Seventy years ago, Richard Hofstadter attempted to describe what he saw as a new development in American Conservatism. Writing in “The Pseudo-Conservative Revolt,” first described what a “pseudo-conservative” is: “Today the dynamic force in our political life no longer comes from the liberals who made the New Deal possible. By 1952 the liberals... could look back to a brief, exciting period in the mid-thirties when they had held power itself and had been able to transform the economic and administrative life of the nation... Moreover, a large part of the New Deal public, the jobless, distracted and bewildered men of 1933, have in the course of the years found substantial places in society for themselves, have become home-owners, suburbanites and solid citizens. Many of them still keep the emotional commitments to the liberal dissent with which they grew up politically, but their social position is one of solid comfort. Among them the dominant tone has become one of satisfaction, even of a kind of conservatism.
OMG, my grandmother would fit right in today. She was a member of the John Birch Society. When she would spout something from the Birch newsletter, my dad would ask her where on earth did she get that crazy idea? She was also completely untrustworthy and a terrible gossip, and she took terrible advantage of her family. The book of Ecclesiastes said there is nothing new under the sun. The same old ugly meanness just gets rebranded. "The kooks have taken over." Right on, TC!
My grandmother (and one aunt) would as well. I don't know if she was a member of the JBS, but it wouldn't surprise me if she was. She DID, however have thee Ronald Reagan record. Yes, that record. About the 'evils' of Medicare and Medicaid. She hated FDR, the Kennedy's and MLK. She even lived long enough to hate Bill and Hillary. Every Catholic friend was gay. (no, just the Priests) I remember her meeting my then-girlfriend, Melissa. She liked her, at first. Then she found out she was Jewish. Oh my. "You can't marry her." I responded, we've only known each other two months. I didn't break up with her over that, but I didn't bring her to anything that my grandmother would be present at.
I don't think that we are laughing, TC. "THE KOOKS' ARE WINNING '. .... and 'KOOKS': 'An eccentric, strange or crazy person.' That is not like you, to call them 'KOOKS'. They are killers .The Republicans are hardly the only killers around. Take Putin, take the heads of the fossil fuel sector...we are flooded with killers. What about Climate Change? That's some understatement. If they are 'WINNING' we are DYING.
We called them "kooks" back in the day, which is why I used the term, because thinking of them that way was how their reality - that of being killers - slipped past us.
Thank you for this post, TC -- especially for the long excerpt from Richard Hofstadter, arguably the most astute observer of American political culture since deTocqueville. His description of the "pseudo-conservative" is chillingly spot-on, even seventy years later.
I suppose we should have been alerted to the growing power of "kooks" when Ronald Reagan was elected president. But in an eerie harbinger of the Trump years, we comforted ourselves with an expectation that establishment Republicans would restrain Reagan's kookier impulses.
In it are listed the ordinary good-faith Republicans who stood-up to the kooks when it mattered most, in the days following the 2020 election. They're all gone now, of course. But we mustn't forget their example. Their quiet, determined loyalty to the Constitution is an inspiration to all of us. And we'll surely need it, as this struggle is never over.
Let's face it, folks. Our democratic Republic is only as strong as we are willing to make it ourselves.
great quote, Fern. I'm just not sure it COMPLETELY applies. the past DOES illuminate the future for a LOT of us. like everybody here, for example.
this is me being a little, uhh...well not exactly OPTIMISTIC but not quite so nihilistic just yet. and this is me talking on a day in which it became obvious that my debit card was compromised. I wonder how the fuck THAT happened. me not going crazy, I mean.
Good to see you, David, and you come with a warm-hearted joke on yourself and a less dark outlook than mine. That's as surprising as you not going crazy about your compromised debit card. You truly brought a smile to my face. Big thank you to the sly and slinky David Levine!!
that "sly and slinky" made my day. and, very possibly my next month. or even my next quarter...
as for those Birchers back then...the only available term was "kooks," because they WERE and still ARE. it just never could have occurred to us that there was any real possibility they'd actually have any real influence in the actual day-to-day operation of the government. as I recall, even Goldwater had to make some kind of statement in which he disowned any relationship with the Birchers. THAT'S how fucking crazy they were (and, alas, ARE). does anybody else remember (this is a rhetorical question) the whole "Eisenhower is a knowing paid agent of the Russian Communist party." I THINK I got that right.
actually, I'm saying exactly what Tom is saying, so I might as well keep quiet and LISTEN. I sure do wish Substack had an italics option...using caps instead of italics makes me feel like I'm always SHOUTING.
