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Lo stile paranoide nella politica americana
Dal Mayflower a Barry Goldwater – e, come ormai sappiamo, anche molto oltre – i fantasmi e gli incubi su cui si giocano, e spesso si vincono, le grandi battaglie della politica americana. E, naturalmente, non solo.
91 pages, Paperback
Published May 1, 2021
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About the author
Richard Hofstadter
81 books295 followersRichard Hofstadter was an American public intellectual, historian and DeWitt Clinton Professor of American History at Columbia University. In the course of his career, Hofstadter became the “iconic historian of postwar liberal consensus” whom twenty-first century scholars continue consulting, because his intellectually engaging books and essays continue to illuminate contemporary history.
His most important works are Social Darwinism in American Thought, 1860–1915 (1944); The American Political Tradition (1948); The Age of Reform (1955); Anti-intellectualism in American Life (1963), and the essays collected in The Paranoid Style in American Politics (1964). He was twice awarded the Pulitzer Prize: in 1956 for The Age of Reform, an unsentimental analysis of the populism movement in the 1890s and the progressive movement of the early 20th century; and in 1964 for the cultural history, Anti-intellectualism in American Life.
Richard Hofstadter was born in Buffalo, New York, in 1916 to a German American Lutheran mother and a Polish Jewish father, who died when he was ten. He attended the City Honors School, then studied philosophy and history at the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1933, under the diplomatic historian Julius Pratt. As he matured, he culturally identified himself primarily as a Jew, rather than as a Protestant Christian, a stance that eventually may have cost him professorships at Johns Hopkins University and the University of California, Berkeley, because of the institutional antisemitism of the 1940s.
As a man of his time, Richard Hofstadter was a Communist, and a member of the Young Communist League at university, and later progressed to Communist Party membership. In 1936, he entered the doctoral program in history at Columbia University, where Merle Curti was demonstrating how to synthesize intellectual, social, and political history based upon secondary sources rather than primary-source archival research. In 1938, he joined the Communist Party of the USA, yet realistically qualified his action: “I join without enthusiasm, but with a sense of obligation.... My fundamental reason for joining is that I don’t like capitalism and want to get rid of it. I am tired of talking.... The party is making a very profound contribution to the radicalization of the American people.... I prefer to go along with it now.” In late 1939, he ended the Communist stage of his life, because of the Soviet–Nazi alliance. He remained anti-capitalist: “I hate capitalism and everything that goes with it.”
In 1942, he earned his doctorate in history and in 1944 published his dissertation Social Darwinism in American Thought, 1860–1915, a pithy and commercially successful (200,000 copies) critique of late 19th century American capitalism and those who espoused its ruthless “dog-eat-dog” economic competition and justified themselves by invoking the doctrine of as Social Darwinism, identified with William Graham Sumner. Conservative critics, such as Irwin G. Wylie and Robert C. Bannister, however, disagree with this interpretation.
His most important works are Social Darwinism in American Thought, 1860–1915 (1944); The American Political Tradition (1948); The Age of Reform (1955); Anti-intellectualism in American Life (1963), and the essays collected in The Paranoid Style in American Politics (1964). He was twice awarded the Pulitzer Prize: in 1956 for The Age of Reform, an unsentimental analysis of the populism movement in the 1890s and the progressive movement of the early 20th century; and in 1964 for the cultural history, Anti-intellectualism in American Life.
Richard Hofstadter was born in Buffalo, New York, in 1916 to a German American Lutheran mother and a Polish Jewish father, who died when he was ten. He attended the City Honors School, then studied philosophy and history at the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1933, under the diplomatic historian Julius Pratt. As he matured, he culturally identified himself primarily as a Jew, rather than as a Protestant Christian, a stance that eventually may have cost him professorships at Johns Hopkins University and the University of California, Berkeley, because of the institutional antisemitism of the 1940s.
As a man of his time, Richard Hofstadter was a Communist, and a member of the Young Communist League at university, and later progressed to Communist Party membership. In 1936, he entered the doctoral program in history at Columbia University, where Merle Curti was demonstrating how to synthesize intellectual, social, and political history based upon secondary sources rather than primary-source archival research. In 1938, he joined the Communist Party of the USA, yet realistically qualified his action: “I join without enthusiasm, but with a sense of obligation.... My fundamental reason for joining is that I don’t like capitalism and want to get rid of it. I am tired of talking.... The party is making a very profound contribution to the radicalization of the American people.... I prefer to go along with it now.” In late 1939, he ended the Communist stage of his life, because of the Soviet–Nazi alliance. He remained anti-capitalist: “I hate capitalism and everything that goes with it.”
In 1942, he earned his doctorate in history and in 1944 published his dissertation Social Darwinism in American Thought, 1860–1915, a pithy and commercially successful (200,000 copies) critique of late 19th century American capitalism and those who espoused its ruthless “dog-eat-dog” economic competition and justified themselves by invoking the doctrine of as Social Darwinism, identified with William Graham Sumner. Conservative critics, such as Irwin G. Wylie and Robert C. Bannister, however, disagree with this interpretation.
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September 3, 2021
The Deep State Is Always With Us
Christianity has traditionally defined itself principally by what it is not, namely Judaism. America as a self-described Christian nation defines itself historically with a similar ambiguity. Being unique, in the minds of its citizens, America is self-defined as ‘exceptional.’ But functionally this status can only be described negatively - not a European constitutional monarchy; not an Asian dictatorship; not a Middle Eastern theocracy are historically common designations.
When, as Hofstadter notes, these external reference points are insufficient to ensure national identity, the country habitually turns on itself for re-enforcement. America is Protestant not Catholic; Northern not Southern European; egalitarian not elitist; and, of course, Christian not Semitic (thus including both Muslims and Jews in a somewhat more cosmopolitan opposition). This combination of external and internal mistrust - lest one become confused with the Other - is how Hofstadter defines his paranoid style: “I call it the paranoid style simply because no other word adequately evokes the qualities of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy that I have in mind.”
Hofstadter tactfully points out that the paranoid style is not unique to American politics. It clearly has demonstrated itself elsewhere as the need has arisen to employ a sociological a force of national self-awareness - Republican Revolutionary France, Nazi Germany, the Great Britain of Charles II. But all of his examples for the objects of paranoid hatred - religions, immigrants, Masons, minority political groups - are all American. And I think he makes the implicit point that although the style he has in mind is potentially universal, it is particularly, even extremely, well developed in the United States, where it occurs not just periodically but as a persistent and continuous theme of American democracy (one cannot help but think of the X-Files as something peculiar to America).
This theme shows up most obviously as a feeling of national victimhood. “In the paranoid style, as I conceive it, the feeling of persecution is central, and it is indeed systematized in grandiose theories of conspiracy.” In the nineteenth century the conspirators were the Illuminati; in the 1940’s and 50’s it was Pinko Sympathisers; in the 1970’s, liberal defeatists. Today’s conspirators are Trump’s and Fox News’s Deep State. The real America is being taken advantage of by its allies, by its trading partners, and also by its own people - the Washington Swamp, the urban elite, Black people, the Federal Reserve, and both Houses of Congress, including both major parties.
Hofstadter sees this condition hard-wired, as it were, into the American political system and psyche:
Another unfortunate symptom of the paranoid style is that it tends to invert the principles it seeks to protect. As Hofstadter says, “A fundamental paradox of the paranoid style is the imitation of the enemy.” So, for example, the Ku Klux Klan adopts many of the rituals and even the vestments of the Catholic Church; the McCarthy Congressional Un-American hearings are identical to Soviet show trials; and of course Trump’s infamous Lock Her Up is merely a projection of his own criminality.
