Word: babbittism
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...combination debating and browsers' rendezvous. There was no obligation to buy anything; in fact, when the boss got started on one of his frequent philosophical arguments, commercial activity virtually ceased. The store soon became a favorite gathering place for a number of eminent faculty men: Kittredge, Hocking, Irving Babbitt, and W. Y. Elliott among others. They used to drop in to talk with Phillips about books, philosophy, in fact about almost anything. The book merchant especially enjoyed popping one of a set of philosophical problems on his visitors and drawing them into lengthy debate. One of his memorable topics...
Their immediate forerunners had been the G.I.'s; the most evident contribution of their culture to Europe seemed to be coca-cola, jeeps, and the Hollywood movie. They were met with the expectation that they turn out to be a combination of Babbitt and the Lone Ranger, bulging with money and utterly boorish. They discovered that the humble dollars in their wallets represented the solidest value in the world, the item which seemed to be the chief reason for Europe's respect for the U. S. They found themselves the target for postcard salesmen, black marketeers, hotel keepers, and souvenir...
...hilarity, and in the monumentality of the American type that it creates and satirizes, A Sea Change is something like Sinclair Lewis' Babbitt, and like that book it is written with affection for the subject. But it has an art of its own that makes it rich and strange. The writer's humor can be bland and surreptitious, or broad and biting. Of Divver's punditry: "His views were not original, except in the field of military strategy and logistics...
...Himmler." Other Germans were important to the Russian plans. One was Kurt Fischer, appointed head of the department of the interior of the central administrative agency of the Soviet zone last July. In his 503, Fischer seems to most Germans to have the appearance of a typical Biedermann (Babbitt): neatly dressed, round-faced, with greying, slightly wavy hair. But Fischer was a veteran of the Communist Spartacist League, which ruled Berlin for ten days...
Most readers will wish Hermann Broch had put his essays in one volume, his novels in another. But to anyone who has to deal with post-Hitler Germany, The Sleepwalkers may seem almost compulsory reading, much as Main Street and Babbitt would be required reading for anyone studying the crash...