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AP Euro Chapter 26: The Age of Anxiety 1915-1950

Intro

  • Adresses confusion and uncertainty produced byt the war

    • Reflected in art, music, literature, architecture, science, psychology, and politics

    • Facing a new reality

  • People shaped by surroundings

    • → previous “truths” called into question

    • Give way to the “age of Anxiety”

Chief Intellectual Beliefs of Modern Western Culture

  • Social- Breakdown of Feudal System

    • Emerging merchant class, expanding rights and opportunities, emergence of European superiority (social Darwinism)

  • Political- Emergeing nation-states took power from church → Nationalism

    • Rights to govern resting on consent of governed, Rights of the individual (expanding democracy)

  • Religion: Judeo-Christian Traditon

    • Equality in eyes of God, System of morals and ethics, Evolution of beliefs: Reformation → splintering, Delining but tradition will remain

  • Intellectual: Reason, Optimism, Progress

    • Universal set of Values, collective morality

  • Economic: Mercantilism to Laissez-faire

    • Industrializaiton, exploitation of non western world

  • General: FR has equalizing effect on society

    • a universal set of natural laws we adhere to

    • Belief human condition can be understood, rules govern out behavior

  • Proof:

    • IR leads to a better life: working conditions, hours, wages, time off, improvents in urban enviornment

    • Governments more responsive to peoples needs:

      • Universal public education, Universal Male Suffrage

    • Thought they had it figured out but didn’t

Why did the Beliefs get challenged?

World war

  • 35 million casualties and 350 mil in property damages

  • Effects

    • Moved from world domination to complete destruction

    • pessimism, alienation, confusion, uncertainty

Beginnings of challenging

Were they living a lie?

  • Background: Belle Epoch- the good old days

Martin Heidegger- German Philosopher

  • Claims we ask after the fact due to refusal to embrace reality

    • Hegelian undercurrent today:

      • Debt, Enviornment, Global instablility, Financial security

Did anyone see it coming?

  • 1880s-1914 some will challenge optimism

    • Europeans not dealing with reality but instead believed the lies they created and were confined by their norms

Context:

  • great reevaluation of reason:

    • too much faith placed on reason, logic, progress

  • Philosophers 1800s-1950s challenge human constructs made by elightenment

    • ethics and morality, universal rights, Natural laws, understanding of human condition

Existentialism:

  • tries to deal with meaninglessness

  • Human beings through consciousness create own values and determin meaning for own lives(contrast enlightenment collective set of values)

    • create our own meaning in a world with no meaning

    • First thinker- Soren Kierkegaard

    • First self described- Jean-Paul Sartre

    • Off shoots:

      • Nihilism- no intrinsic meaning in universe and pointless to consturct our own

      • Absurdism- needs to acept search for meaning is in conflict with lack of meaning. Rebel against by embracing what life has to offer

Martin Heidegger:

  • wrote Being and Time: most important philosophical work of 20th century

    • Argues west lost sight of being due to past philosophy

  • All we understood is susceptible to errors- Meaning reality, logic, God come into question

Henri Bergson 1858-1941:

  • Process philosophy

  • people were living a lie

  • Experience, initialitve, emotion equally important as intellect and rational thinking

George Sorel 1847-1922:

  • Wrote: Reflections on violence 1908

    • Socialism comes through violence

  • Equated violence with life,creativity, virtue serving as foundation for Fascism “violence could save world from barbarism”

  • Syndicalism- industry be organized into confederations owned by the workers

Ludwig Wittgenstein: 1889-1951 (Austrian Philosopher)

  • Wrote: Essay on Logical philosophy 1922

  • Logic can solve certain truths, but it has limits

  • Logical Positivism- life must be based on rational facts and observation

    • Religion, morality, freedom have no logic and cant be tested

    • Need to seperate faith/belief and logic

    • “of what one cannot speak, of that one must keep silent”

Friedrich Nietzsche 1844-1900 German

  • Attack on everything, never develops conherent philosophy

  • Major themes:

