Carl Lotus Becker (7 de septiembre de 1873-10 de abril de 1945) fue un historiador estadounidense .
La vida
Nació en Waterloo, Iowa . Se matriculó en la Universidad de Wisconsin en 1893 como estudiante y, mientras estaba allí, gradualmente se interesó por estudiar historia. Becker , que se quedó para realizar estudios de posgrado, estudió con Frederick Jackson Turner , quien se convirtió en su asesor doctoral allí. [1] Becker recibió su Ph.D. en 1907. Fue profesor de historia John Wendell Anderson en el Departamento de Historia de la Universidad de Cornell de 1917 a 1941.
Fue elegido miembro de la Academia Estadounidense de Artes y Ciencias en 1923. [2] Becker murió en Ithaca, Nueva York . Cornell ha reconocido su trabajo como educador nombrando uno de sus cinco nuevos colegios residenciales del Carl Becker House .
Escritura
Becker es mejor conocido por La ciudad celestial de los filósofos del siglo XVIII (1932), cuatro conferencias sobre La Ilustración impartidas en la Universidad de Yale . Su afirmación de que las filosofías , en la " Era de la Razón ", dependían mucho más de las suposiciones cristianas de lo que querían admitir, ha sido influyente, pero también ha sido muy atacada, especialmente por Peter Gay . El interés por el libro se explica en parte por este pasaje (p. 47):
En el siglo XIII, las palabras clave sin duda serían Dios, pecado, gracia, salvación, cielo y cosas por el estilo; en el siglo XIX, materia, hecho, hecho, evolución, progreso; en el siglo XX, relatividad, proceso, ajuste, función, complejo. En el siglo XVIII las palabras sin las cuales ninguna persona iluminada podía llegar a una conclusión tranquila eran naturaleza, ley natural, primera causa, razón, sentimiento, humanidad, perfectibilidad ...
Este aislamiento de vocabularios de la época concuerda con trabajos mucho posteriores, incluso si el resto del libro tiene un enfoque ensayístico. En consecuencia, algunos estudiosos clasifican a Becker como "relativista". Este "relativismo" era más parecido al " pragmatismo " ("relativismo pragmático") así como a la lingüística y diacronía de Saussure . Johnson Kent Wright escribe:
Becker escribió como un liberal de principios ... Sin embargo, en algunos aspectos, La ciudad celestial presenta una anticipación casi asombrosa de la lectura "posmoderna" del siglo XVIII.
- "El pre-posmodernismo de Carl Becker", p. 162, en Postmodernism and the Enlightenment (2001), editor de Daniel Gordon
Puntos de vista políticos
Entrevistado para el folleto Los escritores toman partido: Cartas sobre la guerra en España de 418 autores estadounidenses Becker apoyó a los republicanos españoles . [3] También manifestó su oposición a la dictadura en general. [3]
In 1910, Carl Becker assessed Progressive Era Kansas Americanization, which included state temperance amendments and legislation, as an "individualism of conformity, not of revolt."[4] Becker added that this "individualism [also] means the ability of the individual to succeed," infusing early twentieth-century "Kansans" with "hair-triggered" vigilance that found "expression in the romantic devotion of people to the state, in a certain alert sensitiveness to criticism from outside."[5] In addition, Becker attempted to sustain, rather than relativize, John Dewey's "effective freedom" and "negative freedom" in polities that attempted to advance both, usually under the rubric of a Progressive Era variant of proto-Crocean social liberalism. The dreaded "proto-" derives from Becker's arguments for social liberalism prior to the 1922 publication of his first (in a series) of reviews on Crocean philosophy.[6] Dewey advocated for social democracy in Europe prior to the 1920s, but Becker's perspectives on this Progressive Era endorsement as well as variegated notions of market socialism during this period remain subjects of scholarly inquiry.