Character and Opinion in the United States

by George Santayana

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Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Americana, History

112 pages, Kindle Edition

About the author

Philosopher, poet, literary and cultural critic, George Santayana is a principal figure in Classical American Philosophy. His naturalism and emphasis on creative imagination were harbingers of important intellectual turns on both sides of the Atlantic. He was a naturalist before naturalism grew popular; he appreciated multiple perfections before multiculturalism became an issue; he thought of philosophy as literature before it became a theme in American and European scholarly circles; and he managed to naturalize Platonism, update Aristotle, fight off idealisms, and provide a striking and sensitive account of the spiritual life without being a religious believer. His Hispanic heritage, shaded by his sense of being an outsider in America, captures many qualities of American life missed by insiders, and presents views equal to Tocqueville in quality and importance. Beyond philosophy, only Emerson may match his literary production. As a public figure, he appeared on the front cover of Time (3 February 1936), and his autobiography (Persons and Places, 1944) and only novel (The Last Puritan, 1936) were the best-selling books in the United States as Book-of-the-Month Club selections. The novel was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, and Edmund Wilson ranked Persons and Places among the few first-rate autobiographies, comparing it favorably to Yeats's memoirs, The Education of Henry Adams, and Proust's Remembrance of Things Past. Remarkably, Santayana achieved this stature in American thought without being an American citizen. He proudly retained his Spanish citizenship throughout his life. Yet, as he readily admitted, it is as an American that his philosophical and literary corpuses are to be judged. Using contemporary classifications, Santayana is the first and foremost Hispanic-American philosopher.

Reviews

[Illiterate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Santayana argues American philosophy subordinates truth to moral correctness. It’s hard to disagree.

[Richard Subber · Rating 5 out of 5]

Santayana wrote this book in 1920 after he had left the United States for good. He had taught in the philosophy department at Harvard from 1889 to 1912. He returned to Europe, taught at the Sorbonne in Paris, and finally settled in Italy for the remainder of his life.
Much of the book is based on a series of lectures he delivered to British audiences after leaving America. In his Preface he says “Only an American—and I am not one except by long association—can speak for the heart of America. I try to understand it, as a family friend may who has a different temperament.”
Santayana took his own sweet time to take a look at the people around him in the United States, and to make his own unhurried assessment of their characters and of their manifestations of human nature.
For example, he gave respectful recognition to “...the intellectual cripples and the moral hunchbacks...”—not otherwise explicitly defined—who, notwithstanding their possibly dubious claim to respect, may nevertheless be the beneficiaries of “heavenly influences.” You can make your own determination about the prospective positive impact of such influences. I think Santayana’s point was that we do not fully know the prior byways or the future trajectories of another person’s life.
Moreover, Santayana distinguishes the cripples/hunchbacks and their (presumptively enlightened) presumptive betters—“...the thick-skinned, the sane and the duly goggled...”
These goggled elites are admonished to be wary of their limitations in discerning the realities and the frequency and the potency of “heavenly influences.”
I guess I have, perhaps smugly, collaborated with Santayana in a more than marginally self-satisfied effort to say something like:
“Give the other fellow a break.”
Think about it for another minute.
Here endeth the lesson for today.
Read more of my book reviews at:
http://richardsubber.com/

[J. Alfred · Rating 2 out of 5]

Santayana is pretty obviously a smart dude, and he's got a good literary style, but in a book which contains reminiscence of other smart dudes (William James and Josiah Royce) he seems a little patronizing, a little too interested in dismissing other people's philosophies.
Some good, some not.

[Bruce Graham · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quite readable book about the United States. It should be more widely known than it is.

[Ronald · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book from the man responsible for the over-used quote: "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Originating from a set of lectures given by George Santayana in Britain, the book was published in 1920 (15 years before he wrote "The Last Puritan"). It's a set of essays on the character, opinion and philosophy found in America in the late 19th and early 20th century. The chapters are entitled: The Moral Background, William James, Josiah Royce, The Academic Environment, English Liberty in America, Materialism and Idealism in American Life, and Later Speculations. In his preface, Santayana says that "Civilisation is perhaps approaching one of those long winters that overtake it from time to time." He goes on to describe and critique what we should fear and what we should cheer in the American character.

[m · Rating 4 out of 5]

This short book of essays is somewhat taxing but very good, very provocative.

I was struck by the similarities between Santayana's views and those of Max Weber & Isaiah Berlin.

I'll reread this again, after letting it aerate a while.

[Chris Timmons · Rating 3 out of 5]

George Santayana was a sophisticated thinker who wrote with an effective and authoritative style. His investigation of American philosophical pragmatism is searching, provocative, and an example of his intellectual rigor. A good read.