You always have a choice! You can run with the kooks, or not. You can choose to be fairly kind and considerate of your fellow man/woman, no matter who or what they are, or you cam be cruel and mean. You can choose to find the truth of things, or continue to soak up lies. You can believe in your country and its democracy, or be a fascist.
It's always a choice. I would prefer to be with the better angels, then the "lost".
the crazy thing is that I have neighbors I've been very fond of for a very long time and I'm pretty sure they support TFF. other friends of mine report similar things.
I find it just about impossible to understand this phenomenon.
but then again, my southern family was full of flat-out racists. and these people were JEWS. in Arkansas, Loosiana, Kentucky, Texas...
I live in Arkansas because my family was transferred here. Doesn't look like we'll be leaving for a while. I live on a mountain above Hot Springs, close to Quachita Nat'l Park.
Due to military life, have spent the majority of time living in the south. So, I've gotten to know a lot of different types of people and their ideologies. I've also come to know some very fine southerners who would give a Black person the shirt off their back.
It's always a choice of how you decide to live your life and what you believe is right or wrong. What you see when you really look in the mirror and how you feel in the deepest part of yourself.
Some people are totally lost. They have no real sense of self. No sense. Some of it, is how they're raised down here. But, they still have choices. They just have to be sensible enough to choose the right one.
Victoria, Thank you for your respect, deep down respect for our ways; our incapacities; our lies to ourselves; our decency; our pain... the whole shebang. You are teaching.
my own take on the racists in my family is that in a small town like Winnsboro, LA, if you're starting out Jewish (and, needless to say, running the town department store), you well might figure that it's very important to "fit in."
my family also had its own very specific mishegas involving these issues. I can certainly say that as I've gotten older, I seem to have gotten more forgiving. when I was a teenager...well it's probably most suitable to once again quote that refrain from "My Back Pages."..."Oh but I was so much older then/I'm younger than that now."
This➡️ “ It's always a choice of how you decide to live your life and what you believe is right or wrong. What you see when you really look in the mirror and how you feel in the deepest part of yourself”
Cults used to be dismissed as nuts because their followers were a minority seen by the majority as what they were (Germany being the most obvious exception). We’ve watched this cult metastasize with support from media and money from God knows where. Now the sane majority is on the ropes as attacks on voting freedoms are constant and widespread.
As do I, nothing I can say does Justice to the feeling of being surrounded by stupid evil. It is stupid and it is evil. And it is (currently) being led by the ugliest, most moronic, selfish, greedy bastard this country has seen, and that’s some hill to climb. The propaganda has been, still is and will be our undoing because it allows them to do the evil Machinations out in the open with their spin traveling faster than the truth. Cult nuts don’t believe their lying eyes. Cult leaders (yes, plural) have no soul. I often depend on Churchill to speak for me. He claimed to be an optimist because “of what use is it to be anything else.”
When I posted this from TC on my FB page, I challenged those who will read it to identify "at least a handful" of "acquaintances, relatives or neighbors" who meet the definition of Kooks. It was easy for me to do so. They're everywhere. They even have a local FB page called a "discussion page." I call it the "local hate page." It is anecdotal proof of kook-dom.
the best ones also have the ability to focus on the very close and specific and then the very general and comprehensive very quickly. sometimes even back and forth on the same page. Hofstadter is a really good example...you can read him getting better and better as he got older, although I still have a passionate attachment to "The American Political Tradition," which is pretty fucking RADICAL. he would have gotten even better if he'd been able to have a long life.
he was also obviously a great thesis advisor...look at Eric Foner, who managed to redefine, pretty comprehensively, the study of Reconstruction.
now that I think about it, this ability to go back and forth from the granular details to the very big picture quickly certainly applies to the military history currently practiced by one Thomas Cleaver. just saying.