Written in the early 1960’s, The Paranoid Style may not ultimately prove timeless; but it is most certainly timely during the reign of Trump. Who knows, it could be the Republican Party’s playbook from the days of Nixon onward. In any case it remains an important document about the realities of American politics.
Postscript: the fictional expression of many of Hofstadter’s observations and conclusions can be found here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Christianity has traditionally defined itself principally by what it is not, namely Judaism. America as a self-described Christian nation defines itself historically with a similar ambiguity. Being unique, in the minds of its citizens, America is self-defined as ‘exceptional.’ But functionally this status can only be described negatively - not a European constitutional monarchy; not an Asian dictatorship; not a Middle Eastern theocracy are historically common designations.
When, as Hofstadter notes, these external reference points are insufficient to ensure national identity, the country habitually turns on itself for re-enforcement. America is Protestant not Catholic; Northern not Southern European; egalitarian not elitist; and, of course, Christian not Semitic (thus including both Muslims and Jews in a somewhat more cosmopolitan opposition). This combination of external and internal mistrust - lest one become confused with the Other - is how Hofstadter defines his paranoid style: “I call it the paranoid style simply because no other word adequately evokes the qualities of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy that I have in mind.”
Hofstadter tactfully points out that the paranoid style is not unique to American politics. It clearly has demonstrated itself elsewhere as the need has arisen to employ a sociological a force of national self-awareness - Republican Revolutionary France, Nazi Germany, the Great Britain of Charles II. But all of his examples for the objects of paranoid hatred - religions, immigrants, Masons, minority political groups - are all American. And I think he makes the implicit point that although the style he has in mind is potentially universal, it is particularly, even extremely, well developed in the United States, where it occurs not just periodically but as a persistent and continuous theme of American democracy (one cannot help but think of the X-Files as something peculiar to America).
This theme shows up most obviously as a feeling of national victimhood. “In the paranoid style, as I conceive it, the feeling of persecution is central, and it is indeed systematized in grandiose theories of conspiracy.” In the nineteenth century the conspirators were the Illuminati; in the 1940’s and 50’s it was Pinko Sympathisers; in the 1970’s, liberal defeatists. Today’s conspirators are Trump’s and Fox News’s Deep State. The real America is being taken advantage of by its allies, by its trading partners, and also by its own people - the Washington Swamp, the urban elite, Black people, the Federal Reserve, and both Houses of Congress, including both major parties.
Hofstadter sees this condition hard-wired, as it were, into the American political system and psyche:
“One of the most impressive facts about the paranoid style.. is that it represents an old and recurrent mode of expression in our public life which has frequently been linked with movements of suspicious discontent and whose content remains much the same even when it is adopted by men of distinctly different purposes. Our experience suggests too that, while it comes in waves of different intensity, it appears to be all but ineradicable.”Since the condition is “a way of seeing the world and of expressing oneself,” it is largely invisible to the country itself. It is, therefore, a self-fulfilling construction of reality which appears natural. Paranoia creates ample reason to be paranoid.
Another unfortunate symptom of the paranoid style is that it tends to invert the principles it seeks to protect. As Hofstadter says, “A fundamental paradox of the paranoid style is the imitation of the enemy.” So, for example, the Ku Klux Klan adopts many of the rituals and even the vestments of the Catholic Church; the McCarthy Congressional Un-American hearings are identical to Soviet show trials; and of course Trump’s infamous Lock Her Up is merely a projection of his own criminality.
Written in the early 1960’s, The Paranoid Style may not ultimately prove timeless; but it is most certainly timely during the reign of Trump. Who knows, it could be the Republican Party’s playbook from the days of Nixon onward. In any case it remains an important document about the realities of American politics.
Postscript: the fictional expression of many of Hofstadter’s observations and conclusions can be found here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
January 8, 2020
Nine months into the Trump presidency I’m seldom shocked anymore, but when I heard that the Las Vegas Shooting victims were being abused online, accused of being Soros-paid actors in an anti-gun conspiracy, I was shocked. I mean, c’mon, this isn’t Sandy Hook! (as crazy as that theory was too.) I mean, this is a large, well-publicized event, involving hundreds of salt-of-the-earth country music fans, an event which happened during a pro-NRA Republican administration! And you guys can find a conspiracy, even here?
Then my next thought: I’ve been promising myself I was going to read “The Paranoid Style in American Politics.” No time like the present, no time better than today.
I’m glad, after all these years, that I read it. This essay, first widely available in Harper’s November 1964 issue (I read the unabridged Oxford Lecture version, delivered a year before), may have been occasioned by the rise of Barry Goldwater, but it detects the “paranoid strain” as something that was present from the early days of the republic: from Federalist fear of the Illuminati (1796-1798) through the related Anti-Masonic Movement (1820s and ‘30s) and the anti-Catholic “Jesuit Threat” (1840s and 50s). The targets may be different, but the McCarthyites, the Birthers, TV Glen Beck (and his chalk board), and Alex Jones from InfoWars and the QAnon folks all follow a similar pattern.
I learned much from this essay, and I am sure I’ll read it again, for it deserves close study. From my first reading, I found the following passage to be the most illuminating:
The situation becomes worse when the representatives of a particular political interest–perhaps because of the very unrealistic and unrealizable nature of their demands–cannot make themselves felt in the political process. Feeling that they have no access to political bargaining or the making of decisions, they find their original conception of the world of power as omnipotent, sinister, and malicious fully confirmed. They see only the consequences of power–and this through distorting lenses–and have little chance to observe its actual machinery. L. B. Namier once said that “the crowning attainment of historical study” is to achieve “an intuitive sense of how things do not happen.” It is precisely this kind of awareness that the paranoid fails to develop. He has a special resistance of his own, of course, to such awareness, but circumstances often deprive him of exposure to events that might enlighten him. We are all sufferers from history, but the paranoid is a double sufferer, since he is afflicted not only by the real world, with the rest of us, but by his fantasies as well.But I must admit that the following excerpt from a contemporary account of the “Jesuit Threat” is my favorite part of the essay. Probably because I’m a product of Jesuit education (Cincinnati Xavier), I found the following passage extremely amusing:
“It is an ascertained fact,” wrote one Protestant militant, “that Jesuits are prowling about all parts of the United States in every possible disguise, expressly to ascertain the advantageous situations and modes to disseminate Popery. A minister of the Gospel from Ohio has informed us that he discovered one carrying on his devices in his congregation; and he says that the western country swarms with them under the name of puppet show men, dancing masters, music teachers, peddlers of images and ornaments, barrel organ players, and similar practitioners.”
June 7, 2024
The Deep State. Pizzagate. Stop the Steal. There have never been conspiracy theories as wacky as these in America, right? Wrong! It turns out that nutty conspiracy theories about various groups have been kicking around in America since its inception. The suspects have changed over the years, but the proclivity for paranoid conspiratorial obsessions has always been there. And much like in 2024 America, the politicians have always been most willing to use them and their deluded adherents to their own political advantage.
The late, great American historian and Pulitzer winner Richard Hofstadter penned this essay back in 1964, and I doubt he would have been surprised at all to see the state of American politics today, 60 years later, in all its dysfunctional glory. In the past, conspiracy theorists have feared and blamed such groups as the Masons, the Illuminati (which was nothing like what you’ve heard, lol), the Catholics, the Jews, the Mormons, and most of all—the Communists, always the goddamn Commies!
Hofstadter shows that conspiracy theories have always been part and parcel of American political culture. I’m not sure if knowing this fact makes me feel better or worse about today’s current incarnations. Regardless, I recommend this essay to American history and poli-sci readers. 5 stars.
