Walter Lippmann and the American Century — 5 A Little Iconoclasm

1. 1. Lippmann's year with Steffens shattered his faith in reformers and his experience in Schenectady soured him on socialism.
2. 2. Freud's theories of the unconscious offered Lippmann a new analytical tool to explain why politics often contradicts human behavior.
3. 3. Lippmann's book 'A Preface to Politics' applied Freud's concepts of taboo, repression, and sublimation to politics, arguing that laws should redirect human drives rather than suppress them.
4. 4. Lippmann rejected Marxist analysis of capitalism and advocated an eclectic approach to socialism, taking what worked from various ideologies.
5. 5. Lippmann was a central figure in Mabel Dodge's salon, which brought together radicals, artists, and intellectuals in Greenwich Village.
6. 6. Lippmann maintained emotional distance and self-protectiveness, which his friend David Carb described as a form of self-protection from pain.