Power of the Press
In 1900, the press (newspapers) was the source of news. Radio was not up and running and TV was only a dream in some visionaries’ head. As such, the print press wielded enormous power and influence over public opinion. As demonstrated by the Spanish-American War, the press could bend public opinion to their view, thereby influencing the actions of parliaments and legislative bodies in democratic societies. Because Europe and America enjoyed freedom of the press, these newspapers shaped elections, and they enjoyed the power to make or break many a politician—or even governments. The problem with the press was its ability to lie and get away with it. If they lied about an individual a libel suit was possible, but if they lied about events, such as the sinking of the battleship USS Maine, there was no one to call them on it. On their opinion pages they could really let go and castigate anyone they wished, and this brought the fear of the newspaper gods upon the politicians of the era. In other nations the press was not free, often becoming the mouthpiece of the government for political and social manipulation.
In 2010, the press, including the print and broadcast press, still tells lies in order to advance their political or philosophic agenda.[160] Just by arranging which stories appear on the front page or in the first minute of a TV broadcast the press can influence a nation’s agenda. More disturbing, the news media universally think the same stories are important. Why do newspapers, magazines, and broadcast news repeatedly carry the identical story as the headline? Do they all think alike? (Yes) This was a problem in 1900 and it remains a problem in 2010. If all the major news outlets say the same thing, they can shape public opinion without the competition of ideas. So it was in 1900, and so it is now. The mass media was so important by 1900 that it guided the destiny of nations.
Power of Religion
God was not dead in 1900, although several philosophers said so. Religion in Europe, the colonial empires, and America played a key role in governance and in everyday life. Almost everyone believed in a god of some type, most attended church, and most would agree on the basics of morality. Using the Christian Bible as the foundation of law Europe, its colonial empires, and America agreed on fundamental issues, such as, monogamy was good, divorce was bad, children were good, stealing was bad, being clean was good, adultery was bad, hard work was good, murder was bad, abstinence from alcohol was good, etc. From the family to the courtroom there was general agreement on good and evil. This general agreement on the common good versus evil formula reflected Christian ideology. Catholics or Protestants might disagree on the role of the church, the power of the priesthood, the role of ancient rituals and language, but they would agree the Bible was God’s word and the dos and don’ts therein were from God himself.
Because of this religious influence, there was universal condemnation of lying, pornography, cheating, stealing, and a host of other ills; thus, controlling much of what the media dared publish for viewing in the newspapers, magazines, and books of the era. These publications were part of the age, and they displayed the general tenor of the 1900s where reputation and status were very important. One did not disgrace the family or themselves. This kind of self-control went a long way to assuring at least some order without the necessity of having a policeman on every corner. We would be amazed at what a person could buy in 1900 that is forbidden today. Explosives, drugs such as cocaine and arsenic, and all kinds of items strictly controlled in 2010 were purchased without question in 1900. A lack of governmental bureaucracy and trust in the individual helped. People in the USA felt what they did was none of the government’s business. The stamp of government control was not yet firmly impressed upon their minds. Controls we accept today with little argument would have caused outrage in 1900.
Not everyone was Christian or agreed on Christian principles. Uprisings were common and keeping control of an empire was a considerable and constant problem. In China, the Westerners made many Chinese angry as they practiced their new religion and displayed arrogant ways. Warlords and rebels often attacked the Europeans on religious grounds, but the Europeans and their superior technology held on inflicting sizeable losses on the attackers. In spite of sustained efforts by Christian churches, the Christian religion converted relatively few within the colonial empires.
In spite of these exceptions, the world united behind a Christian viewpoint and Christian principles. From the press to the role of government in society this Christian viewpoint, and the supporting principles, influenced society in countless ways.
Power of Science
Science grew in importance rapidly by 1900. Through the scientific (empirical) method, mankind made broad advances in understanding and controlling the world. Medicine uncovered new ways to fight disease; engineering invented new ways to build everything from trains and ships to houses and skyscrapers. Myth was out; proof was in—scientific proof. The scientific method requires repeatable experiments that yield repeatable results. Because of this repeatability people worldwide could conduct the same experiment (test) and know the results would be the same. As new empirical knowledge emerged mankind advanced to new plateaus of provable knowledge.
There was a problem. Science was discovering a world beyond what a person’s senses reported as fact. Einstein’s theory of relativity replaced Newton’s mechanical universe in 1905. Max Plank’s quantum theory, published in 1900, and Freud’s theories on the subconscious mind (The Interpretation of Dreams, 1900) all pointed to a world of seeming irrationality.
Plank’s theories of quantum mechanics concerned subatomic particles (smaller than atoms), and that world was without absolute certainty. The position of an electron is stated in terms of probability, particles and waves exhibit similar behavior, and particles “communicate” with one another over large distances faster than the speed of light. Einstein’s theories described the large-scale universe. In Einstein’s world, distances were vast and nothing traveled faster than the speed of light which was always constant. In relativity, a person’s observational position determines what is observed; thus, “truth” varies with the observer’s position. In Newton’s world, truth was absolute (laws); but in Einstein’s world, truth did not exist as an absolute—except for light . . . maybe . . .
