Chapter 24: The Birth of Modern European Thought
During the second half of the nineteenth century with the development of modern nation states (especially
the unification of Germany and Italy) and the dramatic developments of the Second Industrial Revolution, the
ideas that shaped modern European thought also took form. The foundation had been built on the
Classical Civilizations of the Ancient World and their rebirth in the Renaissance. The Enlightenment
continued these developments by introducing rationalism and an appreciation of science. Then
Romanticism led Europeans to value human feelings, imagination and nationalism. In this chapter we
shall examine new thoughts in science, unprecedented intellectual attacks on Christianity, new directions
in Feminism and the coalescing (coming together) of Modern European Culture.
Literacy and the New Reading Public
In 1850, only about half of Europe’s population was literate (able to read) and in Russia the proportion of
literate citizens was the least. But the next fifty years would see a dramatic growth in literacy which
would, in turn, help to propel the development of modern European thought and culture as a massive
reading public came into existence. Prussia and Austria were over a century ahead of the rest of Europe.
Under Frederick the Great, public education had been made compulsory for children between the ages
of five and thirteen in 1763; and this was extended to the German Empire in 1871. Frederick’s rival, the
Empress Maria Theresa, made education compulsory for both boys and girls in 1775 - although her
reforms failed to reach the more rural areas. Hungary provided for elementary education in 1868, Great
Britain followed in 1870, Switzerland in 1874, Italy in 1877 and France in 1881.
By 1900, eighty-five percent of the population (plus) in Great Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands,
the German Empire and the Scandinavian nations were literate while thirty to sixty percent of the people
in Spain, Russia, the Balkans, Austria-Hungary and Portugal were literate. This new literacy was based
on the basic fundamentals of education (reading, writing and arithmetic) and was championed by both
liberals and conservatives in order to create orderly and intelligent voters. This idea was based on the
Enlightenment principle that right knowledge would lead to right action. As the number of schools
and school teachers grew in numbers (and prestige), so did the awareness that more and better education
led to better jobs. At the same time, many nations began to lay the framework for secondary education
and, after World War I, more opportunities became available for university education.
Growing literacy meant a vast market for new reading materials. Newspapers, books, magazines and
libraries grew rapidly. Cheap newspapers like Le Petite Journal of Paris and The Daily Express of
London became immensely popular and carried advertising that alerted readers to new consumer
products. Political and religious magazines and pamphlets also appeared along with journals for
academia, women and free thinkers. But much literacy was minimal (at low levels of comprehension). And
that encouraged cheap newspapers and books which made money by relating sensational crimes and
political scandals. Novels about love (especially sordid love) multiplied and newspaper editorials helped
shape public opinion - and were often censored, especially in Eastern Europe. And even though much of
the new literature was in poor taste, it did lay the basis of our modern literary milieu.
Science at Midcentury
In 1850, Newton's Principia (Mathematical Principles of Natural Science) formulated the laws of
motion and universal gravitation that still dominate science. Scientists continued to believe that nature
operated like an incredibly large machine and that the physical world was rational (based on facts),
mechanical (caused by physical processes) and dependable (calculable or steady). William Whewell of
Cambridge University in England first coined the word Scientist to describe those who studied the
physical world in growing numbers in French, German, British (and American) Universities.
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Positivism
During the second half of the nineteenth century, science continued to establish itself as the model for all
human knowledge. The French philosopher Auguste Comte (1798-1857), strongly influenced by the
Utopian Socialist Henri Saint-Simon, developed Positivism which stated that information derived
from logical, mathematical principles and sensory experience was the only source of knowledge.
Between 1830 and 1842, Comte published The Course in Positivist Philosophy, in which he argued that
human thought had developed through three stages. In the first, or Theological Stage, nature was
explained in terms of gods or spirits. During this first stage, mankind blindly believed whatever they
were taught by their ancestors. In the second, or Metaphysical Stage, abstract principles [basic truths or
facts about nature] were regarded as the operative agents [units] of nature; in the final or Positive Stage,
explanations of nature became matters of exact description of phenomena, without reference to
unobservable operative principles.
As far as Comte was concerned, physical science had entered the Positive State and similar thinking
should be used in other areas of nature, especially social science. Comte believed that positive laws of
social behavior could be discovered in the same way as the laws of physical science. Thus, Comte is
often regarded as the Father of Sociology [or the study of society, social institutions, and social relationships].
The work of Comte convinced many Europeans that all knowledge and learning must be patterned
after scientific knowledge.
Thus from the mid nineteenth century onwards, the relationship of science to technology and the Second
Industrial Revolution created in the general European public an awareness of science and technology as
never before. The British Fabian socialist Beatrice Webb (whom we met in the last chapter) praised men
of science as being the leading intellectuals of society. Thomas Huxley (1825-1895), a British scientist and
an early defender of the theories of Charles Darwin, and Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919), a German scientist
who discovered thousands of new animal species and coined many terms in biology (such as ecology,
phylum and stem cell) worked to gain government support for scientific research and to include expanded
science curricula in schools and universities.
Awareness of science also stimulated the style of writing we call Science Fiction. During the
Renaissance, many writers wrote about fantastic voyages to distant lands. In chapter 14, we met
Margaret Cavendish who advanced knowledge of the New Science and was considered the forerunner
of science fiction writers - and in her work, The Blazing World, she imagined a utopian kingdom in
another world with different stars in the sky reached only by way of the North Pole. However, the real
father of modern science fiction was a French writer, Jules Verne (1828-1905), who prided himself on his
scientific accuracy. His two most famous works are Five Weeks in a Balloon (1863) and Twenty
Thousand Leagues under the Sea (1870). Towards the end of the century, the English master novelist
(and Fabian Socialist), H. G. Wells (1866-1946), popularized science in works such as The Time Machine
(1895) in which a scientist builds a machine which can travel through time and the War of the Worlds
(1898) which tells of a Martian invasion of Earth. [In 1938, Orson Welles read Wells’ War of the Worlds on the
radio and many Americans actually thought that a Martian invasion was actually taking place.] Both Verne and
Welles (and many others) used the medium of cheap illustrated magazines to popularize their stories.
Darwin and the Theory of Natural Selection
In 1859, Charles Darwin, an English naturalist and geologist, published On the Origin of Species,
which applied the concept of the mechanistic viewpoint of nature into the world of living things. This
book has become a seminal (foundational) work of Western thought and caused Darwin to be called “the
Newton of Biology.” The book is often misunderstood as earlier thinkers and scientists had proposed
similar theories to Darwin’s. The difference was that earlier writers had believed that such a mechanism
as evolution might be possible but Darwin and another English naturalist - working independently of
Darwin, Alfred Russell Wallace (1923-1913), explained how species could change and evolve over time.
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Several ancient philosophers believed that nature produced a large variety of organisms but that only
those creatures which could manage to provide for themselves and reproduce successfully survived.
Others noted the role of the struggle for existence. In the early nineteenth century, Jean-Baptiste
Lamarck (1744-1829) laid the groundwork for much of Darwin’s and Wallace’s work when he proposed a
theory called the Transmutation of Species. Lamarck did not believe that all living things shared a
common ancestor but did believe that species were adapted to their environments. He also believed that
an inborn (native) life force, which he sometimes described as a nervous fluid (nervous in the sense of
strong), drove various species to become more complex over time, advancing up a ladder of complexity
that was related to a great chain of being.
Darwin and Wallace drew heavily on the work of the economist Thomas Malthus (1766-1834) who in his
1798 Essay on the Principle of Population concluded that human population must inevitably outstrip its
food supply; and thus concluded that there were more living organisms coming into existence than could
survive in their environment. Thus, the organisms that could survive would be the ones able to live long
enough to propagate (reproduce). This principle of survival of the fittest in the struggle for existence
Darwin called Natural Selection. Natural Selection was naturalistic and mechanistic in that it required
no guiding mind (like God) behind its operation. What neither Darwin, Wallace nor anyone else at the time
could explain was the phenomenon of chance variations that gave some living things a greater chance for
survival than other living things.
[The answer would come after 1900, when the studies of an Austrian monk, Gregor Mendel (1822-1884)
were published and studied. Between 1856 and 1863, Mendel experimented with the flower color of
simple garden peas. He showed that when a yellow flowered pea and a green flowered pea were bred
together their offspring always had a yellow flower. However, when the seeds of this second generation
were bred, there was a ratio of one green pea flower to three yellow pea flowers. In other words, he
discovered that green peas were recessive and yellow peas were dominant.]
But nonetheless, before and after the mystery of chance variations had been solved, Darwin’s theory of
Natural Selection seemed to contradict the traditional interpretation of the Biblical narrative of Creation
and undermine the deistic argument for the existence of God from the design of the universe. Thus, the
idea that the universe was a fixed constant had disappeared and that God had been removed from the
equation of life. Darwin’s theories seemed to support the proposition that, if nature had been constantly
changing, so too might the values, norms and customs of society be subject to change.
In 1871, Darwin published The Descent of Man, in which he applied the principle of evolution to human
beings. He treated the evolution of human beings as he did all other life and this was not new in the
history of philosophy but what was new was that he contended that moral nature and religious thought
developed in the same way as the human body developed - as a response to the struggle for survival.
Again, God had been removed from the origin and purpose of mankind. In fact, mankind seemed to
have no purpose except that which comes from Natural Selection. Not since the heliocentric theory of
Copernicus had the center of the human universe been so violently shaken.
The Theory of Natural Selection and its implications were controversial from the moment On the Origin
of Species was published. Religious conservatives – especially in England - attacked these theories
vigorously but liberals were more open mostly because they had begun to accept Form Criticism (which
seeks to establish the meaning or validity of a text) and did not take the creation of the world literally as set
out in the Bible. By the mid-1870s, most scientists had accepted evolution, but relegated Theory of
Natural Selection to a minor role - since they believed that evolution had a [divine] purpose. On the other
hand, Darwin was vilified by many especially those who could not imagine humans being descended
from “apes.” Finally, Darwin’s fame and popularity led to his name being associated with ideas which
had only an indirect relation to his theories, and sometimes went against them altogether.
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Science and Ethics
As science became more pervasive (widespread) in European society, philosophers began to connect the
idea of survival of the fittest to human social relationships. The phrase survival of the fittest actually
predated Darwin and reflected the “dog-eat-dog” (competitive) world of classical economics. When
Darwin used the phrase, it gave prestige associated with modern science. The most famous advocate of
evolutionary ethics was Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), a British philosopher who was a champion of
rugged individualism and the belief that society progresses (or grows stronger) through competition.
