Age of Anxiety (1 jan 1918 ano – 1 jan 1939 ano)

Descrição:

After the war, many looked forward with hope, but life would never be the same. Late 19th century thinkers had called attention to the uncertainty and irrationalism in modern life. The modernist movement swept through culture and society. Innovators began to reject old forms of culture and experiment with new ones. An emerging consumer society and the new media of radio and film transformed everyday habits. The peace of the Treaty of Versailles was short lived, the Great Depression disrupted society, and democratic liberalism was besieged by authoritarian and fascist governments.

The 1880s to the 1930s brought cultural and intellectual experimentation. Philosophers and scientists questioned and even abandoned many ideas from prior. The ideals of progress, reason, and scientific rationalism still remained. The turn of the century saw hope and improvements in life. The war had shaken faith in progress, but faith in the human mind stayed. However, people still faced growing uncertainties and contradictions in the age of modernity. It brough pessimism and crisis as well as opportunity and promise. In short, modernity was multi-sided, or “Janus faced”.

A small group of thinkers attacked Enlightenment optimism. German Friedrich Nietzsche was most notable. French Henri Bergson argued that immediate experience and intuition were as important as rational and scientific thinking for understanding reality.

The war accelerated the revolt against established certainties in philosophy, which stemmed in two very different directions: logical positivism and existentialism.

Logical positivism argued that what we know about human life must be based on rational facts and direct observation. Therefore theology and most traditional philosophy were meaningless. Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein was most notable. He argued that great philosophical issues of the time were senseless since their validity cannot be proven. Logical positivism reduced the scope of philosophical inquiry and offered little solace to ordinary people.

Existentialism united philosophers in a search for usable moral values. Nietzsche, Soren Kierkegaard, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky were some of its originators. Martin Heidegger and Karl Jaspers further popularized it with emphasis on the loneliness and meaninglessness of human existence and the need to come to terms with the fear caused by it. Most existential thinkers were atheists. Those like Jean-Paul Sartre argued that there are no God-given truths. People define their existence on their own. Him and lifelong intellectual partner Simone de Beauvoir claimed humans are alone. However, they still must act in the world and are forced to create their own meaning and define themselves through their actions. Thus existentialism had a great emphasis on individual responsibility and choice. Existentialists like Sartre and Albert Camus were especially prominent in France.

Despite these ideas, the postwar years experienced a revival of Christianity. Christianity and religion in general had been on the defensive since the Enlightenment. Before the war, some theologians began to align Christian doctrine with science, evolution, and common sense. Some “Christian existentialists'' stressed the need for faith because of human’s sinful nature. The discovery of 19th-century Danish theologian Soren Kierkegaard was very influential. He believed that the existence of God cannot be proven but suggested taking a “leap of faith” to accept God. Protestant Swiss theologian Karl Barth argued that naturally sinful humans should embrace God’s grace. Catholic Frenchman Gabriel Marcel found answers to the “broken world” in the Catholic Church. Religion became more meaningful to intellectuals like poets, novelists, writers, scientists, etc.

Science was a trusted fundamental building block for national thought. By the 1920s, physics began to cast doubt on the basis of natural law. Scientists discovered that atoms were comprised of smaller, fast-moving particles. Polish physicist Marie Curie and her husband Pierre discovered that radium constantly emits subatomic particles and thus does not have a constant atomic weight. German Max Planck showed that subatomic energy is emitted in uneven little spurts and not in a ready stream. His discovery called the distinction between matter and energy into question. German-Jew Albert Einstein further challenged previous ideas. He developed the theory of special relativity which theorized that time and space are relative to the viewpoint of the observer and that only the speed of light is constant. It also stated that matter and energy were interchangeable and that even a particle of matter contains enormous levels of potential energy. The 1920s saw breakthrough after breakthrough. In 1919, Ernest Rutherford showed that an atom could be split. By 1944, 7 subatomic particles had been identified. Physicists discovered the neutron could shatter the nucleus of another atom and lead to a chain reaction that would release unbelievable force. Werner Heisenberg formulated the “uncertainty principle”. He suggested that there was no objective reality and everything was relative to the observer's frame of reference. Similar to philosophy, physics no longer provided any concrete comforting truths.

In art, modernism took over. It involved constant experimentation, a search for new kinds of expression, and critical and challenging works that called attention to the irrational aspects of Western society.

Fundamental innovations in the basic provision and consumption of goods and services marked the first steps of a consumer revolution that was at its height in the 1950s and 1960s. The arrival of a highly industrialized manufacturing system dedicated to mass-producing inexpensive goods, the establishment of efficient transportation systems that could bring these goods to national markets, and the rise of professional advertising experts to sell them were revolutionary in the consumer goods were made, marketed, and used by ordinary people.

