Weekly Summary Five

Many people this week have been posting about Freud and Nietzsche. I found especially interesting Leigh's claim that Nietzsche's "theories about repeated lives and divine death echoed Hindu and Buddhist doctrine; thus, western philosophy began to take on a distinctly eastern feel." This could be a result of the first stages of globalization that Zak writes about. Globalization wasn't and isn't simply economic but very often cultural too. For instance, as we learned in Western Civ. the composition of Japanese woodcuts had a significant impact on Impressionism. And, as Leigh mentioned, there was a similar impact on philosophy. Perhaps this exposure to other philosophy's from around the world didn't just start finding their way into the thinking of Western philosophers, but actually made these philosophers question much of the tradition of Western philosophy.

Nietzschean Poetry

Negative will to power causes
Inward
Expression
That
leadZ to
Self-
Consciousness,
Hurting oneself, and
Eschatological religion

This is all very Freudian...

Regardless of the veracity of Sigmund Freud's opinions (perhaps more on that in another post), the excerpt we read from Civilization and Its Discontents, written in 1929, is a good example of one the ways World War I affected European thought. Freud's basic spiel is that there is a "powerful share of aggressiveness," inherent in humanity that is both violent and sexual (it just wouldn't be Freud without some reference to sex), and in respect to the former type of aggressiveness, it's hard to imagine someone emerging from the "horrors of the recent World War," as a participant or just an observer, and still believing that deep down humans are actually just kind, caring creatures. Thus, I think it makes sense that Freud in his attempts to analyze the mind and human behavior would come to the conclusions that he does.

Weekly Summary Four

There has been considerable discussion on the blogs about Russia, specifically the actions of the last two or three tsars. Jonathan post highlights everything the tsars did wrong, and Mia's post explains why this was so: tradition. Basically, the tsars didn't know the true state of affairs in their country and acted according to their own views of the Russia's government, culture, and history. In fact, many of the tsars, if not all of them, believed in some Russia-specific version of the divine right of kings. This was clearly not going to work in a country with a working class that was becoming increasingly radicalized, not to mention just increasing in number. And that's how you get the Bolsheviks in power.

USING ALL CAPITALS IS IRRATIONAL (Coffin 855-862)

A belief in the irrational nature of humans seems to have been a big part of the philosophy (under which umbrella I am including psychology) and culture of the early modern age. This is pretty clear in Sigmund Freud's work on the mind, specifically concerning the id, and art like Edvard Munch's "The Scream" or Franz Kafka's short stories, which, intentionally or not, show Freudian influences. But aside from some type of revolution occurring in the collective mind of the more educated Europeans, what impact did all of this have on the (I apologize for this) Joe Sixpacks of Europe, or, rather, the Johann Steinkrugs? As the textbook explains, "the theories of...Freud, though in the air and troubling [to members of the middle class], did not matter to the same degree [as movements like Socialism]" (Coffin 857), and sure, people in the middle class were probably more worried about making money and feeding their families than on the workings of the mind or the role of art in modern society, but I think there's more too it. Perhaps they were "distracted" by the newly expanding consumer culture and the various technological developments of the time. Somewhat conversely, maybe they didn't want to leave behind Europe's previous philosophical and artistic traditions, which many probably believed justified European supremacy around the world. Maybe the idea of irrationality even scared Europeans to the point that they rejected it, or at least did not continue to pay attention to it. Still, regardless of the effect on average Europeans, the idea of irrationality was significant in European history.

Mr. Lambsley's Strange Constitutional (Coffin 824-837)

So, the textbook mentions that there was a "discussion on the decline of the West amid a growing sense of cultural crisis" (Coffin 836-837) occurring in Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Having not read the entire chapter, I cannot comment on the philosophical aspect of this belief in the decay of Western civilization, but I think I can safely say that this belief was spurred on by all the new developments taking place in this period. For instance, what say you're a stiff-lipped British aristocrat leaving whatever your parliamentary building is called for your morning constitutional. Your name could Lambsley. As you walk out the door you hear two members of parliament speaking about socialism without disdain. Disturbed by this incident you hurry off but are immediately confronted by a women's suffrage rally! "Good heavens! What next?" you mumble, and you back away from such a mad gathering, but what is this you have now stumbled upon? It is an advertisement for some horrendously new-fangled contraption called a bi-cycle. You drop your cane and run, run without looking back. But what was the point of that "digression?" Mainly that a lot of new stuff was happening that hadn't happened before, or at least to so great an extent. If you happened to be like Mr. Lambsley, the changes of mass politics and consumer culture, not to mention of industry or philosophy, were probably a bit of a jolt.

Weekly Summary Three

I found Nick's weekly summary, which was actually a response to Danielle's response to Elizabeth's post, interesting, especially the claim that "military necessity forced the British to abandon 'civilized' practices of warfare." The British were fine economically subjugating, or even directly ruling, a country without straying from the traditional, European rules of engagement (feel free to put sarcastic quotation marks around any of the last five words), but once they felt their power and control over a country was threatened they would feel free to use deadly force. Hence, the blowing up of sepoys after the Indian Mutiny in 1857. But, as Charlie pointed out the British realized this approach wouldn't work out in the long run. I guess the conclusion I have is that, fairly similar to Nick's, the British pretty much did horrible things when they felt they had to, but also that this was not their preferable course of action.