Spencer believed that if the weak received too much help or protection, then all humans were the losers;
or to put it another way, Spencer believed that to struggle against one’s fellow human beings was a kind
of ethical imperative (command).
This competition - as applied by Spencer - was not just a refusal to help the poor or working classes but a
justification of the domination of colonial peoples or aggressive competition between nations. This
evolutionary view of ethics or the idea that those who are the strongest have the right to rule others and
have the power to determine right and wrong is called Social Darwinism. Another way of expressing this
Social Darwinism is Might-Makes-Right. There have been many objections down through history and
the first recorded is in the first chapter of Plato’s Republic, where a certain Thrasymachus claims that
"justice is nothing else than the interest of the stronger,” which Socrates then vigorously disputes.
One of the strongest nineteenth century opponents of Social Darwinism was Thomas Huxley who (as we
have noted) was a great defender of Darwin. Huxley, an outspoken advocate for scientific advancement
and the first to use the word agnostic [the belief that holds the view that any ultimate reality (such as God) is
unknown and probably unknowable], was strongly opposed to Social Darwinism which he felt wrongly
attempted to deduce ethical principles from evolutionary processes. In 1893, he declared that the
physical process of evolution was at odds with human ethical development. Huxley thus maintained that
the struggles seen-in-nature only showed human beings how NOT to behave.
Christianity under Attack
The nineteenth century was a brutal period for European Christianity as many intellectuals left the
Christian religion and the emerging, secular and liberal nation states (like the German Empire and the
French Third Republic) marginalized (made unimportant) the Church as much as they could. As urban
populations grew, new problems emerged for churches and yet both Protestant and Catholic churches
remained popular. Nevertheless, late nineteenth century Christianity had to respond to three intellectual
attacks: historical, scientific and moral.
The Historical Attack
In 1835, a German theologian, David Friedrich Strauss (1808-1874) published The Life of Jesus, in
which he questioned whether the Bible provided any real, historical evidence about whether or not Jesus
of Nazareth was a real person. Strauss argued that the story of Jesus was a myth that arose from the social
and political conditions of the time. His controversial assertions scandalized Europe with his portrayal of
the "Historical Jesus,” whose divine nature he denied. In the latter half of the nineteenth century,
scholars like Julius Wellhausen (1844-1918) in Germany, Ernst Renan (1823-1892) in France and
William Robertson Smith (1847-1894) in Great Britain argued that human authors had written and edited
all the books of the Bible with their current historical events and problems in mind. They denied that the
Bible was divinely inspired but, like the epics of Homer, came from an oral and (later a written) tradition
of normal human beings. These assertions about the validity of the Bible caused the most loss of faith
among literate Christians than any other single factor.
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The Scientific Attack
The damage to the Church which derived from the advancement of science was particularly cruel to
many Church leaders and laity because many eighteenth century writers had contended that a truly
scientific examination of nature would lead Christians to a stronger belief in the principles of their faith.
For example, William Paley (1743-1805), an English Christian apologist and advocate of Utilitarianism
(maximizing happiness and minimizing suffering for the greatest number of people), argued for the existence of
God in his treatise, Natural Theology, in which he used the Teleological Argument. Like Darwin, Paley
used a mechanistic argument or analogy and used examples from astronomy arguing that the regular
movements of the solar system resemble the workings of a giant clock. This argument-from-design
concluded that the clock had to have a maker and the maker was God. It is interesting to note that Paley
is still read in college courses that address the philosophy of religion and the idea of a design argument
for the creation of the universe.
Charles Lyell, (1797 –1875) was a British lawyer, the foremost geologist of his day and a close friend of
Charles Darwin. His seminal work, Principles of Geology (published 1830-1833 in three volumes),
embraced the idea of Uniformitarianism or the idea that the earth was shaped by processes that are still
in operation today. Lyell’s work posited (suggested or proposed) that the earth was much older than the
Biblical record suggested. By examining natural and empirical (verified by observation) explanations for
floods, mountain building and erosion, Lyell seemed to have removed the “miraculous-hand-of-God” as
an explanation for the physical development of the earth which, in turn, cast doubt on the Biblical story
of Creation. Again there sprang forth the suggestion that human moral nature could be explained without
reference to God. And the suggestion grew stronger as the academic disciplines of anthropology (the
study of human races and their origins), sociology and psychology progressed into the twentieth century.
The Moral Attack
Other intellectuals questioned Christian morality. Their criticism focused on the God of the Old
Testament and his cruelty and unpredictability which did NOT sit well with many nineteenth century
liberals. In spite of the hypocrisy of Spencer’s Social Darwinism (might makes right), they questioned a
God who would order genocide or animal sacrifice. In the New Testament, they questioned the goodness
of a God who would beget the only perfect human being to ever walk the earth and then demand
satisfaction for human sinfulness by his Son’s horrible, sacrificial death on the cross. Many clergymen
even began to wonder if they could support such “immoral” doctrines.
Coming for a non-Christian viewpoint, there were philosophers and writers like the German professor
and philologist (study of language) Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), whom we will meet later in this
chapter. Nietzsche painted Christianity as a religion that glorified weakness rather than the
strength that “real” life demanded. He spurned Christianity for requiring useless sacrifices of the flesh
and spirit rather than heroic living and daring accomplishments. His most famous dictum (noteworthy
statement or saying) was that “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him…” and he once
observed, “War and courage have accomplished more great things than love of neighbor.”
These kinds of negative thoughts about Christianity created a climate in which Christianity lost much of
its intellectual respectability (prestige or honor). Fewer educated people joined the clergy and many people
found that they could live their lives without reference to Christianity or God. This secularization of
everyday life was just as harmful to the faith of many Christians as direct attacks. Moreover this loss of
faith in Christianity was especially acute (severe) in the loneliness and poverty found in many growing
industrial cities whose social problems were multiplying faster than either churches or the states seemed
able to deal with in any effective manner. Thus, in the dynamic growth of the Second Industrial
Revolution, entire generations of urban poor grew up with little or no experience either of the church as
an institution or of Christianity as a religious foundation in their lives.
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Conflict between Church and State
The secularists in the governments of many nations clashed with both Catholic and Protestant churches.
Liberals especially disliked the dogma (beliefs) and the political privileges of established churches.
National states were often suspicious of the Roman Catholic Church’s activities and influence in so many
areas of the state, especially in education. So it is not surprising that the primary battleground between
church and state in the late nineteenth century was in education. Up to 1850, most education in Europe
had taken place in church run schools. Churches themselves were afraid that if they lost their hold on
education, state run and state financed schools would produce future citizens without any reference to
religious teachings. From 1870 through the turn of the century, the major countries debated what their
role (and the churches’ role) in education ought to be.
Great Britain
In Gladstone’s first ministry (1868-1874), The Education Act of 1870 (which, as we saw in Chapter 22, was
the first time in British history that the government took responsibility for establishing and running elementary
schools), provided for state-supported education (schools run by elected school boards) which was a
significant change from the older system in which the government had given small grants to religious
schools. The new schools were to be built in areas where church run schools did not exist or did not do an
adequate job, especially in factory communities. Moreover there was rivalry not only between the
Anglican Church and the government but also between the Anglican Church and Nonconformist
(Protestant churches that were not Anglican) churches. Both Anglicans and Nonconformists, however,
opposed improvement in education because of the increased costs that would be incurred (which the
government would not pay for). In The Education Act of 1902, the British government provided state
support for both religious and public (non-religious) schools while imposing the same educational
standards on each.
France
The competition in Great Britain was mild compared to that in France where the conservative French
Catholic Church and the Third French Republic loathed (despised, hated) each other. France had a dual
system of public and religious schools and under the Falloux Law of 1850 the local priest provided
religious education in public schools. Between 1878 and 1886, Jules Ferry (1832-1893; the French Prime
Minister who advocated an overseas expansion of French colonies) sponsored a series of laws that replaced
religious instruction in public schools with civic training (i.e., morals and ethics). These laws also
expanded the number of public schools and French Catholic clergy were forbidden to teach in them.
After the Dreyfus Affair, the French Catholic Church again paid a price for its rigid reactionary policies
as the radical government of Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau suppressed the religious orders. In 1905, the
Napoleonic Concordat of 1802 was terminated (ended), and church and state were legally separated.
Germany and the Kulturkampf
But nowhere was the clash between church and state more violent than in the German Empire. When
Germany was unified in 1871, the German Catholic Church wanted the freedom guaranteed to it in the
constitution. At first, Bismarck left the matter to the federal states, but he soon felt that the Roman
Catholic Church and the Catholic Center Party threatened the unity of the German Empire. So he
removed the clergy from overseeing local education in Prussia and put education under state direction but
this was only the beginning of his attack on the Catholic Church.
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In the May Laws of 1873, which only applied to Prussia, Bismarck required that priests be educated
in German schools and universities - and pass state examinations. The legislation allowed the state to
veto the appointment of priests of which it disapproved and abolished the disciplinary authority of the
Catholic Church in Prussia (including the pope’s) - and transferred it to the state. When many clergy
refused to obey these laws, Bismarck arrested them - and expelled all the Catholic bishops from Prussia.
Bismarck’s policies were called Kulturkampf (culture-struggle) and even went so far as to put marriages
under state control. But the resentment of the Catholic population was so strong that Kulturkampf was
one of Bismarck’s few mistakes and probably his greatest blunder. By the end of the 1870s, Bismarck
had retreated from Kulturkampf.
Areas of Religious Revival
The Catholic resistance to Kulturkampf clearly demonstrated the lively and animated nature of
Christianity during the intellectual attacks of the nineteenth century. In Great Britain, both the Anglican
Church and the Nonconformist churches expanded and raised vast sums of money for new churches and
schools. In Ireland, the 1870s witnessed a profound Catholic devotional revival. In France, after its defeat
by Germany in 1871, priests organized grass roots devotions for thousands of penitents (people who said
they were sorry for their sins) who believed that France had lost the Franco-Prussian War as punishment for
its sins; and they organized pilgrimages to shrines like Our Lady of Lourdes. Perhaps most importantly,
all Christian denominations paid more attention to the urban poor. Nevertheless, all these Christian
efforts to galvanize Christianity and bring back the “lost souls” produced marginal results because
Christian churches were not able to match the efforts of their enemies.
