Randolph Bourne: The Education of a Critic an Interpretation

Abstract

The Short Career of Randolph Bourne (1886–1918) has been useful in various ways to students of American intellectual history. For cultural observers such as Van Wyck Brooks and Christopher Lasch, Bourne's life and work are symbolic of the youthful questioning that characterized the intellectual mood of the 1890's–1920's. Bourne's writing touched on nearly all of the issues of his time—cultural nationalism, progressive education, socialism, feminism—with an adolescent vigor which made him, both then and now, an appropriate spokesman for his generation. Bourne has also served those with more specific interests: for the historian of education, Bourne's articles in The Gary Schools provide vivid testimony to the exciting innovations inspired by John Dewey's pedagogy; while for the historian of philosophy, Bourne's disillusionment with Dewey's “pragmatic” stance during World War I offers an episode in the history of a philosophical debate which began with Plato and Aristotle (or earlier). Finally, for those who value the role of the critic in America, and who believe that the health of any society requires a periodic questioning of its accepted values, Randolph Bourne is an important figure.