The late, great American historian and Pulitzer winner Richard Hofstadter penned this essay back in 1964, and I doubt he would have been surprised at all to see the state of American politics today, 60 years later, in all its dysfunctional glory. In the past, conspiracy theorists have feared and blamed such groups as the Masons, the Illuminati (which was nothing like what you’ve heard, lol), the Catholics, the Jews, the Mormons, and most of all—the Communists, always the goddamn Commies!
Hofstadter shows that conspiracy theories have always been part and parcel of American political culture. I’m not sure if knowing this fact makes me feel better or worse about today’s current incarnations. Regardless, I recommend this essay to American history and poli-sci readers. 5 stars.
February 10, 2021
An older essay in the study of political science in the United States, but still a useful one. Hofstadter begins with brief descriptions of 'the paranoid style' before moving to specific movements: anti-Masonry, anti-Catholicism, and finally the kind of John Bircher thinking that claimed President Eisenhower was part of a Soviet plot.
On the one hand, Hofstadter's description of the paranoid style is intriguing - the constant projection, the assumption that the enemies of the conspiracy are all-powerful and completely evil (and those who believe in the conspiracy completely good), the drawing up of elaborate theories with the basis of some real facts.
On the other hand, his description on the origins of the "paranoid style" is lacking. It is one thing to draw a line from the millennarian groups that Norman Cohn describes and tie them to anti-Masonic conspiracy theories to anti-Catholicism and then bimetallism and anti-Communism. The previous explanation of "economic anxiety" is lacking, given the comparative wealth and security of the people who befouled the capital on January 6th. Call it 'status' anxiety? Fear of losing privileges that had been exclusively theirs?
Still worth thinking about.
On the one hand, Hofstadter's description of the paranoid style is intriguing - the constant projection, the assumption that the enemies of the conspiracy are all-powerful and completely evil (and those who believe in the conspiracy completely good), the drawing up of elaborate theories with the basis of some real facts.
On the other hand, his description on the origins of the "paranoid style" is lacking. It is one thing to draw a line from the millennarian groups that Norman Cohn describes and tie them to anti-Masonic conspiracy theories to anti-Catholicism and then bimetallism and anti-Communism. The previous explanation of "economic anxiety" is lacking, given the comparative wealth and security of the people who befouled the capital on January 6th. Call it 'status' anxiety? Fear of losing privileges that had been exclusively theirs?
Still worth thinking about.
August 15, 2021
Frightening in how relevant this essay still is to modern politics.
August 8, 2021
Having recently noticed a review of this nasty little book posted by a GR friend, I remembered having read it in the previous century and am now adding it to my GR database.
It is with some embarrassment that I confess to agreeing with Hofstadter on his main thesis: i.e. that there is a paranoid style that frequently re-appears in American politics. Published in 1963, Hofstadter offers a compelling explanation for the American Red Scare that had produced the McCarthy witch hunt of communists and America's disastrous intervention in Viet Nam.
I was particularly struck by this thesis that the paranoid style was the result of the fact that America had been settled by members of paranoid religions (Congregationalists, Quakers, Puritans, Baptists, etc.) who had made themselves unwelcome in England. These religions are all opposed to established churches and many of their members are distrustful of authority. Hofstadter may have a point but I find his tone unpleasant.
I am however very uneasy with those who would accept Hofstadter's thesis as an explanation for the success of Donald Trump and the alt-right. In my view, Trump's supporters were not simply paranoid. There are legitimate reasons to challenge the status quo in American politics which I believe that the left could accommodate without abandoning its progressive agenda.
It is with some embarrassment that I confess to agreeing with Hofstadter on his main thesis: i.e. that there is a paranoid style that frequently re-appears in American politics. Published in 1963, Hofstadter offers a compelling explanation for the American Red Scare that had produced the McCarthy witch hunt of communists and America's disastrous intervention in Viet Nam.
I was particularly struck by this thesis that the paranoid style was the result of the fact that America had been settled by members of paranoid religions (Congregationalists, Quakers, Puritans, Baptists, etc.) who had made themselves unwelcome in England. These religions are all opposed to established churches and many of their members are distrustful of authority. Hofstadter may have a point but I find his tone unpleasant.
I am however very uneasy with those who would accept Hofstadter's thesis as an explanation for the success of Donald Trump and the alt-right. In my view, Trump's supporters were not simply paranoid. There are legitimate reasons to challenge the status quo in American politics which I believe that the left could accommodate without abandoning its progressive agenda.
July 21, 2021
Richard Hofstadter è stato uno dei più grandi storici americani del Novecento, vincitore per ben due volte del premio Pulitzer, ed è desolante il fatto che le sue opere siano praticamente irreperibili in Italia, come anche che questo autore sia per molti (me compreso) un perfetto sconosciuto. Incuriosito dalla recente pubblicazione di questo saggio breve, ho rimediato, almeno in parte, a tale ignoranza: “Lo stile paranoide nella politica americana” ha l'efficacia del rigoroso studio accademico, essendo illuminante anche per gli esperti del settore, ma possiede al contempo la chiarezza e la comprensibilità di un'opera divulgativa, adatta al grande pubblico dei non addetti ai lavori. Una caratteristica simile rende ancora più assurdo il fatto che l'editoria, anche quella di nicchia, abbia finora snobbato tale autore.
In questo breve trattatello, Hofstadter esamina rapidamente le origini, gli sviluppi e le caratteristiche salienti di quello che egli stesso definisce stile paranoide nella politica americana, un modo di fare politica che ha radici profonde e che viene ampiamente utilizzato ancora oggi, non solo in America, sia dagli schieramenti di destra che da quelli di sinistra. Tale approccio politico è definito da Hofstadter paranoide non tanto per l'accezione clinica, quanto perché questo termine evoca adeguatamente le qualità di estrema esagerazione, sospettosità e fantasia cospiratoria che lo caratterizza. Scrive Hofstadter: “Il dizionario Webster definisce la paranoia, in termini clinici, come un disordine mentale cronico caratterizzato da sistematiche manie di persecuzione e di grandezza. Nello stile paranoide, il sentimento di persecuzione è centrale, ed è strutturato in elaborate teorie della cospirazione. Ma esiste una differenza fondamentale tra il rappresentante dello stile paranoide in politica e il paranoico clinico: sebbene tendano entrambi a essere estremamente sovreccitati, sospettosi, aggressivi, megalomani e apocalittici nelle loro espressioni, il paranoico clinico vede il mondo ostile e cospiratore in cui sente di vivere come diretto specificamente contro di lui; laddove invece il rappresentante dello stile paranoide trova che sia diretto contro una nazione, una cultura, uno stile di vita il cui destino non tocca solo lui ma milioni di persone” (pagine 12-13).
Concentrandosi sulla storia americana, Hofstadter presenta una breve carrellata dei protagonisti dello stile paranoide a stelle e strisce, presente sin dalla nascita della nazione: col passare dei periodi storici e con l'evolversi dei movimenti paranoidi, ciò che è cambiato è stato il bersaglio contro cui dirigere odio e paura, ma non la modalità con cui questi sentimenti del tutto irrazionali sono stati coltivati: dall'odio per i massoni di fine Settecento e inizio Ottocento, a quello per i cattolici tra fine Ottocento e inizio Novecento, per arrivare a quello per i comunisti nella seconda metà del Novecento. Tipico esempio di politico paranoide citato da Hofstadter è il senatore McCarthy, uno dei principali artefici di quel clima di caccia alle streghe creatosi durante il periodo della Guerra Fredda: convinto difensore del capitalismo e dell'american way of life, nemico del comunismo sovietico e della collaborazione internazionale, egli considerava la politica di Marshall e il suo piano di aiuti all'Europa le principali cause che avrebbero portato alla rovina gli Stati Uniti, con la conseguente sconfitta nella Guerra Fredda che avrebbe garantito all'Unione Sovietica il dominio mondiale.
