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Why is George Will the only critic mentioned in the "criticism" section? Will is a pundit, not a historian and it is pretty clear that he does not understand, and possibly has not read, "The Paranoid Style". Is a separate section for criticism really even necessary? There are various critiques of Hofstadters works throughout the body of the article. (OBC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.181.44.229 ( talk) 05:04, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
I would like to edit this sentence from the "Biography" section for clarity, but what does it mean? "In The Idea of a Party System, Hofstadter described the beginning of the first party system in America as having been driven by an irrational fear that one of the two major parties hoped to destroy the republic." DSatz 17:34, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
Here's why I changed the dates regarding Hofstadter's Social Darwinism: I found that Dissertation Abstracts lists the date of Hofstadter's dissertation as 1945. The two academic libraries I've checked, as well as Fetchbook, show that it was first published in 1955. And if he didn't complete the diss until 1945, joining the faculty of Columbia in 1946 would not be "two years later" as the article said. -- RedJ 17 16:40, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
Title Social darwinism in American thought, 1860-1915, by Richard Hofstader. Publisher Philadephia, University of Pennsylvania Press 1944. Rjensen 23:09, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
I am unfamiliar with this gentleman's work, only visiting this page because of a casual mention of him in an article critical Wikipedia. However, reading this page, I can't help but feel that it is written in a fashion to subtly mock the man's ideas. For instance:
Beard's Civil War was a transfer of political power from Southern plantation elite to Northeastern capitalists. Slavery was not especially important as a cause.
Also:
Like his other books it was light on original research, for he did rarely worked in archives or newspaper files, preferring to read and sythesize secondary sources.
And:
Later critics undercut his thesis, showing that very few businessmen were Social Darwinists and instead took very different positions in favor of philanthropy, for example.
Pardon me if all of these items are factually accurate, and I'm just reading the derision in to it. The last item actually contains a link to a note which appears to be presently non-existent, but is probably meant to refer to a reference which justifies the statement. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by OldMiner ( talk • contribs) .
Understanding "the tone of the language" instead of the language itself is a subjective enterprise. Each reader will interpret the "tone" in a different way. Shouldn't we merely try to understand the language and disregard the "tone," if there is one at all? Lestrade ( talk) 16:38, 10 February 2010 (UTC)Lestrade
Hello - Rjensen, if you're making significant content changes to the article, could you please leave a more detailed edit summary than "tweaks" or "details"? It will help everyone who works on the article. Thanks. MastCell 22:27, 13 October 2006 (UTC) Superscript text
Hello, I have to agree that the page in its current state does not do justice to Hofstadter's work. It is biased and unfair to his arguments. My own doctorate is in European history and, therefore, I do not feel qualified to correct it. However, I would encourage anyone who is familiar with Hofstadter's work to revise it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.92.58.210 ( talk) 22:05, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
I agree with the above. The entry on Hofstadter has a derisive tone that reads as if it is emanating from the ideological currents that were the subject of so much of Hofstadter's work. I wasn't aware that Hofstadter's treatment of social Darwinism was so seriously in error - except by those who uncritically accept the work of Spencer and Sumner and who are themselves embracing a discredited body of social theory. And while Hofstadter's radical years are interesting, the amount of space devoted to his 'Marxist' years seems disproportionate to the influence it had on his published work in U.S. history. Of course, the added emphasis on his political affiliations, despite his youth and the time period of the Depression, seems useful if one wanted to engage in guilt by association. The sociological and psychological roots of radical rightwing politics that Hofstadter explores remains widely accepted among social scientists. The past 25 years in American culture and politics, and the past 15 or so years of the ascendancy of righting rule in this country only further substantiates Hofstadter. Anti-intellectualism, the scientific racism of social Darwinism, and paranoia are very much the stuff of the conservative juggernaut of Reagan-Bushism. Hofstadter deserves better than this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.68.71.30 ( talk) 03:34, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
The education section mentions State University of New York at Buffalo, in the 1930s. Wouldn't that institution have been The University of Buffalo at that time, and not incorporated into the SUNY system until the late 1960s? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.22.203.137 ( talk) 02:37, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
Without an explanation of what a "consensus historian" is and an accompanying comment with respect to how few there are, what view point they attempted to impose on history, when they arose, and when their view point waned in historiography, I see only confusion from the use of the term to describe Hofstadter. I had to knock about the net for a while before I got some idea of what one was. ```` CorlyssD FurnaldHall ( talk) 23:26, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
I added the POV tag based on the above criticisms - this article does seem to need an overhaul. PJtP ( talk) 03:15, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
Rjensen, why have you placed his early life and education into a section titled "Biography"? And why is there no mention of his graduation date from the University at Buffalo (1937)? Why have you failed to mention his M.A. in History in 1938? Instead, you've focused on mentioning that he joined the Communist Part in 1938. Yet, Hofstadter isn't known for being a Communist, he's known for his academic work, work you've completely ignored, such as his teaching career at the University of Maryland for four years. Starting to see the undue weight here, Rjensen? Viriditas ( talk) 10:54, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