The Roman Catholic Church and the Modern World
One of the leading Christian revivals in the nineteenth century was led by the popes of the Roman
Catholic Church. Pope Pius IX had been elected in 1846 by cardinals sympathetic to the political
liberalization that was growing across Europe and Pius himself began his pontificate with dreams of
giving a constitution to the secular part of the Papal States. But as we saw in 1848-1849, after his interior
minister had been assassinated, the ill-fated Roman Republic proclaimed and he had been forced to flee
to Naples, Pius became skeptical of liberalism - and embittered by the processes of Italian unification. In
1864, he attacked liberalism in his Syllabus of Errors, which made the Roman Catholic Church a
determined opponent of contemporary science, philosophy and politics.
In 1869, Pius IX summoned the First Vatican Council which (with much political manipulation from Pius
himself) decreed the dogma of Papal Infallibility which stated that, when the pope spoke officially about
a teaching of the church, he could not be wrong. This dogma became binding on all Catholics. No pope
had ever made such an assertion and it caused much consternation with a few groups like the Old
Catholics who left the obedience (seceded) of the Roman See. The First Vatican Council ended in 1870,
when Italian troops (after the Franco-Prussian War broke out) occupied Rome and left the papacy only
Vatican City. Pius IX and his immediate successors refused to have any dialogue with Italian government
until 1929, when Pius XI signed a concordat or agreement (The Lateran Treaty) with the government of
Benito Mussolini. Nevertheless, the papacy clung to its claims of spiritual authority as a substitute for its
lost political and temporal authority.
Pius IX died in 1878 and was succeeded by Leo XIII who was sixty-eight and reigned for twenty five
years. Leo sought to make accommodations with the modern age and addressed the great social questions
of the time. He was steeped in the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas who was Leo’s inspiration to
reconcile the claims of faith and reason. Leo’s most important pronouncement was Rerum Novarum in
1891, in which he defended private property, religious education and religious control of marriage laws.
He also condemned socialism and Marxism but made it crystal clear that employers should treat their
employees justly, pay fair wages and allow the organization of trade unions.
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Leo supported laws to protect workers and urged that modern society be organized in corporate groups
that would include people from various classes who would cooperate according to Christian principles. In
particular, he denied the socialist contention that class conflict is a natural state of affairs but (in many
ways sadly) his Corporate Society, which was based on a medieval social viewpoint, was not able to
compete intellectually with either socialism or capitalism. Nevertheless, Catholic political parties in
democratic nations embraced Leo’s social pronouncements.
Leo’s successor, Pius X (r. 1903-1914), took a much different tack (attitude or take) on world affairs and
again, like Pius IX, opposed modern thought and sought to restore traditional devotional practices and
orthodox [i.e., traditional] theology. Between 1903 and 1907, he condemned Catholic Modernism, a
movement of forward thinking biblical criticism in the Catholic Church and in 1910, he required all
priests to take an anti-Modernist oath. Pius X was a pastoral pope (and unlike most of his predecessors, he
had been a parish priest for many years) but renewed the struggle between Catholicism and the secularism
and the modern world.
Islam and Europe
European intellectual contempt (a feeling that someone or something is not worthy of any respect or approval)
for Islam was no more apparent than in the hypocrisy in which Islam was discussed and studied without
any reference to the supernatural but rather as a strictly historical phenomenon. The Quran (Koran)
received the same kind of critical historical analysis as did the Bible and Islam was seen merely as the
secular product of the cultures that produced it.
Joseph Ernest Renan (1823 –1892) was a French expert of Middle Eastern ancient languages and
civilizations, who wrote that Islam, like Judaism, was a manifestation (outgrowth) of the ancient Semitic
mentality, which of itself had given birth to the idea of monotheism (remember that the Egyptians like
Amon Hotep IV were also Semites). Thus, Renan and other European thinkers such as the sociologist Max
Weber (whom we shall soon meet) cavalierly saw in Islam a religion incapable of developing science or
new ideas of thought. Weber, an economist and economic historian, also believed that Islam was a closed
society and therefore incapable of developing a capitalist economy. But these views were criticized in a
French journal by an Egyptian intellectual, Jamal al-din Al-Afghani (1839-1897), who argued that over
time Islam, which had arisen six hundred years after the birth of Christianity, would eventually produce
thought processes and cultural developments similar to modern Europe. Al-Afghani was one of the few
Islamic writers to contest European contempt for Islam.
Using comparative philology (language comparison), late nineteenth century European scholars discovered
the Indo-European family of languages of which there are four main branches: Indian (Sanskrit), Persian,
Celtic and Germanic. The India branch referred to itself as Aryan or wheat-skinned people to distinguish
themselves from the darker skinned inhabitants whom they displaced (Dravidians). Many European
authors, who championed white racial superiority, felt a kinship with the Aryans whose civilization they
admired; and so Western notions of an "Aryan Race" rose to prominence in late nineteenth century. This
European racism, based on technological superiority (which we shall meet in the next chapter) denigrated
nonwhite (non-European) peoples and was directed at the Islamic world as well.
Christian missionaries often reinforced these anti-Islamic attitudes when they blamed Islam for Arab
economic backwardness, the mistreatment of women, and condoning slavery which often caused disputes
with Islamic authorities. Since it was a capital offense for Muslims to leave their religion, few converts
were made. So Christian missionaries built orphanages, schools and hospitals which converted only
marginal numbers of Muslims but did educate young Muslims in Western thought, languages and culture.
As time went by, many missionaries became sympathetic to Arab political aspirations.
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The Islamic world was divided over the benefits or harm of Western European thought and technology.
The Salafi, a Sunni group, believed that there was no basic contradiction between science and Islam.
Their name is derived from Salaf (predecessors or ancestors), or the first generations of the Muslims,
whom they considered the best examples of Islamic practice. They believed that Muhammad had wisely
and properly founded Islam to address the societal issues of his day and that a reformed Islamic faith
could do the same. They believed NOT in imitating the West but modernizing on the basis of a restored
Islamic faith. The Salafi believed that the decline of the Ottoman Empire was a result of its failure to
restore this pure faith. Ironically, their outlook which sought to reconcile Islam with the modern world
would lead many Muslims in the twentieth century to oppose all Westernization.
As we witnessed in Chapter twenty-two, Ottoman reformers in the mid-nineteenth century ushered in the
Age of Tanzimat (reform) and passed a series of laws guaranteeing public trials, rights of privacy and
equality before the law for all citizens and the Hati-i- Hümayun spelled out the rights of non-Muslims
giving them equal obligation for military service and equal opportunity for government employment and
entrance to state schools. Tanzimat reforms also gave women greater access to education and the
government more power over the Ulama. Many Ottomans questioned the wisdom of Tanzimat and
warned that replacing long-standing Islamic institutions with European ones would lead to disaster.
Many Islamic groups outright rejected Western thought and technology. The Mahdist movement in the
Sudan, the Sanussiya in Libya and the Wahhabi movement in Saudi Arabia all provided religious based
opposition to any Westernization. The Wahhabi in particular were bitterly critical of the Ottoman
government and wanted their independence.
Late Nineteenth-Century European Culture
The Revolution in Physics
By the 1870s, the scientific community was dissatisfied with the excessive realism of mid-century
science which was content with its mechanistic models, solid atoms and absolute time. In 1883, Ernst
Mach (1838-1916) published The Science of Mechanics, in which he urged scientists to consider their
concepts to be descriptive NOT of the physical world BUT of the sensations the scientist experiences. In
other words, scientists could only describe sensations, not the physical world that underlay those
sensations. Along the same lines, the French scientist and mathematician, Henri Poincaré (1854-1912),
urged that scientific theories be regarded as hypothetical constructs (theoretical inventions/fabrications) of
the human mind rather than true descriptions of nature. Poincaré believed that logic was not a way to
invent but a way to structure ideas and that logic limits ideas.
In 1911, the German, Hans Vaihinger (1852-1933), published The Philosophy of “As If” in which he
suggested that concepts of science should be considered “as if” descriptions of the physical world and
that, while sensations and feelings are real, the rest of human knowledge (which he called fictions) can only
be justified pragmatically. By World War I, few scientists believed that they could portray “truth” about
physical reality; rather they saw themselves as recording the observations of instruments and offering
useful hypothetical models of nature.
X Rays and Radiation
Parallel to the Second Industrial Revolution and the philosophical challenges produced by nineteenth
century science, laboratory discoveries also helped to shape European culture especially by putting to an
end the idea that all that could be known about physics had already been discovered. In December 1895,
a German physicist, Wilhelm Roentgen (1845-1923), published a paper on his discovery of X Rays,
powerful invisible rays that can pass through various objects and that make it possible to see inside things
(such as the human body). Roentgen’s work quickly led to the exploration of many other uses of
radioactivity.
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In 1896, a French physicist, Antoine Henri Becquerel (1852-1908), discovered that uranium emitted a
similar form of energy. The next year, the British physicist, J. J. Thomson (1856-1940) at Cambridge
University formulated theories which led to the identification and discovery of the electron. An entire
new dimension, the world of the sub-atomic, had been opened up for human exploration.
In 1902, the New Zealand-born physicist and chemist, Ernest Rutherford (1801-1897) explained the
cause of radiation through the disintegration of the atoms in radioactive materials. In his early work, he
discovered the concept of radioactive half-life and proved that radioactivity involved the transmutation of
one chemical element to another.
In 1903, the husband-wife team of Pierre and Marie Curie, two of the most important scientists in the
development of physics and chemistry, received the Nobel Prize in Physics "in recognition of the
extraordinary services they have rendered … on the radiation phenomena.” They also are credited with
coining the expression Radioactivity. After the death of her husband in 1906, Marie was credited with
the discovery of Radium for which she was awarded a second Nobel Prize in 1911 for Chemistry.
Quantum Energy, Relativity and Uncertainty
The discovery of radioactivity and discontent with existing mechanical models led to revolutionary
theories in physics. In 1900, Max Planck (1858-1947) pioneered the Quantum Theory of Energy which
stated that energy is a series of three discrete (separate or unconnected) quantities (or packets)
rather than a continuous stream. Planck’s Quantum Theory revolutionized the understanding of atomic
and subatomic processes, just as Albert Einstein would build on his work and revolutionize human
understanding of space and time.
In 1905, it was the German born theoretical physicist, Albert Einstein (1879-1955), who published three
momentous (unparalleled; unequaled) papers on the Theory of Relativity which contended that time and
space exist not separately but as a combined continuum; that is that that there is no single spatial or
chronological framework in the universe – space and time are relative and depend on the observer as
well as what or who is being observed. The bottom line was that together, Planck and Einstein
established the fundamental theories of 20th-century physics.
