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AMERICAN TRANSCENDENTALISM: AN INDIGENOUS CULTURE OF CRITIQUE American Transcendentalism
Abstract
Philip Gura's American Transcendentalism provides a valuable insight into a nineteenth-century leftist intellectual elite in the United States. This is of considerable interest because Transcendentalism was a movement entirely untouched by the predominantly Jewish milieu of the twentieth-century left in America. Rather, it was homegrown, and its story tells us much about the sensibility of an important group of white intellectuals and perhaps gives us hints about why in the twentieth century WASPs so easily capitulated to the Jewish onslaught on the intellectual establishment. Based in New England, Transcendentalism was closely associated with Harvard and Boston—the very heart of Puritan New England. It was also closely associated with Unitarianism which had become the most common religious affiliation for Boston's elite. Many Transcen-dentalists were Unitarian clergymen, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, the person whose name is most closely associated with the movement in the public mind. These were very intelligent people living in an age when religious beliefs required an intellectual defense rather than blind obedience. Their backgrounds were typical of New England Christians of the day. But as their intellectual world expanded (often at the Harvard Divinity School), they became aware of the " higher criticism " of the Bible that originated with German scholars. This scholarship showed that there were several different authors of Genesis and that Moses did not write the first five books of the Old Testament. They also became aware of other religions, such as Buddhism and Hinduism which made it unlike
The Beat Generation in American poetry emerged through the final
years of World War II and flourished greatly in the last years of the
forties and throughout the fifties and sixties. It was a reaction to and a
rejection of the conformity of the American society and its mindless
acceptance of the post-war materialism and imperialism. The poets
and intellectuals of the time got fed up with such measures and
consequently reacted against them through a process of literary
rejection that lasted long after the decline of the generation itself. It
can be discerned even in the last few years that followed the twin
attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center in America in
September, 11, 2001. Among the most prominent Beat poets and
writers; names like the novelists, Jack Kerouac and William S.
Burroughs; the poets; Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Gregory
Corso and LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka) can easily be traced in the
post-war American literature.
Human cooperation is an evolutionary puzzle. Unlike other creatures, people frequently cooperate with genetically unrelated strangers, often in large groups, with people they will never meet again, and when reputation gains are small or absent. These patterns of cooperation cannot be explained by the nepotistic motives associated with the evolutionary theory of kin selection and the selfish motives associated with signalling theory or the theory of reciprocal altruism. Here we show experimentally that the altruistic punishment of defectors is a key motive for the explanation of cooperation. Altruistic punishment means that individuals punish, although the punishment is costly for them and yields no material gain. We show that cooperation flourishes if altruistic punishment is possible, and breaks down if it is ruled out. The evidence indicates that negative emotions towards defectors are the proximate mechanism behind altruistic punishment. These results suggest that future study of the evolution of human cooperation should include a strong focus on explaining altruistic punishment.
Genetic Similarity Theory extends Anthony D. Smith's theory of ethno-symbolism by anchoring ethnic nepotism in the evolutionary psychology of altruism. Altruism toward kin and similar others evolved in order to help replicate shared genes. Since ethnic groups are repositories of shared genes, xenophobia is the ‘dark side’ of human altruism. A review of the literature demonstrates the pull of genetic similarity in dyads such as marriage partners and friendships, and even large groups, both national and international. The evidence that genes incline people to prefer others who are genetically similar to themselves comes from studies of social assortment, differential heritabilities, the comparison of identical and fraternal twins, blood tests, and family bereavements. DNA sequencing studies confirm some origin myths and disconfirm others; they also show that in comparison to the total genetic variance around the world, random co-ethnics are related to each other on the order of first cousins.
On Genetic Interests: Family, Ethnicity, and Humanity in an Ethnic Nationalism, Evolutionary Psychology, and Genetic Similarity Theory
- K Frank
- Salter
Frank K. Salter, On Genetic Interests: Family, Ethnicity, and Humanity in an Age of
Mass Migration (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 2006).
23 J. Philippe Rushton, " Ethnic Nationalism, Evolutionary Psychology, and Genetic Similarity Theory, " Nations and Nationalism 11 (2005): 489–507.
24 Frank K. Salter, Welfare, Ethnicity and Altruism: New Data and Evolutionary
Theory (London: Routledge, 2005).
The 2006 Johan Skytte Prize Lecture Us and Them: The Enduring Power of Ethnic Nationalism Separation and Its Discontents: Toward an Evolutionary Theory of Anti-Semitism The Culture of Critique: An Evolutionary Analysis of Jewish Involvement in Twentieth-Century Intellectual and Political Movements
- Jerry Z Muller
25 Robert Putnam, " E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-first
Century, " The 2006 Johan Skytte Prize Lecture, Scandinavian Journal of Political Studies 30
(2007): 137–74.
26 Jerry Z. Muller, " Us and Them: The Enduring Power of Ethnic Nationalism, "
Foreign Affairs, March/April 2008.
2002), Separation and Its Discontents: Toward an Evolutionary
Theory of Anti-Semitism (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1998; paperback ed., Bloomington, Ind.: 1stBooks Library, 2004), The Culture of
Critique: An Evolutionary Analysis of Jewish Involvement in
Twentieth-Century Intellectual and Political Movements (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1998; paperback ed., Bloomington, Ind.: 1stBooks
Library, 2002), and Cultural Insurrections: Essays on Western Civilization, Jewish Influence, and Anti-Semitism (Atlanta: The Occidental Press, 2007).
The Jews in America: Four Centuries of an Uneasy Encounter
- A Hertzberg
A. Hertzberg, The Jews in America: Four Centuries of an Uneasy Encounter (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1998), 20-21.
19 Ibid., 20.
- K Frank
- Salter
Frank K. Salter, On Genetic Interests: Family, Ethnicity, and Humanity in an Age of
Mass Migration (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 2006).
- Robert Putnam
Robert Putnam, "E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-first
Century," The 2006 Johan Skytte Prize Lecture, Scandinavian Journal of Political Studies 30
(2007): 137-74.
The Culture of Critique: An Evolutionary Analysis of Jewish Involvement in Twentieth-Century Intellectual and Political Movements (Westport
- Jerry Z Muller
Jerry Z. Muller, "Us and Them: The Enduring Power of Ethnic Nationalism,"
Foreign Affairs, March/April 2008.
2002), Separation and Its Discontents: Toward an Evolutionary
Theory of Anti-Semitism (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1998; paperback ed., Bloomington, Ind.: 1stBooks Library, 2004), The Culture of
Critique: An Evolutionary Analysis of Jewish Involvement in
Twentieth-Century Intellectual and Political Movements (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1998; paperback ed., Bloomington, Ind.: 1stBooks
Library, 2002), and Cultural Insurrections: Essays on Western Civilization, Jewish Influence, and Anti-Semitism (Atlanta: The Occidental Press, 2007).