Nello stile paranoide la fantasia cospiratrice è, dunque, centrale: l'idea che dietro lo svolgersi della storia ci sia una macchinazione perpetrata da un nemico potente e malvagio è fondante del paranoide. Continua Hofstadter: “A distinguere lo stile paranoide non è il fatto che i suoi esponenti vedano cospirazioni o complotti qua e là nel corso della storia, ma che ritengano che una vasta e gigantesca cospirazione sia la forza motrice degli eventi storici. La storia è una cospirazione, messa in moto da forze demoniache dal potere quasi trascendente, e si sente che per batterla c'è bisogno non dei soliti metodi dei botta e risposta politico, ma di una crociata senza quartiere. Il rappresentante dello stile paranoide vede il destino di questa cospirazione in termini apocalittici: traffica con la nascita e la morte di interi mondi, di interi ordini politici, di interi sistemi di valori. In ogni istante presidia le barricate della civiltà. Vive costantemente a un punto di svolta: il momento per organizzare la resistenza alla cospirazione è ora o mai più” (pagina 56).
Risulta lampante, pertanto, come lo stile paranoide veda il conflitto politico come una lotta manichea tra bene e male assoluti, con il nemico che assume il ruolo di incarnazione del male e il proprio movimento quello del bene, unica alternativa alla catastrofe, unica speranza per l'umanità di salvarsi dai piani diabolici: “L'approccio apocalittico dello stile paranoide arriva pericolosamente vicino al pessimismo più disperato, ma di solito si ferma un attimo prima di finirci dentro. Gli avvertimenti apocalittici scatenano passione e militanza, ed eccitano gli animi suscettibili in modo non dissimile da alcuni temi tipici del cristianesimo. Se espressi adeguatamente, questi avvertimenti assolvono alla stessa funzione della descrizione delle orribili conseguenze del peccato nella predica di un pastore revivalista: descrivono ciò che incombe ma può ancora essere evitato. È una versione secolare e diabolica dell'approccio degli avventisti” (pagina 57).
Quella del paranoico politico, quindi, non è soltanto una professione, ma una missione salvifica, una lotta coraggiosa intrapresa da pochi eletti votati al bene che può portare soltanto alla vittoria schiacciante sul nemico, sulle forze del male: “Il paranoico è un leader militante. Non vede il conflitto sociale come una cosa che richiede mediazione e compromesso, come fa invece il politico di professione. Dal momento che la posta in gioco è sempre un conflitto tra un bene e un male assoluti, la qualità richiesta non è una disponibilità al compromesso, ma la volontà di combattere fino in fondo. Non ci si accontenterà di altro che di una vittoria assoluta. Siccome il nemico è considerato totalmente malvagio e implacabile, va eliminato del tutto” (pagina 58).
Ovviamente, come ampiamente utilizzato anche dai totalitarismi del Novecento, nello stile paranoide l'odio per il nemico è il sentimento trainante delle masse, l'unico collante, l'unico motivo unificatore. Il nemico assume una precisa definizione, identificandosi in un gruppo facilmente riconoscibile e dotato di caratteristiche aberranti: “Questo nemico è delineato con nettezza: è un perfetto modello di cattiveria, una sorta di superuomo amorale, sinistro, ubiquo, potente, crudele, sensuale, amante del lusso [...]. È un attore libero, intraprendente, demoniaco. Pone in essere da sé, anzi addirittura costruisce, il meccanismo della storia, oppure devia in maniera malvagia il normale corso della storia. Provoca le crisi, dà l'assalto alle banche, causa le depressioni, orchestra disastri e infine si gode i profitti della miseria che ha prodotto [...]. Molto spesso si ritiene che il nemico possegga qualche fonte di potere particolarmente efficace: controlla la stampa; dirige l'opinione pubblica attraverso la manipolazione delle notizie; dispone di fondi illimitati; ha trovato un nuovo segreto per influenzare la mente; ha una tecnica speciale di seduzione; tiene quasi per il collo l'intero sistema dell'istruzione” (pagine 59-60). Tutti mezzi, quelli con cui agisce questo fantomatico nemico, assolutamente deprecabili, ma che guarda caso sono proprio gli stessi di cui lo stile paranoide si serve per diffondersi tra le masse ed aumentare il proprio consenso politico.
Ricapitolando, Hofstadter traccia le caratteristiche comuni ai diversi movimenti politici che nelle diverse epoche hanno adottato uno stile paranoide: la costruzione, lo svelamento e lo screditamento di un definito nemico; le fantasie di piani segreti, di macchinazioni diaboliche, di complotti e di cospirazioni globali che dirigono il corso della storia e hanno l'obiettivo di conquistare il mondo; la visione manichea di lotta tra bene e male assoluti; la missione salvifica posta a fondamento del programma politico e la presenza di molti altri elementi religiosi nel linguaggio politico, come la visione escatologica e apocalittica che accomuna i paranoidi moderni ai movimenti avventisti e millenaristi già presenti nel Medioevo; le manifestazioni di follia anche violenta. Conclude Hofstadter: “Tutti soffriamo la storia, ma il paranoico la soffre doppiamente, perché è afflitto non solo dal mondo reale, come tutti noi, ma anche dalle sue fantasie” (pagina 74).
Questo saggio è apparso per la prima volta nel 1964, in un'America pervasa da un clima politico, quello della Guerra Fredda, dominato da segreti spionistici e minacce di apocalissi, e fortemente improntato al sospetto e alla paranoia: l'omicidio del presidente Kennedy era stato appena commesso, e le fantasie di complotto erano già ampiamente affiorate nell'immaginario collettivo. Dunque, pur essendo ancora immerso in quell'epoca, Hofstadter ha saputo analizzare con una incredibile lucidità il proprio presente, scrivendo un'opera fondamentale, seppur breve, che affronta temi ancora attualissimi, ancora imprescindibili per capire la contemporaneità. L'unica pecca è forse data dall'eccessiva brevità, dall'impossibilità di poter approfondire adeguatamente temi così interessanti e cruciali per comprendere le estreme derive della politica che sono giunte fino ai nostri giorni, in America come in Europa, dai suprematisti ai sovranisti, dai nativisti ai nuovi teorici del complotto (come i sostenitori di QAnon).
In questo breve trattatello, Hofstadter esamina rapidamente le origini, gli sviluppi e le caratteristiche salienti di quello che egli stesso definisce stile paranoide nella politica americana, un modo di fare politica che ha radici profonde e che viene ampiamente utilizzato ancora oggi, non solo in America, sia dagli schieramenti di destra che da quelli di sinistra. Tale approccio politico è definito da Hofstadter paranoide non tanto per l'accezione clinica, quanto perché questo termine evoca adeguatamente le qualità di estrema esagerazione, sospettosità e fantasia cospiratoria che lo caratterizza. Scrive Hofstadter: “Il dizionario Webster definisce la paranoia, in termini clinici, come un disordine mentale cronico caratterizzato da sistematiche manie di persecuzione e di grandezza. Nello stile paranoide, il sentimento di persecuzione è centrale, ed è strutturato in elaborate teorie della cospirazione. Ma esiste una differenza fondamentale tra il rappresentante dello stile paranoide in politica e il paranoico clinico: sebbene tendano entrambi a essere estremamente sovreccitati, sospettosi, aggressivi, megalomani e apocalittici nelle loro espressioni, il paranoico clinico vede il mondo ostile e cospiratore in cui sente di vivere come diretto specificamente contro di lui; laddove invece il rappresentante dello stile paranoide trova che sia diretto contro una nazione, una cultura, uno stile di vita il cui destino non tocca solo lui ma milioni di persone” (pagine 12-13).
