History 121D16

Redefinitions of human nature by science are used as a

justification of channeling men and women into different social

roles
In this way, women can be excluded from the scientific

community which is reforming their nature

Science defines specific qualities as feminine
It was thought that those same qualities dulled her ability to be a

scientist
Therefore men could only be good scientists as they were

concerned with reason and truth

Science is not neutral
Science has its own political agenda which is influenced by

society
One of those concerns was the desire to distance science from

the feminine and link it to the masculine

Nationalism and many of the ideas of the last two lectures have

been moving away from the ideals of the enlightenment

These movements are very important as they represent the

making of the 20th century

The enlightenment of early modernism is confident in reason,
science, human goodness, human capacity to increase, and

concerned with human betterment

Different outlook by the end of the 19th century
Large numbers of scientists are looking into the physical universe

and therefore open up new possibilities for artistic expression

The mechanical view of the universe was going to be altered
Modernist culture turns away from the century old acceptance of
rationality as one of the central values of European culture

Many start to insist on the insistence of the irrational nature of

human behavior
Beliefs in human rights or objective standards that govern

human rationality come under attack

Artistic standards that had been in place since the Renaissance

come under attack as well

This movement stems to leave people without generally

accepted cultural standards

It leaves them without even a basic agreement on the conditions

of human nature and the meaning of life

There is an extraordinary period of creativity in the arts and
intellectual development which was extremely fruitful to western

intellectual life
It seems odd that you would have these doubts since Europe had

come a very long way in such a short amount of time

Europe had enjoyed one of the longest periods of peace in its

history
This period was viewed as an era of relative peace
Literacy was continuing to grow in the Northern and Western

parts of the continent

That rise gave rise to mass culture as we know it (theater,

cinema, sports, etc.)

Increasing secular states were garnering increasing loyalty from

their populations despite fears to the contrary

You have a vast expansion of white collar jobs that simply did not

exist before
This holds out the prospect of social mobility (maybe people
could get better jobs)

There are various forms of labor legislation that was taking place
which shorten the workday/workweek and expand the time for

leisure
In the past, leisure was restricted to the upper class
The modern concept of leisure is being formed around this time
Industrialization and the rapidly changing world that it brings
along creates a cultural crisis of unparalleled dimensions for

European culture
In this period, medical doctors are discovering new
diseases/ailments of an increasing number of psychological and

incurable nature
They call many of these disorders hysteria in women because

they see them as linked to the sexual organs

Many soldiers are coming back from war with shellshock
Doctors didnt know what it was so they called it male hysteria
Paralyzing nervous disorders are being found in growing numbers

that many blame on the rapid nature of industrial life

These things are being seen as overwhelming the human

nervous system
Neuristiniaa broad disorder caused by industrial life
This was coupled with a widespread fear that alcoholism was a

scourge on the lower classes and bringing about degeneration

Nationalists in France worried about low birth rates and said
France was facing degeneration from the ravages of alcoholism

and the other vices

At the top of the intellectual education ladder, you start to find
the use of opium, laudanum, morphine, heroin, ether, hashish,

cocaine
Ether was very popular amongst peasant populations
It was common in Ireland, Russia, and the great plains of America

Ether and chloroform was drunk and then followed by water

There were frequently explosions at peasant weddings when

someone tipped over the ether

Freud used cocaine, Picasso was smoking a great deal of hashish

in this period
There was an increasingly rapid pace of modern life in this period
There was growing uncertainty and unsettlement of this period
The growing numbers of Worlds Fairs had a major central

attraction
Emile Zola talks about being wracked by modern culture and

nervousness about science, progress, and industry

Modern cinema is emerging around this period
Edisons first attempt at a motion picture was a moving picture

that you looked at during a peephole

Irrationalism challenges the basic trends of the enlightenment
Intellectuals are arguing the irrational side of human behavior

was most influential

Philosophes defined humanity by the capacity for critical thought
Instincts, drives, animal traits were seen as the primary

characteristics of humans
All of the new insights into the irrational side of human behavior,
together with the assault on reason, were going to have

enormous repercussions on political life

These become politicized by some type of demagogue who is

trying to manipulate the population

Without this body of irrationalism, it would be hard to imagine

the rise of fascism

These fascist movements exalt race, blood, action, and will
They try to push aside the great faith of liberalism in the
enlightenment