I'm also a huge fan of Jill Lepore, whose entire career involves this sorta telephoto thing. in HER case, she also has a real gift for getting her personal history on paper. I'm saying this because a really big anthology of her essays came out yesterday. I just re-read her "The Story of America" anthology and it's pretty impeccable. so the new book, "The Deadline" is self-recommending.
Nothing here surprises me, just didn’t know so many details. When I came to Texas 60 years ago, I saw a sign in a rural area calling the UN a traitorous group and attacked any who supported them. The sign was still there in Sept 2022. In Nov 1963, a coworker celebrated the assassination of JFK. I called them kooks and was sure they were outliers. I have watched previously sane people sign on to the insanity. And it is insanity. Nationwide insanity.
Mass media has normalized the kooks and made them louder and more combative. They will not be subdued as they double down, amplify and noisily bay at both the moon and the sun. They are intemperate and utterly shameless, which is certainly not conservative, just nuts and relentlessly irksome. I lament the corrosion of our national soul, accelerated by the acid of organized religion and free floating paranoia.
I laughed out loud. You're right - I find myself very happy to be back in 1943 Italy most of the day right now, as opposed to here and now. Thank goodness for my authorial time machine. :-)
The pseudo-conservative, Adorno writes, shows “conventionality and authoritarian submissiveness” in his conscious thinking and “violence, anarchic impulses, and chaotic destructiveness in the unconscious sphere. . . ."
The tfg may not have "invented " the pseudo- conservative but, by force of his own inner chaos and extreme personality dysfunction, he brought the chaos, impulsiveness, anarchy and violence of its unconscious sphere right up and out into our conscious world. Being a destructive charismatic
he has coalesced the kooks!
That is what has been crazy making. If any one trial blocks him from public office it will be a first step.
If Adorno's observations remain correct, there are legions of pseudo-Conservatives to follow after tfg and without regard to party affiliation, I suspect. They fear and expect any good or success or safety will vanish, being underseved of their status, "having got theirs," for now, knowing that anyone can step past them. Theirs is a fear of failure or of imminent loss, in the blink of an eye, loss to another not by merit but chance. The dust-bowl of the 30s is deeply ingrained on their cultural roots and passed down these many generations.
That's quite insightful, Fred. I was just reading an old interview piece with Matthew Weiner, who created "Mad Men," and he was using similar words to explain what that show was about, why it interested us.
There was an area of theory and research on Attribution and Need for Achievement in the 1960s, which Bernard Weiner was a leader, if I recall anything from the bibliography for my PhD dissertation. Mad Men is set in that time period. Are your motivations intrinsic or extrensicly determined? And, how does source for need satisfaction influence choices and subsequent success? I was interested in why some Honors Students would succeed whereas others of equal intellectual and academic preparedness would not, not counting the influence of the anti-war movement at the time.
That's all very interesting. I can say in my own case that I spent a fair amount of my life with motivations that extreinsicly determined - what other people thought defined "success" - and the result was shit. When I gave it up, and started following what are my intrinsic motivations, I became what I define as successful - i.e., happy with who I am and what I am doing.
Yeah... we’re not going to litigate ourselves out of this. And voting ourselves out of it seems bleaker by the day. They won’t be satisfied until they’ve carried out their stinking civil war ...
What has changed is not so much the ability of politicians to create the paranoia needed to impose their own political power--Joe McCarthy did that just fine. But it is the REACH of those politicians into every corner of our lives, from the phone on the bedside and in the pocket to the computers we need to do our work.
To watch McCarthy, you had to gather in the living room in front of your one TV. Now my Echo Show scrolls scary headlines in between reminding me to water the garden or showing me pictures of my dearly departed pets.
Too bad this comment is the basic cliché of modern life.
I combine the US, including social media, Fox News and the Republican Party with Putin's war against Ukraine, the collapse of Democracies and, perhaps, the end of us because of our destruction of life by Climate Change, so I think this time is about the effects of technology and more: the continuing use of fossil fuels, consumerism, population growth, demography....the Blacks and the Browns!