This section is ridiculous. To begin with, this is a relic from the mid-2000s when Wikipedia still had criticism sections, which we rarely use anymore, preferring to merge related content into related sections. The quote by George Will is from an outdated opinion piece on Obama's 2008 candidacy; it is not about Hofstadter at all, but mentions him in passing. We generally do not quote mine sources for criticisms when they aren't relevant to the subject, so this is yet again another poorly composed section with even poorer sources indicating heavy POV pushing once again. Viriditas ( talk) 11:07, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
I propose changing this section to two different neutrally-worded and standard sections comprising "Early life" and "Education". Viriditas ( talk) 22:36, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
"Hofstadter wrote the book from a vantage point on the left." That's left in 1948. Bottom line: he was far left or leftist from 1933 to 1948. Rjensen ( talk) 02:01, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
I think Wiki must be using a Robo editor to count the number of quotation marks used. Referring to:
Political views [heading] "... This article contains too many or too-lengthy quotations for an encyclopedic entry. Please help improve the article by editing it to take facts from excessively quoted material and rewrite them as sourced original prose. Consider transferring direct quotations to Wikiquote. (May 2012)
In this case the call out comes right after a section ... with a number of "words" in quotations .. these are not reference-able quotations but words. The call out is incorrect. Someone remove it. Danleywolfe ( talk) 16:02, 5 December 2013 (UTC)
The Coates reference makes an extremely poor argument and should not be restored. When you boil it down, the only support for the argument comes from the erroneous belief that Hofstadter's dislike of radicalism (a view that he consistently held throughout most of his life), his favoring of incremental over radical change, and his valuation of certain long-held societal traditions and principles (such as the institution of academia) are solely "conservative" traits. To argue that having these beliefs makes Hofstadter "conservative" also requires one to believe that these are the sole defining traits of Burkean conservatism, which is nonsense on its face. The few actual Hofstadter quotes that Coates selects reflect, at most, a sympathy with moderate conservatives and a desire for a rational conservative movement. The desire for a reasonable opposition, with whom one can find common ground, is a view widely shared among the moderate left (particularly in recent years), so it's no surprise why Hofstadter's work still holds such strong appeal.
I do think Hofstadter's own political beliefs, to the extent he ever discussed specifics, were complex: as are practically everybody's. He certainly was not a "dogmatic liberal" (if such a thing exists outside of strawmen), and a strong case can be made that he was in agreement with moderate conservatives over certain things, as has been noted by others. The same can be said of a lot of people at a lot of points on the political spectrum. To argue that he became a full-fledged conservative goes against the grain of mainstream thought on the subject, and when that occurs, I don't think it's controversial to say that a high standard of evidence must be maintained. The Coates article does not meet that standard on its own merits, and Coates lacks any standing to be referred to as an authority. The article is clearly agenda-driven, and the only possible way that the argument holds any merit is if you were approaching it from the perspective that to make any effort to understand, sympathize with, or even agree with one's ideological opposition, means that one has wholeheartedly joined forces with "the enemy." That is a pattern of thought that I think Hofstadter would find extremely recognizable. Piffleking ( talk) 18:34, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
The original section title, "Early life and education", is correct according to Wikipedia best practices, and our goal of keeping section headings neutral. Once again, Rjensen feels differently. Instead of using the talk page to explain why he keeps changing this section to the non-neutral title "Early life and radical views", he has once again used the edit summary instead, this time to argue (and I'm paraphrasing because he refuses to use the talk page properly) "Reliable sources call him a radical; see Baker biography entitled Radical Beginnings: Richard Hofstadter and the 1930s". Unfortunately, that in no way, shape, or form addresses my point about neutral section headings. This particular section is about his early life in Buffalo, New York, ("Early life") and his studies at Columbia University ("Education"). Rjensen has shoehorned a single paragraph about his political views into this section that is primarily about his early life and education, and misrepresents cited sources to argue that the section should be called "Early life and radical views". To do this, Rjensen first misrepresents Baker (1985), whose primary argument (according to a review of the work) shows that his undergraduate and graduate studies contributed to his political viewpoint. Finally, Rjensen cites Eric Foner, who just like Baker, shows how Hofstadter formed and developed his views in the university system. Rjensen's argument, therefore, actually supports the opposite of what he claims, as the sources he cites in the shoehorned paragraph about his early life and education, describe how his political views arose out of his educational milieu. I suspect Rjensen isn't stupid, and knows this is true, but insists on adding bias to this article. Viriditas ( talk) 01:02, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
How should we categorise/or not Richard Hofstadter's officials religious background/affiliation? "His father, a furrier, was a Jew born in Poland; his mother came from more established German Lutheran stock. Raised in the city’s vibrant German community, Hofstadter was christened in a Lutheran church and sang in a Lutheran choir" ( https://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/06/books/review/06tanenhaus.html). "His father was a nonobservant Polish Jew, his mother a devout German Lutheran. He was baptized and reared a Christian, but his own religious observance lapsed soon after his mother died of cancer when he was ten."( https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/richard-hofstadter-by-david-s-brown/). His mother died when he was ten, and his maternal grandmother brought him up as an Episcopalian.(Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives, Thematic Series: The 1960s COPYRIGHT 2003 The Gale Group, Inc., https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/hofstadter-richard).