The Treaty of Versailles was only a temporary settlement. Germany’s future was uncertain. Since most of the war in the west was in France, French politicians supported massive reparations from Germany. Some Brits, like economist John Maynard Keynes, believed that financial punishment would increase economic hardship worldwide, encourage Bolshevism, and impoverish Germany, one of their former best markets. British politicians were suspicious of France’s army and their foreign policy. France was looking for alliship, but Russia was hostile and communist and Britain and the U.S. were unwilling to make firm commitments. France then signed a mutual defense pact with Poland and associated itself with the “Little Entente”, which included Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Yugoslavia.

An Allied commission successfully ordered Germany to pay an enormous sum. A broken Weimar Republic- the new German republic- was unable to pay more and requested to wait three years for further reparations with the implication they would then be reduced or eliminated. The British were willing to accept, the French were not. The French, led by prime minister Raymond Poincare, along with Belgium, occupied the Ruhr district, the heartland of industrial Germany, creating the most serious international crisis of the decade.

Germany ordered the people of the Ruhr to stop working to resist the occupation. The French responded by sealing off the district. Germans propagandized France’s decision to send African troops. Germany then began to print money to pay its bills, causing catastrophic inflation. Many Germans felt betrayed and blamed Western governments, their own government, big business, Jews, and Communists. Gustav Stresemann gained leadership of the government and sought compromise. Poincare, whose actions had become unpopular, accepted.

An international committee of financial experts headed by American banker Charles G. Dawes met to examine the situation. The Dawes Plan ordered Germany’s reparation payments to be linked to their level of output. The U.S. would loan money to Germany, who would pay to France and Britain, who owed large war debts to the U.S. Germany experienced a shaky recovery.

In 1925, leaders made agreements at Locarno, Switzerland. Germany and France pledged to accept their common border. Britain and Italy agreed to fight either country if one invaded the other. Stresemann reluctantly agreed to settle Polish-Czechoslovakian border disputes peacefully and France reaffirmed its pledge of military aid if either attacked Germany. Stresemann did not agree on permanent eastern borders, which angered Poles. The Kellogg-Briand Pact saw France and the U.S. agreeing to settle disputes peacefully. It did not plan for war carefully but contributed to the essence of the “spirit of Locarno”.

Republican government in recent years in Germany appeared on the verge of collapse. Liberal democracy made positive change, but political divisions remained. The Nazi Party was whipping up prejudice, the far right found more support, and the new Communist Party was noisy and active, and accused the Social Democrats of betraying the revolution. The Majority still supported the Social Democrats.

In France, communists and socialists competed for workers’ support. France built back its war-torn northeastern region, but at the cost of a large deficit and substantial inflation. Poincare was recalled to office, slashed spending, and raised taxes, restoring confidence in the economy.

In Britain, 23% of the labor force were unemployed, eventually leading to a massive strike. The state provided measures to keep living standards from seriously declining, help moderate class tensions, and moved the country towards a welfare state. The Labour Party arose and became the main opposition of the Conservatives. It was based on greater social equality and the working class. In 1922, Britain granted southern Ireland autonomy after a guerrilla war. For the most part, Britain was socially at rest.

This optimism was short-lived. The Great Depression struck teh entire world. The crash of teh U.S. stock market triggered a worldwide crisis (see "The Great Depression).

Of all Western democracies, Scandinavia was most successful in its response. The Social Democrats had become the largest political party and passed important social reform legislation. They developed a unique form of socialism by emphasizing cooperative community action. Sweden in particular used large-scale deficits to finance public works and therefore maintain production and employment. They also increased public benefit programs. Despite high taxes, enterprise and democracy thrived.

After 1932, Britain’s economy recovered considerably. Britain started to focus more on national markets. New industries like automobiles and electric appliances grew, and low interest rates encouraged a housing boom.

France was less industrialized, and the depression came late but persisted. France’s divided parliament couldn’t cooperate for long. Fascist organizations attacked parliamentary democracy. To counter fascists, French Communists and Socialists joined in the Popular Front. It encouraged the union movement and launched a far-reaching program of social reform. These measures were quickly undermined by inflation and criticism from Fascists and conservatives. Dissent was encouraged by the Spanish Civil War, in which Fascist rebels overthrew the democratically elected republic government. French Communists supported the Spanish republicans, while conservatives leaned more towards the Spanish Fascists. Socialist leader Blum resigned, and the Popular Front collapsed.

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