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Randolph Bourne | |
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| Born | Randolph Silliman Bourne (1886-05-30)May 30, 1886 |
| Died | December 22, 1918(1918-12-22) (aged 32) New York City, US |
| Alma mater | Columbia University |
| Occupation | Writer |
Randolph Silliman Bourne (/bɔːrn/; May 30, 1886 – December 22, 1918) was aprogressive writer and intellectual born inBloomfield, New Jersey, and a graduate ofColumbia University. He is considered to be a spokesman for the young radicals living duringWorld War I. His articles appeared in journals includingThe Seven Arts andThe New Republic. Bourne is best known for his essays, especially his unfinished work "The State," discovered after he died. From this essay, which was published posthumously and included inUntimely Papers,[1] comes the phrase "war is the health of the state" that laments the success of governments in arrogating authority and resources during conflicts.
Bourne's face was deformed at birth by misused forceps and the umbilical cord was coiled round his left ear, leaving it permanently damaged and misshapen. At age four, he sufferedtuberculosis of the spine, resulting in stunted growth and a hunched back.[2] He chronicled his experiences in his essay titled, "The Handicapped - by one of them", considered a foundational work in disability studies. At age 23, he won a scholarship to study at Columbia University, from which he graduated in 1912 with a Bachelor of Arts degree and aMaster's degree in 1913. He was a journalist and editor of the Columbia Monthly, and he was also a contributor to the weeklyThe New Republic since it was first launched in 1914, but after America entered the war, the magazine found his pacifist views incompatible. From 1913 to 1914, he studied in Europe on a Columbia Fellowship.[3]
World War I divided American progressives and pitted an anti-war faction—including Bourne andJane Addams—against a pro-war faction led bypragmatist philosopher and educational theoristJohn Dewey. Bourne was a student of Dewey's atColumbia, but he rejected Dewey's idea of using the war to spread democracy. (He was a member of theBoar's Head Society.[4]) In his pointedly titled 1917 essay "Twilight of Idols", he invoked the progressivepragmatism of Dewey's contemporaryWilliam James to argue that America was using democracy as an end to justify the war, but that democracy itself was never examined. Although initially following Dewey, 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 byHorace Kallen's 1915 essay, "Democracy Versus the Melting-Pot". Like Kallen, Bourne argued thatAmericanism ought not to be associated withAnglo-Saxonism. In his 1916 article "Trans-National America," Bourne argued that the United States should accommodate immigrant cultures into a "cosmopolitan America," instead of forcing immigrants to assimilate to the dominant Anglo-Saxon-based culture.
Bourne was an enthusiast forJean-Jacques Rousseau's belief in the necessity of ageneral will. Bourne once exclaimed,[5]
Yes, that is what I would have felt, done, said! I could not judge him and his work by those standards that the hopelessly moral and complacent English have imposed upon our American mind. It was a sort of moral bath; it cleared up for me a whole new democratic morality, and put the last touch upon the old English way of looking at the world in which I was brought up and which I had such a struggle to get rid of.
— Randolph Bourne
Bourne died in theSpanish flu pandemic after the war, in 1918.[2]John Dos Passos, an influential Americanmodernist writer, eulogized Bourne in the chapter "Randolph Bourne" of his novel1919 and drew heavily on the "war is the health of the state" notion in the novel.
In this article, Bourne rejects the melting-pot theory and does not see immigrants assimilating easily to another culture.[6]: 248 Bourne's view of nationality was related to the connection between a person and their "spiritual country",[7] that is, their culture. He argued that people would most often hold tightly to the literature and culture of their native country even if they lived in another. He also believed this was true for the many immigrants to the United States. Therefore, Bourne could not see immigrants from all different parts of the world assimilating to the Anglo-Saxon traditions, which were viewed as American traditions.
This article goes on 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.[6]: 262 He felt that with this great mix of cultures and people, America would be able to grow into atrans-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 a nation where all who live in it are united, which would inevitably pull the country towards greatness. This article and most of the ideas in it were influenced by World War I, during which the article was written.[6]: 264
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