According to halachah (Jewish law) a Jew is anyone who was born of a Jewish mother or or converted to Judaism in a halakhic manner. There are no sources that indicate that Richard Hofstadter had a Jewish mother or converted to Judaism...So how about self-identification? Some one has mentioned potential sources that quote some bits and pieces here and there, that maybe indicate that he partially identified with his Jewish roots. Is that enough for us to label him a Jew? How about the rest? Yes, there is furthermore the mention about the Kaddish being recited in his memorial service in 1970. Does a recited Kaddish prove anything else than a partial connection or affinity for Judaism? I still think that categorising him as simply Jewish is a bit hastened and stands on shaky grounds. Let's forget identity politics and stick to a bulk of solid verifiable sources that concur with each other and could provide an answer. Which category or no category? Suomalainen konformisuus ( talk) 11:24, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
This
level-5 vital article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
A fact from this article was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the On this day section on October 24, 2020. |
Why is George Will the only critic mentioned in the "criticism" section? Will is a pundit, not a historian and it is pretty clear that he does not understand, and possibly has not read, "The Paranoid Style". Is a separate section for criticism really even necessary? There are various critiques of Hofstadters works throughout the body of the article. (OBC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.181.44.229 ( talk) 05:04, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
I would like to edit this sentence from the "Biography" section for clarity, but what does it mean? "In The Idea of a Party System, Hofstadter described the beginning of the first party system in America as having been driven by an irrational fear that one of the two major parties hoped to destroy the republic." DSatz 17:34, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
Here's why I changed the dates regarding Hofstadter's Social Darwinism: I found that Dissertation Abstracts lists the date of Hofstadter's dissertation as 1945. The two academic libraries I've checked, as well as Fetchbook, show that it was first published in 1955. And if he didn't complete the diss until 1945, joining the faculty of Columbia in 1946 would not be "two years later" as the article said. -- RedJ 17 16:40, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
Title Social darwinism in American thought, 1860-1915, by Richard Hofstader. Publisher Philadephia, University of Pennsylvania Press 1944. Rjensen 23:09, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
I am unfamiliar with this gentleman's work, only visiting this page because of a casual mention of him in an article critical Wikipedia. However, reading this page, I can't help but feel that it is written in a fashion to subtly mock the man's ideas. For instance:
Beard's Civil War was a transfer of political power from Southern plantation elite to Northeastern capitalists. Slavery was not especially important as a cause.
Also:
Like his other books it was light on original research, for he did rarely worked in archives or newspaper files, preferring to read and sythesize secondary sources.
And:
Later critics undercut his thesis, showing that very few businessmen were Social Darwinists and instead took very different positions in favor of philanthropy, for example.
Pardon me if all of these items are factually accurate, and I'm just reading the derision in to it. The last item actually contains a link to a note which appears to be presently non-existent, but is probably meant to refer to a reference which justifies the statement. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by OldMiner ( talk • contribs) .
