Sidney Hook and Bert Wolfe

Commenting on the posting about Sidney Hook, Margaret Mackenzie says: "Ernest Benjamin Hook M.D. is a friend--and Berkeley faculty member. He is Professor in the School of Public Health with special fields in Medical History and in Medical Genetics. I took the liberty of forwarding the posting on his father on to him--he had been part of a symposium about his father's work in New York last year". Ernest Hook sent this comment:

"Interesting sociological phenomena. Resentment to his outspoken hostility to Stalinism, has led to obscuring major philosophical contributions in many other areas; (Lionel Trilling -- who had same views but suppressed them preserved image by not forcibly speaking out.) Hook was not "forsaken" in the philosophical community for political reasons, but because pragmatism became unfashionable. Why connected below with Wolfe whose background was completely different is unclear, except both were at Hoover and former Marxists. Wolfe turned on it. Hook never gave up his fondness and sympathy for Marx and aspects of Marxism At Hoover he was in a small minority on economic issues opposing most people there; but agreed with stands on social issues. e.g. opposition to gross racial and ethnic discrimination called with the euphemism "affirmative action", opposition to gross ideological/political attack on educational curriculum etc".

RH:
Both Hook and Wolfe were Jews, former communists and, after they abjured communism, Hoover Fellows. Despite this obvious similarity, I realize now that they were different. Wolfe had played an active role in the party and had great hopes for his future in it. He changed after the Soviet persecution of Jews and became very vehement in his criticism of communism. He moved far to the right. We were friends and he apparently esteemed me, but if a showed a slight deviation from the hard anti-communist line, he insulted me rudely. Hook was always more moderate, and it is possible that Wolfe insulted him too. Wolfe was vocal, even hard, in expressing his ideas, and for this reason the State Department hired him for what was essentially a propaganda job. Hook was more philosophical and mild, and to my knowledge the US government never used him.