This: "The large sums have given rise to an industry of trial lawyers who make their living by skimming money from large class-action lawsuits that can be joined by just about anyone." Thank you.
Classic adaptation. Happy and OK with who you are and what you are doing is very often the result of such adaptation. Failure and sadness come from blindly following external expectations regardless of evidence to the contrary. You (and I, hopefully) could never live as pseudo-conservatives, probably because we knew about adaptation and haven't stopped collecting data and processing and incorporating it from the world around us, not just the inner voice of mommy or daddy or some girlfriend who though we were puppies to train.
George Will in particular loves to dismiss Hofstadter as the liberals' go-to historian who didn't understand what was happening--the surest sign that Hofstadter was on the money. Another interesting difference: Hofstadter actually got a kick out of a lot of the nuts he wrote about, whereas Will, like Pol Potbelly, wants nothing to do with any of them.
OMG, my grandmother would fit right in today. She was a member of the John Birch Society. When she would spout something from the Birch newsletter, my dad would ask her where on earth did she get that crazy idea? She was also completely untrustworthy and a terrible gossip, and she took terrible advantage of her family. The book of Ecclesiastes said there is nothing new under the sun. The same old ugly meanness just gets rebranded. "The kooks have taken over." Right on, TC!
My grandmother (and one aunt) would as well. I don't know if she was a member of the JBS, but it wouldn't surprise me if she was. She DID, however have thee Ronald Reagan record. Yes, that record. About the 'evils' of Medicare and Medicaid. She hated FDR, the Kennedy's and MLK. She even lived long enough to hate Bill and Hillary. Every Catholic friend was gay. (no, just the Priests) I remember her meeting my then-girlfriend, Melissa. She liked her, at first. Then she found out she was Jewish. Oh my. "You can't marry her." I responded, we've only known each other two months. I didn't break up with her over that, but I didn't bring her to anything that my grandmother would be present at.
I don't think that we are laughing, TC. "THE KOOKS' ARE WINNING '. .... and 'KOOKS': 'An eccentric, strange or crazy person.' That is not like you, to call them 'KOOKS'. They are killers .The Republicans are hardly the only killers around. Take Putin, take the heads of the fossil fuel sector...we are flooded with killers. What about Climate Change? That's some understatement. If they are 'WINNING' we are DYING.
We called them "kooks" back in the day, which is why I used the term, because thinking of them that way was how their reality - that of being killers - slipped past us.
Thank you for this post, TC -- especially for the long excerpt from Richard Hofstadter, arguably the most astute observer of American political culture since deTocqueville. His description of the "pseudo-conservative" is chillingly spot-on, even seventy years later.
I suppose we should have been alerted to the growing power of "kooks" when Ronald Reagan was elected president. But in an eerie harbinger of the Trump years, we comforted ourselves with an expectation that establishment Republicans would restrain Reagan's kookier impulses.
Today's issue of The Bulwark has another article worth reading, "Where Are the GOP Heroes Now?" (https://morningshots.thebulwark.com/p/where-are-the-gop-heroes-now).
In it are listed the ordinary good-faith Republicans who stood-up to the kooks when it mattered most, in the days following the 2020 election. They're all gone now, of course. But we mustn't forget their example. Their quiet, determined loyalty to the Constitution is an inspiration to all of us. And we'll surely need it, as this struggle is never over.
Let's face it, folks. Our democratic Republic is only as strong as we are willing to make it ourselves.
.
Our democratic Republic is only as strong as we are willing to make it ourselves.
Exactly right.
When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness.
___Alexis de Tocqueville
great quote, Fern. I'm just not sure it COMPLETELY applies. the past DOES illuminate the future for a LOT of us. like everybody here, for example.
this is me being a little, uhh...well not exactly OPTIMISTIC but not quite so nihilistic just yet. and this is me talking on a day in which it became obvious that my debit card was compromised. I wonder how the fuck THAT happened. me not going crazy, I mean.
