The University in Exile is 75 years old this year. In 1933, the 14-year-old New School for Social Research set the University in Exile up to provide refuge for intellectuals threatened by the rise of fascism in Europe; over the next years, 180 scholars from Germany, Austria, France and other countries, along with their families, were saved. Their contribution to American intellectual life was immense.
To commemorate the anniversary, the university invited Ira Katznelson, once himself the dean of the Graduate Faculty (descendant of the University in Exile), to give a lecture. Katznelson is a historian, and took the occasion to complicate the standard history of the school. The expansion of the very American progressive experiment which was the New School for Social Research to include this world of European emigré social scientists wasn't without its tensions. This is obvious when you think about it, but I gather not very many people think about it. (I do, occasionally, though usually in terms of incompatible cultures and philosophies of education. I hadn't considered the clash of personalities.)
In particular, those Katznelson called the 1919 generation were progressive American intellectuals convinced that free inquiry could lead to much-needed reforms to liberal democracy, while the 1933 generation (in the photo), burned by the collapse of Weimar democracy into totalitarianism, had a quite different orientation, more concerned to protect fragile democracy from its enemies than expose its failures. To the 1919 generation (to generalize), the 1933 generation seemed cynical about the world and human nature, but uncritical about America; to the 1933 generation, the 1919 generation seemed naive, provincial and too quick to criticize a democratic culture that needed defending. Many of the 1919ers were isolationist; many of the 1933ers felt that war against fascism was necessary. Some of the 1919ers were sympathetic to communism; most of the 1933ers saw Soviet Communism as another totalitarianism.
Katznelson's conclusion: It all added up to a more complicated, and so more provocative, intellectual environment - especially as there is continuing value to the commitments and concerns of each side. Perhaps we don't just have a unique legacy in this, but a tradition worth continuing. But how do you consciously continue a tradition of tension originally based in vastly different life experiences?
Tell about it, I suppose!
To commemorate the anniversary, the university invited Ira Katznelson, once himself the dean of the Graduate Faculty (descendant of the University in Exile), to give a lecture. Katznelson is a historian, and took the occasion to complicate the standard history of the school. The expansion of the very American progressive experiment which was the New School for Social Research to include this world of European emigré social scientists wasn't without its tensions. This is obvious when you think about it, but I gather not very many people think about it. (I do, occasionally, though usually in terms of incompatible cultures and philosophies of education. I hadn't considered the clash of personalities.)In particular, those Katznelson called the 1919 generation were progressive American intellectuals convinced that free inquiry could lead to much-needed reforms to liberal democracy, while the 1933 generation (in the photo), burned by the collapse of Weimar democracy into totalitarianism, had a quite different orientation, more concerned to protect fragile democracy from its enemies than expose its failures. To the 1919 generation (to generalize), the 1933 generation seemed cynical about the world and human nature, but uncritical about America; to the 1933 generation, the 1919 generation seemed naive, provincial and too quick to criticize a democratic culture that needed defending. Many of the 1919ers were isolationist; many of the 1933ers felt that war against fascism was necessary. Some of the 1919ers were sympathetic to communism; most of the 1933ers saw Soviet Communism as another totalitarianism.
Katznelson's conclusion: It all added up to a more complicated, and so more provocative, intellectual environment - especially as there is continuing value to the commitments and concerns of each side. Perhaps we don't just have a unique legacy in this, but a tradition worth continuing. But how do you consciously continue a tradition of tension originally based in vastly different life experiences?
Tell about it, I suppose!
