Era-level scientific paradigms are shaped by prior ideological revulsions and reactions

Evidence

A unifying assumption behind this 1940s–1950s interdisciplinary flourishing is that political personality and the behavior of leaders and masses are formed by socialization experiences, especially those emphasized by the environmentalistic metatheorizing of psychoanalytic, behavioristic, and Marxist theorizing. The era’s environmentalism was an exaggerated antigenetic reaction to the excesses of social Darwinism by Spencer and others earlier in the century, and held the hope of ameliorating the disturbed economic and political conditions left by World War I. Another shared ideological orientation was a loathing for the fascistic personality, a syndrome hard to define but (at least in those days) one knew it when one saw it. These revulsions against social Darwinism and fascism were probably related (Hofstadter, 1944; Stein, 1988). — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 331

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s tracing of essentialism across eras — here, a whole research era’s environmentalism is itself an overcorrection against Social Darwinism, a useful case of ideological positioning hardening into doctrine. — connects to: A paradigm theory prevents false comparisons across cultures and eras; Intellectual paradigm shifts never fully transcend the positions they overturn; A scientific framework’s presuppositions are culturally and historically conditioned — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!: A Manifesto of the…, 148 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Intellectual paradigm shifts never fully transcend the positions they overturn #corroborates (0.80)
• A scientific framework’s presuppositions are culturally and historically conditioned #expands (0.80) — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!, 148
• Each major philosophical era mirrors its epoch’s dominant social structure #expands (0.74) — Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, 2847
• A paradigm theory prevents false comparisons across cultures and eras #qualifies (0.72)