Good to see you, David, and you come with a warm-hearted joke on yourself and a less dark outlook than mine. That's as surprising as you not going crazy about your compromised debit card. You truly brought a smile to my face. Big thank you to the sly and slinky David Levine!!
ooooo....Fern
that "sly and slinky" made my day. and, very possibly my next month. or even my next quarter...
as for those Birchers back then...the only available term was "kooks," because they WERE and still ARE. it just never could have occurred to us that there was any real possibility they'd actually have any real influence in the actual day-to-day operation of the government. as I recall, even Goldwater had to make some kind of statement in which he disowned any relationship with the Birchers. THAT'S how fucking crazy they were (and, alas, ARE). does anybody else remember (this is a rhetorical question) the whole "Eisenhower is a knowing paid agent of the Russian Communist party." I THINK I got that right.
actually, I'm saying exactly what Tom is saying, so I might as well keep quiet and LISTEN. I sure do wish Substack had an italics option...using caps instead of italics makes me feel like I'm always SHOUTING.
Buckley thought he could keep the kooks out. But he was tolerant of the ones who looked “respectable.”
Too bad they weren’t recognized back then for what they really are.
Yes.
You always have a choice! You can run with the kooks, or not. You can choose to be fairly kind and considerate of your fellow man/woman, no matter who or what they are, or you cam be cruel and mean. You can choose to find the truth of things, or continue to soak up lies. You can believe in your country and its democracy, or be a fascist.
It's always a choice. I would prefer to be with the better angels, then the "lost".
the crazy thing is that I have neighbors I've been very fond of for a very long time and I'm pretty sure they support TFF. other friends of mine report similar things.
I find it just about impossible to understand this phenomenon.
but then again, my southern family was full of flat-out racists. and these people were JEWS. in Arkansas, Loosiana, Kentucky, Texas...
I live in Arkansas because my family was transferred here. Doesn't look like we'll be leaving for a while. I live on a mountain above Hot Springs, close to Quachita Nat'l Park.
Due to military life, have spent the majority of time living in the south. So, I've gotten to know a lot of different types of people and their ideologies. I've also come to know some very fine southerners who would give a Black person the shirt off their back.
It's always a choice of how you decide to live your life and what you believe is right or wrong. What you see when you really look in the mirror and how you feel in the deepest part of yourself.
Some people are totally lost. They have no real sense of self. No sense. Some of it, is how they're raised down here. But, they still have choices. They just have to be sensible enough to choose the right one.
Victoria, Thank you for your respect, deep down respect for our ways; our incapacities; our lies to ourselves; our decency; our pain... the whole shebang. You are teaching.
❤
❤️
Love this mutual admiration society that TC has generated! Thank You!
my own take on the racists in my family is that in a small town like Winnsboro, LA, if you're starting out Jewish (and, needless to say, running the town department store), you well might figure that it's very important to "fit in."
my family also had its own very specific mishegas involving these issues. I can certainly say that as I've gotten older, I seem to have gotten more forgiving. when I was a teenager...well it's probably most suitable to once again quote that refrain from "My Back Pages."..."Oh but I was so much older then/I'm younger than that now."
"Crimson flames tied through my ears
Rollin' high and mighty traps
Countless with fire on flaming roads
Using ideas as my maps
We'll meet on edges, soon, said I
Proud 'neath heated brow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I'm younger than that now
Half-wracked prejudice leaped forth
Rip down all hate, I screamed
Lies that life is black and white
Spoke from my skull I dreamed
Romantic facts of musketeers
Foundationed deep, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I'm younger than that now
In a soldier's stance, I aimed my hand
At the mongrel dogs who teach
Fearing not that I'd become my enemy
In the instant that I preach
Sisters fled by confusion boats
Mutiny from stern to bow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I'm younger than that now
Ah, but I was so much older then
I'm younger than that now
My guard stood hard when abstract threats
Too noble to neglect
Deceived me into thinking
I had something to protect
Good and bad, I define these terms
Quite clear, no doubt, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I'm younger than that now"
Source: LyricFind
That song covers a lot of territory.
This➡️ “ It's always a choice of how you decide to live your life and what you believe is right or wrong. What you see when you really look in the mirror and how you feel in the deepest part of yourself”
Yes, that. 👍
Very well said Victoria
Cults used to be dismissed as nuts because their followers were a minority seen by the majority as what they were (Germany being the most obvious exception). We’ve watched this cult metastasize with support from media and money from God knows where. Now the sane majority is on the ropes as attacks on voting freedoms are constant and widespread.