[7] For his part, Dewey's "negative freedom" did not exclude ideas on degrees of free markets (which myriad socialists chastised and chastise him for) and these contentions presaged fascist exploitation of Crocean philosophy and the eponymous philosopher's condemnation of the same. Becker did address the multivalent consequences of "free trade" ideas in history, but decidedly argued that these ideas ran counter to the aspirations of representative democracy. In his 1919 "free trade in ideas" dissent for Abrams v. United States, at the height of the First Red Scare, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., held that a dichotomous understanding of Progressive Era "negative freedom," between civil liberties on the one hand, and degrees of "free trade" in private as well as public sectors on the other, could still potentially result in the former branch shaping, or impinging on, the latter branch. After the Holmes dissent, Becker began to study conflicts over natural rights philosophy in United States history. In his 1922 The Declaration of Independence: A Study in the History of Political Ideas, for example, Becker concluded that debates over establishing "authority" in "essential natural rights," while crucial for the "emotional inspiration" and "justification" of the "Founding," nevertheless had been rendered " 'meaningless' " by attempts to enumerate seemingly countless natural rights ("What were they? Was there any sure way of finding out?") and by the " 'harsh realities of the modern world' "--the "trend of action," "trenchant scientific criticism," and "temporary hypotheses" inherent in nationalism, industrialism, and an "aggressive imperialism."[8]
Becker continued this criticism of reviving an eighteenth-century natural rights philosophy in his 1932 The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century Philosophers, but both implicitly and explicitly indicated that such ideas were immanent in polities past, present, and future.[9] Becker subsequently turned to examining enumerated natural rights as civil liberties within the changes and continuities that underpinned the Atlantic history of his previous Progressive Era social liberalism and, at the end of the interwar period, his endorsement of a United States variant of social democracy. Alexander Jacobs contends that, in Becker's later writings, such as the 1941 New Liberties for Old and the 1945 "Political Freedom: American Style," Becker found " 'democracy' " to be the preferred mode of government if " 'traditional democratic ideology' " sought to "secure these values with a 'minimum of coercion.' " But Becker attempted to balance his history of civil liberties with the promotion of social welfare policy in government, the latter undermining his "post-progressive" disenchantment: “ 'what the common man needs is the opportunity to acquire by his own effort, in an occupation for which he is fitted, the economic security which is essential to decent and independent living.' ” Becker further identified four models of "collectivism" in government, endorsing the fourth, " 'what for lack of a better term we may call Social Democracy.' " He described the "social" in his U.S. variant of social democracy as " 'whatever restrictions of economic enterprise may be necessary for the economic welfare of the people as a whole.' "[10]
Becker's Progressive Era social liberalism and his endorsement of "post-progressive" social democracy, advancing both civil liberties and social welfare policy in the absence of myriad degrees of free markets, faced challenges similar to that of Crocean philosophy. His guarded criticism of U.S. engagement in the Second World War, however, stemmed more from regrets over the First Red Scare and his qualified support for the Preparedness Movement than concerns about the exploitation of rational-critical dichotomies in notions of "negative freedom" as well as, in turn, the Progressive Era conceptual bifurcation of "negative freedom" and "effective freedom."[11] The ailing Becker distinguished his previous "pragmatic relativism" from a similar "relativist philosophy with which he had previously been identified"--and that a growing chorus of twenty-first century scholars contend his historical interpretations ultimately fell prey to. Becker believed that this particular "relativist trend" in scholarship would and did facilitate "anti-intellectualism" and sow the seeds of fascism. In one of his last major pieces of writing, he observed that " 'the anti-intellectual relativist trend of thought reaches a final, fantastic form: truth and morality turn out to be relative to the purposes of any egocentric somnambulist who can succeed, by a ruthless projection of his personality, in creating the power to impose his unrestrained will upon the world.' "[12] Over sixty years later, in a final twist of irony, one of his posthumous critics offered a countervailing argument for "totalitarian" figures pursuing "perfectionist ideas" within, rather than "relativizing," the conceptual category of "positive liberty."[13]
