Age of ideologies

1
Age of ideologies

• Scott McLetchie, Louise S. McGehee School

2
Ideology

• Organized set of ideas (-ism)
• Comprehensive vision of the world world view
  (Weltanschauung)
• Asks How should the world be? then tries to
  make it so
• Abstract thoughts applied to reality to provide
  blueprint for change

3
Change

• 19th century is age of change
• Previous world-views tended to be
  backward-looking either pessimistic about
  future, or trying to renew a previous Golden Age
  (think Renaissance)
• Scientific Revolution, Enlightenment, Industrial
  Revolution change is now viewed as something
  POSITIVE progress
• Idea that humans can shape the world and society
  to their desires

4
Influence of French Revolution

• Attempt to change society to conform to a vision
  of the way the world should be
• Political spectrum right, center, left
• Mass politics more people involved
• Communication more people connected by
  circulation of ideas
• Lends itself to politics well, but not all
  ideologies are overtly political

5
Romanticism
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Romanticism - Themes

• Feeling emotion v. logic reason
• Love (esp. unrequited) and death
• Power of nature v. scientific confidence
• Spirituality
• Genius, inspiration, originality
• Reaction against Enlightenment rationalism

7
French Garden (Rational)
Vaux-le-Vicomte
8
Vaux-le-Vicomte
9
Versailles
10
Versailles
11
English Garden (Romantic)
Sheffield Park
Prior Park
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Ruins
Tintern Abbey
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Tintern Abbey

• For I have
  learned
• To look on nature, not as in the hour
• Of thoughtless youth but hearing oftentimes
• The still sad music of humanity,
• Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
• To chasten and subdue. And I have felt
• A presence that disturbs me with the joy
• Of elevated thoughts a sense sublime
• Of something far more deeply interfused,
• Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
• And the round ocean and the living air,
• And the blue sky, and in the mind of man
• A motion and a spirit, that impels
• All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
• And rolls through all things. Therefore am I
  still
• A lover of the meadows and the woods,
• And mountains and of all that we behold
• From this green earth

Tintern Abbey, JMW Turner, 1794
William Wordsworth, 1798
14
Kublai Khan, S. T. Coleridge

• But oh ! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
• Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover !
• A savage place ! as holy and enchanted
• As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
• By woman wailing for her demon-lover !
• And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil
  seething,
• As if this earth in fast thick pants were
  breathing,
• A mighty fountain momently was forced
• Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
• Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
• Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail
• And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
• It flung up momently the sacred river.

1797, 1816
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And did those feet , William Blake

• And did those feet in ancient time,
• Walk upon Englands mountains green
• And was the holy Lamb of God,
• On Englands pleasant pastures seen !
• And did the Countenance Divine,
• Shine forth upon our clouded hills ?
• And was Jerusalem builded here,
• Among these dark Satanic Mills ?
• Bring me my Bow of burning gold
• Bring me my Arrows of desire
• Bring me my Spear O clouds unfold
• Bring me my Chariot of fire !
• I will not cease from Mental Fight,
• Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand
• Till we have built Jerusalem,
• In Englands green pleasant Land.

1804
16
Theodore GericaultThe Raft of the Medusa (1819)
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Henry FuseliThe Nightmare (1782)
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C. D. FriedrichThe Wanderer (1818)
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Conservatism
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Klemens von Metternich

• Austrian foreign minister 1809-1848
• Valued class, order, stability
• Opposed liberalism, rights, constitutional
  government
• Carlsbad Decrees, 1819
• Concert of Europe

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Sour Notes in the Concert of Europe

• Revolt in Spain, 1820-3
• Revolt in Italy, 1820-1
• Greek revolt, 1821
• Russia Decembrist revolt, 1825
• French revolution of 1830

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Greek Revolt

• Eugene Delacroix
• Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi (1826)
• Aroused sympathy in Europe for Greek fight for
  independence

23
French Revolution 1830
24
Liberalism
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Liberalism

• Liberal from Liberty Freedom
• Essentially philosophy of Enlightenment
• Social contract theory of government
• Constitutions
• Civil liberties freedom of speech, religion,
  etc.
• Appealed largely to middle class
• Capitalism liberal economic theory

26
Revolts in Belgium Poland

• 1830 Belgians (former Austrian Netherlands
  southern, Catholic) rebel against Dutch (former
  United Provinces, northern, Protestant)
• 1831 Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha becomes king
  constitutional monarchy, parliamentary democracy
• Treaty of London 1839 Great Powers recognize
  Belgiums sovereignty and guarantee its
  neutrality
• 1830s Polish revolt brutally suppressed by Russia

Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha
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Great Britain

• 1815 Corn Laws
• 1817 right of assembly and habeas corpus
  suspended
• 1819 Peterloo Massacre

28
Struggle for Parliament

• Reform Bill 1832
• Poor Laws 1834
• Peoples Charter 1838, 1839, 1842, 1848
• Anti-Corn League 1838

29
Utilitarianism

• Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)
• Greatest good for the greatest number
• Government regulation of public health, education
• Complete equality of sexes

30
Radicalism/socialism
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Socialism

• Cooperation over competition
• Benefits for group over individual rights (like
  property)
• Republican governments with universal suffrage
  (for males at least, for women ideally)
• Saw liberalism as essentially favoring the rich
  over the poor

32
French Utopian Socialists

• Henri de Saint-Simon (1760-1825)
• Organize economy rationally
• Protect poor from rich
• Strive for economic equality
• Regulate or abolish private property
• Aristocratic parasites should move aside for
  doers scientists, engineers, industrialists

33
Charles Fourier (1772-1837)

• Imagined ideal communities
• 1,620 people on 500 acres
• Phalansteries
• Against marriage in favor of free unions and
  sexual liberty
• Coined feminism

34
Robert Owen (1771-1858)

• Cotton manufacturer
• Happy workers more productive workers
• Set up model community in New Lanark, Scotland
• Efforts to spread ideas to U.S. failed

35
Louis Blanc (1813-1882)

• The Organization of Work (1839)
• Argued for government-sponsored workshops
• Wanted to use established government to implement
  change

36
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809-65)

• What Is Property? (1840)
• Property theft
• Called himself anarchist
• Labor advocate
• Arrested and tried by July Monarchy acquitted
• Peaceful change

37
Karl Marx (1818-1883)

• Revolutionary Socialism
• Communist Manifesto (1848) with Friedrich Engels
• The history of all hitherto existing society is
  the history of class struggles.

38
Marxism

• Adopts dialectical process of Hegel
• Thesis Antithesis Synthesis
• Conflict between classes drives history forward
• Conflict is rooted in control of means of
  production
• State is the arm of the bourgeoisie
• Bourgeoisie v. proletariat is last stage in
  conflict
• Revolution will begin in most advanced industrial
  nation
• Will then spread worldwide
• Classless society will result