetary policy in the 19th century is largely correct. DeCanio points out that in the Coinage Act of 1873, legislation in its eradication of bimetallism , which the populists branded the "Crime of 1873", was influenced by bribes from California State Bank President William Ralston , given to Henry Linderman, the chief the Philadelphia Mint. DeCanio's article contains a copy of the check. Because of this, DeCanio believes that the populists' view of their interpretation of the practice of bribery is more correct than Hofstadter had assumed.

In 1992 Milton Friedman came to the conclusion that the departure from the bimetal standard in 1872 had led to greater price instability that could have been avoided with the old standard. With this mistake, the US economy has been caused great long-term damage.

In addition, Hofstadter was accused by David Brion Davis that the anti-subversive movement from 1820 to 1840 was not simply pathological.

The marginality hypothesis was put into perspective by Peter Knight, Mark Fenster and Timothy Melley.

Bernd Ostendorf examined the connection to culture and religion.

Jovan Byford criticized the use of the word paranoid . Hofstadter does not always differentiate the clinical from the metaphorical sense, but pathologizes the representatives of this paranoid style, for example by ascribing to them a tendency towards sadomasochistic fantasies.

meaning

In 2007, Scott Horton ruled that Hofstadter's essay was one of the most important and influential articles in the 155 years of Harper's magazine history .

The political scientist Michael Barkun criticizes that with Hofstadter's critically intended creation of the word "paranoid style" one runs the risk of labeling people whose opinions one disapproves of. This stigmatization is reinterpreted by supporters of conspiracy theories as proof of the correctness of their claims, because if these were not true, they would not have to be so decisively excluded.

The Americanist Michael Butter called Hofstadter's essay the most influential analysis of conspiracy theories to date. Numerous quality media in Germany and the USA referred to it during the 2015/16 American presidential election campaign to analyze the Donald Trump phenomenon . On the other hand, Hofstadter's approach to pathologize supporters of conspiracy theories has proven to be wrong. Research has shown that a considerable part of the American and German populations believe in at least one conspiracy. So it doesn't make sense to portray all of these people as paranoid.

Historians have applied the paranoid style to other political movements as well, such as the Constitutional Union Party of 1860. Hofstadter's approach was later carried over to groups of the New Right , including the Political Right , Christian Right, and Patriotic Movement.

Topicality

Marcus Pindur from Deutschlandfunk judges that in view of Donald Trump's election campaign, Hofstadter's psychological analysis has lost none of its topicality. Although the paranoid style is present in minorities, in times of crisis it could become a mass phenomenon, as the election of Trump made clear. This example also clearly shows the interchangeability of the content with the same formal elements: the belief in the infiltration of the elite and the militant confrontation of the enemy.

Even Hans Hütt of Friday considers, 52 years after the publication of the essay did Donald Trump all observations Hofstadter followed like a script. Paranoia does not only manifest itself in shrill tones, however. In the opinion of the reviewer, their seemingly complete absence can also be read as an indication of their presence, as is the case with Hillary Clinton. The structure of this thinking testifies to the character of a projection: “In the enemy the paranoiacs recognize themselves, which is why the fight can only be fatal. They imitate the enemy down to the last detail in order to be able to destroy him better. ”In this system, the figure of the deviator, whose revelations would be considered unquestionable truth, deserves special attention.

Already in the election campaign of 2009 Andrea Böhm von der Zeit discovered Hofstadter's paranoid style in the attacks on the health reform of the “illegal” Obama. However, this is a constant in American politics, in which the angry white males decide on the elections. "... in the past thirty years 'angry white men' have achieved the greatest political success with this style."