    • Will to power, Master and slave morality, the ubermensch(superman), Christianity and christian morality, God is dead

Absurdism- embrace meanignlessness of life, can find joy but will all end in annihilation

Jean-Paul Sartre 1905-1980

  • Existence precede essence: no truths outside of individual existence

    • after birth people degine their own essence

    • alone in the world to confront death and despir

  • Man condemned to be free

Christian Existentialism

  • imposible to prove existence of God but doesn’t mean its and empty practice

  • need to take leap of faith and accept existence of an unknowable objective

Soren Kierkegaard 1813-1855

  • Worte Either/or and Sickness unto death

  • One lives as individual self with emphasis on reality over abstract thinking

  • dealt with Christian ethics and personal behavior

  • Each individual is solely responsible for giving life meaning

New Physics

Old Physics

  • Newton’s Pricipa

Contributors to New Physics

  • Curie- radioactivity (matter decays and falls appart

  • Planck atomic energy emitted in spurts

  • Einstein- Time is relative

  • Rutherford- Atoms empty space

  • Heisenberg- electrons

Sigmund Fred

  • Id- unconsious has sexual and aggressive drives and hidden memories

  • Ego-Consious- Mediates deires of id and superego

  • Superego-subconscious- moral conscience

  • connection to physics: Understanding of mind is limited

  • Impact: previously held rules reevaluated:

    • Architecture – Gaudi, art – surrealism, literature – stream of consciousness

Modern architecture contributers

  • Chicago school – Louis H Sullivan, modernist, aesthetic, steel frame construction

  • Frank Lloyd Wright

  • Frederick Law Olmstead: landscape architecture, national mall

  • Le Corbusier: Functionalism- separation and visual distinctives of public spaces from private apartments

  • Walter Gropius/ Bauhaus: pioneer of modern architecture, famous work – Fagus factory

  • Antoni Gaudi: Gothic revival, Works: Sangrada Familia, Parc Guell, Casa Batllo

Art as reaction

  • Impressionism: Movement out of Paris late 19th century

    • Artists: Degas, Cezanne, Pisarro, Manet, Monet, renoir

    • Characteristics: small brushstrokes, light changing qualities, illusion of movements

  • Post impressionism: post 1880s

    • continue use of vivid colors thick application of paint, more inclined to emphasize geometric forms

    • Artists; Cezanne, Munch- Scream guy, Gauguin, Fauvism, Van Gough

  • Expressionism: late 19th to early 20th century

    • Present world from subjective perspective, destroying for emotional effect

      • Picasso: cubism – Guernica1937

  • Surealism -Dali

Stream of consciousness

  • Relies on internal monologues explore human psych

  • Virginia Woolf- Jacob's room 1922

  • Logic and realism

    • We are irrational creatures

  • Faulkner: the sound and the fury 1929

  • James Joyce (Ireland)

    • Ulysses 1922, Finnigan's Wake 1937, Dubliners 1914

      • Latin version of Odysseus

Eliot and Kafka:

  • Transition from realism to psychological relativity/rejection of progress

  • Describes anti-utopia, focus on individual alienation

    • Eliot- Waste land 1922- world of growing desolation

    • Franz Kafka The Trial, The Catle, The metamorphosis – characters crushed by inexplicable hostile forces

Versailles Settlement

  • France left in isolation need to force strict implementation of provisions;

    • Little Entente, Maginot Line

  • Britain, ready to revise treaty:

    • D.L.George – Treter Versailles to harsh, we shall have to fight another war in 25 years

    • J.M. Keynes-reparation payments would ruin European economy

    • Marshall Foch- is an arm mistress for 20 years not peace

Little Entente:

  • Cause: French verified in press and attempts to follow through with treaty

  • Franco-Belgian Military Accord 1920, Franco-Polish Alliance 1921, Little entente (Czechoslovakia, Romania Yugoslavia0 1924-1927

Maginot Line

  • 1928-1939: fortified defense built by france to deter German Invasion : fail

Germany:

  • Germany in bad economic statye and inflation was increasingly high.

