The Age of Industrialization (1850

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The Age of Industrialization (1850 1950)

• Worldwide Empires and Worldwide Exploitation

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Social Conditions in the Age of Industrialization
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The World - 1911
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RAILROAD MILEAGE BY REGION RAILROAD MILEAGE BY REGION RAILROAD MILEAGE BY REGION RAILROAD MILEAGE BY REGION RAILROAD MILEAGE BY REGION RAILROAD MILEAGE BY REGION
1850 1860 1870 1880 1890
New England 2,507 3,660 4,494 5,982 6,831
Middle States 3,202 6,705 10,964 15,872 21,536
Southern States 2,036 8,838 11,192 14,778 29,209
Western States and Territories 1,276 11,400 24,587 52,589 62,394
Pacific States and Territories 23 1,677 4,080 9,804
TOTAL USA 9,021 30,626 52,914 93,301 129,774
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Harpers Index of the Gilded Age

• Number of deaths or injury sustained by railroad
  workers in 1889 22,000
• Number of hours worked per day by railroad
  workers in 1900 12 14
• Wages paid per day, in dollars, to Chinese
  railroad workers 1
• Wages paid, per day, to Irish Workers 2
• Amount, in dollars, paid by J.P. Morgan for
  Andrew Carnegies steel company in 1900
  492,000,000
• Amount then sold in stocks and bonds for the
  combined companies of Morgan and Carnegie
  1,300,000,000
• Commission fee, in dollars, Morgan gave himself
  for the consolidation 150,000,000

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Possible Significance to Critical Thinking

• When the overwhelming majority of time and energy
  each day are devoted to work, little remains for
  the development of the mind.
• When there is little to no access to schools or
  libraries, as was the case with many workers in
  the Industrial era, there are few opportunities
  for learning and intellectual growth.
• A system which explicitly supports the
  development of vast fortunes of wealth and
  suppresses the ability of the lower class to
  improve their status is not conducive to a
  critical society.

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Declining Standards at Oxford and Cambridge

• The middle of the 19th century was a period of
  tremendous change and transition at Oxford and
  Cambridge. Until this point, both had been first
  institutions for the training of the clergy and
  later places for the sons of wealthy elite to
  meet and establish business contacts. By the
  1850s their prestige as educational
  establishments were declining precipitously.

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Reforms and the Tutorial

• Significant reforms in second half of the 1800s
  largely resulted in the Oxford and Cambridge
  which exist today
• The Oath of the 39 articles, a pledge of
  religious fealty which all Oxford and Cambridge
  students were required to take, was abolished
• Medieval methods of memorization and
  regurgitation were replaced with tutorial
  instruction. This emphasized a low ratio of
  student to teacher and a high degree of reading
  and writing. The focus was placed on the thinking
  of the student. Students were encouraged to
  initiate and pursue their own questions,
  construct their own conclusions, and develop a
  unique and well reasoned point of view.

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Significance to Critical Thinking

• The tutorial system curtails passivity and
  promotes active engagement, an essential trait of
  the critical mind.
• By requiring large amounts of reading and
  writing, it fosters a disciplined pursuit of
  knowledge and the development and refining of
  ideas.
• However, it also has the potential to produce
  sophistic critical thinkers who are skilled at
  intellectual trickery and manipulation.
• No educational system can be designed to foster
  strong sense critical thinking in all its
  students unless instructors have internalized a
  rich conception of critical thinking and
  explicitly teach it to students.

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Trends in the 19th and 20th Centuries

• Beginning in the middle of the 19th century and
  continuing to the present day, there has been a
  proliferation in terms of the diversity of
  critiques produced, making it hard to describe
  and generalize.
• However, one trend that can be noted is that
  organizations and social movements are increasing
  in scale and consideration.
• For example, the International Committee of the
  Red Cross, which was founded in 1863 with the
  purpose of protecting war wounded, refugees, and
  prisoners, is not tied to any one country or
  polity.

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Trends (contd.)

• The League of Nations (1919), followed by the
  United Nations (UN) in 1945, were founded with
  the mission of preventing war, settling global
  disputes, and improving the general quality of
  life throughout the world.
• The World Health Organization (WHO, 1948) and the
  United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEF, 1946),
  specialized agencies within the UN, were
  established for similar reasons.

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Trends (contd.)

• This era also marked the beginning of social
  movements based on helping those in other groups
  and nations.
• In other words, instead of seeking to gain
  benefits for themselves, as much critique and
  activism had in the past, many humanitarian
  efforts in the 19th and 20th centuries have had
  the express purpose of giving aid to others who
  are not able to help themselves.

