Transcript An Age of Anxiety

An Age of Anxiety
Ch. 34
Probing Cultural Frontiers
Postwar Pessimism
Religious Uncertainty
• Chorus of Despair
• Karl Barth –Christian theologian,
Attacked liberal Christian who called
For progress
• Christ’s kingdom not of this world
• Refusal to accept God’s purpose
Was contemporary human society
Attacks on Progress
• Great war destroyed the idea of human
Progress
• Scientist dreams go awry in wanting
To help humanity
• Democracy was a fallen idol
• Product of decay, no positive values
• Preferred elite rule
Revolutions in Physics and Psychology
Uncertainty Principle
• Werner Heisenberg-essentially
Scientists cannot observe the behavior
Of electron objectively, because the
Act of observation interferes
• Leading to the Uncertainty PrincipleObjectivity was not a valid concept, the
Observer was a part of the process
Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory
• Challenged concepts of morality
And values
• Conflict between conscious and
Unconscious mental process
• Repressive mechanism
• Dreams led to deepest parts of your
Mind
• Oedipus complex
• Psychoanalysis is the key to understanding
Human behavior
Experimentation in Art and Architecture
Artistic Influences
• Not a reproduction of reality but
An end in and of itself
• Inspiration came from Asian, Pacific
And African societies
• Edgar Degas-visual angles, asymmetrical
Compositions
• Paul Gaugin-inspired by “primitive” art,
Held wonder not in a civilized society
• Pablo Picasso-cubism, African influence
Bauhaus
• Architectural institution
• Focused on urban and industrial
Landscape
• Functional design based on
Engineering and art.
• Ludwig Mies von der Rohe-glass
Box skyscrapers
Global Depression
The Great Depression
Economic Problems
• Tangled financial system:
Allies war debts, reparations
Paid by Germany & Austria,
U.S. funds to Europe
• Austria & Germany relied on
U.S. loans to pay France & England
• France and England used those
Reparation payments to pay the
U.S. Loans
• 1929 U.S. lenders began to
Withdraw capital from Europe,
Creating strain
• Poor agriculture based on over
Production and falling prices
The Crash of 1929
• U.S. enjoys boom after
WWI
• Invested in
speculative ventures
• Stock prices over valued
So investors pull out
Economic Contraction Spreads
• Decrease in business activity,
Wages & employment
• Could not sell inventory,
Cutback and layoffs
• Nat’l income drops by half
• 44% of U.S. banks out of
Business
• A hurting U.S. economy
Was felt all over the world
The Great Depression
Industrial Economies
• Investors shaken by the crash
Attempt to liquidate and take loans,
But Wall Street banks refuse extend
Short term loans
• Germany experiences economic
Slide due to U.S.
• Foreign trade falls causing losses
In manufacturing, employment and
Per capita
Economic Nationalism
• Great Depression destroyed int’l and
Financial commercial networks of
Capitalist economies
• Economic nationalism-tariff barriers,
Import quotas, import prohibitions
• This BACKFIRES
• Smoot-Hawley Tariff (1930)-raised duties
On most manufactured products to
Prohibitive levels
• Other nations strike back, drop in trade
Despair and Government Action
Personal Suffering
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People grow desperate.
No food, housing, clothing
Shantytowns
Less marriage, children and divorce
Suicides rise
Non-existent job market
Writers put down political and social orders
Economic Experimentation
Keynes
Gov’t responds to crisis 1/2 ways:
1)Most did nothing hoping for the
Economy to self correct
2) gov’t took active roles (balancing
Nat’l budgets & cut spending)
• People called for a revision of
Economic thought
• Keynes-economist
• Not excessive supply but inadequate
Demand
• He urged gov’t to stimulate economies
By lowering interest rate, encourage investment,
Public works, redistribute incomes through tax
Policy would lead to reduced unemployment
And an economic revival
The New Deal
• FDR applied ideas to stimulate
The economy through policy.
