Authors: Ernest Kurtz
15
Cf
. works listed in the two preceding notes; also Frank Manuel (ed.),
The Enlightenment
(Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1965), especially
Part II
: “Religion and Superstition;” and Peter Gay,
The Enlightenment: An Interpretation
, vol. 1, “The Rise of Modern Paganism” (New York: Knopf, 1966); Also well worth study for context are two works of Leszek Kolakowski:
The Alienation of Reason
, tr. Norbert Guterman (New York: Doubleday, 1968) and
Husserl and the Search for Certitude
(New Haven: Yale, 1975).
16
The final quotation is from Arthur O. Lovejoy,
The Great Chain of Being
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 1936), p. 250; related is the understanding of the key to the 20th century offered by Philip Rieff,
The Triumph of the Therapeutic
(New York: Harper Torchbook, 1968), p. 65: “Quantity has become quality. The answer to all questions of ‘what for?’ is ‘more.’”
17
Although the phrasing and sense of the final sentence is my own, I am aware of debts to the thought of Weber and Durkheim and commentators on them.
Cf
. Max Weber,
The Sociology of Religion
, tr., Ephraim Fischoff (Boston: Beacon, 1963), ch. 1; Anthony Giddens (ed.),
Emile Durkheim: Selected Writings
(Cambridge: University Press, 1972), especially chs. 11, 12, & 13; also Geoffrey Hawthorn,
Enlightenment and Despair: A History of Sociology
(Cambridge: University Press, 1976), especially chs. 6 & 7; David Bakan,
The Duality of Human Existence
(Boston: Beacon, 1966); Jan deVries,
Perspectives in the History of Religion
, tr., K. W. Bolle (Berkeley: Univ. of California, 1977), introduction and ch. 1; Walter Houston Clark,
The Psychology of Religion
(New York: Macmillan, 1958), especially ch. 4, “The Psychological Sources of Religion.”
18
Cf.:
Richard H. Shryock,
The Development of Modern Medicine
(Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania, 1936). Barbara Sicherman,
The Quest for Mental Health in America:
1880-1917 (unpublished dissertation, Columbia University, 1967), was also helpful in shaping the interpretation here. I am grateful to Ms. Sicherman for discussing with me her research and further thought, and also to Dr. Sarah E. Williams for the opportunity to discuss her yet unpublished research into the history of medicine in nineteenth-century America. A sustained critique of the assumptions underlying modern Western medicine is only now developing:
cf
. the works of Michel Foucault and Erving Goffman; most direct altough probably overstated is the presentation of Robert S. Mendelsohn, M.D., in Michio Kushi,
The Macrobiotic Way of Natural Healing
(Boston: East-West Publications, 1978), pp. vii-xv.
19
For the dating,
cf
. any encyclopedia under Roentgen and Freud; for depth, Shryock,
op. cit
. and Nathan G. Hale, Jr.,
Freud and the Americans
(New York: Oxford, 1971); for Descartes, Planck, and Heisenberg, any encyclopedia should again be sufficient.
20
For the pre-Freudian background, Hale,
op. cit.;
a difficult but informative book indirectly treating the point is Patrick Mullahy,
Psychoanalysis and Interpersonal Psychiatry
(New York: Science House, 1970); this emphasis on identity may be seen from two very different points of view in Louis Berger,
From Instinct to Identity
(Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1974) and William Kilpatrick,
Identity and Intimacy
(New York: Dell, 1975); its results are clear in David W. Johnson,
Reaching Out
(Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1972). The history of Behaviorism has yet to be written, but the development of ideas from Watson to Skinner seems enough a part of general knowledge to be mentioned without specific citation. For the general framework,
cf
. Duane Schultz,
A History of Modern Psychology
(New York: Academic Press, 1975).
21
This perception, somewhat overstated, is the theme of Kilpatrick,
Identity and Intimacy;
more balanced but also more theoretical is Roberto Mangabeira
Unger, Knowledge and Politics
(New York: Free Press, 1975), especially chs. 2 & 3. On the metaphor of growth as implying a goal,
cf
. Robert A. Nisbet,
Social Change and History
(New York: Oxford, 1969), an excellent critical treatment that importantly updates Bury’s classic work. The literature on the “stages” and process of personal growth is rapidly becoming overwhelming: beyond the popular bestseller by Gail Sheehy,
Passages
(New York: E. P. Button, 1976),
cf
. especially Daniel J. Levinson,
et. al., The Seasons of a Man’s Life
(New York: Knopf, 1978).