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Significance to Critical Thinking

• These organizations may point towards the
  development of a broader awareness, at least for
  the small percentage of people who engage in and
  support them.
• As the world becomes increasingly interconnected
  and interdependent, the consequences of
  uncritical and weak sense critical thought grow
  exponentially.

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Influential Thinkers in the Age of
Industrialization
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John Henry Newman (1801 1890)

• Key Idea Newman critiqued the educational system
  in a profound manner, arguing vociferously for
  not simple piecemeal changes but a paradigm
  shift. His main targets were the medieval forms
  of instruction which emphasized rote memorization
  of masses of facts, and the more recent decline
  in standards for wealthy elite who essentially
  bought their degrees while spending the majority
  of their time amusing themselves and escaping
  intellectual work.

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• I will tell you, Gentlemen, what has been the
  practical error of the last twenty years not to
  load the memory of the student with a mass of
  undigested knowledge, but to force upon him so
  much that he has rejected all. It has been the
  error of distracting and enfeebling the mind by
  an unmeaning profusion of subjects of implying
  that a smattering in a dozen branches of study is
  not shallowness, which it really is, but
  enlargement, which it is not of considering an
  acquaintance with the learned names of things and
  persons, and the possession of the clever
  duodecimos, and attendance on eloquent lecturers,
  and membership with scientific institutions, and
  the sight of the experiments of a platform and
  the specimens of a museum, that all this was not
  dissipation of mind, but progress. 

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• All I say is, call things by their right names,
  and do not confuse together ideas which are
  essentially different. A thorough knowledge of
  one science and a superficial acquaintance with
  many, are not the same thing a smattering of a
  hundred things or a memory for detail, is not a
  philosophical or comprehensive view. Recreations
  are not education accomplishments are not
  education. Do not say, the people must be
  educated, when, after all, you only mean, amused,
  refreshed, soothed, put into good spirits and
  good humour, or kept from vicious excesses. I do
  not say that such amusements, such occupations of
  mind, are not a great gain but they are not
  education. You may as well call drawing and
  fencing education, as a general knowledge of
  botany or conchology.

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Newmans Significance to Critical Thinking

• Newman contributed a rich and substantive model
  of education which, despite its flaws,
  nevertheless would be a powerful force for
  fostering critical thinking if it was taken
  seriously and widely applied.
• He represents a mind concerned with lifelong
  learning, systematic and disciplined thinking,
  applying intellectual skills to multiple
  subjects, to problems in human life, and to
  oneself in an effort to take charge of ones
  life. He had with a healthy respect for freedom
  of thought and human reason. He was not afraid to
  exercise his autonomous thought by speaking out
  against received views.

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John Stuart Mill (1806 1873)

• Key Idea Mill contributed much to the history
  of critical thinking, but the most important of
  his works are those focused on civil liberties.
  In these essays, he argues that all liberties are
  connected in an integral way, if one should be
  removed then the others will be, at the very
  least, diminished.

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• The appropriate region of human liberty
  comprises, first, the inward domain of
  consciousness demanding liberty of conscience in
  the most comprehensive sense liberty of thought
  and feeling absolute freedom of opinion and
  sentiment on all subjects, practical or
  speculative, scientific, moral, or
  theologicalThe liberty of expressing and
  publishing opinionsis practically inseparable
  from itSecond, the principle requires liberty of
  tastes and pursuits of framing the plan of our
  life to suit our own character of doing as we
  like, subject to such consequences as may follow
  without impediment from our fellow-creatures, so
  long as what we do does not harm them, even
  though they should think our conduct foolish,
  perverse, or wrongNo society in which these
  liberties are not, on the whole respected, is
  free, whatever may be its form of government and
  none is completely free in which they do not
  exist absolute and unqualified.

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• We can never be sure that the opinion we are
  endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion and if
  we were sure, stifling it would be an evil
  still. First the opinion which it is attempted
  to suppress by authority may possibly be
  true. Those who desire to suppress it, of course,
  deny its truth but they are not infallible. They
  have no authority to decide the question for all
  mankind, and exclude every other person from the
  means of judging. To refuse a hearing to an
  opinion, because they are sure it is false, is
  assuming that their certainty is the same thing
  as absolute certainty. All silencing of
  discussion is an assumption of infallibilityon
  any matter not self-evident, there are
  ninety-nine persons incapable of judging of it
  for one who is capable and the capacity of the
  hundredth person is only comparative for the
  majority of the eminent men of every past
  generation held many opinions now known to be
  erroneous, and did or approved numerous things
  which no one will now justify.  

