Chapter 24 The Birth of Modern European Thought

Advances in Reading and Primary Education Late 1800’s mass reading public drawn to print culture 1900 > 85% literacy rates in Britain, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, and Scandinavia ◦ Far lesser rates in Italy, Spain, Russia, Austria-Hungary and the Balkans > 30 to 60 percent Liberals & Conservatives call for more primary education in the basic skills of reading and writing Why? ◦ Smarter Voters ◦ Productive labor force Major employment are for women? ◦ Teaching

Reading Material Number of newspapers, books, magazines, mail-order catalogs, and libraries grow rapidly Sometimes the publications were mediocre catering to sensational crimes, political scandal, etc. Still new reading materials led to a popularization of knowledge Literacy leads to new skills and other knowledge

Science at Midcentury 1850 ◦ Scientists continued to believe that nature operates as a vast machine according to mechanical principles Experiment and observations revealed natural laws “scientist” coined 1830’s Commonly used in 1850 and on

Auguste Comte Developed positivism - a philosophy of human intellectual development based on science Wrote The Positive Philosophy in which he argued human thought has three stages? ◦ (1) theological – physical nature explained by divinity ◦ (2) metaphysical – abstract principles explained by operative agencies of nature ◦ (3) positive – explanations of nature become matters of exact description of phenomena Most known as ◦ “father” of modern sociology Social behavior could be discovered by the same laws as physical nature

Charles Darwin In On the Origin of Species formulates principle of natural selection which explained how species evolved over time He did not originate the concept of evolution ◦ Together with Alfred Russel Wallace comes up with natural selection – principle of survival of the fittest? ◦ Explained how evolution could occur w/ concept of natural selection ◦ How did account for the variations that increase chance of survival? Big question emanating from this concept of natural selection Theory undermines deistic argument for the existence of God In Descent of Man, applies principle of evolution to human beings ◦ Human nature developed naturally over the need for survival His ideas extremely controversial in late 1800’s ◦ Evolution by way of natural selection not accepted until 1920 -30’s with introduction of genetics

Science and Ethics Herbert Spencer ◦ British philosopher who believed in Social Darwinism ◦ Society progresses through competition where the strong defeat the weak ◦ “might makes right” Thomas Henry Huxley ◦ Strongly supported Darwin, but opposed Spencer ◦ Declared the physical process of evolution was at odds with human ethical development ◦ Struggle in nature only showed how human beings should not behave Spencer vs Huxley

Christianity Under Siege 19 th Century > most difficult period for the Christian Church Intellectuals attacked ◦ Historical accuracy David Strauss > questions whether the Bible provides any genuine historical evidence about Jesus, story arose from conditions arising from first century Palestine Others compare story to Homer’s epic poems > stories written by normal human beings during a primitive time period ◦ Science Earth older than biblical records Natural causes for disasters (earthquakes, floods) > not hand of God Darwin theory’s cast doubt on Creation Religious sentiment seen as natural phenomena ◦ Morality Attacked Old Testament’s God cruelty and unpredictability Attacked New Testament’s God for sacrificing the only perfect being to walk on earth Friedrich Nietzsche > Christianity glorified weakness rather than strength needed to survive Christianity loses grip in cities especially > Why?

Conflict Between Church and State Main area of conflict? ◦ Education > specifically religious education in secular schools Great Britain ◦ Churches opposed improvements in govt. schools because it raised the costs of church schools ◦ Solution > Education Act of 1902 – provided state support for religious and non-religious schools while imposing the same standards France ◦ Conflict more intense ◦ Who taught in public schools? Priests > gave religious education ◦ Change Public schools expanded, religious teachings replaced by civic training and Napoleonic Concordat terminated thus separating church and state

Conflict Between Church and State Cont. Germany ◦ Most extreme conflict ◦ Church granted freedoms in Constitution ◦ Bismarck felt Church threatened unity Education secularized in 1870 -1871 Just the beginning ◦ “May Laws” of 1873 – require priests to be educated in German schools and pass state examinations (just Prussia) Importance? Church power transferred to the State ◦ Bismarck’s Kulturkampf ? “cultural struggle” against Catholic Church > fails Provokes Catholic resentment against the German state Was one of Bismarck’s biggest blunders

Areas of Religious Revival Late 1800’s > period of hardship for Church revivals occur in Britain, Ireland, & France Church during this period gave more attention to who? ◦ Urban poor Last great effort to Christianize Europe (Late 1800 s) ◦ Failed? Population outstripped church resources

