re: #467 iceweasel

By the way, I sent the Hofstader link to a conservative friend just two days ago, and strongly urged her to read it and consider writing an essay that updated it for the present day. Someone on the conservative side should do that. (On the progressive side, examples of bloggers who reference it/update it are everywhere)

I’ve read Hofstader’s works and find them lacking. He has the typical liberal academic blinders on that paint anyone not like him as either an unsophisticated dolt or a paranoid charlatan. The Paranoid Style in American Politics gets the history bits right, but he seems to put them in the context of his “today”. The history of the US is strewn with tragedy, hatred, and savage political fighting. But, so what? What does that have to do with today? (or today in 1964?) What I do not like about him is his unabashed dislike of his own country. Why are American writers and intellectuals on the left ashamed of their heritage? For all the bad parts in our past, we have many more positives…more than most countries can claim with much longer histories.

Read your Hofstader, but step out of the echo chamber sometime and see what the other side is up to. I do.