In 1927, Werner Heisenberg (1901-1976) would postulate the Uncertainty Theory which described the
variables of behavior in subatomic particles. It was a complex theory about the tiniest parts of the atom
but it seemed to call into question the unchanging order of the physical universe. And as we will see in
chapter twenty six, Heisenberg’s theory called into question established notions of truth and seemed to
violate the fundamental law of cause and effect.
The result of the success of this new breed of scientist was that science became wildly popular in its
many applied fields of chemistry, physics and industrial production. Human life from health services to
improved food supplies was vastly improved by the technological changes they produced. Science
through research, medicine and technological change began to profoundly impact the life and the
intellectual outlook of the ordinary person more than ever before in history.
Literature: Realism and Naturalism
Between 1850 and 1914, the moral absolutes (certainties) of middle-class Europeans changed just as
dramatically as their concepts about science and the universe. The Realist Movement stressed the
depiction of contemporary life and society as it existed and portrayed the hypocrisy, brutality and
dullness that lay beneath bourgeois (the wealthier of the middle-class) life.
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The Naturalist Movement used detailed realism to suggest that social conditions, heredity, and
environment had an inescapable force in shaping human character. Both realist and naturalist writers
brought scientific objectivity and observation to their literature. By using the cult of science, these writers
confronted their readers with the harsh realities of life. Realists rejected any romantic idealization of
nature, the poor, love or polite society as they portrayed the dark side of life - just because it was there.
But the emerging Realists of the early to mid-nineteenth century were not yet that jaded or dark. They
included Charles Dickens (1812-1870), an English writer and social critic; regarded as the greatest of the
Victorian writers. He was an early realist who portrayed the cruelty of industrial life and a society based
on profit first, people second. His 1843 novella, A Christmas Carol, which tells about a sadistic miser’s
transformation from selfish to generous, is one of the most moving and influential stories ever written,
and it remains popular to our day inspiring adaptations in every artistic genre.
Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) was a French novelist and playwright of the early realist school. His most
famous work was a collection of short stories and novels entitled La Comédie Humaine, which presents
a panorama of French life in the years after the fall of Napoleon Bonaparte. Balzac’s stories showed
French life in such accurate detail with such multifaceted (many sided) and amoral characters that he is
regarded – even more than Dickens – as one of the leading founders of European Realism.
Mary Ann Evans (1819–1880), known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist and poet and one of the leading writers of Victorian England. She was famous for the detailed descriptions of her
characters and she wrote hauntingly about social outsiders and small-town persecution. One of her best
works was the 1861 novel, Silas Marner, which tells the story of a simple weaver betrayed by a friend
and disgraced by his village but who finds a lost child and in raising her finds contentment.
Although they portrayed the ugly and difficult side of life, Dickens, Balzac and Eliot always looked
towards a better society - through the lens of Christian or humane values. In contrast, the later realists
concentrated on the dreary and degrading aspects of life without the hope implicit in the early realists or
the certainty that a better life was possible.
In Darwinian fashion, the later realists portrayed human beings as subject to their passions, driven by
materialism and creatures of their environment, just like any other animals. And sadly most of the later
realists saw society itself as a (self) perpetuating evil.
Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880) was a “dark” realist and considered one of the greatest novelists of
Western literature. His own life was filled with illicit affairs and foreign adventures in Greece, Egypt and
the Middle East. His greatest work was Madame Bovary (1857) which tells the story of the dreary world
of provincial life and a woman’s hapless (unlucky, ill-starred) search for love in and outside of marriage.
Madame Bovary was a story devoid of (lacking) heroism, purpose or even civility (basic manners). It was
first published in serial form (in segments) and both Flaubert and the publisher were taken to court on the
charge of immorality - but were acquitted.
Nevertheless, it was Émile Édouard Zola (1840-1902), a naturalist writer and the author of the open letter,
J'accuse, which defended the falsely accused Alfred Dreyfus [chapter 22]), who turned realism into a
movement. Zola found his inspiration in an Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine by the
French physiologist Claude Bernard (1813-1878), who was the first scientist to suggest the use of blind
experiments. From Bernard’s work, Zola argued that he could write an experimental novel in which
he would observe and report on the characters of his stories and their actions in the same manner
as a scientist might observe and report on a laboratory experiment. He once declared, “I have simply
done on living bodies the work of analysis which surgeons perform on corpses.”
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Zola believed that physical and psychological determinism [that for everything that happens there are
conditions such that, given those conditions, nothing else could happen] ruled human lives in same way it did
the physical world. In many of his novels, he portrays people as beasts who act on instinct just like an
"unthinking machine." Between 1871 and 1893, Zola focused on the ugly aspects of life publishing
twenty novels touching on subjects normally avoided by most authors: alcoholism, prostitution, adultery
and labor unrest. His works avoided any hope of a happier life, Christian virtues or loving romance.
In his novel, Thérèse Raquin, Zola tells the story of a young woman, Thérèse, who was unhappily
married to her sickly first cousin Camille. When the opportunity arises, Thérèse enters into a sordid
affair with one of Camille's friends, Laurent. The lovers plot to kill Camille and succeed in drowning
him. Although no one suspects the lovers, Thérèse is tormented by nightmares but eventually marries
Laurent. Theirs is an unhappy marriage and they plot to kill each other but cannot go through with it.
Finally, they break down and in tears and reflect on their miserable lives - and then commit mutual
suicide by taking poison. Although his subject matter was criticized by many writers and moralists, Zola
gained a worldwide following and was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1901 and 1902.
Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906) was a Norwegian playwright whose realism was used to portray domestic
(family) life. Ibsen wanted to strip away the illusory mask of middle-class morality. His most famous play
was A Doll’s House (1879). Its chief character, Nora, has a narrow-minded husband, Torvald, who
cannot stand any independence of character on her part. The play is significant because it is an attack on
nineteenth century pro-male marriage norms as Nora leaves her husband and children because she feels
that she has been treated like a doll for all her married life and her first duty ought to be to herself.
In Ghosts (1881), a respectable woman, Helene, must deal with a son’s suffering from syphilis inherited
from her husband who was a philanderer. At the end, the audience is left in suspense when she tries to
make up her mind whether to euthanize [mercy kill] her son - as he wished - or not. In The Master
Builder, (1892), an aging architect kills himself while trying to impress a young woman. Ibsen’s works
were highly controversial in his day. He dared to attack sentimentality, the ideal of the female “angel of
the house” and the cloak of respectability so precious (dear) to the middle class, especially the
Bourgeoisie or upper middle class.
One of Ibsen’s greatest supporters was the Irish playwright, short story writer, and social activist of the
naturalist school, George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), who lived most of his life in England where he was
a Fabian Socialist and cofounder of the London School of Economics which, despite its name,
conducted teaching and research across a range of social sciences, as well as in mathematics and
statistics. Shaw defended Ibsen’s work and made his own contributions against romanticism and false
(middle-class) respectability. In Mrs. Warren’s Profession (1893), he dealt with prostitution and the
hypocrisy that treated women as second class citizens. Shaw revealed his attack on social hypocrisy of a
male dominated society when said that he wrote the play "to draw attention to the truth that prostitution
is caused, not by female depravity and male licentiousness, but simply by underpaying, undervaluing,
and overworking women so shamefully that the poorest of them are forced to resort to prostitution to
keep body and soul together.”
In Arms and the Man (1894; with the title taken from the first words of the Roman poet Vergil’s Aeneid) and
Man and Superman (1903), Shaw heaped scorn on the romantic ideals of love and war; and in
Androcles and the Lion (1912), he pilloried (exposing someone or something to public scorn – remember
Titus Oats who was pilloried for his lies in the Popish Plot) Christianity. Androcles and the Lion is a short
play about a man Androcles – thought to be Christian – who was saved from death in the Roman arena
because of his kindness to a lion many years before but in the preface to the play (which has been
subsequently edited out) Shaw stated that the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth were lost with his crucifixion,
and that the Christian religion that grew up was based instead around the teachings and philosophies of
Paul of Tarsus or Barabbas (who was supposed to be crucified instead of Jesus).
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Realist writers believed that it was their duty to portray reality and the commonplace just as it was in
“real life” and so they helped change the moral perception (viewpoint) of the good life. They refused to
let public opinion dictate (tell them) what they should write about or how they should treat their
subjects. By presenting themes avoided by the Romantics and earlier authors, they sought to remove the
veneer (covering) of hypocrisy that had forbidden such themes as unmentionable subjects. They sought to
destroy illusions and force the public to face reality. And since few of the Realist writers proposed
solutions, they often left their readers unable to sustain old values and uncertain where to find new ones.
Modernism in Literature
In the 1870s, parallel to Realism and Naturalism, a new multifaceted movement that touched all the arts
began to grow called Modernism. Like Realism, modernism was critical of middle-class society and
morality but Modernism was not as deeply concerned with social issues. What inspired the
modernists was a concern for the aesthetic or the beautiful. Across the spectrum of the arts,
modernists tried to break the forms they had received and create new ones. As far as many people were
concerned, what they created seemed formless.
The English classicist, Renaissance scholar, essayist and art critic Walter Horatio Pater (1839-1903) set
the tone for the movement when, in his 1877 An Essay on 'The School of Giorgione', he wrote his often
quoted maxim (general truth) “All art constantly aspires to the condition of music.” What Pater meant
was that the arts attempt to unify subject matter and form (the way things are done) but music is the only
art form in which subject and performance are in any way successfully combined.
The modernists like Walter Pater believed that our lives are made up of scientific processes and elemental
forces that are in constant motion - sometimes in rhythm (harmony) and sometimes not. Our human
minds are filled with perceptions, feelings, thoughts and memories which are unstable and interpreted by
our own individual personalities. Thus since everything is constantly changing, we must learn to
discriminate both subject matter and form through precise and enthusiastic observation so that we might
get the most out of our lives. Only then will we be moved into modern thought processes.
Among the chief proponents of modernism in England were the members of the Bloomsbury Group
including the authors Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) and her husband Leonard Woolf (1880-1969); the
artists Vanessa Bell (1879-1961) and Duncan Grant (1885-1978); the historian and literary critic Lytton
Strachey (1880-1932); and the economist John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946). Duncan Grant and Vanessa
Bell especially looked to modern artists on the continent for their inspiration. John Maynard Keynes was
the father of Keynesian economics which suggested that in the short run, especially during recessions,
economic output is strongly influenced by total spending in the economy (or Aggregate Demand). As we
will see, Keynes views became very popular during the Great Depression of the 1930s and would
challenge traditional capitalist economics.
