Randolph Bourne, Public Intellectual
Progressive Intellectual of the early 20th Century
Oct 12, 2009
Randolph Silliman Bourne (1886-1918) was a public intellectual in New York during the 1910s. Writing for several magazines at the time, including the New Republic, the Atlantic Monthly (now the Atlantic), and the short-lived Seven Arts, Randolph Bourne was an outspoken critic of America's involvement in WWI. He became infamous in some circles for his harsh critiques of pro-war intellectuals as well as President Wilson. His objections to war were summarized in his most well-known essay, "War Is the Health of the State."
The Early Life of Randolph Bourne Inspires His Critiques of Middle Class Culture and Capitalism
Randolph Bourne had, as he once described it, "a very messy birth." The result was that his face was disfigured by a clumsy doctor. At the age of four, Bourne came down with spinal tuberculosis, causing a curvature of the spine and leaving him with a hump. But despite these physical ailments, Bourne was a brilliant child and student.
The Bourne family was very bourgeois or upper middle class. Growing up in Bloomfield, New Jersey, Bourne later developed much of his critique of middle class complacency from his childhood. He found the uninterested, class-obsessed materialism of his native culture deadening and alienating to the youth. Despite growing up in relative comfort, the family fell on hard times and Bourne put off enrollment at Princeton to work. He spent seven years working in factory jobs and playing the piano before enrolling at Columbia University in 1909. This experience informed his critique of industrial capitalism, best articulated in an essay called “What Is Exploitation?” in which he builds on his own experience as an unskilled worker.
Columbia University, Bourne Meets Dewey and Begins to Write for the Atlantic Monthly
At Columbia, Bourne flourished as a bright student and pupil to two of New York's progressive intellectuals: the pragmatic philosopher and educational reformer John Dewey, and the historian Charles Beard. Dewey's relationship with these two mentors enriched and shaped his thinking; Bourne himself would write about educational reform, pragmatism, and adopt Beard's economic of history in unfinished opus "The State."
It was also at Columbia that a professor introduced Bourne to Ellery Sedgwick, editor of the Atlantic Monthly. His first piece for the Atlantic was entitled, "The Handicapped - By One of Them." The piece showed promise and Bourne continued to write for the Atlantic for several years. In 1914, after a tour of Europe, Bourne returned to New York and to a position at the newly formed New Republic.
Randolph Bourne, the Public Intellectual
Bourne was an intellectual engaged in public debate, a role he felt was important to society as a whole. He believed intellectuals should challenge the powers that be; introducing new ideas and viewpoints to stimulate the critical abilities of the masses.
Bourne himself challenged convention in his work and ideas. In his 1916 essay, “Trans-National America,” Bourne applauded the concept of cultural and ethnic diversity and advocated a “cosmopolitan” America rather than assimilation during a time of intense xenophobia in American History.
Randolph Bourne and the First World War
Bourne is most famous for his steadfast opposition to American involvement in WWI. He discarded Wilson’s call for a war to make the world safe for democracy, arguing that the event of war could not foster democracy. Given the paranoid attitude of the American government during this period, resulting in mass deportations, censorship, and the passage of the Espionage and Sedition Acts in 1917 and 1918, Bourne’s fear that democracy would inadvertently suffer from war was not unfounded. Bourne articulated his critique of war as undemocratic in his famous essay “War Is the Health of the State.”
Many in Bourne’s circle of friends – including his mentor John Dewey – supported the war effort. Bourne had a bitter falling out with Dewey and the New Republic magazine which published Dewey’s articles on the war and supported President Wilson.
Randolph Bourne, “Forgotten Prophet”
Randolph Bourne died suddenly in the winter of 1818, just weeks after the armistice, of the flu that took millions of lives in the winter of 1918-1919. His work was revived briefly in the more liberal 1930s and again in the 1960s. The progressive historian Howard Zinn named a chapter of his A People’s History of the United States after Bourne’s famous critique of war. His name has been floated recently in reference to the War in Iraq. However, he is rarely remembered as the early champion of multiculturalism, an early voice for the disabled, or as an adept critic of war.As biographer Bruce Clayton aptly named his book, Bourne remains a “Forgotten Prophet” outside discussions of American intellectuals.
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