"The Paranoid Style in American Politics," by Richard J. Hofstadter, is an historical essay tracing the influence of conspiracy theory and “movements of suspicious discontent” through the course of American history. The essay has long been used by liberals to attack conservatives for responding to personal inner psychological fears rather than genuine national needs.
It is an adaptation of the Herbert Spencer Lecture he gave at Oxford University ...
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"The Paranoid Style in American Politics," by Richard J. Hofstadter, is an historical essay tracing the influence of conspiracy theory and “movements of suspicious discontent” through the course of American history. The essay has long been used by liberals to attack conservatives for responding to personal inner psychological fears rather than genuine national needs.
It is an adaptation of the Herbert Spencer Lecture he gave at Oxford University on November 21, 1963, and was first published in the November 1964 issue of Harper's Magazine, then was the titular essay of the book The Paranoid Style in American Politics, and Other Essays (1964). It was originally presented when the conservatives, led by Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater (1909–1998), were on the verge of taking control of the Republican Party. Liberals feared this might be the advent of extremism in politics, so Hofstadter tried to put the movement in historical context.
In developing the subject, the historian Richard J....
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