Liberals had come to believe that reason triumphed in human

affairs
There were reactions against positivist ideology associated with

Comte
Positivists saw human behavior as regulated by general laws

which could be studied

You having growing doubt about the human race or the quality of

the development that economic progress had induced

Nietzsches writings were in vogue in Germany around this

period
He was a professor of classical philosophy in Germany
He struggles to find a new morality of the individual which would

restore him to the freedoms he had lost in mechanized society

Nietzsche asserts the need to reestablish values by conscious

choice
He renounces universal suffrage, mocked Christian morality,

parliamentary democracy, denounced social reform

He stated that people had to be taught that life was not
governed by rational principles and there existed no rational

standards of good or evil

There existed only naked man existing in this cruel, godless

world
He stated that modern bourgeois society had grown decadent

and enfeebled
Others said it was losing its masculinity
This was happening because of societys intellectualizing and

quelling mans natural instincts

He saw Christianity as restricting and demanding conformity
It was to be obliterated
He then famously stated, God is dead

He saw no transcendent or metaphysical truth, no morality

derived from god or nature, no inevitable progress

The death of god actually meant mans liberation
But for this liberation to take place, a new breed of supermen

needed to break from accepted morality and egalitarian bullshit

He saw the greatest instinct in man as his drive for power
So he rids himself of all established values and social restrictions,

rules, codes of behaviors that society imposes

Only this elite, once it distanced himself from Christian belief that

men are created equal, could restore mans true nature

He envisions an age without values that would be extraordinarily

violent
He expressed many of the dissatisfactions of bourgeois society
Nietzsches works were ransacked for slogans in a rebellion

against liberal civilization

He had no constructive proposals to deal with Christian morality
His attack would merely help erode the rational foundations of

civilization
Many of these young people who were part of this cult of

Nietzsche cheered the emergence of the first world war

They saw it as ushering in a new era free of degenerates
Feodor Dostoevsky also rebels against efforts the define human

nature from a set of universal principles

Dostoyevsky rebelled against science and reason in the name of

human subjectivity
He claimed irrational forces constituted the essence of human

nature, that there were no absolute truths

The only way to prove you were free was to engage in irrational

acts
Georges Sorel, French social theorist who would place his faith in
the proletariat

He wanted them to destroy the bourgeois social order with a

massive strike
He applauds violence because it intensified the revolutionarys

dedication to the cause

Workers would soar above the moral decadence of bourgeois

society
His conviction that myths could become a powerful tool in
political ideology saw concrete expression in post WWI far right

ideologies
Freud saw the potential danger of the irrational
He focused on the powerful influence of irrational drives and

unconscious impulses which he felt determined their thoughts

He sought to relieve human suffering by revealing people to their

true nature, especially their sexuality

Freud gave us the theory of psychoanalysis and emerged as one

of the foundations of 20th century thought

Darwin, Marx, and Freud were some of the most important

foundations of 20th century thought

There are many others who are trying to confront the irrational
There were harsh critics of positivism who said that individuals
were consciously motivated when choosing between pain and

pleasure
They try to study the irrational in order to exercise it and tame it
??Science was seen as limited to expanding societys influence

over matter and the physical world

True knowledge of the world required intuition
Benedetto Crocesaw history as made by individuals and their

actions were unexplainable

Historians could not adopt the methods of the sciences since
history treated individuals and values, not the stuff of science

The most important thinkers in this field were those that founded

sociology
They sought to understand how social life reacted to change
How do they react to forces which are trying to pull them apart
Several of these turn of the century sociologists rejected the

notion that accumulating data would reveal the truth

They said you had to understand why humans acted the way
they did and whether these actions stemmed from rational

choice
Max Weber wrote his famous work exploring ideas and social

development
He focused on groups
Emile Durkheim wrote about collective consciousnessthe thing

that guided people

He argued that social norms were tangible things that existed

tangibly, outside the individual

They caused a breakdown of the norms that previously

functioned in smaller societies

The emergence of the extreme division of labor caused people

the suffer from formlessness

The emergence of modern criminology emerges in this period

which destroys Lombrosos ideas

They would argue that crime was not hereditary, but a social

phenomenon linked to poverty, alcoholism, and vice

Human criminal actions did not arise from reason but from

imitation or habit
They said they could be removed through isolation and education
All these intellectuals are breaking with the enlightenment views
of society, artists and writers are also doing the same

They rejected classical realism of the Renaissance, they

subordinate form and objective reality to the inner life

Modernism tends towards introspection and views the intellect as

a barrier to a more profound reality hidden in the human psyche

Modernists are probing the inner life of the individual and the

psychology of human relations

Modernist culture acknowledged no objective reality of space and

time
Reality is subjective, not objective
Human consciousness was seen as the only reality
They dispense with conventional artistic methods and begin into

uncharted territory
They depart with the enlightenment and are fascinated by the

bizarre, the irrational, the formless

The enlightenment foundations of the past century was being

very strongly, and sometimes very effectively, challenged

The dominant mood was not pessimism
These trends were isolated, but would affect society later on
Many in the 19th century were optimistic and continued in the
spirit of the enlightenment