Revolutionary Ideologies

1. Revolutionary Ideologies HUM 2052: Civilization II Summer 2010 Dr. Perdigao June 10, 2010

2. Contextualizing Texts 1808—John Dalton formulated modern atomic theory 1831—Michael Farady discovered principle of electromagnetic induction 1847—Hermann von Helmholtz formulate law of conservation of energy 1848—Marx and Engels, Communist Manifesto 1859—Darwin, The Origin of Species 1861—Emancipation of Serfs in Russia; Louis Pasteur’s vaccines 1861-1865—American Civil War 1864—Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground 1869—Dmitri Mendeleev constructed periodic table for the elements 1871—Darwin, The Descent of Man 1874—Impressionism launched with Monet’s painting 1876—Telephone 1884-1885—European Acquisition of African territory (by 1914 all Africa [except Ethiopia and Liberia] succumbs to European rule) 1887—Heirncih Hertz discovered electromagnetic waves (radio, television, radar); Eiffel Tower built for 1889 Paris World’s Fair; Daimler’s internal combustion engine for automobile 1894—X rays discovered 1898—Radium discovered by Marie and Pierre Curie; Spanish-American War erupts

3. Industry, Empire, Revolution • “Old order” of Europe deconstructed, Holy Roman Empire and Papal States dissolved (997) • Industrial Revolution—term coined in 1820s, parallel to French Revolution shows change during the period • Age of industry and empire, transforming Europe and the world, leads to “social question”—concern about social and economic changes as a result of industrialization and urbanization • Global expansion of European culture—to new imperialism • “Humanitarian commitment”—giving way to the “heart of darkness”? • Attempts by workers for improved conditions yet new divisions and breaks within society • Racism, anti-Semitism, ethnic chauvinism • “Liberty,” “science,” “progress,” and “evolution” as nineteenth century concepts

4. That fish • Charles Darwin (1809-1892) • Erasmus Darwin—grandfather—published Zoonomia, or the Laws of Organic Life, and evidence that earth exited for millions of years before people, animal modifications (Perry 579) • Naturalist, HMS Beagle (1831-36), surveyed South America and Pacific islands • “Darwin did for biology what Newton had done for physics: he made it an objective science based on general principles” (Perry 578) • “mutability of species,” “natural selection,” “survival of the fittest” (1370) • “A natural selection acts by competition” (1372); “The natural system is a genealogical arrangement, in which we have to discover the lines of descent by the most permanent characters, however slight their vital importance may be” (1374).

5. Creationism vs. Evolutionary Theory • Completes “trend initiated by Galileo” and contributes to the “waning of religious belief and to a growing secular attitude” (Perry 581) • Rejection of literal interpretation of the Bible: “It is so easy to hide our ignorance under such expressions as the ‘plan of creation,’ ‘unity of design,’ et cetera…” (1375) • Backlash— “Genesis is a lie. . . The revelation of God to man, as we Christians know it, is a delusion and a snare” (qtd. in Perry 580); “practically destructive of the authority of divine revelation, and subversive of the foundation of religion and morality” (qtd. in Perry 581) • “In the distant future I see open fields for far more important research. Psychology will be based on a new foundation, that of the necessary acquirement of each mental power and capacity by gradation. Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history” (1375). • Christianity more of an issue of faith than reason…. “Copernicanism had deprived people of the comforting belief that the earth had been placed in the center of the universe just for them; Darwinism deprived them of the privilege of being God’s special creation” (Perry 580). • http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scopes/evolut.htm

6. Sigh

7. Social Sciences • The Descent of Man • “man is descended from some less highly organized form” (1376); “We thus learn that man is descended from a hairy, tailed quadruped, probably arboreal in its habits, and an inhabitant of the Old World” (1377) • “Social Darwinism” as work of social science, applying Darwin’s theories to social and economic issues: “struggle for existence” and “survival of the fittest” • Loose application leads to problematic uses—language of imperialism, racism, nationalism, militarism, “doctrines that preached relentless conflict” (Perry 581) • Darwinian biology to promote belief in Anglo-Saxon (British and American) and Teutonic (German) racial superiority (Perry 581) • Growth of British Empire, expansion of United States to Pacific, and extension of German power seen by Social Darwinists as issues of racial superiority, domination of American Indians, Africans, Asians, Poles (Perry 581)

8. Social Sciences • “Whereas the philosophes emphasized human equality, Social Darwinists divided humanity into racial superiors and inferiors” (Perry 582) • Racial and national conflict as “biological necessity, law of history, and a means of progress” and “distorted the image of progress” (Perry 582)

9. Reconfiguring Darwin Creation Museum: http://www.creationmuseum.org/about Unicorn Museum: http://www.unicornmuseum.org/ Inherit the Wind (1960): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtNdYsoool8 Planet of the Apes (1968): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvR2mCx-Jnc Planet of the Apes (2001): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BB2pSE6z_s