The discovery that the world is made of atoms was critical to science, and it had a profound impact on the intellectual world as well. Atoms, the building blocks of everything, are mostly nothing. Between the center of the atom (the nucleus) and the electrons flying around the nucleus is . . . nothing. If a nucleus of an atom was the size of a basketball and placed in downtown Los Angeles, the nearest electron would be located (if it could be located) somewhere around San Diego or Bakersfield, some 200 plus miles away. The point here is the distances on a quantum scale are actually huge, and the space in between contains zero. It would seem impossible for this to be a fact because how can nothing become a solid something? The answer is the strong and weak electromagnetic forces existing between the atoms. These strong and weak electromagnetic forces actually hold individual solids apart so solids “appear” solid. However, as the reader can easily ascertain, this is not the world of our human senses. Thus, science told the world that what you see, taste, or feel is not reality. Reality was far deeper and more mysterious than anyone could have dreamed.
Physicists understand another problem separates the theory of relativity and quantum theory. One (relativity) described the macro; the other (quantum) described the micro, and they do not agree. How could it be that the tiny “universe” of atoms, electrons, and quanta acted and reacted in a very different way than the huge universe of planets, solar systems, and galaxies? Could the universes, large and small, be so different that the fundamental principles of one do not apply in the other? The answer in 1900 was yes, and the answer is the same today. So far, science agrees that the two “universes” exist and they do not operate by the same basic principles.
Worse yet, Freud probed the human mind and theorized the subconscious portion of the mind, unknown an
d uncontrolled by the conscience mind, actually controls actions and decisions at the conscience level. For illustration, people choose everything from clothes to mates based on signals from this subconscious area of the mind to the conscience area; however, these signals are unknown to the person making the decision. Thus, decisions are fundamentally irrational because the subconscious mind is not a rational thinking part of the mind; rather, it is an area of wild emotions and unconnected deep experiences normally suppressed below the conscience surface. Freud tried to reach this area of the mind through dream analysis (one method) and psychotherapy which caused the patient to reveal the meaning of symbols appearing in dreams. These symbols contained keys to conflicts in the mind patients must resolve to rid themselves of various mental illnesses caused by these conflicts. Thus, at a fundamental level, Freud proved humans were not rational (any historian could have told him that).
Another “science” came onto the scene before 1900, but it was gaining more steam by the turn of the century. Darwin wrote On the Origin of Species in 1859 putting forth the theory of evolution saying species found on the earth had long ago been simple one-celled creatures and slowly developed to the complex organisms of 1859 through a series of small steps. Which creatures take the next step was the product of evolution determining what type of organism best suited the environment. Those most fit survived to have more offspring which then became dominant and competed with others to see which ones would be most fit to advance again. In theory, each advance was to a more complex organism better able to fit into a niche in the environment.[161] The organism should not become too specialized, that is, fit for only one unique kind of environment, because a change in environment would destroy the species. Some generalization is good in that it increases the chance of survival if the environment changed.
One can see there is little room for a god in this theory. The natural forces of the earth drive everything, and as the environment of the earth changed so did the organisms dependent on that environment. Knowledgeable people in 1900 realized this theory applied to people as well as animals. After 1900, a secularized scientific world-view dominated the West, and evolution fit nicely into this view. In education, the secularized naturalist worldview became dominate under the guidance of men like Dewey.
The science of geology came of age at the same time the theory of evolution came into vogue. Lyle, an attorney, is the father of modern geology. He studied the landscapes very closely, deciding the processes at work on the environment in 1859 were the same forces at work in 500,000 BC or earlier. He stated, “As things are now, they have always been.” This was the uniformitarnism theory that was directly at odds with the catastrophic theory of earth’s history which had been the accepted idea. The catastrophic theory held cataclysmic events formed the earth causing massive geologic changes over short periods of time.
For Darwin’s theory to be accurate the uniformitarnism theory had to win acceptance as the foundation for geologic theory. If the earth were formed by cataclysmic events the species would not have time to evolve between the obliterations. The numbers of species on earth is great, and to reach this kind of diversity took long spans of uninterrupted time. Thus, the two theories of evolution and uniformitarnism managed to complete one another, bound together as a package. This fact is seldom part of an analysis of the theory of evolution.
Darwin’s theory challenged religious beliefs about the nature of man. If man was not created by God (or gods), then he was just an animal. The problem here was the lack of purpose and a lack of foundation for evaluating human behavior. Without God, where would morality come from? Who could then say what was right and wrong? Philosophy battled this problem since the ancient Greeks and never reached an agreed conclusion. Thus, science added to the stripping away of rationality from the world; and the world became a place without meaning, purpose, rationality, or god(s).
Art and Literature
Including music, philosophy, economics, and more
In the era of 1900, the artistic world experienced the death of rationality. Realism turned up dead, cause and effect dead, humanity dead, purpose of life . . . dead. Most ordinary people overlooked this in 1900, but it became evident soon enough.