Understanding "the tone of the language" instead of the language itself is a subjective enterprise. Each reader will interpret the "tone" in a different way. Shouldn't we merely try to understand the language and disregard the "tone," if there is one at all? Lestrade ( talk) 16:38, 10 February 2010 (UTC)Lestrade
Hello - Rjensen, if you're making significant content changes to the article, could you please leave a more detailed edit summary than "tweaks" or "details"? It will help everyone who works on the article. Thanks. MastCell 22:27, 13 October 2006 (UTC) Superscript text
Hello, I have to agree that the page in its current state does not do justice to Hofstadter's work. It is biased and unfair to his arguments. My own doctorate is in European history and, therefore, I do not feel qualified to correct it. However, I would encourage anyone who is familiar with Hofstadter's work to revise it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.92.58.210 ( talk) 22:05, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
I agree with the above. The entry on Hofstadter has a derisive tone that reads as if it is emanating from the ideological currents that were the subject of so much of Hofstadter's work. I wasn't aware that Hofstadter's treatment of social Darwinism was so seriously in error - except by those who uncritically accept the work of Spencer and Sumner and who are themselves embracing a discredited body of social theory. And while Hofstadter's radical years are interesting, the amount of space devoted to his 'Marxist' years seems disproportionate to the influence it had on his published work in U.S. history. Of course, the added emphasis on his political affiliations, despite his youth and the time period of the Depression, seems useful if one wanted to engage in guilt by association. The sociological and psychological roots of radical rightwing politics that Hofstadter explores remains widely accepted among social scientists. The past 25 years in American culture and politics, and the past 15 or so years of the ascendancy of righting rule in this country only further substantiates Hofstadter. Anti-intellectualism, the scientific racism of social Darwinism, and paranoia are very much the stuff of the conservative juggernaut of Reagan-Bushism. Hofstadter deserves better than this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.68.71.30 ( talk) 03:34, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
The education section mentions State University of New York at Buffalo, in the 1930s. Wouldn't that institution have been The University of Buffalo at that time, and not incorporated into the SUNY system until the late 1960s? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.22.203.137 ( talk) 02:37, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
Without an explanation of what a "consensus historian" is and an accompanying comment with respect to how few there are, what view point they attempted to impose on history, when they arose, and when their view point waned in historiography, I see only confusion from the use of the term to describe Hofstadter. I had to knock about the net for a while before I got some idea of what one was. ```` CorlyssD FurnaldHall ( talk) 23:26, 12 November 2021 (UTC)
I added the POV tag based on the above criticisms - this article does seem to need an overhaul. PJtP ( talk) 03:15, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
Rjensen, why have you placed his early life and education into a section titled "Biography"? And why is there no mention of his graduation date from the University at Buffalo (1937)? Why have you failed to mention his M.A. in History in 1938? Instead, you've focused on mentioning that he joined the Communist Part in 1938. Yet, Hofstadter isn't known for being a Communist, he's known for his academic work, work you've completely ignored, such as his teaching career at the University of Maryland for four years. Starting to see the undue weight here, Rjensen? Viriditas ( talk) 10:54, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
This section is ridiculous. To begin with, this is a relic from the mid-2000s when Wikipedia still had criticism sections, which we rarely use anymore, preferring to merge related content into related sections. The quote by George Will is from an outdated opinion piece on Obama's 2008 candidacy; it is not about Hofstadter at all, but mentions him in passing. We generally do not quote mine sources for criticisms when they aren't relevant to the subject, so this is yet again another poorly composed section with even poorer sources indicating heavy POV pushing once again. Viriditas ( talk) 11:07, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
I propose changing this section to two different neutrally-worded and standard sections comprising "Early life" and "Education". Viriditas ( talk) 22:36, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
"Hofstadter wrote the book from a vantage point on the left." That's left in 1948. Bottom line: he was far left or leftist from 1933 to 1948. Rjensen ( talk) 02:01, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
I think Wiki must be using a Robo editor to count the number of quotation marks used. Referring to:
Political views [heading] "... This article contains too many or too-lengthy quotations for an encyclopedic entry. Please help improve the article by editing it to take facts from excessively quoted material and rewrite them as sourced original prose. Consider transferring direct quotations to Wikiquote. (May 2012)
In this case the call out comes right after a section ... with a number of "words" in quotations .. these are not reference-able quotations but words. The call out is incorrect. Someone remove it. Danleywolfe ( talk) 16:02, 5 December 2013 (UTC)
The Coates reference makes an extremely poor argument and should not be restored. When you boil it down, the only support for the argument comes from the erroneous belief that Hofstadter's dislike of radicalism (a view that he consistently held throughout most of his life), his favoring of incremental over radical change, and his valuation of certain long-held societal traditions and principles (such as the institution of academia) are solely "conservative" traits. To argue that having these beliefs makes Hofstadter "conservative" also requires one to believe that these are the sole defining traits of Burkean conservatism, which is nonsense on its face. The few actual Hofstadter quotes that Coates selects reflect, at most, a sympathy with moderate conservatives and a desire for a rational conservative movement. The desire for a reasonable opposition, with whom one can find common ground, is a view widely shared among the moderate left (particularly in recent years), so it's no surprise why Hofstadter's work still holds such strong appeal.