10. Defining the Revolution From “Revolutionary Principles” (1369-1370) Change in assumptions in science, philosophy, the structure of society, human identity Nietzsche’s argument that Western culture is in decline—moral decay of society and loss of individual freedom Marx and Engels—cultural decline—problems in capitalist free society that produced the Crystal Palace was falling apart and would be overturned, foreseeing revolutions in their times “Revolutions of the mind”: challenging accepted ideas in science, philosophy, and society The “woman question” answered best in theory or in salons, their place in history After Newton, questions of God’s role in world, Darwin’s theories in relation to that center, creationism

11. Liberalism Roots in John Locke (17th century) and Enlightenment philosophy (18th century); continuation of democratic practices and rational outlook of ancient Greece; work of French philosophes (Montesquieu’s separations of powers and checks and balances, religious toleration and freedom of thought; American and French Revolutions; Bill of Rights; French National Assembly of 1789 (Perry 534) Constitutional guarantees of personal liberty and free trade in economics, leading to social improvement and economic growth; Adam Smith’s laissez-faire theory Support of Industrial Revolution but opposing violence and state power promoted by French Revolution, repudiated Jacobin radicalism; called for end to legacy of Middle Ages and aristocracy Middle class—manufacturers, merchants, professionals support liberalism

12. Liberalists Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859), Democracy in America (1835-1840), advocated destruction of aristocracy (Perry 537) Thomas Paine (1748-1832), The Rights of Man (1791-1792) following Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), utility as reform, pain and pleasure, philosophical radicals (Perry 539)

13. Socialism Following liberalism “liberties advocated by liberals benefited only the middle class—the owners of factories and businesses—not the workers” (MW: 675) Sought to reorganize society Critique of Industrial Revolution for creating two classes: new middle class (capitalists who own the wealth) and working class Early socialists as “romantics,” dreaming of a “New social order, a future utopia, where each individual could find happiness and self-fulfillment” (Perry 540), did not advocate class warfare Charles Fourier (1772-1837), phalansteries, communities; Robert Owen (1771-1858)—Welsh—factory town in Scotland, then Indiana (New Harmony, 1920s) (Florida?) (Perry 540-541) Emancipation of women

14. Collectivists and Communists After failed revolutions in 1848, Marxists and anarchists as “chief proponents of revolution” (Perry 584); both liberalism and Marxist shared principles derived from Enlightenment, social progress Differences as seizure of power by working class and destruction of capitalism, violence and struggle as “essence of history,” “instruments of progress” for Marxists while liberals upheld education and self-discipline as means to “overcome inequality and poverty” (Perry 584) “emphasizing their desire to replace private property by communal, collective ownership” (676) Marx (1818-1883) and Engels (1820-1895), German, Marx forced to leave France in 1849, moved to London Communist League, 1848 Communist Manifesto

15. Marx’s Science Marx as “strict materialist” and “Young Hegelian,” belief that the “Germany of their day” “had not attained a harmony between the individual and society; it as not rationally organized and did not foster freedom” (Perry 531); “dialectical conflict” between opposing forces, thesis (force) and antithesis (adversary), not abstract natural rights but “true freedom” attained “through the social group” (Perry 530), history as “not an assortment of unrelated and disconnected events, but a progressive development” (Perry 585) For Marx, clash of classes rather than opposing ideas—“dialectical materialism” which accounts for change and progress (Perry 585); saw Hegel as too metaphysical

16. Marxist Theory Marx and Engels—turn to economic relationships that influence society—social, political, intellectual, and cultural—and change throughout history with production change Revolutionizing instruments of production; great crises, according to Marx and Engels, in production and production forces “capitalist free enterprise system that had created the crystal palace was now on the verge of collapse and would soon be overturned by the very class of laborers it had created to meet industrial demands” (1369) Bourgeoisie vs. proletariat Bourgeoisie (capitalist) Proletariat (working class) Embrace industrialization to bring about proletarian revolution and “abolition of exploitation, private property, and class society” (676)

17. Rise of Marxism Marx: political theorist and labor organizer Scientific theory (like Darwin?): mathematical calculations of production and profit Das Kapital Returns to John Locke (another influential text for Frankenstein) “that human existence was defined by the necessity to work to fulfill basic needs such as food, clothing, and shelter” (MW: 713). Materialism as class relationships developed around work the “mode of production” Feudalism (serf and medieval lord); slavery (slave and master); capitalism (worker [proletariat] and capitalist)

18. The Road to Revolution Rather than emphasize individual rights, focus on unequal class relations and discards the “romantic views of the Utopian socialists” to focus on struggle as means to bring change Marx “rejected the liberal Enlightenment view that society was basically harmonious, maintaining instead that social progress could occur only through conflict” (MW: 714) Anarchism as destruction of state power because “the existence of the state was the root of social injustice” (713) Mikhail Bakunin (1814-1876), wanted all oppressed people to revolt, secret societies rather than mass political parties, feared Marxists would become new masters and exploiters , instead should destroy the state (Perry 588-589)

19. Limits of Civilization “the epidemic of over production” that leads society into “momentary barbarism” (return to Montaigne?) “Because there is too much civilisation, too much means of subsistence, too much industry, too much commerce. The productive forces at the disposal of society no longer tend to further the development of the conditions of bourgeois property; on the contrary, they have become too powerful for these conditions, by which they are fettered, and so soon as they overcome these fetters, they bring disorder into the whole of bourgeois society . . .” (1386).