This lecture summary provides a detailed overview of information provided in the lectures of the course; with all the information provided by the lecturer and offers major insights needed for the exam. The course is taken in the Second year, as part of the major European History.
REVISION GUIDE THE ORDERING OF MODERN EUROPE PART 2
After the Enlightenment, culture was used in a figurative way to define high achievements of the
human mind
19th century ideas of culture were opposed to barbarism culture was a normative notion that
served a Eurocentric and self-congratulatory purpose
Anthropological and archaeological institutions broke the 19 th century meaning of culture
Lascaux Cave an example to humans that even before high culture was assumed to have
flourished, humans were still creative in their projects
Another way in which high culture was critiqued by anthropologists that discovered there was a
clear connection between the everyday mundane actions of communities and the creativity of their
high accomplishments demarcating a fluid transitions between high and low culture
A much broader conception of culture was taken on in the latter half of the 20 th century
John Tosh understands cultural history as the ‘reconstruction of the mental, emotional and
conceptual world of the past’
Cultural History = the ways in which Europeans have responded to modernity, and the consequences
this had in the way Europe was imagined as a cultural order
Reflections of Europe’s culture, has in various ways have allowed Europeans to become politically
engaged and mobilised the European population
Lecture 1: Degeneration and Decline
Responses to modernity in Fin de siècle Europe
Eiffel Tower 1899 a showcase of French achievements, colonial successes and an addition to the
Paris World Fair it was supposed to be more amazing than the London Glass Palace, and the
pinnacle of modernity and demonstrated the power of the present over the past
The Eiffel Tower heralded the successes of the coming century
Dracula by Bram Stoker represented not modernity, but quite the opposite reflected the
anxieties and discontent with modernity in Europe the act of vampirism referred to the moral and
physical decay that many feared were spreading across Europe
The novel also refers to the degeneration of the female character scholars have pointed to the
rejection of capitalism as the novel seems to reflect other scholars have pointed to the novel’s
critique on urbanisation and metropolitanism
The novel also seems to indicate the limitations of modernity and modern science Dracula is a
figure that science can’t defeat
The Eiffel Tower and Dracula represent conflicting ideas about European modernity at the beginning
of the century
,Europe in 1900-1914
These years were referred to as the Belle Epoque, only in hindsight this period can be seen as this as
a precursor to the horrors of WW1
WW1 only acted as a catalyst to revigorated the changes that were already in place and the exalted
the anxieties that were already set in motion
Cyclical view of history
In Antiquity, it was thought that humanity went through periods of growth and then of decline
It was at the time the dominant way to view the course of history
Decline was reflected in humanity, but also in nature
Christian view of history
Central to this view of history, is that history is the fulfilment of God’s will
Disobeying God’s will would therefore lead to disaster and decline
Thereby, history had a clear beginning (God’s creation) and a clear end (The Final Judgement)
In this view, the decline or demise was seen as an all-encompassing process that could eventually
affect everything culture wasn’t seen as a separate sphere that could be detached from
humanity, nature etc
Linear view of history
The Enlightment period identified man, instead of God, as the driver of change and presented the
fact that his actions had effect of civilizational growth
In the Enlightenment, civilisation and culture is for the first time identified as a separate category
philosophers began to organise the past into civilisations that had succeeded each other
Reinhart Koselleck maintained that the pace of history had tremendously accelerated, and as a
consequence the conceptions of the present and the past was torn apart he referred to the fact
that around 1800, experiences of the past were no longer valid in dictating the present
This sense of discontinuity between the past and present created (according to Koselleck) our
historical consciousness the past is a world that is no longer ours
The experiences of fear of the future and rejection of the past resulted in disorientation and
insecurity in the European populace
The linear view of history went hand-in-hand with the view of the past as a separate time and
resulted in disorientation and insecurity, however the fact that man was put at the forefront of
human historical and future progression also resulted in the idea that man could also produce the
opposite: decay
The idea of growth and progress simultaneously gained ground at the same time that ideas of decay
and degeneration
, Rousseau already in the 18th century argued that man was ‘born free’ but corrupted by society and
civilisation thus civilisation created an environment that limited the freedom of man, according to
Rousseau man could prevent this limitation by creating a community that built a social contract
Edward Gibbon wrote a classical study on the fall and rise of the Roman Empire in the eyes of
contemporaries this was disturbing, because the book seemed to emphasise that each civilisation
before the next had to go through a period of demise this added to the fear of the destruction of
the world as they knew it
Gibbon linked the fall of the Roman Empire to the cultural decline of the Empire
19th Century Teleological Theory
The idea of progress remained dominant throughout the 19 th century
The first half of the 19th century was a very turbulent period – this turmoil gave rise to the idea that
people were living in an era of crisis and transition
The turbulence was aligned with the idea of progress in some of the new grand narratives that were
invented in this era the process of national progression was no longer linear, but had up and
downs
These narratives provided a clear purpose, and provided an escape from the anxiety that emerged
from the breakdown of the bridge between past and present
Teleological view of history ‘telos’ = purpose or goal
Hegel’s Dialectic emphasised that each event (thesis)
generates its opposite (antithesis) and this evolves in a
synthesis (a mixture of both thesis and anthesis)
Karl Marx borrowed Hegel’s Dialectic view to understand the
past and anticipate the future, he produced a 5-stage
narrative for human history the prime concern for Marx is
the economy
Auguste Comte maintained that human history passed
through 3 stages (theological and fictious stage; the
metaphysical or abstract stage; positive or scientific stage)
Comte created the idea of positivism all knowledge is derived from empirical, experimental
science it rejected all metaphysical knowledge and represented an alternative to Christianity and
religion
Herbert Spencer was deeply influenced by Comte and Darwin and founded Social Darwinism
(‘survival of the fittest’) an extremely popular school of thought in the late 19 th and early 20th
centuries it created racist and war-mongering attitudes
All four men were influential prophets of 19 th century human progression
Intellectuals also expressed more gloomy views about the future and their civilisation fears of
cultural decline can be seen as a response to the rise of modernity
Decline and Modernity
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