In previous readings of Ideological Origins I remember I became irritated at having to tease out what should have been Bailyn's most salient point: that there was no comprehensive conspiracy to enslave; that that was not real; that the colonists' "fears" were "very real" only in their minds; that to title this book "The Ideological Origins" is an insult to reality-based political thought; that "The Peculiar Psychological Origins" would have been more appropriate. Look at this from chapter 4:
It is the meaning imparted...by this integrated group of attitudes and ideas [the "peculiar strain" of paranoia] that lies behind the colonists' rebellion.
In the context of these ideas... [the batty ones, not the context of like REALITY]
The colonists believed they saw [With a paranoid in criminal court you could finish that sentence with "a gun."]...a pattern whose meaning was unmistakable.
Throughout the book Bailyn switches, here in the very next sentence, to wordage that is reality-based:
They saw...
From they "believed they saw" to "They saw."
It is obfuscating. There in the first four sentences of chapter 4 Bailyn switches from the subjective reality of the paranoid to the objective reality of the rational. It is deliberately obfuscating.
The fourth, "They saw," sentence continues,
They saw...something for which their peculiar inheritance of thought had prepared them only too well...
The fifth and sixth sentences:
They saw about them, with increasing clarity, not merely mistaken, or even evil, policies violating the principles upon which freedom rested, but what appeared to be evidence of nothing less than a deliberate assault...against liberty...The danger to America, it was believed, was in fact only the small, immediately visible part of the greater whole...
The second paragraph of chapter 4:
This belief transformed the meaning of the colonists' struggle, and it added an inner accelerator...For, once assumed, it could not be easily dispelled: denial only confirmed it, since what conspirators profess is not what they believe; the ostensible is not the real; and the real is deliberately malign.
Voila! There it is! Should not that have been Bailyn's most forcible point, the point of the whole book? These people were infected with a peculiar strain of mental illness. That is Bailyn's most forcible point but he obscures it. The book is The Ideological Origins, not The Psychological Origins and the title to chapter 4 is THE LOGIC OF REBELLION (all caps in original). Come on. THE ILLOGIC OF REBELLION or THE PECULIAR 'LOGIC' OF REBELLION, would not those have been more intellectually honest? Yes, they would have been.
It is the meaning imparted...by this integrated group of attitudes and ideas [the "peculiar strain" of paranoia] that lies behind the colonists' rebellion.
In the context of these ideas... [the batty ones, not the context of like REALITY]
The colonists believed they saw [With a paranoid in criminal court you could finish that sentence with "a gun."]...a pattern whose meaning was unmistakable.
Throughout the book Bailyn switches, here in the very next sentence, to wordage that is reality-based:
They saw...
From they "believed they saw" to "They saw."
It is obfuscating. There in the first four sentences of chapter 4 Bailyn switches from the subjective reality of the paranoid to the objective reality of the rational. It is deliberately obfuscating.
The fourth, "They saw," sentence continues,
They saw...something for which their peculiar inheritance of thought had prepared them only too well...
The fifth and sixth sentences:
They saw about them, with increasing clarity, not merely mistaken, or even evil, policies violating the principles upon which freedom rested, but what appeared to be evidence of nothing less than a deliberate assault...against liberty...The danger to America, it was believed, was in fact only the small, immediately visible part of the greater whole...
The second paragraph of chapter 4:
This belief transformed the meaning of the colonists' struggle, and it added an inner accelerator...For, once assumed, it could not be easily dispelled: denial only confirmed it, since what conspirators profess is not what they believe; the ostensible is not the real; and the real is deliberately malign.
Voila! There it is! Should not that have been Bailyn's most forcible point, the point of the whole book? These people were infected with a peculiar strain of mental illness. That is Bailyn's most forcible point but he obscures it. The book is The Ideological Origins, not The Psychological Origins and the title to chapter 4 is THE LOGIC OF REBELLION (all caps in original). Come on. THE ILLOGIC OF REBELLION or THE PECULIAR 'LOGIC' OF REBELLION, would not those have been more intellectually honest? Yes, they would have been.