These influential intellectuals of the Bloomsbury Group had a profound influence on literature,
aesthetics, sociology and economics as well as their modern attitudes towards feminism, pacifism
(opposition to war), and rejection of repressive sexual morality – and the link between them was the
strong belief in the importance of the arts.
In Eminent Victorians (1918), Strachey used a series of biographical sketches on four Victorian
notables: Cardinal Manning (The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster), Florence Nightingale
(heroine of nursing and the Crimean War) Thomas Arnold (an eminent Anglican educator and historian), and
Charles Gordon (an army officer in the Crimean War and who later won a great victory at Khartoum) to heap
contempt upon and show the real nature of four “supposed” Victorian heroes. A member of the British
Labour Party candidly remarked, "Lytton Strachey's elegant, energetic character assassinations
destroyed forever the pretensions of the Victorian age to moral supremacy."
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No one charted this movement from the romantic to the modern better than Virginia Woolf. Her novels
such as Mrs. Dalloway (1925) and To the Lighthouse (1927) portrayed individuals seeking to make their
way in a world with most of the nineteenth-century social and moral absolutes (certainties) removed.
Woolf also challenged many of the notions of feminist thought by asking whether women writers should
bring to their work any separate qualities they possessed as women, and concluding that men and women
writers should strive to share each other’s sensibilities.
On the continent, one of the best known modernists was Marcel Proust (1871-1922). In his seven-volume
novel In Search of Time Past (published between 1913 and 1927), he adopted a stream-of-consciousness
format that allowed him to explore his memories. He would concentrate on a single experience or object
and then allow his mind to wander through all the thoughts and memories it evoked (called up).
In Germany the novelist, Thomas Mann (1875-1955), explored the social experiences of the middle class.
In The Magic Mountain (1912), he tells the story of an engineering student, Hans Castorp, who plans to
visit his cousin who is stricken with tuberculosis. But his departure is delayed and Hans is symbolically
transported from his mundane life into what he calls "the flatlands" - or the introspective little world of
his cousin’s sanatorium (hospital) high in the Alps. Hans comes down with mild tuberculosis and stayed
on the magic mountain for seven years, interacting with a variety of people and learning about art,
culture, politics, human frailty and love. Finally he leaves and volunteers for the military, and his
possible, (or more likely probable); demise upon the battlefield is portended (predicted).
James Joyce (1882-1941) - considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist movement
- was born in Ireland but spent most of his time on the continent. His most famous work was Ulysses
(1922), in which the episodes of Homer's Odyssey are paralleled in an array of contrasting literary styles,
perhaps most prominent among these the stream of consciousness. The novel takes place on a single day
in 1904 Dublin and explores the squalor and monotony of life in a Dublin slum with characters
paralleling Odysseus (Ulysses), Penelope (his wife) and Telemachus (his son).
Modernism in literature arose before World War I and was nourished by the almost unbelievable
destruction and suffering of the conflict. And so it flourished after the after the terrible violence war with
Post-War Pessimism and authors like Ernest Hemingway (A Farewell to Arms), F. Scott Fitzgerald
(Tender is the Night) and Erich Maria Remarque (All Quiet on the Western Front).
The Coming of Modern Art
The development of the camera (or camera obscura) dates to the fifth-century B.C. in China when the
Chinese philosopher Mo Ti noted that a pinhole can form an inverted and focused image, when light
passes through the hole and into a dark area. Aristotle and Roger Bacon also mentioned this phenomenon
but it was the Italian Giambattista della Porta who described the camera obscura in detail in his 1558
work Magia Naturalis, and specifically suggested that an artist could project images onto paper, and
trace the outlines. Johannes Kepler first coined the term camera obscura (Latin for dark room) in 1604
and he also built a camera obscura with a tent. In 1694, the English scientist Robert Hooke presented a
paper to the Royal Society, in which he described a portable camera obscura.
The Industrial revolution and the application of chemistry improved camera technology and the first
permanent photograph of a camera image was made in 1826 by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce using a
sliding wooden box camera. By the late nineteenth century primitive cameras – as we understand them –
were creating another revolution. No longer did a painter face the challenge of reproducing nature;
all the painter had to do was take a picture. This revolution created a new series of departures that
transformed painting and later sculpture into a modernist viewpoint which has continued to our day.
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Impressionism
The advent of modern art came about mostly in Paris and had two major characteristics. First, instead of
portraying religious, mythological and historical themes, painters began to depict modern life focusing on
social life and leisure activities of the urban middle and lower classes. Second, many of these artists – in
competition with the camera and fascinated with shading, light, color and the “feeling” conveyed by
people and nature – focused on experience.
No longer did the artist try to portray nature or people in a Platonic, idealistic or realistic way but the
artists of Impressionism used relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, with emphasis on accurate
depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the passage of time), everyday subjects,
movement as a crucial element of human perception and experience, and subjects portrayed from unusual
visual angles.
French Impressionists recorded ordinary people at dance halls, cafes, beach parties, working in the fields
or picnicking in the country – many of the city scenes showing the wide boulevards and parks of the
reconstructed Paris of Napoleon III. Please be able to recognize Camille Monet on a Garden Bench
(1873) The Houses of Parliament (1904) by Claude Monet (1840-1926); The Harvest (1882) by Camille
Pissarro (1830-1903); Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette (1876) by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1818);
and The Dance Class (1876) by Edgar Degas (1834-1917).
Our text illustrates A Bar at the Folies-Bergère (1882) by Édouard Manet (1837-1883) which depicts a
scene in the Folies-Bergère in Paris and shows a young barmaid standing behind a table, holding oranges
and liquor bottles in front of a large mirror that reflects what she sees. The woman at the bar was a real
person, Suzon, who worked at the Folies-Bergère (a café and concert hall) in the early 1880s. Paris had
many such café-concert halls but the Folies-Bergère was the largest and most expensive.
Manet painted the picture in his studio. Moreover, Suzon’s distant and melancholy (sad) expression –
perhaps indicates the boredom at the drudgery of her job and her life – and might also reflect the sad fact
that many barmaids and shop girls of the time had to supplement their pitifully small wages through
prostitution and therefore – like the liquor and oranges on the table – she was just another object of
commerce to be bought and sold. This idea is confirmed by one art historian, who points out that Manet
habitually included oranges in his paintings to identify women as prostitutes. This was Manet’s last major
painting and it is interesting to note that he took great pains to depict the interior light of the hall which
appears to be illuminated by newly-invented light bulbs which, along with other details show Manet’s
devotion to realism.
Post-Impressionism
By the 1880s, the impressionists had made an enormous impact of modern art and they were followed by
a group of younger artists who drew upon impressionist techniques but – at the same time – attempted to
relate to earlier artistic traditions. Form and structure rather than the attempt to catch the impression of
the moment played more of a role in Post-Impressionist art. The Post Impressionists were not a new
school of art but were a continuation of Impressionism rather than a reaction to it.
In his short life, Georges Seurat (1859-1891) studied contemporary scientific works about light, color and
vision, which he used to create the painting technique of Pointillism. Pointillism is a technique of
painting in which small, distinct dots of pure color are applied in patterns to form an image; up close the
individual dots can be distinguished but at a distance the eye mixes them into an image. Using the
pointillist technique in the summer of 1884, Seurat began work on A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of
La Grande Jatte, which was ten feet wide and took him two years to complete and shows members of
each of the social classes participating in various park activities.
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And like the modernists in literature and the Impressionists, Seurat did not shy away from social
commentary and this painting contains subtle social observations. La Grand Jatte was an island in the
Seine beyond central Paris where Parisians would gather on Sundays. The shadows in the foreground
seem to suggest that all is not sunny (well) for the largely middle class afternoon crowd. The boatman
smoking a pipe suggests the discontent of the working class. And in the painting's center, stands a little
girl dressed in white (and not in a shadow), who – unlike anyone else in the painting - stares directly at the
viewer of the painting; which has been interpreted that she is questioning the viewer and asking, "what
will become of these people, and their classes?"
Paul Cézanne (1839-1906) avoided pointillism and worked to bring back form and solidity into his
paintings which were mostly still lifes, people living their lives, portraits and landscapes. His statement,
"I want to make of impressionism something solid and lasting like the art in the museums," reflected
his desire to observe of nature and classical composition as in The Bay of Marseilles, view from
L'Estaque.
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) produced paintings reflecting cultures of the South Pacific such as in I Raro te
Oviri (1891); and - under the influence of folk art and Japanese prints – he evolved towards Cloisonnism
– a method of painting with flat areas of color and bold outlines such as in The Yellow Christ (1889).
Cubism
Cubism was the most important visual art form of the modernist genre (classification) and appeared
in the early twentieth century. Since the Renaissance and the rebirth of seeking the Platonic ideal,
Western artists sought to reproduce the appearance of the real world (reality). Now the camera could do
that more easily and often more accurately. Thus, since “reality” could be created faster and more
accurately than in the past, art had to “reinvent” itself. That was the goal of the Impressionists and PostImpressionists but two men, the Cubists Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) and Georges Braque (1882-1963),
rejected the idea of painting as creating a window to the real world and began to use art as an end
in itself; to use art as a means to create reality.
Impressionist painting began to deal with concepts and ideas like feelings; mood, emotion but Picasso
and Braque saw art with no purpose beyond itself. Braque once said: The painter thinks in forms and
colors. The aim is not to reconstitute an anecdotal fact but to constitute a pictorial fact…One does not
imitate appearance; the appearance is the result. Echoing preclassical (Egyptian) and primitive
(Paleolithic) two dimensional (flat) art, they attempted to include on a single surface as many different
perspectives, angles or views of an object as possible.
The key descriptive word to describe the revolutionary effect of Cubism is ABSTRACT. A French
Art Historian, Jean Metzinger, observed that in Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and
reassembled in an abstracted form—instead of depicting objects from one viewpoint, the artist depicts
the subject from a multitude of viewpoints to represent the subject in a greater context. Braque’s still
life, Violin and Palette (1909), demonstrates this abstraction. Various shapes seem to flow into other
shapes. Portions of the violin and the palette are recognizable, but as shapes, not as objects in and of
themselves. The violin appears at one moment from many different perspectives, but the violin has
interest only in its relationship to the other shapes of color in the painting. The painting exists as its own
world and as the construction (product) of the artist.