22
I find the best single work explaining and analyzing the Marxist critique to be Shlomo Avineri,
The Social and Political Thought of Karl Marx
(Cambridge: University Press, 1968).
23
I find the best explanation and critique of existentialism to be William Barrett,
Irrational Man
(New York: Doubleday-Anchor, 1962); I am also indebted for perspective on this point to Thomas M. King,
Sartre and the Sacred
(Chicago: Univ. Press, 1974). For Sartre himself, nothing can improve on
Being and Nothingness
, although
St. Genet, Actor and Martyr
may make the point more clearly and concisely. Heidegger’s own writings are very difficult, but the first reference is of course to
Being and Time
, tr. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson (New York: Harper & Row, 1962). For an understanding of Heidegger, I have found most helpful Michael Gelven,
A Commentary on Heidegger’s “Being and Time”
(New York: Harper Torchbook, 1970). A further and deeper interpretation of Heidegger is offered by William Barrett in
The Illusion of Technique
(New York: Doubleday-Anchor, 1978).
24
Generically,
cf
. Robert A. Harper,
The New Psychotherapies
(Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1975); also Virginia Binder, Arnold Binder, and Bernard Rimland (eds.),
Modem Therapies
(Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1976) and Otto and Miriam Ehrenberg,
The Psychotherapeutic Maze
(New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1977); for depth,
cf
. Philip Rieff,
The Triumph of the Therapeutic;
Rieff, p. 34, quotes a private letter of Freud: “The moment a man questions the meaning and value of life, he is sick, since objectively neither has any existence.”
25
Rieff,
op. cit.
, p. 176; also stimulating is Rieff's discussion of “commitment” or “community” as
vs
. “analytic” therapies, outlined on pp. 71-77, but permeating this whole book.
26
The historiography of Progressivism is overwhelming. Three works that have been central to my own thinking are Richard Hofstadter,
The Age of Reform
(New York: Knopf-Vintage, 1955), especially the “Introduction;” Morton White,
Social Thought in America: The Revolt Against Formalism
(Boston: Beacon, 1957, 2nd ed.); and David Noble,
The Paradox of Progressive Thought
(Minneapolis: Univ. of Mn. Press, 1958). More recent works illuminate, specify, and qualify rather than challenge the key point in this paragraph:
cf
, e.g., Otis Pease (ed.),
The Progressive Years
(New York: George Braziller, 1962), the editor’s introduction; Allen F. Davis,
Spearheads for Reform
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1967) especially
Chapters 1
and 10; John Tipple
The Capitalist Revolution
(New York: Pegasus, 1970), especially the “Prologue.” For the historiographic problems,
cf
. D. M. Kennedy (ed.), Progressivism:
The Critical Issues
(Boston: Little Brown, 1971); Robert H. Wiebe, “The Progressive Years: 1900-1917,” in W. H. Cartwright and Richard L. Watson, Jr. (eds.), (Washington: National Council for the Social Studies, 1973), Arthur Mann (ed.),
The Progressive Era
(Hinsdale, IL: Dryden Press, 1975). From the period itself,
cf
. Herbert Croly,
The Promise of American Life
(New York: MacMillan, 1909); later evaluations of the period by those active in it feature: Frederick Howe,
The Confessions of a Reformer
(New York: Chas. Scribner’s Sons, 1925); Joseph Wood Krutch,
The Modern Temper
(New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1929); and John Chamberlain,
Farewell to Reform; The Rise, Life and Decay of the Progressive Mind in America
(New York: John Day, 1932).
On Americanization,
cf
. especially Edward G. Hartmann,
The Movement to Americanize the Immigrant
(New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1948), and John Higham,
Strangers in the Land
(New York: Atheneum, 1966) especially
Chapters 7
,
8
, and
9
. A work from the period that in some ways tried to counter the trend is John Palmer Gavit,
Americans By Choke
(New York: Harper & Bros., 1922).
On the continuity of Progressivism,
cf
. Clarke Chambers,
Seedtime of Reform
(Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan, 1967); Otis L. Graham, Jr.,
An Encore for Reform
(New York: Oxford, 1967); also, differently but very significantly, Roy Lubove,
The Professional Altruist
(New York: Atheneum, 1969), especially chs. 2, 3, & 6.
