Transcript 15 Turn of the Century Intellectual Trends

Turn of the Century Intellectual
Trends
Daniel W. Blackmon
IB HL History
Coral Gables Sr. High School
Charles Darwin (1809-1882)
• The Origin of Species (1859)
• The Descent of Man (1871),
Darwin
• "survival of the fittest."
• Natural Selection
Darwin
• Process in response to the environment is the
key to Darwin's theory.
• For a Darwinist, reality is never static; it is
always dynamic.
Darwin
• With Darwin providing the impetus, science
becomes the dominant mode of thought.
Darwin
• Darwin places Man firmly among the animals-more successful perhaps, or more intelligent,
but still an animal, the product of a long
process of evolution from continuously
simpler organisms.
Darwin
• This view appears to contradict the traditional
Christian view that Man is the special creation
of God, endowed with a soul which
distinguishes him from all other creatures
Darwin
• If Man is indeed descended from the apes,
then all philosophies which base the rights of
Man upon a deity or upon inherent rights
collapses. One must either find another basis
for rights (such as the State) or deny that Man
has inherent rights.
Darwin
• Since the universe is a disorderly jostling
chaos without purpose or design, then the
basis of all values is undermined.
Darwin
• The search for meaning, especially a meaning
which the individual imposes upon the world,
will be a prominent feature of 20th century
politics.
Social Darwinism
• Herbert Spencer (1820-1903)
• Conflict is good in itself, and progress is
achieved only through struggle, whether the
competition is between individuals,
corporations, nations, or races
William Graham Sumner
• "We can find no sentiment in whatever in
nature;" he wrote, "that all comes from man.
We can find no disposition at all in nature to
conform her operations to man's standards, so
as to do wht is pleassant or advantageous to
man rather than anything else.
William Graham Sumner
• Before the tribunal of nature a man has no
more right to life than a rattlesnake. He has
no more right to liberty than any wild beast;
his right to the pursuit of happiness is nothing
but a license to maintain the struggle for
existence if he can find within himself the
power with which to do it."
Discuss this Document
• What does the document say?
• What inferences may be drawn from it?
Lord Alfred Milner, (1854-1925)
• "This country must remain a Great Power
or she will become a poor country; and
those who in seeking, as they are most
right to seek, social improvement are
tempted to neglect national strength, are
simply building their house upon sand."
Discuss this Document
• What does the document say?
• What inferences may be drawn from it?
Friedrich von Bernhardi
• War is a biological necessity of the first
importance, a regulative element in the
life of mankind which cannot be
dispensed with, since without it an
unhealthy development will follow, which
excludes every advancement of the race,
and therefore all real civilization. . . .
Friedrich von Bernhardi
• “The struggle for existence is, in the life
of Nature, the basis of all healthy
development. . . . . So in the life of man
the struggle is not merely the
destructive, but the life_giving principle.
...
Friedrich von Bernhardi
• “Struggle is, therefore, a universal law of
Nature, and the instinct of
self_preservation which leads to struggle
is acknowledged to be a natural
condition of existence. ‘Man is a fighter.’
“
Discuss this Document
• What does the document say?
• What inferences may be drawn from it?
Bernhard von Bülow “Hammer
and Anvil” Speech to the
Reichstag, December 11, 1899
• “. . . we'll only be able to keep
ourselves at the fore if we realize that
there is no welfare for us without
power, without a strong army and a
strong fleet. (Very true! from the
right; objections from the left )
Bernhard von Bülow
• “The means, gentlemen, for a people of
almost 60 million dwelling in the middle
of Europe and, at the same time,
stretching its economic antennae out to
all sides to battle its way through in the
struggle for existence without strong
armaments on land and at sea, have not
yet been found.
Bernhard von Bülow
• (Very true! from the right.) In the coming
century the German people will be a
hammer or an anvil.”
Discuss this Document
• What does the document say?
• What inferences may be drawn from it?
Modern European Racialism
• J. A. de Gobineau (1816-1882)
• Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races
• Houston Stewart Chamberlain (18551927),
Racialism: One Englishman’s view
• "History shows me one way, and one way only,
in which a high state of civilization has been
produced, namely the struggle of race with
race, and the survival of the physically and
mentally fitter race . . . .
Racialism: One Englishman’s view
• ". . . .This dependence of progress on the
survival of the fitter race, terribly black as it
may seem to some of you, give the struggle
for existence its redeeming features; it is the
fiery crucible out of which come the finer
metal."
Discuss this document:
• What does this document say?
• What inferences may be drawn from it?
What inferences may be drawn from
this document?
Gabriele D'Annunzio (18631938) Italian poet and novelist
• "I glory in the fact that I am a Latin,
and I recognize a barbarian in every
man of non-Latin blood. . . .
