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Modernism

Modernism. The shifting sands of Modernity. Truth Beauty Faith Character. Paradox Reality Uncertainty Personality. Victorianism vs. Modernism. Instead of black and white distinctions modernists believed in the shades of gray in between. In doing so they hoped to know “reality”

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Modernism

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  1. Modernism The shifting sands of Modernity

  2. Truth Beauty Faith Character Paradox Reality Uncertainty Personality Victorianism vs. Modernism

  3. Instead of black and white distinctions modernists believed in the shades of gray in between. In doing so they hoped to know “reality” Truth lies somewhere in between rigid understandings of right and wrong Reconnecting the Dichotomies

  4. The Paradox of Altruism http://www.gla.ac.uk/philosophy/Cartoons/Paradox%20of%20Altruism.jpg

  5. The Reality Quest • A) A glorious search for real truth. • B) A daunting series of revelations that undermined the belief in an understandable universe. http://www.fag.hiof.no/~st/2002-03/team2/drama/bilder/kunstkort/Picasso-Tre%20musikanter.jpg

  6. Intellectuals Make the Victorian Edifice Crumble • The Solid Foundation of Victorianism is replaced by the Shifting Sands of Modernity http://www.warrengebert.com/2002/hourglass.jpg

  7. Charles Darwin • The Origin of Species, 1859 • Natural Selection, Survival of the Fittest • If the order and complexity of the universe can be explained through blind, purposeless forces such as random mutation and natural selection, then the ordered progress of the Victorian world came under question.

  8. The Descent of Man 1871 • Another shock to Victorian understanding was the Darwin’s ideas connect human beings to the nature. This contradicted the Victorian understanding of a key dichotomy that separated man from nature. • It also challenged the Victorian belief that science would help reveal religious truth. • “Scientific and revealed truth are of essentially different natures, andif we attempt to combine and unite them, we are attempting to unite things of a kind which cannot be consolidated, and shall infallibly injure both.” Robert M. Young http://human-nature.com/dm/chap1.html

  9. Einstein • A Swiss Patent Clerk who destroyed the certainty of the Newtonian universe. • E=MC² the Theory of Relativity • Space-Time Continuum

  10. http://www.gla.ac.uk/philosophy/Cartoons/The%20Nature%20of%20Time.jpghttp://www.gla.ac.uk/philosophy/Cartoons/The%20Nature%20of%20Time.jpg

  11. Relativism • Ideas this big permeate through the intellectual world. • The certainty of the Victorian world gets replaced by Einstein’s relativism. • Things are not absolutely true but relatively true. • An example of this modern re-understanding of the world is Cultural Anthropology

  12. Cultural Anthropology • Boas published his views on the comparative method in 1896. The article, "The Limitations of the Comparative Method of Anthropology," was the first exposition of cultural relativism. According to the tenets of cultural relativism, there are no inferior or superior cultures; all cultures are equal. • Boas separated race from cultural factors in his theories and laid the groundwork for cultural relativism, which requires that a culture be understood on its own terms, without a hierarchy ranking some cultures as better or more advanced than others. http://www.panam.edu/faculty/mglazer/Theory/cultural_relativism.htm http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/mead/mead-shaping.html

  13. Sigmund Freud • Freud’s ideas of the human mind and human nature also contradicted Victorian certainty. • The Interpretation of Dreams1900, Contained the basic foundation of psychoanalysis • We are both rational and irrational • Id, Ego, and Superego • Pleasure principle, seat of reason, inhibition and moral values.

  14. Freudian Human Nature • We are part passion and part reason. • To only acknowledge on part it to not truly know yourself. • The voyage of self-discovery is one of the most difficult and fascinating journeys of all.

  15. Surrealism A 20th-century literary and artistic movement that attempts to express the workings of the subconscious and is characterized by fantastic imagery and incongruous juxtaposition of subject matter. http://www.paper-dragon.com/1939/dali.html http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/munch/munch.scream.jpg

  16. Friedrich Nietzsche • German philosopher • To Nietzsche the moral code of Christianity and the political system of democracy held back human development • Said “God is dead” to try to allow humanity to reach its potential. • The goal was the fostering of superior human intellectuals known as “overman”

  17. Overman • These superior intellectuals must free themselves from the constraints of democracy and Christianity • They must declare war on the masses and free themselves from established notions of good and evil. • In the end a new morality would be achieved. • Spent his later years heavily sedated and institutionalized.

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