Term Paper on The Politics of
Individualism
Lawrence Frederick Kohl explores the
political swagger of the 1830s and 1840s. The author seeks to place
what Democrats and Whigs said in a psychological context. He dispute
that those Americans who were cozy with the self-interested
relationships of a market society became Whigs, while those who
remained more wary of modernity and were more custom constrained
joined the Democrats. Kohl successfully places the conversation
between Whigs and Jacksonian democrats in a conceptual framework. He
compares the Jacksonian view of the world, i.e., and an apprehensive
verge upon to transform. On the contrary what Whig viewed was a
forward-looking and welcomed change. Even though one may disagree
with the author's discernment of the Jacksonian worldview, Kohl has
does a remarkable job of recording his case. He contrasts major
parts of the Whig and Jacksonian approach to clique and social
policy.
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One of the many quality of Kohl's
critique is that it imply a way to reunite our rather split
understanding of the relationship between social change and
political agendas in the Jacksonian era. However, Kohl is at his
weakest when he retreats to psychologizing to fit obviously opposing
or contradictory conditions into his thesis. But for the most part
Kohl's explication is impressive and imposing. In the fifty years
ensuing the Revolution, America's population almost quadrupled, its
boundaries extended, industrialization took root in the Northeast,
new ways of transportation prospered, state banks proliferated and
offered easy funds to eager entrepreneurs, and Americans found
themselves in the middle of an heightening age of personality,
equality, and self-reliance. To the Jacksonian age group, it looked
as if their world had changed virtually overnight.
“Lawrence Frederick Kohl's book, The Politics of Individualism is at
once an account of America's political turmoil in the Jacksonian era
and an interpretation of the relationship of these political views
to the psychological nature of the American citizen during the era.
In this account of the Jacksonian era, the reader is able to
recognize the framework for the politics which will dominate the
nineteenth century.” (Ben McAninch, 2002)
‘The Politics of Individualism’ looks at the political
demonstrations of these agitating social transformations during the
1830s and 1840s. Americans were exhausted by politics and party
loyalties were vehement. The American republic was once again in
danger. This time the impending doom lied not in internal disorder
or foreign predators but in the coexisting crisis of professionalism
and careerism that dominated American politics. Those exigencies
polluted the possibility for political representation in America and
endangered the promise of democratic government. Kohl draws on the
political rhetoric found in speeches, newspapers, periodicals, and
pamphlets to place the Democrats and the Whigs in a solid social and
subjective accessory. He debate that the political division between
these two parties meditated the division between Americans unstable
by the new individualistic social order and those whose character
admitted them to struggle more firmly within it. Democrats were more
tradition-directed, restricted in more personal ways. Whigs, on the
other hand, were more thoughtful and adopted the impersonal,
self-interested relationships of a market society. By inquiring this
interesting dialogue of parties, Kohl brings us bright new
understanding into the politics and people of Jacksonian America.
Conclusion:
In the last decade of the 20th century, mounting indication of the
professionalization of American politics is just beginning to sting
the regard of pundits and citizens alike. That experience and its
connection to traditional republican thought are discussed at length
for the intent of moving contemporary argument about term limitation
away from allegation and severity around the principles and ambition
of representative democracy. The revolutionary, anti-Federalist, and
Jacksonian defenses of rotation in office have much to teach anyone
curious in the professionalization of American politics and its
consequence and likely solution. Lawrence Frederick Kohl’s review of
the worldviews transferred through bravado is sensitive, even
sparkling.
Works Cited
McAninch, Ben, “My Photo Album: The Truth Hurts”, Overheard at
University College London, 2002/05/26,
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