AP Euro Chapter 26: The Age of Anxiety

How did developments in science and philosophy reflect the general crisis in Western thought?

Already shaken from war, new findings (theory of special relativity) and popular clashing ideas and culture (existentialism, logical positivism, Dadaism, music/lit) further challenged old traditions and ideologies.

The people be confused.

What characterized modernist art and literature? How did the new movements break from previous traditions?

Modern art: attempt to represent a confused/broken reality → radical, bc people confused post-WWI

Literature: pessimism + new reality → confusion, try to interpret

Different from traditional due to confusion and changed lives following WWI

How did consumer society change everyday life? To what extent did the majority of people get to enjoy the new consumer products?

Pre-depression, people had money, spent it bc post-war “we could die tmr, screw it”

Leisure time, department stores, entertainment… film/radio used as propaganda

Consumerism: decrease race/religion/class div bc everyone could buy same stuff… increase bc market to groups, & stuff (ie. car) → status symbol

Consumerism widespread, majority

What obstacles to lasting peace did European leaders face? How did tensions rise and decline during this period?

Tensions regarding Germany reparation payments (Fr being annoying), ultimately Fr agree to back off

Ideological divisions in gov (communists vs social democrats vs Nazis, etc)

How did France make Germany situation messy?

Germ broke, Brit sympathetic (John Maynard Keynes) vs Fr (“absolutely not”)

Fr Raymond Poincare → occupy Ruhr (industrial coal/steel), Germ stop working, Fr isolate Ruhr/Rhineland, use 40K African troops

What were the causes and consequences of the Great Depression? How did countries take different approaches? What was successful in alleviating the economic downturn?

Causes: US stock market crash, everyone borrowed $, bad econ leadership + policies

Consequences: banks messed up, impact Euro banks thru loans

• Brit off gold standard, tariffs, focus national market, recover 1932 (success?)

• Fr less industrialized, hit late and hard divided, inflation, broken

• US Roosevelt New Deal help farmers/normal people/unemployment… only kinda worked, still bad

Freidrich Nietzsche

depressed and crazy

“prophet-style”, nihilism (life meaningless), wrote “Untimely Meditations” (rational is overemphasized) + “On Geneology of Morals” (anti-religion)

→ existentialism

Henri Bergson

thought experience and intuition mattered too

logical positivism

Empirically proven stuff / reason > God, happiness, philosophy (meaningless), Ludwig Wittgenstein

develop in English-speaking places

existentialism

Life is meaningless, morals are missing, world is lost, usually atheist

Develop in continental countries

Meaning thru action!

Some existentialist guys

Nietzsche, Soren Kierkegaard, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Martin Heidegger, Karl Jasper

Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir

Christianity revival

Protestant interpret Bible → contradict science, focus God moral teachings > mystery

Christian Existentialists: sinful → need faith (Soren Kierkegaard)

Answer to post-WWI anxiety

Soren Kierkegaard

revive Christian existentialism, “leap of faith”

wrote “Sickness Unto Death”

Karl Barth

“accept God w/o reason/logic” Christian revival

New physics

challenge to Western’s comforting science/rationalism

Marie Curie, Max Planck, Ernest Rutherford

New physics / atom discoveries!

actually not little hard balls, can radiate quanta, can split, subatomic particles (neutron → nuclear bomb)

“matter vs energy???” :o

theory of special relativity

Albert Einstein, time and space are relative to observer, only speed of light constant

potential energy, undermine Newton physics

id, ego, superego

Sigmund Freud

Id: unconscious desire, primitive

Superego: conscience-driven, strict, controlled

Ego: negotiate with id + superego (middle man)

strong ego → healthy, unbalance → neurosis (couch talking cure)

→ less trust in rational

modernism

Late 1800 - early 1900

Radical art/culture changes, challenge old ways

Louis H Sullivan

plain skyscraper guy, Euro inspo!

Frank Lloyd Wright

Open space, house designs w lines, Euro inspo!

functionalism

Things should serve their purpose only (no razzle-dazzle frilly sparkles)

Le Corbusier

functionalism dude, “house = machine for living in”, wrote “Towards a New Architecture”, use “international style” (rectangles, concrete, glass, steel)

Bauhaus

German fine/applied arts school

founded by Walter Gropius (shoe factory designer)

director Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

Dadaism

ANTI-ART (wanted to be special)

war —> life is meaningless —> art is meaningless :)

stream of consciousness technique

Literary device/tool, use internal thoughts to explore psyche

modern girl

1920s stereotypical, strong independent woman (WORK)

didn’t really exist irl, mostly propaganda, bc most girls didn’t have enough money

Why socialists didn’t like modern girl

—> increase passive consumerism, less revolutionaries!

Why conservatives didn’t like modern girl

—> less artisans, no more tradition (aka suppressed girls)

Why religious people didn’t like modern girl

—> more individualism and materialism (bad), less spirituality!

Other people complaining about modern girl

—> less morals, less family values :(

Dawes Plan

U.S. plan, make Germany reparation payments manageable (less per year), dependent on econ

loan money in a circle (US → Germ → Allies → US)

Great Depression

Severe global economic depression, long, slow recovery

Popular Front

(in France) Communists + socialists + radicals alliance during election against Facists

Communists/socialists benefit (socialists more), radicals don’t

Facism

Dictatorial ultra-nationalism, state and corporate power, suppress others

Black shirts

Facist militia, “save from communists”, maintain private property and old traditions