THAT'S the thing. most of us tend to think of cults as being small groups in thrall to some asshole, but it's all happening SOMEWHERE ELSE.
when the cult is this CLOSE and this HUGE...well, fill in the blank. for once, I feel speechless.
As do I, nothing I can say does Justice to the feeling of being surrounded by stupid evil. It is stupid and it is evil. And it is (currently) being led by the ugliest, most moronic, selfish, greedy bastard this country has seen, and that’s some hill to climb. The propaganda has been, still is and will be our undoing because it allows them to do the evil Machinations out in the open with their spin traveling faster than the truth. Cult nuts don’t believe their lying eyes. Cult leaders (yes, plural) have no soul. I often depend on Churchill to speak for me. He claimed to be an optimist because “of what use is it to be anything else.”
Churchill was right.
When I posted this from TC on my FB page, I challenged those who will read it to identify "at least a handful" of "acquaintances, relatives or neighbors" who meet the definition of Kooks. It was easy for me to do so. They're everywhere. They even have a local FB page called a "discussion page." I call it the "local hate page." It is anecdotal proof of kook-dom.
Good one TC. Hofstadter wasn't just a better than competent historian, he apparently had a touch of prescience as well.
isn't that something really great historians are SUPPOSED to have?
I'm actually ASKING.
It seems knowledge of the past and possessing prescience is a good mix for a historian.
It comes from their ability to collate and interpret huge amounts of data, and the good ones have a facility for identifying trends.
the best ones also have the ability to focus on the very close and specific and then the very general and comprehensive very quickly. sometimes even back and forth on the same page. Hofstadter is a really good example...you can read him getting better and better as he got older, although I still have a passionate attachment to "The American Political Tradition," which is pretty fucking RADICAL. he would have gotten even better if he'd been able to have a long life.
he was also obviously a great thesis advisor...look at Eric Foner, who managed to redefine, pretty comprehensively, the study of Reconstruction.
now that I think about it, this ability to go back and forth from the granular details to the very big picture quickly certainly applies to the military history currently practiced by one Thomas Cleaver. just saying.
I'm also a huge fan of Jill Lepore, whose entire career involves this sorta telephoto thing. in HER case, she also has a real gift for getting her personal history on paper. I'm saying this because a really big anthology of her essays came out yesterday. I just re-read her "The Story of America" anthology and it's pretty impeccable. so the new book, "The Deadline" is self-recommending.
I don’t know what to say other than this is an important post.
Nothing here surprises me, just didn’t know so many details. When I came to Texas 60 years ago, I saw a sign in a rural area calling the UN a traitorous group and attacked any who supported them. The sign was still there in Sept 2022. In Nov 1963, a coworker celebrated the assassination of JFK. I called them kooks and was sure they were outliers. I have watched previously sane people sign on to the insanity. And it is insanity. Nationwide insanity.
Mass media has normalized the kooks and made them louder and more combative. They will not be subdued as they double down, amplify and noisily bay at both the moon and the sun. They are intemperate and utterly shameless, which is certainly not conservative, just nuts and relentlessly irksome. I lament the corrosion of our national soul, accelerated by the acid of organized religion and free floating paranoia.
Honey, we're not in Guadalcanal anymore.
I laughed out loud. You're right - I find myself very happy to be back in 1943 Italy most of the day right now, as opposed to here and now. Thank goodness for my authorial time machine. :-)
you got THAT right.
The pseudo-conservative, Adorno writes, shows “conventionality and authoritarian submissiveness” in his conscious thinking and “violence, anarchic impulses, and chaotic destructiveness in the unconscious sphere. . . ."
The tfg may not have "invented " the pseudo- conservative but, by force of his own inner chaos and extreme personality dysfunction, he brought the chaos, impulsiveness, anarchy and violence of its unconscious sphere right up and out into our conscious world. Being a destructive charismatic
he has coalesced the kooks!
That is what has been crazy making. If any one trial blocks him from public office it will be a first step.
