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

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