"There was a very serious communist strain among American intellectuals before the war. America was a more tolerant place in those days, and Communists were not treated as pariahs. That ended with the McCarthy era"
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Follett’s line does a neat bit of historical reframing: it reminds readers that American intellectual life once flirted openly with communism, then pins the end of that openness on a single, infamous turning point. The intent isn’t to rehabilitate communism so much as to underline how quickly a “respectable” idea can become a career-ending stigma when the state and media decide it’s useful to make examples.
The subtext is about permission structures. “A more tolerant place” signals not some golden age of civic harmony, but a pre-Red Scare ecosystem where certain radical affiliations could still sit inside mainstream cultural institutions - universities, magazines, unions - without instantly triggering exile. Follett’s word choice matters: “strain” suggests an infection or genetic thread, something running through intellectual circles rather than a mass movement. It minimizes the headcount while emphasizing influence, a savvy way to acknowledge the phenomenon without romanticizing it.
Then comes the blunt guillotine: “That ended with the McCarthy era.” The sentence works because it treats McCarthyism as a cultural climate shift, not just a senator’s crusade. It compresses blacklists, loyalty oaths, HUAC hearings, and the ambient fear of association into a single era-name that functions like a warning label. In a post-9/11 and algorithmic outrage age, the line lands as more than period detail: it’s a reminder that toleration is often contingent, and that “pariah” status is politically manufactured faster than it is earned.
The subtext is about permission structures. “A more tolerant place” signals not some golden age of civic harmony, but a pre-Red Scare ecosystem where certain radical affiliations could still sit inside mainstream cultural institutions - universities, magazines, unions - without instantly triggering exile. Follett’s word choice matters: “strain” suggests an infection or genetic thread, something running through intellectual circles rather than a mass movement. It minimizes the headcount while emphasizing influence, a savvy way to acknowledge the phenomenon without romanticizing it.
Then comes the blunt guillotine: “That ended with the McCarthy era.” The sentence works because it treats McCarthyism as a cultural climate shift, not just a senator’s crusade. It compresses blacklists, loyalty oaths, HUAC hearings, and the ambient fear of association into a single era-name that functions like a warning label. In a post-9/11 and algorithmic outrage age, the line lands as more than period detail: it’s a reminder that toleration is often contingent, and that “pariah” status is politically manufactured faster than it is earned.
Quote Details
| Topic | Freedom |
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