progressivism, individualism, and the public ... - Telmarc Group

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The Telmarc Group PROGRESSIVISM, INDIVIDUALISM, AND THE PUBLIC INTELLECTUAL Thus we look at those individuals who contributed as public intellectuals to the development of the neo-progressive movement. In many ways they were promulgators of the ideas, the principle laid down by Wallace, and developed and fine tuned during the FDR reign by trial and error. 6.1 RICHARD HOFSTADTER Hofstadter made his career at Columbia University. This was the home of Beard and Dewey, and in the 1960s a focal point for East Coast anti-war and anti-government protests and action groups. In the 1930s it was a cauldron of Communism, with what some have said a majority of the students and faculty being members of or adherents to the Communist party. Columbia was the upper class version of City College. As City was the experimental Petri dish for first generation college educated immigrants, Columbia prided itself on its almost Ivy league status. Unlike Harvard, Columbia viewed itself as integral to New York, whereas Harvard was in the yard behind the wall in Cambridge, separate from Boston. Columbia prided and still prides itself on its left leaning tendencies and in many ways that pride exceeds the pride it may have on its academic performance. 6.1.1 Columbia in Perspective To place Columbia in some perspective let me recount a brief tale. In 1960, as I was preparing to seek out a college, one of the institutions I applied to was Columbia University. In the process, I had applied to their Advanced Science Program which was directed towards High School Seniors. I was trying to evaluate if it was worth the effort since to attend this program at Columbia since I lived on Staten Island and this would take all my Saturdays. In addition, the Program was focused on students committed to attending Columbia. Thus I wrote the Dean to seek advice. The Dean's response was not positive for reasons not related to any fundamental academic issue but to a "cultural" issue. For years I thought this response to my letter may have been an artifact of that time, then end of the 50s and the beginning of the 60s. I thought that was, that is, until the last few months. The issue was that in 1960 Columbia University was dominated by anti-Catholic intellectuals, and as a graduate of a Catholic secondary school I was considered damaged goods. I had not had the "right" training. In fact I was considered brainwashed. I thought that we had lived through the 50s, the Rosenbergs and McCarthy, Stevenson and Nixon, so this prejudice was just a lingering artifact of the past. Martin Luther King had not yet raised his voice so prejudice was something we had all learned to deal with, generally by avoidance. It would take almost fifty years to understand that this mindset was not in its sunset but was morphing itself into a sustainable and more pervasive movement. The Columbia mentality, at the time, was dominated, in many ways, by the views of a principal spokesperson, Richard Hofstadter, the Historian. Hofstadter viewed himself and his associates as consummate intellectuals, and as such they had an almost divine insight Page 136
The Telmarc Group PROGRESSIVISM, INDIVIDUALISM, AND THE PUBLIC INTELLECTUAL into the truth. Thus it was incumbent upon the unwashed to listen to them and follow their dicta. Furthermore, if one opposed them, then the person in opposition was considered as beneath them, not being capable of seeing the truth, as they presented it. It institutionalized the process of "class rejection" on the basis of intellectual separation. Namely, only they could think! In today's world, however, one would think that this mindset would be gone, an artifact of a bygone era. In fact, it seems to be very much alive, albeit morphed a bit, but the nexus to Hofstadter is still strong. In fact there seems to be a resurgence of this nexus and mindset. This paper presents an analysis of this group and does so starting from a personal experience; my rejection by Columbia based solely on my attending a Catholic High School. Just to assure the reader, MIT had no problems, even through my PhD. Columbia tried several times to get me to teach there, I rejected them, and in 1996 I did spend a year as a Visiting Professor in the Business School, and the experience just confirmed my opinion of prior rejection. On to 1960. On August 11, 1960 I received a three page letter from Donald Barr, the Assistant Dean of the School of Engineering at Columbia University. The letter was in response to a query from me regarding the program Columbia had for High School Seniors. Barr says: "Your letter of August 6 raises difficult questions. Before I try to answer them, may I say that it was a very difficult thing to have to say no to you and to many most unusual and able students for the Science Honors Program, but when one can only accept twenty percent of a nomination list one has to do violence to one's own feelings as well as to others'. I note that you are a student at St. Peter's High School for Boys. Our experience has been that many Catholic school principals and guidance directors have serious reservations about students going on to secular colleges like Columbia. I can hardly tell you how many times I have been over this question with priests and brothers of many orders. It is a serious decision for a Catholic boy to make when he chooses a secular college. At Columbia, the practicing Catholic student must work harder than other students and he must work harder than he would have to work at a Catholic college; this is because he must not only do the regular reading and follow the regular lectures that every student must do, but he owes it to his soul to do extra reading and study to obtain the distinctive position of the Church on questions bearing on the history and philosophy of religion. The student with less clearly formulated religious views at Columbia is under no such obligation, and he can meet the multiplicity of viewpoints and arguments he will undoubtedly encounter with indifference or indecision or possibly a decision for skepticism or materialism. The Catholic student at a Catholic college has his religion made somewhat easy for him. But the Catholic student at Columbia practices his faith in a veritable battleground of conflicting ideas and urgings. He will not find it easy to brush aside the viewpoints of his Page 137
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progressivism, individualism, and the public ... - Telmarc Group

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