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On American Liberalism's Troubled Relationship with Psychology Colby College Digital Commons @ Colby Honors Theses Student Research 2010 Therapeutic Discourse and the American Public Philosophy: On American Liberalism's Troubled Relationship with Psychology Clifford D. Vickrey Colby College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/honorstheses Part of the Other Philosophy Commons, Political Theory Commons, Politics and Social Change Commons, and the Social Psychology Commons Colby College theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed or downloaded from this site for the purposes of research and scholarship. Reproduction or distribution for commercial purposes is prohibited without written permission of the author. Recommended Citation Vickrey, Clifford D., "Therapeutic Discourse and the American Public Philosophy: On American Liberalism's Troubled Relationship with Psychology" (2010). Honors Theses. Paper 551. https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/honorstheses/551 This Honors Thesis (Open Access) is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Research at Digital Commons @ Colby. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Colby. Therapeutic Discourse and the American Public Philosophy: On American Liberalism’s Troubled Relationship with Psychology Clifford D. Vickrey Honors Thesis Colby College, Department of Government Prof. Joseph R. Reisert, Honors Advisor Prof. Jennifer A. Yoder, Reader December 2009 Contents Preface .......................................................................................................................................... vii 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 1 1.1. Back to the Future? .............................................................................................................. 1 1.2. Therapeutic Discourse and its Discontents .......................................................................... 5 1.3. A Way Out? A Tale of Two Liberalisms ........................................................................... 10 1.4. Structure of this Paper........................................................................................................ 18 2. The Life and Times of Sociological Liberalism .................................................................... 20 2.1. Introduction to Chapter ...................................................................................................... 20 2.2. The Origins of Sociological Liberalism............................................................................. 21 2.3. Who Were the Sociological Liberals?................................................................................ 26 2.3.1. Introduction to their Intellectual Biographies.............................................................. 26 2.3.2. Daniel Bell (1919—) ................................................................................................... 27 2.3.3. Seymour Martin Lipset (1922-2006)........................................................................... 32 2.3.4. Richard Hofstadter (1916-1970).................................................................................. 35 2.3.5. Robert E. Lane (1917—) ............................................................................................. 40 2.3.6. Herbert McClosky (1916-2006) .................................................................................. 43 2.4. Sociological Liberalism: A Plausible Grouping................................................................. 46 3. Sociological Liberalism: How It Adds Up ............................................................................ 48 3.1. Introduction to Chapter ...................................................................................................... 48 3.2. The Normative Assumptions of Sociological Liberalism.................................................. 48 3.2.1. Introduction to Section ................................................................................................ 48 3.2.2. Positivism .................................................................................................................... 49 3.2.3. The Rational and Reasonable as Homo Economicus ................................................... 50 3.2.4. Moral relativism .......................................................................................................... 51 3.2.5. The End of Ideology Thesis......................................................................................... 52 3.2.6. The Primacy of Stability.............................................................................................. 54 3.2.7. Man: An Undemocratic Animal .................................................................................. 54 3.3. How the Sociological Liberals Proposed to Defend Democracy....................................... 55 3.3.1. Introduction to Section ................................................................................................ 55 3.3.2. Positivist Pluralism...................................................................................................... 56 3.3.3. “Negative” Liberty and Non-Participation.................................................................. 57 3.3.4. The Good of Anomy.................................................................................................... 58 3.3.5. “The New Liberal Man”.............................................................................................. 59 3.3.6. The Civilized Minority................................................................................................ 60 3.4. Conclusion: A Word of Praise and a Warning................................................................... 61 4. Therapeutic Discourse: Arrogance and Fall ........................................................................ 62 4.1. Introduction to Chapter ...................................................................................................... 62 4.2. A Definition........................................................................................................................ 62 4.3. Examples of Therapeutic Discourse................................................................................... 64 4.3.1. Why These Examples? ................................................................................................ 64 4.3.2. The Authoritarian Personality and the Cult of Adorno ............................................... 65 4.3.3. “Working-Class Authoritarianism:” The Common Man or the Common Monster? .. 73 4.3.4. “Conservatism and Personality:” Conservatism as Psychological, Not Philosophical 76 4.3.5. “The Paranoid Style:” The Paranoids—They’re Everywhere!.................................... 77 4.3.6. Political Ideology : Allegiance as Mental Health......................................................... 79 4.4. Why Sociological Liberals and Therapeutic Discourse Were Bedfellows ........................ 80 4.5. Gone Awry ......................................................................................................................... 84 4.5.1. Introduction to Section ................................................................................................ 84 4.5.2. Bentham Knows Best .................................................................................................. 84 4.5.3. The Pseudoscientific Revolution................................................................................. 86 4.5.4. Dangers for Liberalism: The Dark Legacy of Therapeutic Discourse ........................ 89 5. Rawls: Moving Liberalism Onto Sturdier Ground ............................................................. 99 5.1. Introduction to Chapter ...................................................................................................... 99 5.3. Why Read Rawls in Dialogue with Sociological Liberalism?......................................... 104 6.4. Rawls: An Overview ........................................................................................................ 106 5.4. Exorcising Sociological Liberalism ................................................................................. 118 5.5. Addressing the Counter-Considerations........................................................................... 123 5.6. Rawls’s Weaknesses, and What to Do About Them........................................................ 125 6. Conclusion: “The Analytic Mode?” .................................................................................... 130 6.1. Restatement of the Argument........................................................................................... 130 6.2. Some Implications............................................................................................................ 132 6.3. Brooks’s Moment of Honesty .......................................................................................... 135 7. Works Cited ........................................................................................................................... 138 vii Preface Long forgotten, languishing inside a filthy basement filing cabinet, could lie dormant the spark that ignites our next great American scandal. Coursework from Columbia proving that Barack Obama is a doctrinaire Marxist-Leninist: Matt Drudge is on the story. Perhaps fate has similar plans for this document.
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