"New (Deal) Liberalism,"Modernism and the Critique of "Mass Culture"

History 47

"New (Deal) Liberalism,"Modernism and the Critique of "Mass Culture"

3/31/98. Latest revision 3/31

[class will begin with continued treatment of Old Left (#18a)]

*changing shape of American "liberalism"

**varieties of political/social thought in 1950s can be ranged across spectrum from left to right

1. End of Ideology (disillusioned leftists)

Bell, Daniel (1919-)
Hofstadter, Richard (1916-1970)
Boorstin, Daniel (1914-).

2, "New Liberals"

[Niebuhr, Reinhold]
Schlesinger Arthur, Jr. (1917-)
Neustadt, Richard
Galbraith, John K. (1908-)

3. Sociological Critics of "Mass Society"

Riesman, David (1909-)
Packard, Vance (194-)
Whyte, William

4. New Conservatives

Viereck, Peter
Kirk, Russell
Rossiter,Clinton
Buckley, William F.

5. Cultural Conservatives

Jacques Barzun

*all converge as theorist of "consensus" (explain). Major theme of W.W.II generation.

I. 1940s as context (based on William Graebner, Age of Doubt).

*As example of "cultural" history see on method

A. Divides decade into half pre and post 1945

1. 1940-45

a. Group,democracy
b. Sentimentality
c. production

1945-50

a. Cold war
b. Individual
c. Freedom
d. domesticity

B. Describes the "culture of contingency" that emerged in easily 1940s A mood related to the "end of ideology" in two senses; contingency of existence; and moral/ethical contingency

1. Pearl Harbor
2. UFOs
3. Sex crimes against children scare
4.Holocaust
5. Niebuhr and his view of foreign relations
6. Film noir
7. Attack on progressive education ("why Johnny can't read")
8. Kinsey

C. "March of Time"

D. "Culture of Whole" (as matrix of consensus theory)

1. One world

a. Wendell Wilkie
b. World Citizenship movement
c. UN headquarters

2. Univeralist art

3. National character studies

Mead, And Keep Your Powder Dry (1942)

Gorer, Geoffrey, The American People

Riesman, David, The Lonely Crowd (1951)

*could add: David Potter, People of Plenty

4, homogenization of popular music

5. TV

6 Ezra Pound, Pisan Cantos

7. Humanities and social sciences [do more below under "new liberalism"]

8. High school

a. system theory

b. cybernetics

c. gestalt

d. functionalist sociology (Parsons)

e. countervailing power

E/ "Turning Inward

*the flip side of culture of whole which signaled the decline of intermediate associations etc.

II. 1950s crosscurrents

A. End of Ideology (see notes 18b Old Left)

Bell, Daniel. The end of ideology; on the exhaustion of political ideas in the
fifties (Glencoe, Ill., Free Press [1960])

B. New Liberals

C. Roots on theory in 1930s:

1. John Dewey and "independent Liberals' of the 1930s (see Tallack, pp. 178 ff)

2. Tugwell and New Deal theory . Analysis of selection from The Battle for Democracy , Hollinger, pp. 218-22.

D. Reinhold Niebuhr (inc. analysis analysis of " selection from Children of Light Hollinger Reader, 3rd edn.See also discussion of N. In Cooney, Balancing Acts, pp.

E. Summary of Key Books

* new liberals gain self conscious recognition in Kennedy ascendancy > See John M. Blum, "Kennedy's Ten Foot Shelf," NYT Magazine March 12, 1961. Earlier associated with Americans for Democratic Action founded 1947.
1. Schlesinger, Arthur Meier, The vital center; the politics of freedom.( Boston, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1949) [McCabe JC481 .S38]

2. Galbraith, John Kenneth, The affluent society.( Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1958) S McCabe HB171 .G14 c.2

Galbraith, John Kenneth, American capitalism : the concept of countervailing power.( Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1952)[ S McCabe HB501 .G14 c.3

3. A.A. Berle, 20th C. Capitalist Revolution (1954)

4. Richard Neustadt, Presidential Power (1960)

F. Overall characteristics

*following derived from early attack on in Thomas Hayden., "Notes on the Crisis of Contemporary Liberalism" (Ann Arbor, 1963) [unpublished mimeo]

1. Skeptical about human nature
2.fascination with power and action
3. Distrust of masses
4, no basic tension within social structure
5. Emphasis on complexity of social experience

III. Sociological Critics of Mass Society

*background. Intellectual and mass culture. See Gorman, Paul R. , Left intellectuals & popular culture in twentieth-century America ( Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, c1996)

A. Popular Culture and the old Left(analysis of Clement Greenburg selection in Hollinger)

B. Sociological critics of mass culture

Mills , White Collar (195)
Riesman, Lonely Crowd, 1951
Lynes, Taste Makers

Whyte, Organization man (1956)
Packard, Hidden Persuaders(1957) , Status Seekers (1959), Wastemakers (1960)

*legacy. Charles Sykes, A Nation of Victims p. 37 argues that they plowed the soil for the "victim" psychology of later years.

IV. New Conservatives

V. Cultural Conservatives

Written by Robert Bannister, for classroom use in History 47, Swarthmore College 3/26/98. May be reproduced in whole or part for educational purposes, but not copied or distributed for profit.