Obras
- The History of Political Parties in the Province of New York, 1760–1776 (1908)
- Kansas (1910)
- The Beginnings of the American People (1915)
- The Eve of the Revolution (1918)
- The United States: An Experiment in Democracy (1920)
- The Declaration of Independence—A Study in the History of Political Ideas (1922, 1942)
- Our Great Experiment in Democracy (1924)
- The Spirit of '76 (with G.M. Clark and W.E. Dodd) (1926)
- Modern History (1931)
- Everyman His Own Historian (1931)
- The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century Philosophers (1932)
- Progress and Power (1936)
- Story of Civilization (with Frederic Duncalf) (1938)
- Modern Democracy (1941)
- New Liberties for Old (1941)
- Cornell University: Founders and the Founding (1943)
- How New Will the Better World Be?—A Discussion of Post-War Reconstruction (1944)
- Freedom and Responsibility in the American Way of Life (1945)
- Freedom of Speech and Press
- "What are Historical Facts"
Citas
- "The temperament, the objects and the methods of a Mussolini, a Hitler, a Stalin represent everything that I most profoundly despise".[3]
- "Freedom and responsibility." This saying, from a 1943 lecture, has been frequently misquoted.[14] When Cornell memorialized Becker by naming a residential college in his honor, the university commissioned a large stone placard to be affixed to the building's entryway reading "FREEDOM WITH RESPONSIBILITY".[14]
Referencias
- ^ Carl L. Becker, "Frederick Jackson Turner," in Everyman His Own Historian: Essays on History and Politics. (Quadrangle Books, 1966), pp. 191–232.
- ^ "Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter B" (PDF). American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved May 29, 2011.
- ^ a b c "400 To 1 Against Franco" The Milwaukee Journal, May 17, 1938.
- ^ Becker, Carl (1910). "Kansas" in Essays in American History Dedicated to Frederick Jackson Turner. New York: Henry Holt and Company. p. 93.
- ^ Becker, Carl (1910). "Kansas" in Essays in American History Dedicated to Frederick Jackson Turner. New York: Henry Holt and Company. p. 94.
- ^ Roberts, David D. (2007). Historicism And Fascism In Modern Italy. Toronto, ON: University Of Toronto Press. p. 95. ISBN 9781442691834.
- ^ Eldridge, Michael (1998). Transforming Experience: John Dewey's Cultural Instrumentalism (1st ed.). Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press. pp. 88–89. ISBN 9780826513076.
- ^ Ceaser, James (2012). "Progressivism and the Doctrine of Natural Rights". Social Philosophy & Policy. 29 (2): 177–95.
- ^ Jacobs, Alexander (2020). "The Post-Progressive Liberalism of Carl Becker". Intellectual History Review. 30 (4): 679–83.
- ^ Jacobs, Alexander (2020). "The Post-Progressive Liberalism of Carl Becker". Intellectual History Review. 30 (4): 685–86.
- ^ LaFeber, Walter (Fall 2011). "Carl Becker's Histories and the American Present" (PDF). Ezra: Cornell's Quarterly Magazine. 4 (1): 8–11.
- ^ Jacobs, Alexander (2020). "The Post-Progressive Liberalism of Carl Becker". Intellectual History Review. 30 (4): 685–86.
- ^ Bailyn, Bernard (2006). "The Search for Perfection: Atlantic Dimensions". Proceedings of the British Academy. 151: 139 and 157–158.
- ^ a b http://www.metaezra.com/archive/2008/09/carl_becker_is_rolling_in_his.shtml
Otras lecturas
- Breisach, Ernst. "Carl Becker" in Kelly Boyd, ed. Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing, vol 1 (1999) pp 85–86.
- Smith, Charlotte W. Carl Becker: On History & the Climate of Opinion (1956)
- Strout, CushingThe Pragmatic Revolt in American History: Carl Becker and Charles Beard (1958)
- Wilkins, Burleigh T.Carl Becker: A Biographical Study in American Intellectual History (1961)
- Wilson, Clyde N. Twentieth-Century American Historians (Gale: 1983, Dictionary of Literary Biography, volume 17) pp 57–63
- Griffes, Milan. The Origin and Development of Carl Becker’s Historiography
enlaces externos
- Historiographical Blurb and JSTOR listing [1]
- Works by Carl L. Becker at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about Carl L. Becker at Internet Archive
- The Origin and Development of Carl Becker’s Historiography