The most extreme forms of Cubism resulted in complete abstraction sometimes called Orphic Cubism.
A good example of complete abstraction which grew out of Cubism was the 1912 painting Simultaneous
Windows on the City by Robert Delaunay (1885-1941) in which strong colors are contrasted with
geometric shapes. Delaunay’s key influence was his bold use of color and his love of experimentation in
both depth and tone.
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In assessing Cubism and its offshoots, one art historian observed that Cubism demonstrates that a true
picture will constitute an individual object, which will possess an existence of its own apart from the
subject that has inspired it. It is important to understand that Cubist painters sought to redirect the
artistic portrayal of reality in the same manner that modernists in literature had reshaped the
portrayal of social and moral experience and the new physics had re-conceptualized nature itself.
Friedrich Nietzsche: The Revolt against Reason
During the second half of the nineteenth century, philosophers began to question the adequacy of rational
thinking to make sense of the human or existential predicament (i.e., what is the meaning of life?). No one
more typifies this attitude more than Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900) whom we have already
met when he characterized the Christian Religion as useless because it praised weakness rather than the
daring and heroic living which life required. Nietzsche was born in Saxony to a Lutheran pastor who died
when Nietzsche was five. Sent to private school, the young Nietzsche showed talent in music and
languages, he became thoroughly grounded in Hebrew, Greek, Latin and French in addition to his native
German. In 1864, he began the study of theology at the University of Bonn but under the influence of
David Strauss’ The Life of Jesus, Nietzsche lost his faith in Christianity (to the horror of his family). He
wrote to his sister, a devout Christian: … the ways of men part: if you wish to strive for peace of soul
and pleasure, then believe; if you wish to be a devotee of truth, then inquire.
Nietzsche rebelled against the values of his age and attacked Christianity, democracy, nationalism,
rationality, science and the notion of progress. He sought less to change values than to examine their
sources in the human character. He not only wanted to strip away the veneer (or thin masks) of the
“respectable” life, but also to explore how humans created such shallow lives (i.e., made such masks). His
books remained unpopular until almost the end in his life when his brilliance deteriorated into mental
instability and finally insanity.
In 1869 at the age of twenty-four, Nietzsche was offered and accepted a professorship in Classics (Greek
and Latin) at the University of Basel in Switzerland. In 1870 during the Franco-Prussian War, he served in
the military and was traumatized by the horror of modern warfare. After the war, he returned to Basel and
in 1872 produced his first important work, The Birth of Tragedy, in which he postulated (put forth the
idea) that the non-rational aspects of humanity were as important and noble as the rational characteristics.
He further claimed that to limit human activity to strictly rational behavior was to impoverish
human life. He also criticized the Greek philosopher Socrates as one of the major contributors to
Western decadence (decay) because of Socrates’ laying the groundwork for rational thought in Western
Civilization. In Nietzsche’s mind, the heroic life and the highest artistic achievements come from sources
beyond the rational mind.
In 1878, Nietzsche published Human, All Too Human, written with aphorisms (original thoughts, written
in a concise and easy to remember forms like the following from Hippocrates: Life is short, art long, opportunity
fleeting, experience deceptive, judgment difficult.) and reflects his admiration of the French Philosophe
Voltaire, whom Nietzsche believed was a genuine free thinker. Nietzsche was criticized for many of his
ideas and that, combined with failing heath, caused him to resign his professorship and live on a small
pension and the help of friends.
In 1883, he wrote a poem, Thus Spake Zarathustra, in which he bitterly criticized Christianity and
democracy because both would turn people into mediocre sheep. In it he announced the death of God and
proclaimed the coming the Overman (Übermensch), who would be the embodiment of heroism and
greatness. Some people thought Nietzsche was predicting a superman or super race but that is not what
he meant. He sought a return to the heroism of the Homeric Age and to reject Christianity, which, with its
bourgeois morality, he found to be an impediment to such heroism and greatness.
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In 1886 at his own expense (he was disgusted with the anti-Semitism of his publisher), Nietzsche printed
Beyond Good and Evil which expanded upon Thus Spake Zarathustra. In this book, he criticized past
philosophers for blindly accepting philosophical ideas or conclusions based only on their morality and
criticized them for believing that the good man is opposite to the bad or evil man. The following year, he
published The Genealogy of Morals which continued the expansion of his ideas and which some
scholars consider his most brilliant work. Both books are partly aphoristic and difficult to read. In them,
Nietzsche does not try to discover what is good or evil but the psychological and social sources that
create the distinctions between good and evil.
Nietzsche declared: There are no moral phenomena [something that can be observed] at all but only a
moral interpretation of phenomena and dared to raise the question of whether morality itself was in any
way valuable or necessary to society: We need a critique of moral values; the value of these values
themselves must first be called into question. Thus for Nietzsche, morality was a human convention [way
of doing things] that had no independent existence; that is, human morality was human and had no other
origin. Thus humans would be free to create life-affirming values instead and feel empowered to abandon
Christianity, utilitarianism and middle class respectability. In his works, Nietzsche was drawing upon the
ideas of Romanticism and rejection rationalism. He believed that human beings had to forge their own
values in the world.
Nietzsche’s personal life was tragic; he never married and had trouble keeping friends. Shortly after the
publication of The Genealogy of Morals, he had two strokes which left him partially paralyzed and
unable to speak. In 1889, he seems to have had a mental breakdown writing his famous “madness letters”
which convinced many of his friends that he was insane. There seems no doubt that he struggled with
dementia and manic depression. For the last ten years of his life he was cared for by his mother and then
his sister Elizabeth until his death, probably from brain cancer. As a tragic postlude, his sister married a
German nationalist and anti-Semite, Bernhard Förster, and edited Nietzsche’s unpublished writings to
fit her husband's ideology. Thus, through the Förster-Nietzsche's emendations (modifications), which were
strongly and explicitly anti-Semitic and nationalistic, Nietzsche's name became falsely associated with
German militarism and Nazism; both of which Nietzsche despised.
Sigmund Freud and Revolution in Psychology
The new physics had disposed of the old model of mechanistic science; modernists in literature had
reshaped the portrayal of social and moral experience in humanity; modernist painters redirected art from
creating art to reflect reality to creating art for the sake of art; Nietzsche questioned the adequacy of
rational thinking and believed that humans had to forge their own values; now we meet the Austrian
neurologist who would revolutionize thinking about the human psyche, the human mind.
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) was the son of a Jewish wool merchant in Moravia (in the modern Czech
Republic). Struggling with poverty, the family moved to Vienna in 1860. Sigmund was an outstanding
student and graduated from high school in 1873 with honors. He loved literature and was proficient in
German, French, Italian, Spanish, English, Hebrew, Latin and Greek. Freud read William Shakespeare
in English throughout his life, and it seems obvious that his understanding of human psychology was at
least partly derived from Shakespeare's plays.
At the age of seventeen, Freud entered the University of Vienna. He planned to become a lawyer but soon
chose to study physiology and medicine. In 1881, he became of Doctor of Medicine and in 1885, a
lecturer of Neuropathy at the University of Vienna. In 1886, he opened a medical practice in Vienna,
where he worked until the Nazis drove him out 1938. All of Freud’s research and writings came from his
professional activities. In 1885, Freud went to Paris on a fellowship to study with Jean-Martin Charcot
(1825-1893), who used hypnosis to treat hysteria [unmanageable loss of self-control], which he frequently
demonstrated with patients on stage in front of an audience. Back in Vienna, Freud collaborated with
another doctor, Josef Breuer (1842-1925), and in 1895, they published Studies in Hysteria.
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By the mid-1890s Freud abandoned hypnotism in favor of “free association” and “dream analysis” in
what is now known as The Talking Cure. Freud allowed his patients to talk freely and spontaneously
about themselves. He found that they associated their neurotic symptoms (emotional instability) with
experiences related to earlier experiences, going back to childhood. He also observed that sexual matters
were significant elements in his patients’ neuroses and he thought – for a while – that sexual incidences
(often abuse) during childhood accounted for their illnesses. This was called Freud’s Seduction Theory.
By 1897 however, Freud rejected his seduction theory and – in its place – formulated the theory of
Infantile Sexuality, according to which he postulated that sexual drives and energy already exist in
infants and do not simply emerge at puberty. For Freud, humans are sexual creatures from birth through
adulthood. He thus questioned in the most radical manner (especially to those espousing Middle Class
morality) the concepts of childhood innocence and sexuality as a basis for mental stability and instability.
In the area of dreams, Freud did what the Romantics had done: as the Romantics took dreams seriously,
Freud examined them scientifically. Freud believed that the seemingly irrational content of dreams
must have a reasonable, scientific explanation. His observations caused him to formulate a new theory
of how the human mind operates. Freud concluded that dreams allow unconscious wishes, desires and
drives, which humans banish from their everyday conscious lives, to enjoy freer play (exploration) in the
mind. He wrote that: The dream is the [disguised] fulfillment of a [suppressed, repressed] wish. Freud
taught that during a person’s waking hours, the mind represses or censors certain wishes, which are
nevertheless important to the person’s psychological makeup – just as much as conscious thought is. In
fact, according to Freud, unconscious drives and desires contribute to conscious behavior.
In 1900, Freud combined his observations about dreams with his theories on childhood sexuality in his
most important book, The Interpretation of Dreams. Freud revised the book eight times and it contained,
perhaps, Freud’s most well-known theory: the Oedipus Complex, in which Freud postulates that a child
represses his or her desire to possess the parent of the opposite sex. The name, Oedipus Complex, comes
from a Greek mythological story in which, Oedipus, the king of Thebes fulfilled a prophecy which
predicted that he would kill his father and unknowingly marry his mother – and thereby bring disaster on
his city and family. From the opposite point of gender, Electra, daughter of King Agamemnon (The
Greek leader in the Trojan War), plots with her brother to kill their mother, Clytemnestra, who had killed
her husband and their father.
A student of Freud, Carl Jung (whom we shall soon meet) used this last myth to develop a Neo-Freudian
equivalent, the Electra Complex which describes a girl’s instinctive competition with her mother for
possession of her father.
Freud’s Later Thought
In a 1920 essay, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Freud suggested that the human psyche (by which he
meant both the conscious and unconscious mind) could be divided into three parts: Id, Ego and Superego.