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Mills Significance to Critical Thinking

• Mills many treatises explicating and defending
  the rights of citizens exemplify the importance
  of thinking through an idea deeply and following
  out the implications that result. He thus
  characterizes the critical traits of thinking in
  a disciplined and systematic manner.
• He is, in this regard, an excellent example of
  applying intellectual skills to human problems in
  an attempt to alleviate suffering and pain. He
  was committed to thinking within multiple points
  of view and to speaking out against established
  systems of power.
• Additionally, he firmly believed that reason
  should guide human thought and behavior, and that
  learning is a lifelong process of growth and
  development.

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Albert Einstein (1879 1955)

• Key ideas Einstein did not think of himself as
  being particularly gifted or intelligent, but
  credited his success to a questioning mind which
  could focus on an idea intensely until it was
  solved. He refused to follow along with the
  scientific status quo and was able to shift the
  paradigm in terms of our understanding of the
  universe as a result. Apart from his considerable
  contributions to the scientific world, Einstein
  was also a strong voice for the creation of a
  world with more equality that was more just and
  more peaceful. Additionally, and most significant
  to critical thinking, he grasped the importance
  of a general education and intellectual traits in
  the development of the mind.

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• I want to oppose the idea that the school has to
  teach directly that special knowledge and those
  accomplishments, which one has to use later
  directly in life The demands of life are much too
  manifold to let such as specialized training in
  school appear possible. ..The school should
  always have as its aim that the young man leave
  it as a harmonious personality, not as a
  specialistThe development of general ability for
  independent thinking and judgment should always
  be placed foremost, not the acquisition of
  special knowledge. If a person masters the
  fundamentals of his subject and has learned to
  think and work independently, he will surely find
  his way and besides will better be able to adapt
  himself to progress and changes than the person
  whose training principally consists in the
  acquiring of detailed knowledge.. It is essential
  that the student acquire an understanding of and
  a lively feeling for values. He must acquire a
  vivid sense of the beautiful and of the morally
  good.

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Einsteins significance to Critical Thinking

• Einstein was a scientist in the highest sense of
  the word. Far from being locked into the details
  of his field, Einstein recognized that every
  human discovery and invention has implications
  and consequences, some of which are negative or
  harmful. His horror at the use of the atomic bomb
  on humans and his attempt to curtail nuclear
  proliferation do him credit.
• In arguing for the development of traits and a
  general education, Einstein comes very close to
  describing a strong sense critical thinker.
• Einstein was a consummate specialist, yet he
  applied his intellectual skills to many subject
  areas and to human problems as well.

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Emma Goldman (1869 1940)

• Key Ideas Goldman critiqued established
  governments as not living up to the values which
  they professed to uphold. She was especially
  critical of the U.S. government and was
  imprisoned for vocalizing her thoughts.

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It has often been suggested to me that the
Constitution of the United States is a sufficient
safeguard for the freedom of its citizens. It is
obvious that even the freedom it pretends to
guarantee is very limited. I have not been
impressed with the adequacy of the safeguard. The
nations of the world, with centuries of
international law behind them, have never
hesitated to engage in mass destruction when
solemnly pledged to keep the peace and the legal
documents in America have not prevented the
United States from doing the sameFar from the
Constitution playing any liberating part in the
lives of the American people, it has robbed them
of the capacity to rely on their own resources or
do their own thinking. Americans are so easily
hoodwinked by the sanctity of law and authority.
In fact, the pattern of life has become
standardized, routinized, and mechanized like
canned food and Sunday sermons. 
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Goldmans Significance to Critical Thinking

• Goldmans contributions to critical thinking lie
  in her unwavering devotion to human rights and
  her willingness to critique governments which do
  not protect those rights.
• She was a living example of intellectual autonomy
  and courage, not backing down from her views even
  in the face of oppression and imprisonment.
• Writing at a time when women had very little
  legal or social power or recognition, she is also
  an example of someone who was able to develop her
  mind largely independently of outside help.

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Bertrand Russell (1872 1970)

• Key Idea A philosopher/logician/mathematician
  who, after making seminal contributions to
  professional philosophy, shifted more and more to
  addressing virtually every major human problem in
  a series of publications and public addresses.
  The extent of his influence is suggested by the
  fact that he published nearly 100 books and was
  the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.

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Russells Significance to Critical Thinking

• He demonstrated command of the complexity of the
  major problems of the 20th century world, but
  illustrated at the same time how a careful
  critical analysis of those problems lent
  themselves to the possibility of practical
  solutions. Virtually to the end of his life, he
  demonstrated the power of critical thought to cut
  through propaganda and modern sophistry and to
  highlight the potential of intellectually
  disciplined integrity. He was a 20th century
  paradigm of critical thought in the strongest
  sense.