Concentrandosi sulla storia americana, Hofstadter presenta una breve carrellata dei protagonisti dello stile paranoide a stelle e strisce, presente sin dalla nascita della nazione: col passare dei periodi storici e con l'evolversi dei movimenti paranoidi, ciò che è cambiato è stato il bersaglio contro cui dirigere odio e paura, ma non la modalità con cui questi sentimenti del tutto irrazionali sono stati coltivati: dall'odio per i massoni di fine Settecento e inizio Ottocento, a quello per i cattolici tra fine Ottocento e inizio Novecento, per arrivare a quello per i comunisti nella seconda metà del Novecento. Tipico esempio di politico paranoide citato da Hofstadter è il senatore McCarthy, uno dei principali artefici di quel clima di caccia alle streghe creatosi durante il periodo della Guerra Fredda: convinto difensore del capitalismo e dell'american way of life, nemico del comunismo sovietico e della collaborazione internazionale, egli considerava la politica di Marshall e il suo piano di aiuti all'Europa le principali cause che avrebbero portato alla rovina gli Stati Uniti, con la conseguente sconfitta nella Guerra Fredda che avrebbe garantito all'Unione Sovietica il dominio mondiale.
Nello stile paranoide la fantasia cospiratrice è, dunque, centrale: l'idea che dietro lo svolgersi della storia ci sia una macchinazione perpetrata da un nemico potente e malvagio è fondante del paranoide. Continua Hofstadter: “A distinguere lo stile paranoide non è il fatto che i suoi esponenti vedano cospirazioni o complotti qua e là nel corso della storia, ma che ritengano che una vasta e gigantesca cospirazione sia la forza motrice degli eventi storici. La storia è una cospirazione, messa in moto da forze demoniache dal potere quasi trascendente, e si sente che per batterla c'è bisogno non dei soliti metodi dei botta e risposta politico, ma di una crociata senza quartiere. Il rappresentante dello stile paranoide vede il destino di questa cospirazione in termini apocalittici: traffica con la nascita e la morte di interi mondi, di interi ordini politici, di interi sistemi di valori. In ogni istante presidia le barricate della civiltà. Vive costantemente a un punto di svolta: il momento per organizzare la resistenza alla cospirazione è ora o mai più” (pagina 56).
Risulta lampante, pertanto, come lo stile paranoide veda il conflitto politico come una lotta manichea tra bene e male assoluti, con il nemico che assume il ruolo di incarnazione del male e il proprio movimento quello del bene, unica alternativa alla catastrofe, unica speranza per l'umanità di salvarsi dai piani diabolici: “L'approccio apocalittico dello stile paranoide arriva pericolosamente vicino al pessimismo più disperato, ma di solito si ferma un attimo prima di finirci dentro. Gli avvertimenti apocalittici scatenano passione e militanza, ed eccitano gli animi suscettibili in modo non dissimile da alcuni temi tipici del cristianesimo. Se espressi adeguatamente, questi avvertimenti assolvono alla stessa funzione della descrizione delle orribili conseguenze del peccato nella predica di un pastore revivalista: descrivono ciò che incombe ma può ancora essere evitato. È una versione secolare e diabolica dell'approccio degli avventisti” (pagina 57).
Quella del paranoico politico, quindi, non è soltanto una professione, ma una missione salvifica, una lotta coraggiosa intrapresa da pochi eletti votati al bene che può portare soltanto alla vittoria schiacciante sul nemico, sulle forze del male: “Il paranoico è un leader militante. Non vede il conflitto sociale come una cosa che richiede mediazione e compromesso, come fa invece il politico di professione. Dal momento che la posta in gioco è sempre un conflitto tra un bene e un male assoluti, la qualità richiesta non è una disponibilità al compromesso, ma la volontà di combattere fino in fondo. Non ci si accontenterà di altro che di una vittoria assoluta. Siccome il nemico è considerato totalmente malvagio e implacabile, va eliminato del tutto” (pagina 58).
Ovviamente, come ampiamente utilizzato anche dai totalitarismi del Novecento, nello stile paranoide l'odio per il nemico è il sentimento trainante delle masse, l'unico collante, l'unico motivo unificatore. Il nemico assume una precisa definizione, identificandosi in un gruppo facilmente riconoscibile e dotato di caratteristiche aberranti: “Questo nemico è delineato con nettezza: è un perfetto modello di cattiveria, una sorta di superuomo amorale, sinistro, ubiquo, potente, crudele, sensuale, amante del lusso [...]. È un attore libero, intraprendente, demoniaco. Pone in essere da sé, anzi addirittura costruisce, il meccanismo della storia, oppure devia in maniera malvagia il normale corso della storia. Provoca le crisi, dà l'assalto alle banche, causa le depressioni, orchestra disastri e infine si gode i profitti della miseria che ha prodotto [...]. Molto spesso si ritiene che il nemico possegga qualche fonte di potere particolarmente efficace: controlla la stampa; dirige l'opinione pubblica attraverso la manipolazione delle notizie; dispone di fondi illimitati; ha trovato un nuovo segreto per influenzare la mente; ha una tecnica speciale di seduzione; tiene quasi per il collo l'intero sistema dell'istruzione” (pagine 59-60). Tutti mezzi, quelli con cui agisce questo fantomatico nemico, assolutamente deprecabili, ma che guarda caso sono proprio gli stessi di cui lo stile paranoide si serve per diffondersi tra le masse ed aumentare il proprio consenso politico.
Ricapitolando, Hofstadter traccia le caratteristiche comuni ai diversi movimenti politici che nelle diverse epoche hanno adottato uno stile paranoide: la costruzione, lo svelamento e lo screditamento di un definito nemico; le fantasie di piani segreti, di macchinazioni diaboliche, di complotti e di cospirazioni globali che dirigono il corso della storia e hanno l'obiettivo di conquistare il mondo; la visione manichea di lotta tra bene e male assoluti; la missione salvifica posta a fondamento del programma politico e la presenza di molti altri elementi religiosi nel linguaggio politico, come la visione escatologica e apocalittica che accomuna i paranoidi moderni ai movimenti avventisti e millenaristi già presenti nel Medioevo; le manifestazioni di follia anche violenta. Conclude Hofstadter: “Tutti soffriamo la storia, ma il paranoico la soffre doppiamente, perché è afflitto non solo dal mondo reale, come tutti noi, ma anche dalle sue fantasie” (pagina 74).
Questo saggio è apparso per la prima volta nel 1964, in un'America pervasa da un clima politico, quello della Guerra Fredda, dominato da segreti spionistici e minacce di apocalissi, e fortemente improntato al sospetto e alla paranoia: l'omicidio del presidente Kennedy era stato appena commesso, e le fantasie di complotto erano già ampiamente affiorate nell'immaginario collettivo. Dunque, pur essendo ancora immerso in quell'epoca, Hofstadter ha saputo analizzare con una incredibile lucidità il proprio presente, scrivendo un'opera fondamentale, seppur breve, che affronta temi ancora attualissimi, ancora imprescindibili per capire la contemporaneità. L'unica pecca è forse data dall'eccessiva brevità, dall'impossibilità di poter approfondire adeguatamente temi così interessanti e cruciali per comprendere le estreme derive della politica che sono giunte fino ai nostri giorni, in America come in Europa, dai suprematisti ai sovranisti, dai nativisti ai nuovi teorici del complotto (come i sostenitori di QAnon).
August 28, 2021
Un libro sul complottismo scritto nel 1952 mostra come la tendenza a individuare piani di nemici occulti non è una tendenza recente. È invece un fenomeno che si ripresenta a ondate da tempo probabilmente immemorabile, seguendo schemi simili.