Late 19 th Century and the Roman Catholic Church Christian revival seen in the resilience of the Pope Pius IX ◦ After Italian unification launches counteroffensive against liberalism ◦ Syllabus of Errors – setting Catholic Church against science, philosophy and politics His Vatican Council creates dogma of ◦ Papal infallibility Pope is incapable of error on the issues of faith and morals ◦ Pope replaces spiritual authority with it’s lost political and temporal power Pope Leo XIII ◦ Pius successor, moderate who defended religious education and religious control of marriage, but also wanted a corporate society based on moral religious principles rather than socialist or capitalist ideals Pius X ◦ Rejected modernism and required all priests to take an anti. Modernist oath Theme > Catholicism fighting against modern thought

Late 19 th Century and Islam receives same treatment as Christianity & Judaism ◦ Seen as a product of a particular culture Anti-Islamic thought emerges > Islamic countries incapable of becoming modern Europeans championed the superiority of the white race and Christianity ◦ Missionaries attack Islam Arab world seen as backward because of Islam Couldn’t convert Muslims why? Adjuring Islam > Death Islamic resistance ◦ Salafi movement along with some Islamic leaders want to modernize Islam, but reject Western principles It’s effects are still felt today

Toward a 20 th Century Frame of Mind Western thought changes from 1875 into early 1900’s Physical reality, human nature, and society being portrayed differently New concepts challenged old methods

Revolution in Physics Few scientists believed they could portray the “truth” about physical reality, instead offering hypothesis or symbolic models of nature X-rays and radiation – major steps in the study of the atom and radioactive materials World of atom > new area of human exploration Max Planck ? Quantum theory of energy – energy is a series of discrete quantities rather than a continuous stream Albert Einstein? Theory of relativity – time and space do not exist separately, but rather as a combined continuum Werner Heisenberg ? Uncertainty principle – behavior of subatomic particles is a matter of statistical probability rather than of exactly determinable cause and effect Scientists (largest group) to gain financial support of govt. to pursue their research Related their work to economic progress, military security, & health of their nations

Realist & Naturalist Literature of Early 20 th Century • Realist and Naturalistic writers will confront harsh realities of life • Realism? • • • No romantic idealization of nature, the poor, love, & polite society Showed dreary and unseemly side of life without being certain whether a better life was possible Many saw society itself as perpetuating evil • Naturalism? • • Goes hand in hand with realism Want to study and understand the laws that lay behind the forces that govern human lives Use scientific method in writing their novels Use details gathered by realists • Realists dissected the “real” world, in return they helped change the moral perception of the good life • Forced the public to face reality

Realist writers • Gustave Flaubert • Madame Bovary > seen as first realistic novel • Women’s hapless search for love • Emile Zola • • • Turns realism into a movement Observes and reports characters much like a lab experiment Explores subjects not touched by others such as • • Alcoholism, prostitution, adultery, labor strife, etc. Defended Captain Dreyfus • Henrik Ibsen • • Carried realism into the dramatic presentation of domestic life Works were controversial > attacked the cloak of respectability of the middle class • George Bernard Shaw • • Defended Ibsen > attacked romanticism and false respectability Famous works dealt with prostitution, romantic ideals of love and war, and ideals of Christianity

Modernism in Literature Modernism? ◦ The deliberate departure from tradition and the use of innovative forms of expression that distinguish many styles in the arts and literature of the 20 th century Like Realism, critical of the middle class Concern with beauty rather than social issues ◦ ◦ Virginia Woolf Marcel Proust Thomas Mann James Joyce Flourished before and after WWI After the violence in WWI readers were less shocked by upheaval in literary forms

The Coming of Modern Art Impressionism ◦ Concentrated on modern life, using light, color, and the momentary, largely unfocused visual experience of the social landscape ◦ Arose in Paris ◦ Famous impressionists included; Edward Manet, Claude Monet, Pierre. Auguste Renoir and Edgar Degas Post-Impressionism (younger generation) ◦ Form and structure, rather than the impression of the movement marked these works ◦ Should understood as a continuation of impressionism ◦ Famous post-impressionists included; Georges Seurat, Paul Cezanne, Vincent Van Gogh, and Paul Gauguin Cubism ◦ Instead of painting as a window to the real world, painting was an autonomous realm of art itself with no purpose beyond itself ◦ Attempt to include as many perspectives into one surface of painting ◦ Redirect the portrayal of reality ◦ Famous cubists were Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso

Name The Style of Art

Claude Monet entitled Sunrise

Marcel Duchamp entitled Nude Descending a Staircase Pablo Picasso entitled Self Portrait

Edward Manet entitled Boating

Vincent Van Gogh Starry Night

Camille Pissaro The Woodcutter

George Seurat A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte

Paul Cezanne Mountain Sainte-Victoire

Pierre-Auguste Renoir entitled Young Girls at the Piano

Friedrich Nietzsche Revolt Against Reason Questioned rational thinking, Christianity, democracy, nationalism, science, and progress Rationalism? knowledge acquired through reason not experience The Birth of Tragedy (1872) urged the non-rational aspects of human nature as noble as rational characteristics Critical of racism and anti-Semitism Sought to return to heroism and greatness of the Ancient Greeks ◦ Christianity and morals of life prevented this Wanted to abandon values of the day and replace them with a new moral order glorifying pride, assertiveness, strength, humility, weakness, etc. ◦ Drew on romanticism

