1. THE AGE OF ANXIETY & DISILLUSIONMENT
Scream
by Edvard Munch
THE AGE OF ANXIETY & DISILLUSIONMENT
Chapter 26

2. MODERN THOUGHT AFTER WWI
Disillusionment
Doubt re: human progress
Caused by WW1 death & severe casualty toll
Friedrich Nietzsche
Most famous quote: “God is dead”
Those who control words, control society and culture… relevance
Superman (Übermensch): breaks out of society’s rules & formulates new moral codes for himself… all about the self
Books:
Thus Spake Zarathustra
The Will to Power
Life comes from random chance happenings
No purpose for life
Life is meaningless
Rules are the constructs of those in power (traditional values might have been different with another culture)
Traditional values have no ultimate meaning
There is no ultimate meaning & life has no purpose
The end of life is the end
Accept the meaninglessness of life and move on

3. MODERN THOUGHT AFTER WWI
(A) Paul Valéry:
Post-WW1mankind suffers from a “cruelly injured mind”
Plagued by anxiety & failure of 19th c. “progress”
(B) Henri Bergson:
Experience & Intuition AS VALUABLE AS Rational & Scientific Thinking
(C) Ludwig Wittgenstein:
“Logical Positivism” …only scientifically verifiable statements matter
Why bother with “transcendent truth?” B C

4. MODERN THOUGHT AFTER WWI: Christianity
Resurgent Christianity:
Søren Kierkegaard (A)
1st existentialist
Christian ethics & love
GOD <> Man
Karl Barth (B)
“Father of Neo-orthodoxy”
Confessing Church = anti-Nazi
GOD is sovereign, man is not
C. S. Lewis
Mere Christianity
Screwtape Letters / Chronicles of Narnia A
“Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.” C
“Grace must find expression in life, otherwise it is not grace.” E F B G H

5. New MEDIA & Uses Radio aka “Wireless” Cinema: G. Marconi (It) invents
GE, RCA > KADA (US)
BBC 1922 “public radio”
Cinema:
Silent films 1st, then…
“Talkies”
Useful as propaganda
Leni Riefenstahl:
Triumph of the Will (Triumph des Willens)

6. GROWTH OF DEMOCRACIES
Kellogg-Briand Pact: 15 countries renounced war “as an instrument of national policy”
Early attempt at a peace movement (idealistic, doesn’t work)
Demonstrates the aggressive political optimism of the 1920’s
Disillusionment follows in the artistic/literary circles; politics is philosophically a different place
Various parties competed for seats in Parliaments & for influence among various constituencies
Communists, Socialists, Social Democrats – all wanted workers votes
Fragmentation of political spectrum grew as economic situations worsened

7. INTERWAR POLITICS… Political instability:
Search for governmental forms that will not lead to war and will control the chaos of the post-war world
Reparations: end of Germany’s prosperity
Rampant, soaring hyper-inflation (4 trillion marks to 1 US Dollar) by November 1923
Dawes Plan put in place to curb runaway inflation in European nations

8. ARTISTIC AND PHILOSOPHICAL DISILLUSIONMENT
Despair over the inability of mankind to solve his own problems by recourse to reason
Give special attention to all 1920s artists as a representation of the times:
Picasso
Kandinsky
Others

9. Wassily Kandinsky

10. Pablo Picasso

12. 1920s POLITICAL MOVEMENTS Authoritarianism: Totalitarianism:
Human traditions of gravitating toward strong leaders in times of crisis
Authoritarian regimes: trying to maintain peace and order; minimal restriction on freedoms (if you go along; passive acceptance)
Totalitarianism:
Seeks to control the totality of people’s lives
Religion, leisure activities, culture (art, music, books), media, politics
Afraid of and discouraged deviation

13. ENTER THE GREAT DEPRESSION
Stock Market Crash in the US (Oct 1929)
Wiped out the $$ of millions of ppl
Banks went BK because of bad debts
US banks call in their loans; bad for Europeans who owe millions of dollars to the US;
Promise of a New Deal puts Roosevelt into office 1933

14. Europe & Great Depression
Germany’s solution: print billions of marks; leads to hyper-inflation
France: depression hits later but is more persistent
GB: less effected and also more socialist oriented; Liberal party surpassed by Labour Party
Countries go off the gold standard
Massive unemployment worldwide; in Europe socialism takes strong root in Scandinavian countries (welfare, pensions, healthcare