February 16, 2017
A timely reminder that history always repeat itself, no matter how much the human race has evolved, or perhaps in spite of it. The writer explained about the mechanics and the mentality behind the lure of the paranoid style, and why this paranoia recurred over a long span of time and in different places. A very insightful essay into why fundamental fears and hatreds, rather than negotiable interests, ruled the political arena both in the past and today. What is scary to me is the rampant spread of paranoia (exacerbated by our social medias and fake news) in these modern times. Where in the past, the paranoid's influence was limited by word-of-mouth contacts and newsprint circulations, today, the paranoid militant can easily move the world by a stroke of keys, working out from a secluded corner somewhere in the world, and we are all his comrades when we share and spread that piece of news which may arouse fear and hatred.
I quote the writer, "...the paranoid is a militant leader. He does not see social conflict as something to be mediated and compromised, in the manner of the working politician."
I quote the writer, "...the paranoid is a militant leader. He does not see social conflict as something to be mediated and compromised, in the manner of the working politician."
November 16, 2016
'The Paranoid Style in American Politics: An Essay: from the Paranoid Style in American Politics' by Richard Hofstadter is a Vintage Books reprint. It shows that the more things change, the more they stay the same.
First published in 1964, the essay is certainly biased towards the left since it is showing the rise of extremism in the Conservative Party. The book talks about fringe groups and goes back quite a ways in history to show that they have been with us for a long time. They don't seem likely to go away anytime soon. From the responses to President Kennedy's assassination to those who think that fluoride in water is done to promote socialism. There are examples from speeches from 1951, 1895, 1855 and 1798.
I started this book while the US election was still in full swing. It was enlightening to read as I viewed what I considered to be fringe groups on both sides. We have endured in spite of these groups, so I suppose there is comfort to be taken here.
I received a review copy of this ebook from Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, Vintage, and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this ebook.
First published in 1964, the essay is certainly biased towards the left since it is showing the rise of extremism in the Conservative Party. The book talks about fringe groups and goes back quite a ways in history to show that they have been with us for a long time. They don't seem likely to go away anytime soon. From the responses to President Kennedy's assassination to those who think that fluoride in water is done to promote socialism. There are examples from speeches from 1951, 1895, 1855 and 1798.
I started this book while the US election was still in full swing. It was enlightening to read as I viewed what I considered to be fringe groups on both sides. We have endured in spite of these groups, so I suppose there is comfort to be taken here.
I received a review copy of this ebook from Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, Vintage, and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this ebook.
August 3, 2025
“La procedura tipica della migliore pubblicistica paranoide è cominciare da assunti difendibili e da un accorto accumulo di fatti, o per lo meno di ciò che può sembrare un fatto, e poi guidare questi fatti verso una «prova» schiacciante della specifica cospirazione da dimostrare. (…)
A distinguere lo stile paranoide non è, quindi, l'assenza di fatti verificabili (sebbene sia vero, di tanto in tanto, che nella sua stravagante passione per i fatti il paranoico, di tanto in tanto, ne inventi qualcuno), ma piuttosto il curioso salto dell'immaginazione che immancabilmente avviene in qualche punto critico della ricapitolazione degli eventi.”
Stento a credere che sia stato pubblicato nel 1952.
A distinguere lo stile paranoide non è, quindi, l'assenza di fatti verificabili (sebbene sia vero, di tanto in tanto, che nella sua stravagante passione per i fatti il paranoico, di tanto in tanto, ne inventi qualcuno), ma piuttosto il curioso salto dell'immaginazione che immancabilmente avviene in qualche punto critico della ricapitolazione degli eventi.”
Stento a credere che sia stato pubblicato nel 1952.
January 23, 2018
The introductory essay for a series of studies of anti establishment political movements that are more or less irrational or conspiratorial. Sets up the idea of a manichean interpretation of the world that is apocalyptic and hysterical. Interesting is hofstadter's faith in practical reason, that working politicians of all stripes share a common interest in getting things done and a general sense of how the world works. Not sure that is the case today. Moreover Trump goes beyond the idea that paranoia is a style to actually seem clinically paranoid.
January 12, 2021
Took an hour to read and gave me a whole new perspective on politics and beliefs of today. Should be required reading. Oh wait, I'm a teacher....
April 4, 2023
Short and to the point -fifty years on, the inferences remain just as valid.
January 25, 2025
Couldn't be more relevant today.
December 18, 2020
Really great essay that remains relevant to American culture.
January 14, 2020
One of those essays that's bandied about but you never get around to reading, until you do, and you realise that the USA has been here before. Not an original observation, I know, but that Hoftstadter wrote this 50 years ago is pretty amazing:
"The typical procedure of the higher paranoid scholarship is to start with such defensible assumptions and with a careful accumulation of facts, or at least of what appear to be facts, and to marshal these facts toward an overwhelming “proof” of the particular conspiracy that is to be established. It is nothing if not coherent—in fact, the paranoid mentality is far more coherent than the real world, since it leaves no room for mistakes, failures, or ambiguities. It is, if not wholly rational, at least intensely rationalistic; it believes that it is up against an enemy who is as infallibly rational as he is totally evil, and it seeks to match his imputed total competence with its own, leaving nothing unexplained and comprehending all of reality in one overreaching, consistent theory. "
There are many other passages that - were it not for the style of writing - you would think were contemporary observations. I swear he's described Sean Hannity and New Gingrich before they were even born.
Hofstadter expressly starts by saying that he's not making a general commentary on politics outside the USA; it's an observational essay of one country, and should be read in that vein with de Tocqueville. But as a non-American, it makes you think about your own country. Certainly the paranoid style has been exported to (in my case) Australia - Hanson, Roberts and Bernardi each owe a debt to ALEC and other US right wing conspiratorial endeavours - but how deep are the roots? I don't know.
I'm wary, though, of the history repeats itself mantra, and the feeling - more the assumption - that this too shall pass. I'm not sure I believe the moral arc of human society tends to good, or even to improvement. Trump and Jones and fellow travellers will of course pass in time, but what damage will be done before then? Perhaps so much that a return to "normalcy" will be impossible, and the Overton window will have been permanently moved. I suspect that the baby boomer's definition of normalcy no longer applies, and we are birthing something far less benign, at least in Western liberal democracies.
"The typical procedure of the higher paranoid scholarship is to start with such defensible assumptions and with a careful accumulation of facts, or at least of what appear to be facts, and to marshal these facts toward an overwhelming “proof” of the particular conspiracy that is to be established. It is nothing if not coherent—in fact, the paranoid mentality is far more coherent than the real world, since it leaves no room for mistakes, failures, or ambiguities. It is, if not wholly rational, at least intensely rationalistic; it believes that it is up against an enemy who is as infallibly rational as he is totally evil, and it seeks to match his imputed total competence with its own, leaving nothing unexplained and comprehending all of reality in one overreaching, consistent theory. "
There are many other passages that - were it not for the style of writing - you would think were contemporary observations. I swear he's described Sean Hannity and New Gingrich before they were even born.
Hofstadter expressly starts by saying that he's not making a general commentary on politics outside the USA; it's an observational essay of one country, and should be read in that vein with de Tocqueville. But as a non-American, it makes you think about your own country. Certainly the paranoid style has been exported to (in my case) Australia - Hanson, Roberts and Bernardi each owe a debt to ALEC and other US right wing conspiratorial endeavours - but how deep are the roots? I don't know.
I'm wary, though, of the history repeats itself mantra, and the feeling - more the assumption - that this too shall pass. I'm not sure I believe the moral arc of human society tends to good, or even to improvement. Trump and Jones and fellow travellers will of course pass in time, but what damage will be done before then? Perhaps so much that a return to "normalcy" will be impossible, and the Overton window will have been permanently moved. I suspect that the baby boomer's definition of normalcy no longer applies, and we are birthing something far less benign, at least in Western liberal democracies.
