Hofstadter, Chapters 7-9

Just a few quick thoughts.

Chapter 7: The only other thing that leaped out from it was that Teddy Roosevelt was, in many ways, a pretty intellectual guy, but he was acceptable to the public because he also projected an image of vigorous, well-rounded masculinity.  There's absolutely nothing wrong with being well-rounded, of course. I'm glad that my undergraduate institution emphasized extracurriculars.  Nonetheless, while the public only wants its scientists and writers and thinkers to also show a "human" side, the public never expects its athletes to be smart.  Many of them are, but it's not an expectation, and they certainly don't have to be well-read.

Chapter 8: Mostly about New Deal experts (accepted by the public) and Adlai Stevenson (not so accepted by the public).  I don't think this is much of a mystery. In a crisis, people will put aside prejudices if they think an expert will help them, and the essence of FDR's New Deal policy was counter-cyclical economic spending.

Likewise, right now much of the public likes Dr. Fauci because we're afraid we'll die and he's a really smart doctor. Doctors are one of the few professions in which the public will accept elitism.  Yes, there are cranks who reject vaccines and whatnot, but they are (fortunately) a small minority.  And, yes, everybody ignores their doctor's advice to eat less and exercise more, but that's less about intellect than inertia. In general, the public likes the idea of a smart doctor. They might gripe if a doctor is cold or impersonal, but they'll never gripe that the doctor uses a lot of big words.  You need to be a college professor or the like in order to signal your virtue by saying "I prefer a doctor who appreciates a balanced life to a doctor that is really smart." Nobody else says this. Nobody else sits in the ER, thinking about the blood that they just urinated, and says "I don't care if the person making the calls here is smart."

As to Eisenhower vs. Stevenson, I admittedly wasn't around in the 1950's, so I never witnessed that campaign coverage, but Eisenhower masterminded the most complex military operation that the US had ever pulled off.  I can't really fault the public for trusting him to run the government.  If they'd selected some handsome private who had a medal and claimed to have more common sense than the eggheads, I'd have a different take. But I really can't fault the public for entrusting the federal government to the guy who successfully pulled off the most complex task the federal government had ever executed.

Chapter 9: It's mostly about business and the public's preference for businessmen and practical knowledge.  It's hard to fault the public for this.  In fact, as a science professor I'm keenly aware that most of my students will go straight to the private sector after college, and I want to teach them skills that they can use in a job.

Also, on page 238 he starts discussing the American attitude toward the past.  He starts by noting that America is a land with many fewer ancient ruins than Europe, so we have less respect for accumulated knowledge. That's largely true, but I'd like to note a few things about the societies that were here before Europeans:
1) Yes, they mostly left fewer ruins behind than the older societies of Europe, but not every corner of Europe is replete with Roman ruins and whatnot. Many (not all) parts of Scandinavia and Russia have less in the way of old civilizations building with stone. Mexico, Central America, and large parts of South America are a different matter.  Climate determined where people could develop the knowledge base to build large cities with stone.
2) To the extent that we do have Native American ruins, for most Americans they fit into narratives of something other than "Our Glorious Ancestors." To some they elicit guilt about the past, and for others they arguably buttress a sense of pride in being part of the culture that "civilized" these lands.