Wolf Lepenies saw the paranoid style at work in Die Welt 2016 in the EU and Germany. For Lepenies, the expressions “Wutbürger” and “Lügenpresse” sounded like the German translation of Hofstadter's expressions “Angry Minds” and “Managed News”; the expression “Pegida” is an acronym for paranoid politics: “The follower of Pegida is committed to one big deal, he's not just a Dresdener and a German, he's a European. He fights against the greatest possible threat imaginable in the western world: the destruction of the West. And the greatest possible evil is identified as a threat: “Islam” ”. With the rise in votes for the AfD, Lepenies expects the “paranoid style” to become part of everyday political life in Germany.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Richard Hofstadter: The Paranoid Style in American Politics . Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2012, ISBN 978-0-307-80968-1 ( com.ph [accessed December 26, 2018]).
  2. ^ A b Richard Hofstadter: The Paranoid Style in American Politics. In: Harper's Magazine . November 1964, accessed on November 27, 2012 (English): “This enemy seems on many counts a projection of the self; both the ideal and the unacceptable aspects of the self are attributed to him. A fundamental paradox of the paranoid style is the imitation of the enemy. The enemy, for example, may be the cosmopolitan intellectual, but the paranoid will outdo him in the apparatus of scholarship, even of pedantry. … The Ku Klux Klan imitated Catholicism to the point of donning priestly vestments, developing an elaborate ritual and an equally elaborate hierarchy. The John Birch Society emulates Communist cells and quasi-secret operation through “front” groups, and preaches a ruthless prosecution of the ideological war along lines very similar to those it finds in the Communist enemy. Spokesmen of the various fundamentalist anti-Communist "crusades" openly express their admiration for the dedication, discipline, and strategic ingenuity the Communist cause calls forth. "
  3. ↑ Mark H'Unem'order: The Society of the Cincinnati: Conspiracy and Distrust in Early America . Berghahn Books, 2006, ISBN 978-1-84545-107-3 ( com.ph [accessed December 27, 2018]).
  4. ↑ a b US Elections - Recurring Paranoia as a Historical Phenomenon. Retrieved December 27, 2018 .
  5. ^ Marjorie B. Garber: Loaded Words . Fordham Univ Press, 2012, ISBN 978-0-8232-4204-7 ( com.ph [accessed December 27, 2018]).
  6. ↑ Mark H'Unem'order: The Society of the Cincinnati: Conspiracy and Distrust in Early America . Berghahn Books, 2006, ISBN 978-1-84545-107-3 , pp. 186 ( com.ph [accessed December 27, 2018]).
  7. ↑ Michael Rogin's relevance in the Age of Trump
  8. ^ Book Reviews The Intellectuals and McCarthy: The Radical Specter. Michael Paul Rogin; William A. Gamson
  9. ↑ If Trump and Sanders Are Both Populists, What Does Populist Mean?
  10. ^ Studies in American Political Development . In: journals.cambridge.org . Cambridge University Press . Retrieved August 2, 2016.
  11. ^ Milton Friedman, Money Mischief (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992) 78.
  12. ↑ Mark H'Unem'order: The Society of the Cincinnati: Conspiracy and Distrust in Early America . Berghahn Books, 2006, ISBN 978-1-84545-107-3 , pp. 193 ( com.ph [accessed December 27, 2018]).
  13. ^ J. Byford: Conspiracy Theories: A Critical Introduction . Springer, 2011, ISBN 978-0-230-34921-6 ( com.ph [accessed December 27, 2018]).
  14. ^ Scott Horton : The Paranoid Style in American Politics . In: Harper's Magazine . August 16, 2007.
  15. ↑ Michael Barkun: A Culture of Conspiracy. Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America. University of California Press, Berkeley 2013, pp. 9 and 28.
  16. ↑ a b Michael Butter: "Nothing is what it seems". About conspiracy theories . Suhrkamp, ​​Berlin 2018, p. 14.
  17. ^ DJ Mulloy: American extremism history, politics and the militia movement . London 2008, ISBN 978-0-415-32674-2 (English).
  18. ^ Gary Kamiya: The Infantile Style in American Politics . In: Salon . December 5, 2011. Retrieved August 19, 2016.
  19. ↑ Paranoia - The Enemy Within. Retrieved December 27, 2018 .
  20. ↑ By Andrea Böhm: USA: The paranoia is alive. Retrieved December 27, 2018 .
  21. ↑ Wolf Lepenies: The profiteers of fear are not only located in the USA . In: THE WORLD . March 10, 2016 ( welt.de [accessed December 27, 2018]).

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