New Ways of Thinking
The events of the Industrial Revolution encouraged many groups to
develop new ideas regarding the way the government, legal system or
economy should be run. Some of these ideas lasted and are still relevant
today; others have faded away as the years pass. As you read about each
philosophy, fill out your chart.
Utilitarianism
Imagine you had a choice: there is a fire, and you can only get to one
room to save the people inside. You have two choices: a room with one 3year-old child, or a room with 10 senior citizens. Who would you save?
This is a type of moral question that has gotten many responses over the
last few centuries, and many philosophies, including utilitarianism use
it as the basis for their beliefs.
Utilitarianism is, at its heart, a simple and logical idea. Utilitarians try
to apply reason and mathematics to moral and philosophical questions.
They believe that, at all times, people should act to try to bring the most
good to the greatest number of people.
Given the same choice, utilitarians would doubtlessly save the room full
of senior citizens, because they are greater in number. Utilitarians believe
that an action is only good if it benefits people, and only bad if it hurts
people. Utilitarians measure each of their decisions carefully, and decide
which choice provides the most good for the most people, regardless of the
suffering it might cause to a smaller group of people.
Many people criticize utilitarians because they believe that mathematical
and logical thinking cannot be applied to human nature. Also, many
groups claim that sometimes actions have to be taken that are unpleasant,
and basing human actions on human feelings is naïve.
The leading proponents of utilitarianism are an odd group of people. The
two men who published the concept of utilitarianism are JS Mill and
Jeremy Benthem. They are both trained in logic and reason. Benthem was
a contributor to education, and felt that public education for all was a
utilitarian principle. He was so enthusiastic about education that he took
some rather extreme measures to remain a part of Oxford. When he died,
he requested that his body be preserved in a glass box along the halls of
Oxford, and that his body be brought to board meetings so that he would
always be present. The officials at Oxford complied, and his preserved
body still remains in the halls of Oxford. Special steps were taken to
preserve his body, and his head was replaced with a wax-version of his
head. Students are known to talk to Jeremy Benthem, bring him food, or
dress him up in school garb.
Social Gospel
Social Gospel is a religious organization that emerged during the time
period of the Industrial Revolution. Generally, believers in Social Gospel
are Protestant Christians. They believe that in order to bring about
paradise on earth, all believers must work hard to eliminate the problems
in society.
This movement began at the same time as the Industrial Revolution,
because cities were becoming increasingly large and full of problems,
including pollution, alcoholism, abuse, child labor, prostitution, poverty
and inequality. This movement originally was organized within
churches, and the leaders were generally upper-middle class protestant
women.
Believers in Social Gospel would work to eliminate social evils. They
founded well known organizations like the Red Cross and the Salvation
Army. They also championed actions like the prohibition of alcohol, the
elimination of child labor and the improvement in working conditions.
Their goal was to improve the world so that Armageddon would occur
more quickly.
Social Darwinism
Social Darwinism is the application of Charles Darwin’s Theory of
Evolution to human societies. Darwin’s theory posits that organisms evolve
over millions of years, with advantageous genetic variations becoming
standard over time. Social Darwinism is its application to humans; the
phrase “survival of the fittest” was coined by Herbert Spencer, a leader in
Social Darwinism.
Social Darwinism attempted to explain why some groups of people were
more successful than others. Social Darwinism claims that those who are
successful are successful because of their genetic variations and those who
are unsuccessful struggle because of their predispositions. Proponents used
this as an explanation and a justification for the poverty of the laboring
classes, and the colonizing of “more primitive” countries.
Proponents of Social Darwinism believe that eventually those people
without the brains to do well will survive and have children, while
those who suffer are suffering as a consequence of their genetics, and
should not survive or produce children.
Eugenics
Eugenics is very similar to Social Darwinism. The prefix “Eu” means
“good” in Latin, and “genics” refers to peoples’ genetic predispositions.
Advocates of Eugenics believed that humans should be active in trying to
improve themselves, and encourage the evolution of humans to higher
forms.
Proponents of genetics argue that if glasses had never been invented, the
visually impaired would have died off and all humans today would
have perfect vision. This is probably not true, but it brings up an
interesting point. Or if all individuals who caught the plague were
immediately kicked out of society, it would not have spread. This theory
intrigued many scientifically-minded individuals to question the value
of providing aid or help to those who were not “genetically superior.”
Proponents of Eugenics took actions to prevent people with disabilities to
reproduce. Extreme cases of Eugenics took place in California, England
and Germany in the early 1900s. In California, individuals with many
types of disabilities (including non-genetic disabilities) were forced into
institutions or sterilized (a surgery that removes a person’s capacity to
have children). England passed laws preventing certain people from
reproducing. Eugenics was part of the foundation of the beliefs of the
Nazi party in Germany. Nazi’s claimed that Jews and other minority
groups were “genetically inferior” and attempted to twist science to justify
their actions. Needless to say, when people around the world realized the
horrors that took place in Germany, nearly all advocates of Eugenics
changed their minds, claiming they hadn’t realized that such horrible
actions could take place in the name of science. California has issued
repeated public apologies for its role in Eugenics in the late 1800s and
early 1900s.
Nihilism
Nihilism was made famous by a well known philosopher: Nietzsche.
