The Paranoid Style in American Politics
The Paranoid Style in American Politics
1. Introduction "The Paranoid Style in American Politics" is an essay published in 1964 in Harper's Magazine. Written by Richard Hofstadter, an american historian, this paper defines and describes what he calls the "paranoid style", which is some kind of paranoid behaviour among politics. To do this, the author explores american History from late XVIIIth century to the 60's and analyzes conspiracy theories and paranoid reactions of groups of people toward several organizations and movements such as Illuminism, Freemasonry or Jesuism. Here, "paranoid" doesn't directly refer to the clinical defition the word but to a way to act and react toward politics. From Hofstadter's historical facts and analysis, we will try here to deduce a theoretical approach to paranoia in politics : which people or groups of people are more likely to be paranoid in the way Richard Hofstadter describes it and what factors can we identify to explain it ?
2. Importance of the historical approach Hofstadter's approach in this paper is mainly historical. He analyses facts from american history and describes the paranoid style through these events. His goal is to define an archetype of the paranoid style in order to identify which people are more likely to have this kind of behaviour. Several concepts such as treason, belief or persecution are presents in the majority of the events described by the author. Although it is focusing on america, Hofstadter states that the U.S aren't an isolated case and that the paranoid style can be found in almost every country's history (for instance, conspiration theories targeting Freemasons, Communism or the jewish lobby are international). He notices numerous waves of different intensities of paranoia in history which leads to believe that this phenomenon could be ineradicable since it is a part of history building. One of the great and most appaling exemple of the paranoid style in history that we
1. Introduction "The Paranoid Style in American Politics" is an essay published in 1964 in Harper's Magazine. Written by Richard Hofstadter, an american historian, this paper defines and describes what he calls the "paranoid style", which is some kind of paranoid behaviour among politics. To do this, the author explores american History from late XVIIIth century to the 60's and analyzes conspiracy theories and paranoid reactions of groups of people toward several organizations and movements such as Illuminism, Freemasonry or Jesuism. Here, "paranoid" doesn't directly refer to the clinical defition the word but to a way to act and react toward politics. From Hofstadter's historical facts and analysis, we will try here to deduce a theoretical approach to paranoia in politics : which people or groups of people are more likely to be paranoid in the way Richard Hofstadter describes it and what factors can we identify to explain it ?
2. Importance of the historical approach Hofstadter's approach in this paper is mainly historical. He analyses facts from american history and describes the paranoid style through these events. His goal is to define an archetype of the paranoid style in order to identify which people are more likely to have this kind of behaviour. Several concepts such as treason, belief or persecution are presents in the majority of the events described by the author. Although it is focusing on america, Hofstadter states that the U.S aren't an isolated case and that the paranoid style can be found in almost every country's history (for instance, conspiration theories targeting Freemasons, Communism or the jewish lobby are international). He notices numerous waves of different intensities of paranoia in history which leads to believe that this phenomenon could be ineradicable since it is a part of history building. One of the great and most appaling exemple of the paranoid style in history that we