Randolph Silliman Bourne (May 30, 1886 – December 22, 1918) was a
progressiveProgressivism is a political and social term for ideologies and movements favoring or advocating changes or reform, usually in a statist or egalitarian direction for economic policies and liberal direction for social policies...
writer and public intellectual born in
Bloomfield, New JerseyBloomfield is a township in Essex County, New Jersey, United States. As of the United States 2000 Census, the township population was 47,683.-History:...
, and a graduate of
Columbia UniversityColumbia University in the City of New York is a private university in the United States and a member of the Ivy League. Columbia's main campus lies in the Morningside Heights neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan, in New York City...
. Bourne is best known for his essays, especially "The State," which remained unfinished when found after his death.
Bourne's articles appeared in the magazine,
The Seven Arts and
The New RepublicThe New Republic is an American magazine of politics and the arts. It is published semimonthly and has a circulation of approximately 60,000. The editor-in-chief is Martin Peretz and the current editor is Franklin Foer...
, among other journals of the day.
During
World War IWorld War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
, American progressives, Bourne included, found themselves split and pitted against each other.
Randolph Silliman Bourne (May 30, 1886 – December 22, 1918) was a
progressiveProgressivism is a political and social term for ideologies and movements favoring or advocating changes or reform, usually in a statist or egalitarian direction for economic policies and liberal direction for social policies...
writer and public intellectual born in
Bloomfield, New JerseyBloomfield is a township in Essex County, New Jersey, United States. As of the United States 2000 Census, the township population was 47,683.-History:...
, and a graduate of
Columbia UniversityColumbia University in the City of New York is a private university in the United States and a member of the Ivy League. Columbia's main campus lies in the Morningside Heights neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan, in New York City...
. Bourne is best known for his essays, especially "The State," which remained unfinished when found after his death.
Bourne's articles appeared in the magazine,
The Seven Arts and
The New RepublicThe New Republic is an American magazine of politics and the arts. It is published semimonthly and has a circulation of approximately 60,000. The editor-in-chief is Martin Peretz and the current editor is Franklin Foer...
, among other journals of the day.
During
World War IWorld War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
, American progressives, Bourne included, found themselves split and pitted against each other. The two factions that emerged were the pro-war faction, led by the educational theorist
John DeweyJohn Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer whose ideas have been very influential. Dewey, along with Charles Sanders Peirce and William James, is recognized as one of the founders of the philosophy of pragmatism and of functional psychology...
, and the anti-war faction, of which both Bourne and other famous progressives like
Jane Addams Jane Addams was a founder of the U.S. Settlement House movement, and the first women to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.-Biography:...
were a part. Bourne was a student of Dewey at
ColumbiaColumbia University in the City of New York is a private university in the United States and a member of the Ivy League. Columbia's main campus lies in the Morningside Heights neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan, in New York City...
, but he took issue with Dewey's idea of using the war as a tool with which to spread democracy. In his pointedly-titled 1918 essay "Twilight of Idols" he invoked the progressive
pragmatismPragmatism is a philosophical movement that includes those who claim that an ideology or proposition is true if it works satisfactorily, that the meaning of a proposition is to be found in the practical consequences of accepting it, and that unpractical ideas are to be rejected. Pragmatism began in...
of Dewey's contemporary
William JamesWilliam James was a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher trained as a medical doctor. He wrote influential books on the young science of psychology, educational psychology, psychology of religious experience and mysticism, and the philosophy of pragmatism...
to argue that that America was using democracy as an end to justify the war, but that democracy itself was never examined. While he had been a follower of Dewey originally, he felt that Dewey had betrayed his democratic ideals by focusing only on the facade of a democratic government rather than on the ideas behind democracy that Dewey had once professed to respect.
Bourne was greatly influenced by
Horace KallenHorace Meyer Kallen was a Jewish-American philosopher.-Biography:Born in the then German Bernstadt, Silesia to Jacob David Kallen and Esther Rebecca , an Orthodox rabbi and his wife, Kallen came to the United States as a child in 1887...