Nietzsche was wondering what would happen to the people of his
generation. After Darwin and all of the scientific advances of the 19th
century, Nietzsche concluded that a great many individuals had become
Agnostic or Athiest, and lost their belief in a higher power. Nietzsche
himself was an atheist. He wondered how society would be able to
function, without the reward of heaven or the danger of hell serving as
an incentive or punishment.
He made the famous statement, “God is dead” and believed that outside of
humans, there was nothing to the universe. He had no concept of afterlife
and believed that life was meaningless. His philosophy, nihilism, claims
that without a real purpose to life, there can be no real “moral values” or
hero worship. Each individual, he claimed, was responsible for his or
her own decisions and values within their lives.
When most people first heard Nietzsche’s claims, they were horrified with
his view on the world. However, over the last century, he has amassed a
considerable following. Many nihilists show apathy towards the world
and wish that it didn’t exist. Nietzsche, however, did not feel that way.
He claimed that in order to continue on earth, humans must find
individual meaning to their lives and live under a common set of values,
and not rely on religious beliefs.
Marxism/Communism
Marx believed that the poor and the rich have always struggled with
each other throughout human society. The changes of the Industrial
Revolution, he claimed, had made some fundamental changes in the
relationship between poor and rich, or as he called them, the proletariat
and the bourgeoisie. Industrialism increased the amount of people who
were members of the working class, and the work completed by the
laboring class did not require mental labor or skill- the worker became
“an appendage to the machine.” Marx continued on, claiming that free
market values also cheapened the hourly rates of laborers, making the
laboring class much poorer than it had been in the past. Marx claimed
this system was doomed from the beginning, since the rich depended on
the poor for survival, and the poor would not be able to continue this
lifestyle indefinitely. Eventually the poor would revolt against the
wealthy and wealth would be equalized.
In communism, Marx’s form of government, property would be help not by
an individual, but by the community. Industries would be run by the
community, so there would be no person acting like a dictator over the
workers. Instead, there would be a “dictatorship of the people”. The people
would work together and act together. Marx thought this form of
government would inevitably come along.
Communism did not occur immediately, as Marx had expected. It took
several decades for Communist revolutions to occur, and communism did
not occur as Marx had anticipated. Instead, dictators tended to take
control of communist nations.
Utopianism
Utopia is a name for an ideal community, taken from Thomas More’s
book Utopia, written in 1516. This word describes a place with a
seemingly perfect political, economic and legal system. People live in
perfect harmony without crime, war, poverty, conflict or other negative
societal issues.
During the Industrial Revolution, some people came to believe that it is
possible to achieve Utopia while on earth. One of the leaders of this
movement was Robert Owen, and he called his philosophical and
political movement Utopian Socialism. Owen had been a successful
businessman, but was concerned about the fate of the working class. He
believed that if everyone in a community worked cooperatively, every
person could be taken care of and crime would not be necessary.
Owen attempted to achieve Utopia by founding a cooperative utopia,
called a commune, in New Harmony, Indiana. In the commune, all
industries were community-owned, and people supported each other’s
needs. Unfortunately, the commune only lasted about 5 years, due to what
Owen described as “constant quarrelling.” Additionally, the commune
probably could not have been established had it not been for Owen’s
considerable funds that he earned through owning a private factory.
Many utopians claim that Socialism or Communism can only happen in
very small communities, where every person is directly responsible to the
other members of the community. However, the lack of a central authority
figure and immediate decision making of New Harmony was probably a
more direct cause of New Harmony’s failure, since there were only 200
members of the community.
In the 1960s and on to today many groups attempt communal-style
living. “Co-ops” for housing and employment are available in most major
cities, but have not been successful wide spread and have not proved to be
the foundation for a perfect political, economic and legal system.
Malthusianism
Malthusianism refers to the political/economic thought of Reverend
Thomas Robert Malthus, whose ideas were first developed during the
Industrial Revolution. In An Essay on the Principle of Population, first
published in 1798, Malthus made the famous prediction that population
would outrun food supply, leading to a decrease in food per person. This
Principle of Population was based on the idea that population if
unchecked increases at a geometric rate (i.e. 2, 4, 8, 16, etc.) whereas the
food supply grows at an arithmetic rate (i.e. 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.).
In order to avoid this Malthusian catastrophe Malthus favored moral
restraint (including late marriage and sexual abstinence) as a check on
population growth. However, it is worth noting that Malthus proposed this
only for the working and poor classes. Thus, the lower social classes took a
great deal of responsibility for societal ills, according to his theory.
Malthus proposed the gradual abolition of poor laws. He also discouraged
giving charity to the poor. Essentially what this resulted in was the
promotion of legislation which degenerated the conditions of the poor in
England, lowering their population but effectively decreasing poverty.
Many rich elite liked this idea including the novelist Harriet Martineau
whose circle of friends included Charles Darwin. As a result the ideas of
Malthus were a significant influence on the inception of Darwin's theory.
One of the earliest critics of Malthusian theory was Karl Marx. Marx
believed that not only did Malthus rip off of other philosophers archaic
ideas but his theory did not make sense because improvements in science
and technology would allow for indefinite exponential population
growth.