I do think Hofstadter's own political beliefs, to the extent he ever discussed specifics, were complex: as are practically everybody's. He certainly was not a "dogmatic liberal" (if such a thing exists outside of strawmen), and a strong case can be made that he was in agreement with moderate conservatives over certain things, as has been noted by others. The same can be said of a lot of people at a lot of points on the political spectrum. To argue that he became a full-fledged conservative goes against the grain of mainstream thought on the subject, and when that occurs, I don't think it's controversial to say that a high standard of evidence must be maintained. The Coates article does not meet that standard on its own merits, and Coates lacks any standing to be referred to as an authority. The article is clearly agenda-driven, and the only possible way that the argument holds any merit is if you were approaching it from the perspective that to make any effort to understand, sympathize with, or even agree with one's ideological opposition, means that one has wholeheartedly joined forces with "the enemy." That is a pattern of thought that I think Hofstadter would find extremely recognizable. Piffleking ( talk) 18:34, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
The original section title, "Early life and education", is correct according to Wikipedia best practices, and our goal of keeping section headings neutral. Once again, Rjensen feels differently. Instead of using the talk page to explain why he keeps changing this section to the non-neutral title "Early life and radical views", he has once again used the edit summary instead, this time to argue (and I'm paraphrasing because he refuses to use the talk page properly) "Reliable sources call him a radical; see Baker biography entitled Radical Beginnings: Richard Hofstadter and the 1930s". Unfortunately, that in no way, shape, or form addresses my point about neutral section headings. This particular section is about his early life in Buffalo, New York, ("Early life") and his studies at Columbia University ("Education"). Rjensen has shoehorned a single paragraph about his political views into this section that is primarily about his early life and education, and misrepresents cited sources to argue that the section should be called "Early life and radical views". To do this, Rjensen first misrepresents Baker (1985), whose primary argument (according to a review of the work) shows that his undergraduate and graduate studies contributed to his political viewpoint. Finally, Rjensen cites Eric Foner, who just like Baker, shows how Hofstadter formed and developed his views in the university system. Rjensen's argument, therefore, actually supports the opposite of what he claims, as the sources he cites in the shoehorned paragraph about his early life and education, describe how his political views arose out of his educational milieu. I suspect Rjensen isn't stupid, and knows this is true, but insists on adding bias to this article. Viriditas ( talk) 01:02, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
How should we categorise/or not Richard Hofstadter's officials religious background/affiliation? "His father, a furrier, was a Jew born in Poland; his mother came from more established German Lutheran stock. Raised in the city’s vibrant German community, Hofstadter was christened in a Lutheran church and sang in a Lutheran choir" ( https://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/06/books/review/06tanenhaus.html). "His father was a nonobservant Polish Jew, his mother a devout German Lutheran. He was baptized and reared a Christian, but his own religious observance lapsed soon after his mother died of cancer when he was ten."( https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/richard-hofstadter-by-david-s-brown/). His mother died when he was ten, and his maternal grandmother brought him up as an Episcopalian.(Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives, Thematic Series: The 1960s COPYRIGHT 2003 The Gale Group, Inc., https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/hofstadter-richard).
According to halachah (Jewish law) a Jew is anyone who was born of a Jewish mother or or converted to Judaism in a halakhic manner. There are no sources that indicate that Richard Hofstadter had a Jewish mother or converted to Judaism...So how about self-identification? Some one has mentioned potential sources that quote some bits and pieces here and there, that maybe indicate that he partially identified with his Jewish roots. Is that enough for us to label him a Jew? How about the rest? Yes, there is furthermore the mention about the Kaddish being recited in his memorial service in 1970. Does a recited Kaddish prove anything else than a partial connection or affinity for Judaism? I still think that categorising him as simply Jewish is a bit hastened and stands on shaky grounds. Let's forget identity politics and stick to a bulk of solid verifiable sources that concur with each other and could provide an answer. Which category or no category? Suomalainen konformisuus ( talk) 11:24, 27 March 2018 (UTC)