Gabriele D'Annunzio [(18631938) Italian poet and novelist
• ". . . . If the Latin races are to preserve
themselves, it is time they returned to
the healthy prejudice which created
the grandeur of Greece and Rome--to
believe that all others are barbarians.“
Discuss this document:
• What does this document say?
• What inferences may be drawn from it?
Houston Stewart Chamberlain
• ". . . horses and dogs give us every
chance of observing that the intellectual
gifts go hand in hand with the physical;
this is especially true of the moral
qualities; a mongrel is frequently very
clever, but never reliable; morally, he is
always a weed."
Discuss this document:
• What does this document say?
• What inferences may be drawn from it?
Alfred Milner, (1854-1925) English
politician
• "I have emphasized the importance of
the racial bond. From my point of
view this is fundamental. It is the
British race which built the Empire,
and it is the undivided British race
which can alone uphold it."
Discuss this document:
• What does the document say?
• What inferences may be drawn from it?
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)
• The White Man’s Burden
“Take up the White Man's burden-Send forth the best ye breed-Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness
On fluttered folk and wild—
Half-devil and half-child.”
Discuss this document:
• What does the document say?
• What inferences may be drawn from it?
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)
• The World As Will and Idea (1819)
• Schopenhauer sharply separated Will and
Reason, with Will being the fundamental
driving force. Schopenhauer tended to see
life as the eternal struggle of each person’
Will-to-Life, of higher forms against lower, of
the stronger against the weaker.
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)
• Beyond Good and Evil,
• The Birth of Tragedy,
• Thus Spake Zarathustra
Friedrich Nietzsche
• “What is good? All that heightens in man the
feeling of power, the desire for power, power
itself. What is bad? All that comes from
weakness. What is happiness? The feeling
that our strength grows, that an obstacle is
overcome.
Friedrich Nietzsche
• Not contentment, but more power; not
universal peace, but war; not virtue, but
forcefulness. The weak and ineffective must
go under; that is the first principle of our love
for humanity.”
Friedrich Nietzsche
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Dionysian vs. Apollonian
“God is dead”
Übermenschen
Untermenschen
Friedrich Nietzsche
• Last words:
• "You have understood me? Dionysus versus
the Crucified"
Friedrich Nietzsche
• A precursor of existentialism in his emphasis
that Man creates his own values in a chaotic
world by sheer force of will
• "Most of all, he is the philosopher of the willto-power or life force--the irrationalist, prober
of drives deeper than reason, anticipator of
Freud and Jung, psychologist of the
unconscious."
Some other trends
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Statism
Militarism
Economics
Morality in International Politics
Statism: Niccolo Machiavelli
• "When it is a question of saving the
fatherland, one should not stop for a
moment to consider whether something
is lawful or unlawful, gentle or cruel,
laudable or shameful; but, putting aside
every other consideration, one ought to
follow out to the end whatever resolve
will save the life of the state."
Statism: Friedrich
Schleiermacher, (1768-1834)
German theologian
• "The State alone can give the
individual the highest degree of life.“
Statism: Georg Friedrich Hegel (17701831)
• "In the existence of a Nation, the
substantial aim is to be a State and
preserve itself as such.“
• "The State is therefore the basis and
centre of all the concrete elements in the
life of a people: of Art, Morals, Religion,
and Science."
Statism: Hegel
• "In public opinion all is false and true, but
to discover the truth in it is the business
of the Great Man. The Great Man of his
time is he who expresses the will of his
time; who tells his time what he wills;
and who carries it out.
Statism: Hegel
• "He acts according to the inner Spirit and
Essence of his time, which he realizes.
And he who does not understand how to
despise public opinion, as it makes itself
heard here and there, will never
accomplish anything great."
Discuss this Document
• What does the document say?
• What inferences may be drawn from it?
Heinrich Treitschke, (1834-96)
German historian
• "The state is a moral community. It is
called upon to educate the human
race by positive achievement, and its
ultimate object is that a nation should
develop in it and through it into a real
character; that is alike for nation and
individuals, the highest moral task."
Discuss this Document
• What does the document say?
• What inferences may be drawn from it?
Statism: Oswald Spengler (18801936) German author
• "The democratic nations must disappear,
because they put their trust in illusions,
more particularly the illusions of truth
and justice. There is only one reality in
the world: force. If you listen closely you
can already hear the tramp of the
Caesars who are coming to take over the
world."
Discuss this Document
• What does the document say?
• What inferences may be drawn from it?
Militarism: Treitschke
• "Just where, to the superficial observer,
war appears as something brutal and
inhuman, we have learnt to discern its
moral force . . . a man must sacrifice not
only his life, but also the profoundly just
and natural impulses of the human soul.