As usual, artists led the way in predicting this new “reality.” Painters moved beyond Impressionism to Modernism. In this new way of painting, reality was unimportant. Van Gogh painted his famous Sunflowers in 1888, and this was already a great departure from Realism. Monet’s Water Lilies exhibited in 1916, and it is a stretch to call this Impressionism. Other paintings were coming, paintings of a dark and sordid world where shadow and form merged and made the subject hard to discern. In some paintings, clocks melted and landscapes became unrecognizable, or surrealistic, as we say today. Paintings contained no recognizable theme and often no recognizable center of attention. Most of the rules were gone. Cubism allowed the viewer to see the subject from many different perspectives; other paintings seemed formless, and without the title could not be recognized (Nude Descending a Staircase, Marcel Duchamp, 1912), and in others (The Scream, Edward Munch, 1893), the subject itself melts into a controlling title. In The Scream, the subject is the scream even though a scream is a noise. The artist made the person screaming appear as noise as much as a human (barely recognizable as human).
Figure 44 Duchamp, Nude Descending a Staircase, 1912
How artists can know the future before it arrives is an interesting issue; but in the era of 1900 the predictions of a dark and sinister future world were there for anyone to see.
In literature the same theme emerged. Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1883, and Marx’s Das Kapital, 1867, predicted the coming of new worlds. Nietzsche foretold of a world without a god, a world ruled by the supermen of the epoch who were without mercy or rationality. In 1848 Karl Marx (1818 to 1883), in his Communist Manifesto, wrote of a utopian world without government, ruled by workers who overthrew their capitalist masters and replaced them with workers (without a government) who gave and received as needed.
Figure 45 Munch, The Scream, 1893
Marx wrote as a revolutionary. He lived in a class-conscious England and wrote of a revolt by the oppressed working poor. Workers were cheated out of the increased value they added to raw materials, which the capitalist turned into profits; thus, the workers must seize the factories (means of production) and obtain the increased value for themselves. He called his system communism, and envisioned a utopia where governments evaporated as men lived honestly with one another without hostility because everyone was equal in his classless society. Marx thought the new world was inevitable, and close. Marx said the communist revolution was the last stage in history, and the workers’ revolution was already upon the industrial societies of the West. As a predictor of the future he was perfectly wrong. Communism did arise in Russia, China, and elsewhere; but it was not through a revolution of the workers. Rather, it was through the leadership of radicals who were often intellectuals leading peasants fired by the thought of creating a new social order by changing the economic and political system. After these revolutions the government, rather than melting away, became stronger and more oppressive than ever. By totally controlling everything in society through an increase in autocratic oversight, the radicals were the opposite of anything envisioned by Marx. Karl Marx fundamentally misunderstood economics and human nature. Ruthless men twisted his noble thoughts and words to gain the support of peasants and workers who could never dream what they were really supporting. Only after the dictators took power and began killing on a scale unheard of in human history did their true nature become known to the mostly illiterates they had duped. Marx viewed the poor of modern urban societies as a product of the capitalist system; however, they were actually the product of human nature and not the capitalist system. The urban poor had been around since cities began, and communism would not solve their problems.
If Marx was a fool dreaming of a world that could never be, then Nietzsche (1844 to 1900) was a cla
irvoyant foretelling of a world no one in their right mind would want—but received anyway. Nietzsche was predicting the world of the future would be harsh, but that is the way of the world (he might say), so get used to it. He was right. The world to come would be very harsh, and his ideas predicted super dictators doing as they willed with millions and caring not one whit for the lives of those they controlled. Just as the “overman” or superman in Nietzsche’s philosophy, the dictators did what they willed because they were superior to others; thus, others meant nothing. Only the overman ruled by right, and only the overman decided good and evil. In fact, good or evil did not exist; there was only the will of the overman.[162]
Nietzsche’s world recognizes no god; thus, the overman becomes a god on earth, and his will alone decides good or evil. This was the ultimate world without a god. Unfortunately, Hitler, Stalin, and Mao fit Nietzsche’s overman idea all too well. Complete dictators in control of the apparatus of state which could, and did, watch and order nearly every aspect of human existence.
George Orwell, in his book 1984, published in 1949, wrote of a fictional society watched over by the seemingly benevolent “Big Brother” which was in fact part of a ruthless dictatorial society in which uncontrolled human thought and emotion had no place. However, Hitler, Stalin, and Mao made the world of 1984 look good. These dictators murdered millions upon millions because they simply wanted to kill. No reason, no rationality, no purpose—just killing for killing’s sake. Just as Nietzsche predicted.
An event of total irrationality occurred in 1914, confirming the use of science and industry for death and chaos. An old invention, propaganda, using new moving pictures and clever words was convincing people to endure what they would never dream of in another place or time. Murder on a mass scale, war on an industrial scale, and irrationality on a titanic scale became everyday facts in World War I. Even the nickname shows the irrationality of it all: “The war to end all wars.” Not only would wars go on, they would grow in violence and senselessness.
The Super Summary of World History Page 30