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Randolph Bourne was a spokesperson for the Greenwich Village "Little Renaissance" of the mid 1910s and the foremost intellectual opponent of American intervention in World War I. Writing in a self-consciously prophetic style, Bourne gave voice to other young intellectuals who saw in progressive education, cosmopolitanism, and artistic modernism the means to a radically democratic society. In his critical writings Bourne insisted on the interdependence of culture and politics and sought in both the enrichment of "the good life of personality lived in the environment of the Beloved Community." His hopes for a "Beloved Community" were dashed when liberals and other progressives endorsed President Wilson's war effort, and Bourne turned his fury on John Dewey, the editors of the New Republic, and other prowar intellectuals for betraying their roles as social critics and creators of values. Bourne's antiwar essays of 1917-1918 were his greatest achievement; they still stand as a searing indictment of the theory and practice of pragmatic liberalism.
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