Post WWI Europe “The Age of Anxiety”

Chapter 28 Part 1

Key Questions

• In what ways did new ideas in philosophy, psychology, and literature reflect the general crisis in Western thought? • How did modern thought impact art?• In what ways did new media such a motion pictures and radio become a part of modern culture?• How did nation-states and their leaders use media as part of their political programs?

Background

• New ideas and new scientific discoveries caused many to question traditionally held assumptions about reality, truth, life and meaning. • “crisis of the mind” – intellectual crisis

• Unrestrained industrialization • dehumanizing effect of mechanization and unrestrained

capitalism

• Growing militarism and brutality of WWI • Marxist ideology

• atheistic and violent

• Questioning of traditional religion- seen as hypocritical and ineffectual

Modern Philosophy

• Characteristics: • Attack on the idea of progress and complete confidence in human reason (Enlightenment thinking) • Attack on religious institutions, beliefs, and values (Christian) • Greater emphasis on passions, emotions, senses• Greater emphasis on the power of the individual • Growing sense of despair and alienation

• Nihilism – Friedrich Nietzsche • “God is dead; we have killed him….”• Life has no meaning- there is no eternal truth or value • Man must face the reality of a cold and cruel existence with

no hope

• Atheistic Existentialism – if life has no meaning we must create meaning through our ACTIONS (existence) • Martin Heidegger• Jean Paul Sartre• Albert Camus

New Science

• Discovery of subatomic energy and particles (Max Planck) –Einstein’s Theory of Relativity – time and space are relative

• Scientists split the atom

• Subatomic particles were discovered (quantum mechanics)

• Newton’s idea of an ordered and clockwork universe was challenged

• The universe lacked a fixed and absolute objective reality • There are only tendencies and probabilities

Psychology

• Sigmund Freud proposed that human behavior is essentially irrational • Driven by the irrational unconscious • Driven by sexual desires and aggressive pleasure seeking desires• Freud believed that religion was nothing was wishful thinking • Traditional beliefs and moral values crippled people with guilt which developed into neuroses

Literature

• Characteristics • Pessimism • Relativism • Sense of alienation• Complexity • Random stream of emotions and thoughts -”stream of

consciousness” – new style of writing

• Major authors- • James Joyce, Virginia Wolfe, George Orwell, Franz

Kafka

Art- new styles

• Impressionism • Expressionism•Cubism•Surrealism•Dada•Art Nouveau

Duchamp’s The Fountain

Media

• Radio • National broadcasting networks developed • Most households owned a radio

• Motion pictures • Escapism for the masses - mass entertainment • New media became a propaganda tool for governments

and political leaders • Examples- The Triumph of the Will – • Leni Riefenstahl’s film of the Nuremburg Rallies in Nazi Germany

• Walt Disney was enlisted by the US Government to create a series of propaganda cartoons