27
The understanding of the 1920’s reflected here and in the following two paragraphs is the standard one. Significant in the formation of my ideas have been: William Leuchtenburg,
The Perils of Prosperity
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958); Frederick J. Hoffman,
The ‘20’s: American Writing in the Post-war Decade
(New York: MacMillan-Free Press, 1962); Henry F. May, “Shifting Perspectives on the 1920’s,” reprinted in Carl Degler (ed.),
Pivotal Interpretations of American History
(New York: Harper & Row, 1966), vol. 2, pp. 210-232; Stanley Coben (ed.)
Reform, War and Reaction: 1912-1932
(New York: Harper & Row, 1972); Paul A. Carter,
The Twenties in America
(New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1975, 2nd ed.,).
For the income detail,
cf
. Irving Bernstein,
The Lean Years
(Baltimore: Penguin, 1966), pp. 64-66; also, for perspective, Daniel M. Fox,
The Discovery of Abundance
(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univ. Press, 1967) and Daniel M. Fox, Introduction” to Simon N. Patten,
The New Basis of Civilization
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard-Belknap, 1968) — Patten’s book was first published in 1907.
28
Cf
. notes #3 through 7, above; for the 1960s, Handlin,
HUS
, pp. 592-666.
29
Cf
. note #7, above; also Donella H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, Jurgen Randers, and William W. Behrens, III,
The Limits to Growth: A Report for the Club of Rome’s Project on the Predicament of Mankind
(London: Earth Island, Ltd., 1972); Fred Hirsch,
Social Limits to Growth
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 1976); Barry Commoner,
The Closing Circle
(New York: Knopf, 1971); E. F. Schumacher,
Small Is Beautiful
(New York: Harper & Row, 1973); and especially Willard Gaylin, Ira Glasser, Steven Marcus, and David Rothman,
Doing Good: The Limits of Benevolence
(New York: Pantheon, 1978).
30
Cf
. notes #20 and 24, above.
31
Cf
. note #29, above, especially Gaylin,
et al
.
32
In addition to the works cited in note #29, above,
cf
. Milton Mayeroff,
On Caring
(New York: Harper & Row—Perennial, 1972) and Willard Gaylin,
Caring
(New York: Knopf, 1976); also, for the literature on “narcissism,” note #34 to
Chapter Nine
, p. 385, below, offers the citations in context.
33
Cf
. note #26, above.
VIII ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS AND RELIGIOUS IDEAS
1
For this and the preceding paragraph,
cf
. C. E. Black,
The Dynamics of Modernization;
Paul Tillich,
Perspectives on 19th and 20th Century Protestant Theology
(New York: Harper & Row, 1967), especially chs. 2 & 3; Jan deVries,
Perspectives in the History of Religion
, tr. K. W. Bolle (Berkeley: Univ. of California, 1977), especially
Part Two
. Also, on “the pragmatic criterion of truth,”
cf
. John E. Smith,
Purpose and Thought: The Meaning of Pragmatism
(New Haven: Yale, 1978), especially the discussion of the differences between James and Dewey in
Chapters 1
,
2
, and
6
; and William Barrett,
The Illusion of Technique
(New York: Doubleday-Anchor, 1978),
cf
. the index listings under “James” and “Pragmatism,” especially in Chapters 13 and 14.
2
For the Oxford Group,
cf
. above, pp. 46-50.
3
Cf
. analysis of the stories in the 1st edition of
AA
, above, pp. 73-74, also, Bruce Holley Johnson,
The Alcoholism Movement in America: A Study in Cultural Innovation
, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1973, University Microfilms #74-5603. On the role of the churches in Prohibition and the “Temperance Movement,”
cf
. Andrew Sinclair,
Era of Excess
(New York: Harper & Row, 1962),
Chapters 1
-
4
and later index listings; also, with caution, Joseph R. Gusfield,
Symbolic Crusade
(Urbana, Ill.: Univ. of Ill. Press, 1963),
Chapters 2
& 3; for the remote background,
cf
. Alice Felt Tyler,
Freedom’s Ferment
(New York: Harper & Row, 1962), pp. 308-350.