Psychoanalysis – Freud and Jung Modern Thought > probe what is beneath the surface ◦ Psychoanalysis prime example Sigmund Freud’s early theories? ◦ Early studies were on psychic disorders > used hypnosis ◦ Theorized that human beings are sexual from birth through adulthood Sexuality as one of the bases of mental order and disorder Freud and dreams – argued that unconscious drives and desires contribute to conscious behavior Freud’s later thought – internal mind is based on the struggle of three entities ◦ id – amoral, irrational, driving instincts of sexual gratification ◦ superego – the external moral imperatives and expectations imposed on the personality put on by society and culture ◦ ego – mediates the impulses of the id with the morals of the superego Carl Jung – Freud’s student who goes away from his teacher’s theories and believes collective memories along with personal experience constitute a human being’s soul / saw value in religion ◦ Freud rejected religion > realist > saw it as an illusion

Retreat from Rationalism in Politics Max Weber (sociologist) ◦ Saw rationalism throughout society as the major development of human history > “rationalization thesis” ◦ People develop their own self-worth from large organizations Bureaucratization basic feature of social life Each individual fit into a particular role ◦ Doubted politics could be rational ◦ He opposed Marx’s concept of the development of capitalism His own theory > “Protestant Ethics Thesis” > hotly debated Religious ideas created capitalism > capitalists pursue profit because it is virtuous Collective Behavior? ◦ The belief in the necessity of shared values and activities in society because they bind human beings together ◦ Instinct habits & affections direct social behavior not rationalism ◦ Proponents of this theory differed slightly from Weber

Racism Existed in Europe for a long time ◦ Renaissance explorers attitudes towards non-whites ◦ Anthropologists classifying human beings according to the color of their skin, language, & stage of civilization ◦ 1800’s > linguistics > idea of ancient race (Aryans) where all other languages derived from Slavery question leads more to racial theory Late 1800’s racism linked to biological sciences ◦ Justification for a superior race Gobineau ◦ Portrayed the troubles of Western civilization as the result of the long degeneration? of the original white Aryan race Survival of the fittest is applied to racism Chamberlain ◦ Superior race could be developed through genetics ◦ Anti-Semitic > blamed Jews for degeneration

Late-Nineteenth Century Nationalism Racism will lead to more aggressive nationalism Nationalism becomes a movement with mass support, financed organizations, and political parties Nationalism = race & blood Nationalism mixed with this racial ideology becomes powerful into the early 20 th century ◦ Leads to the mistreatment of African Americans and Native Americans of the United States

Anti-Semitism & Zionism Religiously > anti-Semitism dated from at least the Middle Ages Economically > Jewish community associated with money & banking interests ◦ Economic structure changes > harsh attitudes develop towards Jews Politically > Anti-Semitism seen in Vienna with the Christian Socialist Party, in Germany with the ultraconservative Adolf Stoecker, and the Dreyfus affair in France Socially > Jews seen as a danger to society > in their blood not their race > they can never assimilate into society All this leads to Zionist movement? The movement to found a separate Jewish state led by Theodor Herzl’s ideas eventually lead to the birth of the state of Israel

Antifeminism in Late-Century Thought Famous intellectuals; Charles Darwin, T. H. Huxley, Karl Vogt, Sigmund Freud, Auguste Comte, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, Herbert Spencer all believed women were born inferior to men ◦ Very Conservative in their views New scientific view reinforced old ideas ◦ Women weaker and less able than men > biological view ◦ Destiny > motherhood ◦ Creatures of feeling and family rather than intellect Some men argued for the change but still thought either women could not be equal or did not think their social roles should change Distinguished woman psychoanalysts; Karen Horney and Melanie Klein challenged, especially Freud’s view on women that they would be mothers destined to lead unhappy mental lives

New Directions in Feminism Women’s organizations sought achieve the vote for women but other feminist writers and activists wanted more Most were small and victories were rare Issues achieve better success after WWII Sexual Morality and the Family Middle class women challenged traditional male dominated family and standards of sexual morality Regulation of Prostitution a major issue to feminists Example > Contagious Disease Acts > England English women wanted equal treatment before the law Demonstrated women were inferior to men Later suspended due to women’s organizations Feminists > want more sexual freedom for women > contraceptives Women Defining Their Own Lives Josephine Butler & Auguste Ficke Fought for legal & social equality for women Virginian Woolf Asserted women’s rights to same education and intellectual ability to men A Room of One’s Own > major Feminist text Set the stage for Feminist Agenda into the 20 th Century