• Gov’t justified in intervening for
Social and economic welfare of the
people
• Policies of the “New Deal”:
prevent collapse of
Banks, jobs and farm subsidies,
Workers the right to organize and
Bargain collectively, guarantee
Minimum wages, social security
Challenges to the Liberal Order
Communism in Russia
Civil War
• Russian Communist Party
Go into civil war 1918-1920
• Communists begin Red
Terror arresting, trying and
executing the White
Terror
• July 1918 Bolsheviks
Execute Tsar Nicholas II and
His family
• White terror just as bad as
Red terror, often received
Foreign support
• Whites defeated by Reds
Due to poor organization and
support
War Communism
• No plans to change Russian
Economy
• Practiced war communism –
Nationalization, annulled private
Property, controlled banks,
Industry and other commercial
Properties, abolished private trade
• By 1920 production fell by one
Tenth of its pre-war levels
• Spring 1921 Lenin calls for a
Reversal of war communism
New Economic Policy
• Implemented by Lenin
• Restored market economy
And some private enterprise
• Small industry returns to
Private ownership
• Peasant can sell surplus
Agriculture in a free market
• Est. technical schools
Communism in Russia
Joseph Stalin &
Five Year Plan
• General secretary, promoted
Socialism in one country
• “Man of Steel”, 1928 est.
An unchallenged dictatorship
• Est. plan for rapid economic
Development
• Emphasized heavy industry
At the expense of consumer
Goods
• Pushes for resources and a high
Labor force
• Alternative to market capitalism
Collectivization of
Agriculture
• Expropriated private land
To create co-op farms
• Profits shared by farmers
• Helped to make sure workers
Were fed
• Stopped in 1931 half of the
Farms in the Soviet Union were
Collectivized
• 5 year plan was unrealistic
• No real consumer gratification
But balanced out with full
Employment , low cost utilities,
Cheap housing and food
• Planned economy looks
appealing
The Great Purge
• Civil war w/in the Communist
Party
• Attacked Bolshevik elites
For treason
• Purged 2/3 of the delegates
• Russia’s Communism showed
A viable political and social
system
The Fascist Alternative & Italian Fascism
Defining Fascism
• Attractive to middle class,
rural pops., and nationalists
• Fascist wanted to create a
Nat’l community (by nationState, ethnic or racial grp)
• Fascism: honoring the
State, devotion to leader,
Ultra nationalism, ethnoCentrism and militarism
(military life, large military
Establishments, public life
• Subordination of indiv. To
The state
• Hostile to: individualism,
Liberal democracy, class based
visions
Benito Mussolini
• Leader of Italian Fascism
• Emphasized nationalism,
Repression of socialists
• 1922 becomes prime
Minister and forms new
Italian gov’t
Fascist State
• Fascist gov’t gains power
Through many laws:
Eliminates other political
Parties, no free press, speech
And association
• No labor unions or strikes
• Corporatism-organic entity
Through which different views
Come under the control of the
State
• Racism and Anti-Semitism
Prominent (unpatriotic, no
Gov’t employment, no interMarriage)
German National Socialism
Hitler and the Nazi Party
• 1921 Hitler becomes
Chairman of the National
Socialist Party (Nazi)
• Aims to get into power
Legally after being
Imprisoned due to a revolt
The Struggle for Power
• Nazi party had a broad
Appeal
• Attracted the disillusioned
Who did not agree w/the
Treaty of Versailles, lower
Middle classes
• Hitler promises to end
Misfortunes
• He stresses racial doctrines
Esp. anti-Semitism
• 1932 it becomes the largest
Party in Parliament
• Offered Hitler the chancellorShip
• From republic to dictatorship
Consolidation for Powers
• Used all means to impose rule
• Eliminates working class and liberals
• Officially takes away
Constitutional and civil rights
• Outlawed political, crime to
Create new ones
• Prohibited strikes and lockouts
• Took control of all police forces
German National Socialism
The Racial State &
Women and Race
• Racial superiority
• Racial purity
• Eugenics to improve
“quality” of German race
• No room for “racially
Inferior” of “biological
Outsiders”
• Nazis launch campaign
To increase birthrates
• Encourage marriage through
Tax credits, allowances, loans
• Rewrote divorce laws
• Outlawed abortions, restricted
Birth control
Nazi Eugenics
• 1933 sterilization program
For “hereditarily determined”
Illness
• 1935 gov’t sanctioned
Abortions
• State sponsored euthanasia
Program, for those seen “useless”
To society (physically & mentally
Handicapped)
Anti-Semitism
• Prejudice against Jews
• Used religious descent
As a determination of Jews
• Nuremburg Laws which were
Discriminatory laws: 1) no
Citizenship 2)no marriage or
Sexual intercourse with a non-Jew
• Economically: expropriated
Wealth, civil servants lost jobs,
Jewish lawyers and docs could
Not help non-Jew, liquidation
Of business
• Kristallnacht: destruction of
Jewish stores and synagogues
• 250,000 Jews leave Germany
(1938)