Militarism: Treitschke
• "He must renounce his whole ego for the
sake of the great patriotic idea. Therein
lies the moral sublimity of war."
Militarism: Friedrich von Bernhardi
(1849-1930)
• "Military service not only educates
nations in warlike capacity, but it
develops the intellectual and moral
qualities generally for the occupations of
peace. It educates a man to full mastery
of his body, to the exercise and
improvement of his muscles;
Militarism: Friedrich von Bernhardi
(1849-1930)
• "it develops his mental powers, his selfreliance and readiness of decision; it
accustoms him to order and
subordination for a common end; it
elevates his self-respect and courage,
and thus his capacity for every kind of
work."
Economics: Eugen Dühring, (18331921) German political economist
• "Every nation which is large enough to form
a state is suitably equipped in the various
essential respects, and which includes
besides within its scope the preconditions
of an all-round economic development,
must also become the basis of an economy
that is to a certain degree self-sufficient.
Economcs: Eugen Dühring,
• "Over against other nations it must
regard itself in an economic sense as a
solitary community whose interests
centre independently in itself and are to
be distinguished from those of the other
national economic bodies."
Morality: Thomas Hobbes
• ". . . there is no way for any way to secure
himselfe, so reasonable, as Anticipation;
that is, by force, or wiles, to master the
persons of all men he can, so long, till he
see no other power great enough to
endanger: And this is no more than his
conservation requireth, and is generally
allowed."
Morality: Frederick the Great
• "Policy and villainy are almost
synonymous terms . . . it is good policy to
be always attempting something and to
be perfectly persuaded that we have a
right to everything that suits us . . .
Morality: Frederick the Great
• "I mean by the word policy that we must
always try to dupe other people . . . Do
not be ashamed of making interested
alliances from which only you yourself
can derive the whole advantage.
Morality: Frederick the Great
• "Do not make the mistake of not
breaking them when you believe that
your interest requires. Uphold the
maxim that to despoil your neighbours is
to deprive them of the means of injuring
you."
Morality: Heinrich Treitschke
• ". . . in the matter of Schleswig-Holstein
positive law is irreconcilable with the
vital interests of our country. We must
set aside positive law and compensate
those who may be injured in
consequence.
Morality: Heinrich Treitschke
• This view may be erroneous; it is not
immoral. Every step in historical progress
is thus achieved. . . . Positive law when
injurious to the common good must be
swept away."
Morality: Friedrich Nietzsche
• "Life is essentially appropriation,
infringement, the overpowering of the
alien and the weaker, oppression,
hardness, imposition of one's own form,
assimilation and, at the least and the
mildest, exploitation."
Morality: Friedrich von Bernhardi
• ". . . no-one stands above the State; it is
sovereign, and must itself decide
whether the internal conditions or
measures of another State menace its
own existence or interests.
Morality: Friedrich von Bernhardi
• ". In no case, therefore, may a sovereign
State renounce the right of interfering in
the affairs of others States, should
circumstances demand."
Morality: Oswald Spengler
• "In the historical world there are no
ideals, but only facts, no truths, but only
facts. There is no reason, no honesty, no
equity, no final aims, but only facts, and
anyone who does not realize this should
write books on politics--let him not try to
make politics."
Science: Sigmund Freud
(1856-1939)
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•
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The Interpretation of Dreams (1899)
Id
Ego
Superego
Science: Albert Einstein
(1879-1955)
• "special" theory of relativity in 1905
• "general" theory in 1915.
Science: Max Planck
• in 1900 discovered that radiation propagates
in distinct units or quanta.
Werner Heisenberg
• "uncertainty principle" notes that one
cannot observe electrons directly, but
only infer their nature. One cannot know
both the position and the velocity of a
subatomic particle. The behavior of
subatomic particles can only be learned
through statistical probability.
Relativity, not Relativism
• The theory of relativity overturns the concepts
of absolute space and absolute time. We do
not live in a universe of three dimensional
space and one dimensional time, but in a four
dimensional space-time continuum.
Relativity, not Relativism
• Quantum theory replaces older
Newtonian mechanics of inexorable
cause and effect with a new mechanics
where events occur according to the laws
of statistical probability--quantum
mechanics.
Relativity, not Relativism
• These discoveries mean that even the
scientist cannot eliminate the subjective
factor because the investigator helps to
create the truth. The atom, electron,
space and time are mental constructs
which do not necessarily corresponds to
objective reality.
Relativity, not Relativism
• “At the beginning of the 1920s the belief
began to circulate, for the first time at a
popular level, that there were no longer any
absolutes: of time and space, of good and
evil, of knowledge, above all, of value.
Mistakenly but perhaps inevitably, relativity
became confused with relativism."
The End!