The Id (which means the “it” in Latin) is the basic animal instinct; that which amoral, irrational, aggressive
and seeks its own pleasure. The Ego (which means “I” in Latin) is devoted to giving the Id what it wants but
within the bounds rationality and reason. The Superego (which means “above the Ego” in Latin) is the
moral component which imposes the moral imperatives and expectations of society and culture.
The Id operates on the pleasure principle (raw hedonism) and the Superego operates as a conscience that
forbids what the Id wants. But it is the Ego that attempts to balance the impractical impulses of the Id and
the equally impractical moralism of the Superego. Thus, the Ego is the moderator between the Id and the
Superego and seeks compromises that will pacify both.
19
Freud went on to analyze all human thought from religion to politics. He offended many people, and
many of his fellow neurologists considered him a slanderous story teller. However, in his exploration of
the roles of instinct, dreams and sexuality, Freud was a disciple of the Romantic Movement. But he also
stood in the tradition of the Enlightenment and he was a realist who wanted to free human beings from
fear and ignorance by helping people to rationally understand themselves and their world.
Freud criticized religion but understood the immense sacrifice of personal-instinctual drives required to
preserve civilized behavior. It is a mistake to see him as “a professor of repression” because, although he
did believe that severe repression could lead to mental disorders, he also believed that some repression
was healthy for the individual and the survival of civilization.
Divisions in the Psychoanalytic Movement
By 1910, Freud had surrounded himself with a small and able group of disciples. Several of these early
followers developed their own theories of which Freud did not approve. The most important of these was
a Swiss psychiatrist, Carl Jung (1875-1961), whom Freud regarded as his most promising student for
many years. By 1912, the two men parted ways when Jung questioned the dominance of Freud’s theory
of sexual drives in forming human personality and in contributing to mental disorders. Putting less faith
in reasoning, Jung believed that the human subconscious contained inherited memories from previous
generations and that these collective memories – along with a person’s personal experiences – constituted
his or her psyche.
Jung regarded early twentieth century people as alienated from these useful collective memories. In 1933,
In Modern Search of a Soul and other works, Jung moved toward mysticism and saw positive values in
religion. Freud was highly critical of Jung’s work and it can be observed that if Freud was a child of the
Enlightenment, then Jung was a child of Romanticism. In the 1920s, the psychoanalytic movement
became even more fragmented but nevertheless its theories made a profound impact on anthropology,
education, and literary criticism, as artists, writers and movie makers began to use psychological ideas in
the way they presented their characters, especially in an emphasis on sexuality as a tool of understanding
human behavior.
Modern Cultural Trends
Politics and Sociology
Nineteenth century liberals and socialists agreed that rational analysis could predict the problems of
modern society and find solutions. Both agreed that, once given the vote, people would behave according
to their rational and political self-interest in the same way that education would improve the human
condition. But by 1900, these ideas were under attack by political scientists and sociologists who
postulated that the political process was irrational, not rational. However, one major sociologist and
political economist was impressed by the role of reason in human society. Max Weber (1864-1920) was
born in Erfurt, Germany, and earned his doctorate of Law in 1889. Weber believed in the study of social
action through interpretive (rather than purely empirical) means, which meant understanding the purpose and
meaning that individuals attached to their own actions.
Weber wanted to understand rationalization or the process of how traditions and emotions were
replaced by new rational values that he associated with the rise of capitalism and modern thinking.
Weber believed that such rationalization created both scientific knowledge and bureaucratic organization.
Weber saw bureaucratization (the creation of bureaucracies) as the basic feature of modern life and
argued that bureaucracies constitute the most efficient and rational way in which human activity
can be organized. He opposed Marx’s concept that the intense competition engendered by capitalism led
to ruthless exploitation of the working class and thought that, in a modern society, people derived their
own self-images and sense of personal worth from their positions in the bureaucracy.
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Weber is best known for his book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, in which he
proposed that ascetic (austere) Protestantism, was one of the major reasons that created both marketdriven Capitalism and the Industrial Revolution. Weber wrote that capitalism in Northern Europe evolved
when the Protestant (particularly the Calvinist) ethic influenced large numbers of people to engage in work
in the secular world, developing their own enterprises and engaging in trade and the accumulation of
wealth for their own benefit. Although his theories have been criticized because non-Protestant areas of
Europe such as Northern Italy and southern Germany (both strongly Roman Catholic) also developed an
equally strong personal work ethic, nonetheless, this Puritan work ideal with its middle class origins does
help to explain the rise of Capitalism, the Industrial Revolution, European technological superiority and
the concepts of modernity and bureaucratization.
Collective Behavior
Other sociologists disagreed with Weber and his placing importance in the role of rational behavior.
Social scientists such Gustave Le Bon (1841-1931), Emile Durkheim (1858-1917), Georges Sorel (18471922) and Graham Wallas (1858-1932) believed that people collectively could be capable of extremely
irrational behavior. Le Bon was a psychologist who explored the activity of crowds and mobs and
concluded that both could act irrationally. In his Reflections on Violence (1908), Sorel (whose ideas
would be linked to both Communism and Fascism) argued that people do not pursue rationally perceived
goals but are led to action by collectively shared ideals. Durkheim and Wallas investigated the necessity
of shared values and activities of a society. In one way or another all these men argued that instinct, habit
and affections (good and bad) rather than reason, in some way, directed human social behavior.
Racism, Nationalism and Anti-Semitism
Racism is as old as humanity itself and manifests (shows) itself whenever a person, race or culture
believes in their own superiority. We saw how Renaissance explorers displayed despicable (detestable)
prejudice against nonwhite people. Since at least the eighteenth century, biologists and anthropologists
classified peoples by the color of their skin, their language and the stage of their civilization. Earlier in
this chapter we saw how European philologists postulated the existence of a parent language to IndoEuropeans and how this “Aryan” language gave Europeans a sense of cultural superiority. The brutality
of the slavery– made so easy by European technological superiority - gave further impetus (drive) to a
European sense of cultural superiority. The Enlightenment, Industrial Revolution and the astounding
scientific advances of the nineteenth century also fed this growing European racism.
Joseph Arthur de Gobineau (1816-1882), a French diplomat, took race as the most important index
(measuring instrument) of human potential and in his four-volume essay on the Inequality of the Human
Races; he divided humanity into four main racial groups, each having its own peculiar traits. He
characterized Africans as unintelligent and lazy; Asians as smart but docile; the native peoples of the
Americas as dull and arrogant; but Europeans as intelligent, noble and morally superior. Moreover, he
claimed that the troubles of Western Civilization came from a long degeneration of the original white
Aryan race which had intermarried with the inferior races and he saw no way to reverse the degeneration.
The French political thinker and historian, Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859), most remembered for his
travels in the United States and his, Democracy in America, in which he examined why representative
government had succeeded in the United States but failed in others, disagreed. De Tocqueville also wrote
about the French Revolution and believed that the failure of the French Revolution came from the fact
that its leaders had too closely followed abstract Enlightenment ideals. He was a true nineteenth century
liberal (from the school of Classical Liberalism, which emphasized securing freedom for the individual by limiting
the power of the government) – thus, he warned about what he called the tyranny of the majority that
might lead to new forms of despotism and destroy the fruits of democracy.
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After de Tocqueville read the first volume of de Gobineau’s essay, he wrote de Gobineau a letter in
which he criticized the idea of racial determination of human actions. De Tocqueville also warned how
dangerous such ideas might be if they influenced the political life of nations with large groups of electors.
In spite of de Tocqueville’s criticism, de Gobineau’s essay remained little known for years. However as
its influence spread into the twentieth century, racist thinkers, strongly influenced by Darwin’s theory of
survival of the fittest, would try to identify racial groups on the basis of skin color, bone structure, nose
shape, cranial capacity and other physical characteristics, always agreeing that Europeans were the
superior group.
Houston Stewart Chamberlain (1855-1927) was an English political philosopher who moved to
Germany and became a German citizen in 1908. Chamberlain was a racialist writer who in 1899, wrote
The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century, in which he championed the concept of biological
determination through race but also believed that through genetics the human race could be improved and
that even a superior race could be developed. Chamberlain was a member of the Pan-German movement
and an anti-Semite. Along with Paul Lagarde (1827-1891) and Julius Langbehn (1851-1907), warned of
the cultural dangers posed by the Jews.
Many Europeans also used racial theories to support harsh, condescending treatment of colonial peoples
in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. They were convinced that white Europeans were
racially superior to the peoples of color whom they governed and that these peoples would always be
inferior to them. Similar ideas would be found in the Americas (North and South) where people of whiteEuropean extraction (or mostly white-European extraction) considered themselves racially superior to
African Americans and Native Americans.
Late-Century Nationalism
Although nationalism traced its roots to the French Revolution, late nineteenth century nationalism was
much affected by racism. This nationalism was more aggressive than that of literary figures and liberal
politicians. Writers had sought to develop what they regarded as the historically distinct qualities of
particular national or ethnic literatures. Earlier nationalist politicians had hoped to redraw the map of
Europe to reflect ethnic boundaries. The successful drives for the unification of Germany and Italy and
the longing of the Poles and the ethnic groups of the Hapsburg Empire for independence reflected this
earlier nationalism.
But from the 1870s forward, nationalism became a much more powerful force – with wide popular
support, well financed and growing political parties. This nationalism was self-centered and opposed to
internationalism or the economic and political cooperation among nations for the benefit of all
international partners. Nationality became more important than class, religion or geography – and for
secularized peoples often replaced religion, especially under the direction of schoolteachers. And as we
will see in the next chapter, this racialist-based nationalism became the most powerful ideology of the
early twentieth century.
Anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism dates back to at least the Middle-Ages and, even though after the French Revolution,
Western European Jews had become generally accepted in European civil life. But Anti-Semitism –
especially on a popular basis – continued to thrive and grow, especially as Jews became identified with
money and banking interests. These prejudices peaked during the last third of the nineteenth century
when Finance Capitalism changed the economic structure of Europe and many Europeans blamed the
Jewish communities. [Finance Capitalism makes the processes of production less important than the accumulation of
money. Thus, Finance Capitalism’s pursuit of profits from the buying or selling of investments, stocks and bonds (which
includes lending money at interest) puts tremendous wealth in the hands of those who control the banks, the investment
firms and governments.]