November 18, 2018
Written in the 60's, Applicable to Today
This long form essay was written in 1964, after the assassination of JFK, and is focused on the history of a paranoid style of political rhetoric that has been present around the world for hundreds of years (think the French Revolution as it continued). That said, so much of it feels applicable to our current state of the world and the current condition of the United States. The key difference that the author identifies between the anti-Mason or anti-Catholic movements in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and his modern day, is that the previous leaders of those movements using this paranoid style were fighting for an ideal. What Mr. Hofstadter sees in the twentieth (and we can see in the 21st) century, is that the leaders of these political movements espouse that they have lost something or something has been taken from them (whether they believe it is questionable). And the paranoid style of communicating to people is used to identify the enemy, the one who took whatever it is away. Right now, we talk about people in this country feeling like they are not heard, feeling disenfranchised, being set aside, and once again this language of paranoia is being used extensively to foster feelings that there is one enemy who has taken these things away from citizens, who is responsible for how they feel. This piece does not provide a solution, but understanding what is happening and having insight into the history is very helpful.
This long form essay was written in 1964, after the assassination of JFK, and is focused on the history of a paranoid style of political rhetoric that has been present around the world for hundreds of years (think the French Revolution as it continued). That said, so much of it feels applicable to our current state of the world and the current condition of the United States. The key difference that the author identifies between the anti-Mason or anti-Catholic movements in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and his modern day, is that the previous leaders of those movements using this paranoid style were fighting for an ideal. What Mr. Hofstadter sees in the twentieth (and we can see in the 21st) century, is that the leaders of these political movements espouse that they have lost something or something has been taken from them (whether they believe it is questionable). And the paranoid style of communicating to people is used to identify the enemy, the one who took whatever it is away. Right now, we talk about people in this country feeling like they are not heard, feeling disenfranchised, being set aside, and once again this language of paranoia is being used extensively to foster feelings that there is one enemy who has taken these things away from citizens, who is responsible for how they feel. This piece does not provide a solution, but understanding what is happening and having insight into the history is very helpful.
September 20, 2022
- Complotto
- Paranoide
- Informazione
"A distinguere lo stile paranoide non è, quindi, l’assenza di fatti verificabili … ma piuttosto il curioso salto dell’immaginazione che immancabilmente avviene in qualche punto critico della ricapitolazione degli eventi."
"Il suo sforzo di accumulare prove ha anzi la qualità di un atto difensivo che va a chiudere l’apparato ricettivo e lo protegge dal dover ascoltare le fastidiose considerazioni che non rafforzano le sue idee."
"Tutti soffriamo la storia, ma il paranoico la soffre doppiamente, perché è afflitto non solo dal mondo reale, come tutti noi, ma anche dalle sue fantasie."
- Paranoide
- Informazione
"A distinguere lo stile paranoide non è, quindi, l’assenza di fatti verificabili … ma piuttosto il curioso salto dell’immaginazione che immancabilmente avviene in qualche punto critico della ricapitolazione degli eventi."
"Il suo sforzo di accumulare prove ha anzi la qualità di un atto difensivo che va a chiudere l’apparato ricettivo e lo protegge dal dover ascoltare le fastidiose considerazioni che non rafforzano le sue idee."
"Tutti soffriamo la storia, ma il paranoico la soffre doppiamente, perché è afflitto non solo dal mondo reale, come tutti noi, ma anche dalle sue fantasie."
January 4, 2021
This essay is the first better known accademical account on conspiracy theory. Hofstadter found out about some of the key components of conspiracy theory (reverse labeling / mirror structure, history being determined by individual intentions, broad historical speculations on true premises) and thus should still be read by everybody who wants to learn about this topic. This is not a false psychologization of the phenomenon, he simply borrows the term from it.
March 4, 2021
Interesting
This is the speech that was core of the book paranoid style. It is detailed and quick read but doesn't go into His target's causal explanations and historiography like the book does.
This is the speech that was core of the book paranoid style. It is detailed and quick read but doesn't go into His target's causal explanations and historiography like the book does.
March 19, 2017
Great read
I suppose this should now be considered a classic given it is over fifty years old and as relevant to today's world as it was when originally published.
I suppose this should now be considered a classic given it is over fifty years old and as relevant to today's world as it was when originally published.
December 24, 2018
Relevant to today
Famous lecture that touches on subjects that are still very relevant today. The essay may give some insights into how some extreme and irrational views are held.
Famous lecture that touches on subjects that are still very relevant today. The essay may give some insights into how some extreme and irrational views are held.
January 8, 2026
(3.5)
I think this was mostly correct but uninteresting.
I think the author fails to grasp why paranoid thinking is significant and I believe this is because he is writing an apolitical "commonsense" liberal. His political disposition does not see politics as important in a fundamental way - he can see moral disasters but he struggles to see disasters as continuous with daily political life. The paranoid may be wrong in their understanding of the world but they are correct in believing that every aspect of life may be political and seeing that compromise is often not an acceptable solution to political problems.
The history stuff was quite interesting.
Quotes:
Although American political life has rarely been touched by the most acute varieties of class conflict, it has served again and again as an arena for uncommonly angry minds. <- slavery seems like a pretty acute form of class conflict?
When I speak of the paranoid style, I use the term as a historian of an might speak of the baroque or the mannerist style. It is, above all, a way of seeing the world and of expressing oneself.
The modern right wing, as Daniel Bell has put it, 'feels dispossessed: America has been largely taken away from them and their kind, though they are determined to try to repossess it and to
prevent the final destructive act of subversion'
The villains of the modem right are much more vivid than those of their paranoid predecessors
The basic elements in the paranoid style:
1)
The central image is that of a vast and sinister conspiracy, A gigantic and yet subtle machinery of influence influence set in motion to undermine and destroy a way of life... The distinguishing thing about the paranoid style is not that its exponents see conspiracies or plots here and there in history, but that they regard a "vast" or "gigantic" conspiracy as the motive force in historical events. (they portray that which impends but which may still be avoided. )
2)
[The paranoid believes he sees what others to do] The paranoid is a militant leader... Nothing but complete victory will do.
3)
This enemy is clearly delineated: he is a perfect model of malice, a kind of amoral superman... Unlike the rest of us, the enemy is not caught in the toils of the vast mechanism of history, himself a victim of his past, his desires, his limitations. He is a free, active, demonic agent. The paranoid's interpretation of history is in this sense distinctly personal: decisive events are not taken as part of the stream of history, but as the consequences of someone's will.
4)
This enemy seems to be on many counts a projection of the self: both the ideal and the unacceptable aspects of the self are attributed to him... The Ku Klux Klan imitated Catholicism to the point of donning priestly vestments... The John Birch Society emulates Communist cells... The sexual freedom often attributed to [the enemy], his lack of moral inhibition, his possession of especially effective techniques for fulfilling his desires, give exponents of the paranoid style an opportunity to project and freely express unacceptable aspects of their own minds. <- this was really interesting
5)
Another recurring aspect of the paranoid style is the special significance that attaches to the figure of the renegade from the enemy cause... There is a deeper eschatological significance attached to the person of the renegade: in the spiritual wrestling match between good and evil which is the paranoid's archetypal model of the world struggle, the renegade is living proof that all the conversions are not made by the wrong side. <- Yeonmi Park, Candace Owens, Blaire White, Thomas Sowell, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Oli London
6)
One of the impressive things about paranoid literature is precisely the elaborate concern with demonstration it almost invariably shows... The paranoid mentality is far more coherent than the real world, since it leaves no room for mistakes, failures, or ambiguities.
I think this was mostly correct but uninteresting.
