In tandem with a book club I've recently started, I'll be posting weekly reflections on Richard Hofstadter's The American Political Tradition. Hofstadter's first chapter, "The Founding Fathers: An Age of Realism," is both concise and intellectually invigorating. More importantly, his ideas are still charmingly relevant over 50 years later. As James Livingston recently pointed out on the U.S. Intellectual History Blog, Hofstadter's ability to transcend and metamorphose the class reductionist view and consensus view of the historians of his time revealed his ability to developed a more nuanced examination of the intellectual origins of the United States Constitution.
"... they found quick confirmation of the notion that man is an unregenerate rebel who has to be controlled," Richard Hofstadter begins. He argues that this ideological view of human nature - originating in enlightenment philosophers such as David Hume and Thomas Hobbes - underpinned the ideas surrounding the Constitutional Convention. Even more, their distrust of man equated to a distrust of the common man and democratic rule. To reemphasize, they sought to curb the radical excesses of 1776 in light of their notion that nature of man was static.
"... they found quick confirmation of the notion that man is an unregenerate rebel who has to be controlled," Richard Hofstadter begins. He argues that this ideological view of human nature - originating in enlightenment philosophers such as David Hume and Thomas Hobbes - underpinned the ideas surrounding the Constitutional Convention. Even more, their distrust of man equated to a distrust of the common man and democratic rule. To reemphasize, they sought to curb the radical excesses of 1776 in light of their notion that nature of man was static.
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