DEFENSIVE REACTIONS TO POLITICAL ANXIETY
NP: np, nd [ca. 1961]. Reproduced typescript. 28 cm. 16 pp. Stern's look at American hubris in an essay designed to "provide a theoretical framework for the analysis of the psychological aspects of ideology as it relates to social change, and... to illustrate the theoretical formulations with a sample case." The author examines early political training and the way "those [American] political assumptions learned during childhood are directly challenged during adulthood by contrary political events." He sites American government views of Communist China, the internment of Japanese American citizens during World War II, Pres. Kennedy's speech on April 19, 1961, two days after the failure of the Cuban exiles to overthrow the Castro government, and various other historical events to show that international changes which challenge "basic American political assumptions" of good and bad cause anxiety. They don't, however, seem to shake belief in the American system of "great moral righteousness, i.e. religious power. Always coupled with political freedom and capitalism is the santification of these by a true and benevolent God.... Not only is the United States strong because it is moral, but its very uniqueness makes obligatory a mission to lead the world down the path of true righteousness: capitalism, democracy and Christianity." The author reminds his readers that these assumptions are not universally held by all citizens of the United States, and that Socialists and Communists take issue with many of them. Item #68959
This essay, or a version of it, appeared in the journal "Studies on the Left, vol. 2, no. 2, 1961, [pp. 3-29]. There are two listings on OCLC for an essay by Dr. Stern with the same title, but with a subtitle "The American anti-communist liberal and the invasion of Cuba": Hoover Inst. at Stanford; Hoover Inst. on War, Revolution & Peace. Likely a copy is also held at the Wisconsin Historical Society which has an archive of materials from this socialist journal, published first in Madison, Wisconsin from 1959-1963, and then in New York City from 1963-1967. It was founded by a group of graduate students at the University of Wisconsin “to encourage socialist analyses in the social and natural sciences, literature and the arts.” Contributors included many of the new left intellectuals in the U.S. and abroad at the time.
Price: $125.00