's 1915 essay "Democracy Versus the Melting-Pot," and argued, like Kallen, that Americanism ought not to be associated with
Anglo-SaxonAnglophone may refer to:* An English-speaking person, group, or locality* English-speaking world* Anglosphere...
ism. In his 1916 article "Trans-National America," Bourne argued that the US should accommodate immigrant cultures into a "cosmopolitan America," instead of forcing immigrants to assimilate to Anglophilic culture.
In this article "Trans-National America", Bourne rejects the melting-pot theory and does not see immigrants assimilating easily to another culture. Bourne's view of nationality was related to the connection between a person to their “spiritual country”. This spiritual country referred to a person's culture rather than where they lived. He argued that people would most often hold tightly to their literature and cultural of their native country even if they were living in another. He also felt this held true for the many immigrants that lived in the United States. Therefore, Bourne could not see immigrants from all different parts of the world assimilating to the Anglo-Saxon tradition, which were viewed as American traditions.
He goes on in this article to say that America offers a unique liberty of opportunity and can still offer traditional isolation, which he felt could lead to a cosmopolitan enterprise. He felt that with this great mix of cultures and people, America would be able to grow into a Trans-National nation, which would have interconnecting cultural fibers with other countries. Bourne felt America would grow more as a country by broadening people's views to include immigrants ways instead of conforming everyone to the melting-pot ideal. This broadening of people's views would eventually lead to nation where all who lived in it are united, which would inevitably pull the country towards greatness. This article and most of the ideas in it were influenced by the first world war, which was taking place during the time period the article was written.
Bourne died in the
Spanish fluThe 1918 flu pandemic was an influenza pandemic that spread to nearly every part of the world. It was caused by an unusually virulent and deadly influenza A virus strain of subtype H1N1. Historical and epidemiological data are inadequate to identify the geographic origin of the virus...
epidemic shortly after the
ArmisticeThe armistice treaty between the Allies and Germany was signed in a railway carriage in Compiègne Forest on 11 November 1918, and marked the end of the First World War on the Western Front...
of World War I. His ideas have been influential in the shaping of postmodern ideas of cosmopolitanism and multiculturalism, and recent intellectuals such as
David HollingerDavid Hollinger is the Preston Hotchkis Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley. His specialty is in American intellectual history. His source book, The American Intellectual Tradition, is amongst the most widely used textbooks in college undergraduate courses focusing on...
have written extensively on Bourne's ideology.
John Dos PassosJohn Roderigo Dos Passos was an American novelist and artist.-Early life:Dos Passos was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of John Randolph Dos Passos Jr. . The elder Dos Passos was a lawyer of Madeiran Portuguese descent, the son of John Randolph Dos Passos and Mary Hays and the brother of Louis...
, an influential American modernist writer, eulogized Bourne in the chapter "Randolph Bourne" of his novel
1919The U.S.A. Trilogy is the major work of American writer John Dos Passos, comprising the novels The 42nd Parallel , 1919, also known as Nineteen Nineteen , and The Big Money...
and drew heavily on the ideas presented in "War Is The Health of the State" in the novel.
Bourne was born with a deformed face and essentially a hunchback. He chronicled his experiences in his essay titled, "The Handicapped."
Randolph Bourne Institute
The Randolph Bourne Institute (RBI) seeks to honor his memory by promoting a non-interventionist foreign policy for the United States as the best way of fostering a peaceful, more prosperous world. They are publishers of the website
AntiWar.com.
Writing Online
- The State (1918)
- "Law and Order", from Masses (March 1912)
- "The Price of Radicalism", from The New Republic (March 11, 1916). 161.
- Trans-National America, from Atlantic Monthly, 118 (July 1916), 86-97
- "What is Exploitation?" from The New Republic (November 4, 1916). 12–14.
- "The War and the Intellectuals", from Seven Arts II (June 1917), 133-146.
- "A War Diary", from Seven Arts II (September 1917), 535-547.
- "H. L. Mencken", from The New Republic (November 24, 1917). 102–103.
- "Columbia Students Pity Workers", from the New York Times (February 26, 1913). Article at bottom of PDF.
External links