I think the author fails to grasp why paranoid thinking is significant and I believe this is because he is writing an apolitical "commonsense" liberal. His political disposition does not see politics as important in a fundamental way - he can see moral disasters but he struggles to see disasters as continuous with daily political life. The paranoid may be wrong in their understanding of the world but they are correct in believing that every aspect of life may be political and seeing that compromise is often not an acceptable solution to political problems.
The history stuff was quite interesting.
Quotes:
Although American political life has rarely been touched by the most acute varieties of class conflict, it has served again and again as an arena for uncommonly angry minds. <- slavery seems like a pretty acute form of class conflict?
When I speak of the paranoid style, I use the term as a historian of an might speak of the baroque or the mannerist style. It is, above all, a way of seeing the world and of expressing oneself.
The modern right wing, as Daniel Bell has put it, 'feels dispossessed: America has been largely taken away from them and their kind, though they are determined to try to repossess it and to
prevent the final destructive act of subversion'
The villains of the modem right are much more vivid than those of their paranoid predecessors
The basic elements in the paranoid style:
1)
The central image is that of a vast and sinister conspiracy, A gigantic and yet subtle machinery of influence influence set in motion to undermine and destroy a way of life... The distinguishing thing about the paranoid style is not that its exponents see conspiracies or plots here and there in history, but that they regard a "vast" or "gigantic" conspiracy as the motive force in historical events. (they portray that which impends but which may still be avoided. )
2)
[The paranoid believes he sees what others to do] The paranoid is a militant leader... Nothing but complete victory will do.
3)
This enemy is clearly delineated: he is a perfect model of malice, a kind of amoral superman... Unlike the rest of us, the enemy is not caught in the toils of the vast mechanism of history, himself a victim of his past, his desires, his limitations. He is a free, active, demonic agent. The paranoid's interpretation of history is in this sense distinctly personal: decisive events are not taken as part of the stream of history, but as the consequences of someone's will.
4)
This enemy seems to be on many counts a projection of the self: both the ideal and the unacceptable aspects of the self are attributed to him... The Ku Klux Klan imitated Catholicism to the point of donning priestly vestments... The John Birch Society emulates Communist cells... The sexual freedom often attributed to [the enemy], his lack of moral inhibition, his possession of especially effective techniques for fulfilling his desires, give exponents of the paranoid style an opportunity to project and freely express unacceptable aspects of their own minds. <- this was really interesting
5)
Another recurring aspect of the paranoid style is the special significance that attaches to the figure of the renegade from the enemy cause... There is a deeper eschatological significance attached to the person of the renegade: in the spiritual wrestling match between good and evil which is the paranoid's archetypal model of the world struggle, the renegade is living proof that all the conversions are not made by the wrong side. <- Yeonmi Park, Candace Owens, Blaire White, Thomas Sowell, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Oli London
6)
One of the impressive things about paranoid literature is precisely the elaborate concern with demonstration it almost invariably shows... The paranoid mentality is far more coherent than the real world, since it leaves no room for mistakes, failures, or ambiguities.
June 12, 2023
I would like to hear Hofstadter's opinion on the state of American politics in 2023. This essay was written in late 1963, when McCarthyism was a recent memory, and the John Birch Society had just been created. In 1963 this sort of paranoid style was still pretty fringe stuff, but these events were major antecedents to MAGA. McCarthy's chief counsel during the hearings was none other than Roy Cohn, the man who would go on to become Donald Trump's mentor.
Goldwater's loss in 1964 marked a major turning point for the paranoid style in American politics, as the aftermath opened the floodgates for all the kooks to start gaining a real foothold in the GOP. Today they are the intellectual leaders of the Republican Party.
Hofstadter points out the paranoid style comes in waves of different intensity throughout American history, and the targets of attack change. The gibberish always has some of the same characteristics, though. Swap "Illuminati" with "Deep State" and voila! The arguments from the late 1700's sure sound similar to those being made today. There exists "a vast, insidious, preternaturally effective international conspiratorial network designed to perpetrate acts of the most fiendish nature." Etc etc, yada yada.
I think the truth is probably more scary, and maybe that's part of the reason people are drawn to these conspiracies, because in some way they're actually more comforting? I think the truth is it's not the Illuminati, the Freemasons, the Jesuits, the Commies, or the Deep State that is in control; instead, the world is actually pretty rudderless.
So why the exponential increase in kooks in the mainstream since 1963? My guess is a major reason is probably the effects of mass media, which Hofstadter acknowledged, even as early as 1963, could be a gamechanger.
Goldwater's loss in 1964 marked a major turning point for the paranoid style in American politics, as the aftermath opened the floodgates for all the kooks to start gaining a real foothold in the GOP. Today they are the intellectual leaders of the Republican Party.
Hofstadter points out the paranoid style comes in waves of different intensity throughout American history, and the targets of attack change. The gibberish always has some of the same characteristics, though. Swap "Illuminati" with "Deep State" and voila! The arguments from the late 1700's sure sound similar to those being made today. There exists "a vast, insidious, preternaturally effective international conspiratorial network designed to perpetrate acts of the most fiendish nature." Etc etc, yada yada.
I think the truth is probably more scary, and maybe that's part of the reason people are drawn to these conspiracies, because in some way they're actually more comforting? I think the truth is it's not the Illuminati, the Freemasons, the Jesuits, the Commies, or the Deep State that is in control; instead, the world is actually pretty rudderless.
So why the exponential increase in kooks in the mainstream since 1963? My guess is a major reason is probably the effects of mass media, which Hofstadter acknowledged, even as early as 1963, could be a gamechanger.
November 12, 2020
This is a excellent and timely read that is just as relevant today as it was when first written decades ago.
In a brief 44 pages, Hofstadter has succinctly described the phenomenon of "paranoid style" in politics. Using examples from various times in both U.S. and European history, Hofstadter has demonstrated how this style developes and gains traction within society and the political systems around the world.
Sadly technology only seems to have increased the ability of the paranoid style to reach larger groups of people through the use of social media and the internet.
This is sadly all to relevant today.
In a brief 44 pages, Hofstadter has succinctly described the phenomenon of "paranoid style" in politics. Using examples from various times in both U.S. and European history, Hofstadter has demonstrated how this style developes and gains traction within society and the political systems around the world.
Sadly technology only seems to have increased the ability of the paranoid style to reach larger groups of people through the use of social media and the internet.
This is sadly all to relevant today.
January 2, 2022
“Richard Hofstadter examines the competing forces in American political discourse and how fringe groups can influence—and derail—the larger agendas of a political party." Beyond this quotable quote, political leadership has through many examples, created an us and them mentality without which their roles may be questioned and removed, though thankfully not always. A balancing act between conspiracy theorists and the boy who dared to highlight the Emperor’s threads is necessary and as such this is an informative read.
October 22, 2024
A quick read and very relevant today. Written in the 1960s but could easily be addressing the modern day aside from some of the ‘current’ examples and the emphasis on the coherence of the paranoia. Based on this essay, the political paranoia seems to often stem from a need to make sense of a chaotic world, in this case by filling in the gaps with a narrative of an absolute and uncompromising battle between good and evil where all crises are acts of malicious intent.
December 30, 2023
Richard Hofstadter's work is more relevant now more than ever. This essay is incredibly pertinent in an era of conspiracy theories and Qanon. Hofstadter's writing is very clear and accessible, so for those who are new to non-fiction or political science writing, this is a great book. Even for those who have read books about political science and love non-fiction, this essay is sure to provide great insights for you.
March 23, 2025
A convincing diagnosis of today's political symptoms.
An enlightened essay about the foibles of human nature in modern times. As we seek to avoid societal decay by powerful means, we are at losing our natural freedom.
An enlightened essay about the foibles of human nature in modern times. As we seek to avoid societal decay by powerful means, we are at losing our natural freedom.
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