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Karl Lueger (1844-1910) was an Austrian lawyer and politician, who, as mayor of Vienna from 1897 to
1910, used anti-Semitism to attract members to his Christian Socialist Party. His populist views [the
ideology that favors ordinary people over the elite] and anti-Semitic politics are sometimes viewed as a
model for Hitler's Nazism. In Germany, Adolf Stoecker (1835 –1909) the ultraconservative court chaplain
to Kaiser Wilhelm II, fueled anti-Semitism partly from the Dreyfus Affair and partly from his belief that
Jewish capitalists were responsible for the increasing gap of wealth between rich and poor, the disruption
of the social order, and the de-Christianizing the German nation.
This ugly atmosphere of racial thought contributed to the belief that no matter to what extent the Jews
assimilated into Christian Europe, their Jewishness (code for their danger to society) would remain. For
racial thinkers, the problem of race was not in the character of the Jews but in their blood.
The Jews were not unaware of this anti-Semitism as we saw in the 1894 unjust conviction of Alfred
Dreyfus in France. Although Dreyfus was innocent and the case eventually overturned, Dreyfus became
the focus of bitter debates about the trustworthiness of Jews in European society. Among the reporters at
the Dreyfus trial, there was a Jewish writer from Austria-Hungary, Theodor Herzl (1860-1904), who was
shocked at the anti-Semitic prejudice in the French military and court system. So in 1896, he called for
the establishment of a separate Jewish state. Herzl was convinced that Jews could not find any areas of
refuge in Europe so he wanted his Jewish state to be located in Palestine where ancient Israel was
located. As a result, many historians consider him the father of the Zionist Movement and (in effect) the
founder of the modern State of Israel, established in 1948.
Women and Modern Thought
Darwin’s work which shook Europe had mixed results for women and many traditional views about
women remained unchanged. The nineteenth century emphasis on the NON-rational side of human
behavior reinforced many of these stereotyped views about women such as the belief that the primary
function of a female was that of nurturing and that women were weaker and therefore less able than men.
Many of these ideas were misogynistic (a hatred of women) and used such excuses and prejudices to keep
women out of higher education, politics and the sciences. T. H. Huxley prevented women from attending
meetings of the Geological Society and claimed to have found scientific evidence of female inferiority.
Males regularly forbade females from discussing reproduction or other sexual matters. Even Charles
Darwin would repeat these ideas in his book, The Descent of Man. Notwithstanding their notions about
women, both Darwin and Huxley supported more and better education for women.
Late century anthropologists usually designated women along with nonwhite races as inferiors in the
human family. The position of women in Freud’s work, however, was controversial. Many of his earliest
patients from whom he developed his theories were women. Freud’s critics criticized Freud as portraying
women as incomplete humans who might be destined to live unhappy mental lives. Perhaps more
accurate is the observation that Freud tended to see the natural role of women as wives and mothers
whose greatest fulfilment came in the rearing of their sons (the Oedipus Complex). The first
psychoanalysts were trained as medical doctors and their views on women reflected the medical
education of their day which tended to portray women as weaker and inferior.
The German psychoanalyst, Karen Horney (1885 - 1952), who practiced in the United States during her
later career, questioned some of Freud’s views, particularly sexuality and the instinctual orientation of
psychoanalysis. She disagreed with Freud about inherent (built-in; inborn) differences in the psychology of
men and women, and she traced such differences to society and culture rather than to biology; and is
credited with founding Feminist Psychology.
23
Melanie Klein (1882–1960) was an Austrian-born, British psychoanalyst who questioned some of Freud’s
assumptions but always considered herself faithful to Freud's ideas. She is best known for developing
therapeutic techniques for children that had an impact not only on child psychology but also on
psychoanalysis.
The social scientists we have met in this chapter also reinforced traditional gender roles. Auguste Comte
(Positivism), whose thought owed much to Rousseau, portrayed women as biologically and intellectually
inferior to men. Herbert Spencer (Social Darwinism), although he believed in improving women’s status
in society, thought they could never achieve equality with men. Emile Durkheim (Collective Behavior)
pictured women as creatures of feeling and family rather than intellect.
Max Weber (Protestant Work Ethic) favored improvements in the conditions of women, but did not
support significant changes in their social roles or in their relationships with men. Virtually all of the
early sociologists took a conservative view of marriage, the family, child rearing and divorce.
Feminism
The turn of the century brought a revival of feminism that would grow into the twentieth century. As we
have seen, the primary thrust of nineteenth century feminists was suffrage but some feminist writers and
activists raised other questions as well. Some organizations redefined ways of thinking about women and
their relationships to men and society. Like suffragettes, few of these groups were large and their
victories were few. Nevertheless by 1900, they had defined the issues that would become more fully and
successfully explored after World War II. In addition to suffrage, the two areas where middle class
women began to challenge their male counterparts were the double standard of sexual morality and the
traditional ideas of marriage.
Prostitution
England was the major battleground against the hypocrisy of the double standard and centered on the
treatment of prostitutes through The Contagious Diseases Acts, passed by Parliament between 1864 and
1869. Due mostly to poverty, the level of prostitution was very high in Victorian England. The acts
allowed the police in certain cities with army or naval bases to require any woman identified as, or
suspected of being, a prostitute to undergo an immediate internal medical examination for venereal
disease. Those found with venereal disease could be confined for up to one year in locked hospitals for
treatment with no legal recourse. It is important to understand the role of the double standard: that these
laws took no action against the male customers because the purpose of the laws was the protect men,
presumably soldiers and sailors – and not the prostitutes.
These laws angered English middle-class women who believed that harsh working conditions and low
salaries the poor women earned forced many working-class women into prostitution. Moreover, they
wanted to prove that women were as human and rational as men – and thus deserved the same fair and
equal treatment as men. They saw a parallel between poor women forced into prostitution and middleclass women being denied entrance into universities and the professions. Thus, the Contagious Diseases
Acts were reprehensible because they assumed that women were inferior to men and treated women as
less rational human beings. The galling (annoying, aggravating), bottom line was that a hypocritical
male-dominated culture denied to both middle-class women and working-class women the
freedoms that all English-MEN enjoyed in English society.
By 1869, the Ladies’ National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts, a
thoroughly middle class organization led by Josephine Butler (1828-1906), began agitation (opposition)
against the acts. The association achieved a suspension of the acts in 1883 and their outright repeal in
1886. Butler was a devout Christian and abhorred (despised) the sin of extra-marital sex, but she also
made it clear that women were the victims of male oppression, especially the double standard.
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In the 1890s in Austria, Auguste Ficke (1833-1916) led the General Austrian Women’s Association
which fought regulations on prostitution because such regulations put prostitutes under the control of the
police. In the more conservative German Empire, female opinion was divided between those who agreed
that prostitutes ought to be punished and those who saw them as victims of a male-society; although, by
the end of the century, those who saw prostitutes as victims were coming to dominate.
The Family
The other feminist attack on the double standard was directed towards the traditional relationship of men
and women in marriage. The feminists believed that marriage should be a union of equals with men
and women sharing responsibility for their children. In 1905, the feminist and pacifist, Helene
Stöcker (1869-1943) founded the Mothers’ Protection League which argued for state support for both
married and unmarried mothers, including maternity leave and child care. They also urged society to
rethink all sexual morality. In Sweden, Ellen Key (1849-1926), in The Century of the Child (1900) and
The Renaissance of Motherhood (1914), made the argument that motherhood was so crucial to society
that governments, rather than husbands, should support mothers and their children.
Almost without exception, turn-of-the-century feminists supported greater sexual freedom for women.
They argued that such freedom would not harm but rather benefit society by improving women’s lives.
Many of them campaigned for contraception and built their arguments on Social Darwinism,
arguing that contraceptives would limit the number of children and allow the more healthy and
intelligent children to survive.
The Scottish paleobotanist and advocate for women’s rights, Marie Stopes (1880–1958), was an early
pioneer of contraceptive birth control. With her husband Humphrey Roe, she founded the first birth
control clinic in Britain. She gave practical contraceptive advice in her publication, Birth Control News
and her sex manual (mostly about contraception and male-female attitudes towards each other) Married
Love (1918) was extremely popular - to the horror of Roman Catholic and Anglican Church authorities.
She never favored abortion however, arguing that contraception was all that was needed.
Full Equality
The feminists of this era wanted more than just legal equality; they wanted a better life for women. In
Vienna in the 1890s, Auguste Ficke, whom we just met and leader of the General Austrian Women’s
Association, wrote: Our final goal is therefore not the acknowledgement of rights, but the elevation of
our intellectual and moral level; the development of our personality.
Josephine Butler summed up this goal when she said: God and one woman make a majority.
Increasingly, feminists concentrated not only on freeing women from the double standard but also in
developing women’s intellects through better education and governmental financial support for women
engaged in traditional societal roles, whether or not they had the vote.
Millicent Fawcett (1847-1929), an English moderate suffragette (one who campaigned for women to have
the right to vote) and feminist who campaigned against the Contagious Diseases Act, foresaw the
eventual demise (end) of a male dominated society when she wrote: A large part of the present anxiety to
improve the education of girls and women is also due to the conviction that the political disabilities of
women will not be maintained.
Some women became active socialists and they argued that the socialist transformation of society should
include major reforms for women. But socialist parties usually had all male leadership and were not
sympathetic to feminism. By the end of the century, most male socialist leaders including Lenin and
(later) Stalin were intolerant of feminist demands for changes in the family structure or greater sexual
freedom for either men or women. But slowly, most socialist groups began – haltingly – to call for
improvements that were compatible with feminist goals.
25
It was in literary circles, however, that the feminist ideals were most clearly expressed. Female authors
were doing – more or less on an equal footing – what male authors had always done, and doing it as well
as males – and for all to read. Virginia Woolf’s novel, A Room of One’s Own, became one of the iconic
(fundamental) texts of feminist literature. In it, she reflects first on the difficulties that women of both
brilliance and upper social standing encountered in being taken seriously as writers and intellectuals. She
finished her novel by concluding that a woman who wished to write required both a room of her own (by
which she meant space not dominated by male values) and sufficient, independent income. She wanted more
than for women to be able to write as men wrote but for women to use their own psychological and
intellectual qualities to write as they wished to write; about what they wanted to write.
By World War I, feminism had become associated with popular imagination and challenges to traditional
role models for males and females. Then the war caused nationalism and patriotism to put feminism into
a forgotten place – at least temporarily – in the minds of most Europeans. Many feminists were pacifistic
but most remained neutral or staunchly supported their nation’s war efforts. Nevertheless, the agenda for
feminism had been set but it would have to wait until after the Second World War.
26