    • German currency not worth anything, bc no backing for currency

    • asks for moratorium on reparations , Britain agrees, France and Belgium Refuse

  • Fails to make reparations payments due to refusal to accept German currency

  • Response: Troops move into Ruhr (heavy industrialized region)

  • Result: Germans resist, 130 killed → international sympathy for Germans

  • → Dawes plan:

    • Reparations restructured and linked level to economic output

    • New mark, US Bank loans Germany Money and pay back with intrest

    • US (loans)→ German (Reparations)→ France and England→ US (for debt)

    • Withdraws troops from Ruhr 1925

  • Gustav Stressmann- German Chancellor

    • By 1928 back to stability

      • 1925 Locarno Pact- recognize territorial changes

      • 1926 Enters League of Nations

      • 1928: Kellogg-Briand Pact- Outlaws was as instrument of national policy

France:

  • 1920’s attempt to recover

    • reconstruct destroyed regions, force, Frank with 10% of pre-war value, anxiety from security issues, no guarantees from allies, right when publishing government strains with Britain about reparations

  • Collecting government( Third Republic-Weak)

    • Defeated by left-wing coalition 1924, 1926 right wing returns

Britain:

  • Unemployment around 12%

  • Welfare state measures alleviated some problems

    • Labor party places, liberals as challengers

      • Reflects declining values

  • Ireland gets independence 1922

  • Women suffrage achieved 1928-Emily Davison horse

Great Depression

  • Roaring 20s equals signs of distress in US economy

    • Uneven distribution of wealth, unhealthy foreign trade, over-extension of credit, overproduction and underconsumption, agricultural surplus

  • Black Thursday, October 29, 1929 over optimism about stock market leads to sell off/panic → bank closures affecting does plan

  • →US recalls debt:

    • Gold reserve leaves, Europe, Europe, bank fails, global output of goods drops, 40% off gold standard, raising protective terrace and government cut budgets. Equals bad ideas.

      • Counter-Cyclical policy =better

  • Unemployment: Britain 18, US 25, Germany 40

  • People look to government first solution, parliamentary, democracy struggle, due to problems with liberal capitalism and economic cycles

  • Ones that respond fastest are ones that move to extremes

  • US

    • 25% unemployed

    • US banks call loans, bank closures – make problems worse, protective tariffs worsen, global trade drops by 65% → global market Falls

  • Britain

    • Tariffs, increased taxes, regulated, currency, lowered interest rate rates

    • 20% unemployed

    • Starts to recover recover in 1937, democracy survives

  • France

    • Popular front

      • Survives better than Britain, but leads to political crisis with democracy, barely surviving

  • Franklin Roosevelt new deal

    • Relief for unemployed (+)

    • Reform political and economic system(+ / -)

    • Recovery from depression ( +/ -)

    • Deficit spending

    • Government projects

    • Lots of alphabet organizations

    • Results:

      • Failed to combat depression, succeeds in reform government and giving faith to American system

Scandinavian response

  • Socialist government's most successfully addressed crisis

  • Increases taxes for everyone

  • Mass of public works

  • Increase benefits that never really go away

Britain and France response to depression

  • Britain:

    • Governments follow, orthodox, economic policy:

      • Cut government spending balance budget, off gold standard, decline exports, protective tariffs

    • Economy improves by 1937

      • New industries, low interest rates

  • France-popular front

    • Hits later

    • Economic problems lead to political affairs

    • Coalition government fails fascist threats leads to coalition of left

    • Socialist and communist join creating popular front led by Leon Blum

    • Once inflation hits, the wealthy will remove their money from France

    • Tensions increased in response to events in Spain

  • Spanish Civil War

    • 1936 popularly elected, left-leaning government

    • Naturalist stage coup, succeed in Spain’s second Republic Falls, Germans test, new Air Force on Guernica