Carol, I think that nothing fills Trump's darkness inside until his death.
Sadly, yes, Fern....and even then.......?
I just want him out of our public life, asap.
TC's "Kooks" we will probably always have with us!
All the best to you!!
If Adorno's observations remain correct, there are legions of pseudo-Conservatives to follow after tfg and without regard to party affiliation, I suspect. They fear and expect any good or success or safety will vanish, being underseved of their status, "having got theirs," for now, knowing that anyone can step past them. Theirs is a fear of failure or of imminent loss, in the blink of an eye, loss to another not by merit but chance. The dust-bowl of the 30s is deeply ingrained on their cultural roots and passed down these many generations.
That's quite insightful, Fred. I was just reading an old interview piece with Matthew Weiner, who created "Mad Men," and he was using similar words to explain what that show was about, why it interested us.
There was an area of theory and research on Attribution and Need for Achievement in the 1960s, which Bernard Weiner was a leader, if I recall anything from the bibliography for my PhD dissertation. Mad Men is set in that time period. Are your motivations intrinsic or extrensicly determined? And, how does source for need satisfaction influence choices and subsequent success? I was interested in why some Honors Students would succeed whereas others of equal intellectual and academic preparedness would not, not counting the influence of the anti-war movement at the time.
That's all very interesting. I can say in my own case that I spent a fair amount of my life with motivations that extreinsicly determined - what other people thought defined "success" - and the result was shit. When I gave it up, and started following what are my intrinsic motivations, I became what I define as successful - i.e., happy with who I am and what I am doing.
❤️with appreciation, Carol. All the best to you and your family.
Coalesced Kooks, a dime a dozen now.
Yeah... we’re not going to litigate ourselves out of this. And voting ourselves out of it seems bleaker by the day. They won’t be satisfied until they’ve carried out their stinking civil war ...
What has changed is not so much the ability of politicians to create the paranoia needed to impose their own political power--Joe McCarthy did that just fine. But it is the REACH of those politicians into every corner of our lives, from the phone on the bedside and in the pocket to the computers we need to do our work.
To watch McCarthy, you had to gather in the living room in front of your one TV. Now my Echo Show scrolls scary headlines in between reminding me to water the garden or showing me pictures of my dearly departed pets.
Too bad this comment is the basic cliché of modern life.
I combine the US, including social media, Fox News and the Republican Party with Putin's war against Ukraine, the collapse of Democracies and, perhaps, the end of us because of our destruction of life by Climate Change, so I think this time is about the effects of technology and more: the continuing use of fossil fuels, consumerism, population growth, demography....the Blacks and the Browns!
This: "The large sums have given rise to an industry of trial lawyers who make their living by skimming money from large class-action lawsuits that can be joined by just about anyone." Thank you.
Classic adaptation. Happy and OK with who you are and what you are doing is very often the result of such adaptation. Failure and sadness come from blindly following external expectations regardless of evidence to the contrary. You (and I, hopefully) could never live as pseudo-conservatives, probably because we knew about adaptation and haven't stopped collecting data and processing and incorporating it from the world around us, not just the inner voice of mommy or daddy or some girlfriend who though we were puppies to train.
I've been around the ones who thought I was a puppy, particularly Mommie Dearest. I kept pooping on her kitchen floor. :-)
WOW!!!! Terrific, and Terrifying, column today, TC! Thanks! I think. Sharing.
You know you got it right when someone says "thanks, I think."
George Will in particular loves to dismiss Hofstadter as the liberals' go-to historian who didn't understand what was happening--the surest sign that Hofstadter was on the money. Another interesting difference: Hofstadter actually got a kick out of a lot of the nuts he wrote about, whereas Will, like Pol Potbelly, wants nothing to do with any of them.
There is an article, in today's Washington Post (free) about a 'supporter' of Orange Pinchot, from Iowa, who threatened two Arizona GOP office holders - one being the former state Attorney General, got 30 months in the Fed Pen. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/08/30/arizona-2020-election-violent-threats/?utm_campaign=wp_news_alert_revere_trending_now&utm_medium=email&utm_source=alert&location=alert