INTELLECTUAL AND CULTURAL FRONTIERS

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INTELLECTUAL AND CULTURAL FRONTIERS

• 1914 - PRESENT

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POST-WAR PESSIMISM

• The "lost generation"
• Term described pessimism of U.S., European
  thinkers after the war
• Postwar poetry, fiction reflected disillusionment
  with western culture
• Scholars--Oswald Spengler, Arnold
  Toynbee--lamented decline of west
• Religious thought reflected uncertainty and
  pessimism
• Karl Barth attacked liberal Christian theology
  embracing idea of progress
• Older concepts of original sin and human
  depravity revived
• Attacks on the ideal of progress
• Science tarnished by the technological horrors of
  World War I
• Most western societies granted suffrage to all
  men and women
• Many intellectuals disillusioned with democracy
• Conservatives decried "the rule of inferiors

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INTELLECTUAL REVOLUTIONS

• Albert Einstein's theory of relativity, 1906
• Space and time relative to the person measuring
  them
• Implication reality or truth merely a set of
  mental constructions
• Werner Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, 1927
• Impossible to state position, velocity of a
  subatomic particle at same time
• Atomic universe indeterminate can only speak of
  probabilities
• Challenged long-held assumptions about truth,
  cause and effect
• Freud's psychoanalytic theory, 1896
• Conflict between conscious and unconscious mental
  processes
• Sought psychological causes of mental illness
• Sexual repression frequent cause of neuroses
• Freud's ideas shaped psychiatric profession,
  influenced literature and arts
• Modern painting
• When photography can reproduce nature, why should
  painting?
• Painters like Pablo Picasso sought freedom of
  expression, emotional expression
• Borrowed from artistic traditions of Asia,
  Pacific, and Africa
• No widely accepted standards of good or bad art
• Modern architecture the Bauhaus school started
  in Germany, 1920
• An international style for twentieth-century
  urban buildings

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AMERICAN SOCIETY POST-1945

• Domestic containment
• U.S. leaders held families to be best defense
  against communism
• Women discouraged from working, should stay home
  and raise kids
• Senator McCarthy led attack against suspected
  communists in United States
• Increasing pressure to conform, retreat to home
  and family
• Female liberation movement a reaction to postwar
  domesticity
• Working women unhappy with new cult of
  domesticity
• Writers Simone de Beauvoir and Betty Friedan
  reflected women's dissatisfaction
• Some feminists used Marxist language, argued for
  "women's liberation"
• Black nationalism in United States, Caribbean,
  and emerging states of Africa
• Influenced by Jamaicans, singer Bob Marley,
  nationalist Marcus Garvey
• Martin Luther King Jr. inspired by Gandhi's
  nonviolent methods
• The U.S. civil rights movement emerged from cold
  war
• USSR critical of United States for treatment of
  African-Americans
• African-Americans organized in protest of
  southern segregation
• 1954, U.S. Supreme Court ruled that segregated
  education was unconstitutional
• Rosa Parks started boycott of Montgomery buses,
  led by M. L. King, 1955
• Cold war consumerism
• Socialist countries could not match United States
  in material wealth, consumer goods

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CROSS-CULTURAL EXCHANGES

• Global Barbie
• Western consumerism becoming a global phenomenon
• Sara versus Barbie in Iran
• Barbie seen as a threat to Islamic values, symbol
  of cultural imperialism
• Iranian dolls, Sara and her brother Dara (an
  Islamic cleric), are modest alternatives
• Barbie in Japan
• Image of Barbie unsettling, Mattel created a
  younger doll for Japanese market
• Whereas Iranians reject image of Barbie, Japanese
  adjust Barbie to their aesthetic
• Consumption and cultural interaction
• Global culture of consumption
• Satisfies wants and desires rather than needs or
  necessities
• Homogenization of global culture blue jeans,
  Coca-Cola, McDonalds
• Western icons often replace local businesses and
  indigenous cultures
• Brand names also identify local products, for
  example, Swiss Rolex, Perrier, Armani
• Pan-American culture competes with United States
• Eva Pe_on (Evita) has become a pop icon in
  Argentina and beyond
• Latin American societies blended foreign and
  indigenous cultural practices
• The age of access
• Globalization minimizes social, economic, and
  political isolation

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POP CULTURE

• Leisure time allowed for development of mass
  entertainment
• Technology led to syncretic blend of world
  artistic traditions
• Globalizing Art and Culture
• Fine art vs. pop(ular) art
• Distinction blurred
• National distinctions largely gone
• Interconnections, exchanges without war
• Music
• Probably greatest aspect of Globalization
• Syncretic World Beat Classical, African, ethnic
  influences led to Jazz, Blues, Rock
• Popularity of Beatles, ABBA, Ladysmith Black
  Mazembo around world
• Movies
• Technological wonder born of marriage between
  photography, art, music
• Hollywood and Bollywood dominate production of
  world movies
• Sports
• Outgrowth of British interest in competitive
  sports, 1895 Olympic revival
• 1920s/1950s Baseball, basketball spreads
  wherever Americans live, stationed
• 1930s Popularity of soccer spreads from Europe
  to Latin America
• Today perhaps the primary world wide
  entertainment 2 billion watch Olympics