Western Civilization - Essay Example

Western Civilization I The Age of Nation s A Flora Tristan was a follower of Charles Fourier, a utopian socialist. Tristan divorced her abusive husband who was nevertheless awarded with the custody of their children which inspired her to speak out against the system. She travelled all over Europe and Latin America, advocating for women’s rights at the home, in law and in labor and the equality of women and men workers. B The leading utopian socialists of the 19th century were: Saint-Simon, a French nobleman, who subscribed to the “religion of humanity” philosophy where there is no system of private inheritance and everybody works, believing that every person should be given what is due him; Fourier, another Frenchman, believed that economic competition is the source of all evil, work should be voluntary, and everything should be shared by all; Owen drafted the model socialist community where everybody helped in raising children, women had a role in governance, and, sexual freedom for all sexes, and; Tristan advocated for equality between men and women in all aspects: labor; home, and; law. C Karl Marx was known for his theories on the following: economic interest; class struggle; industrial capitalism, and; socialist society. According to Marx, it is economic interest which is the universal motivator and dictates political, religious and cultural trends. Everything will eventually end up in a class struggle between the haves and the have-nots. The former dictates how the state is run and what ideas circulate around society. On industrial capitalism, Marx believed that capitalists are locked in competition with one another, and newer and bigger machineries are being built everyday to outdo each other. Eventually, everything will spin out of control and the periodic crises and competition will diminish the bourgeoisie while the working class grows, who would then institute a revolt and take over all machineries of capitalism. This will result into a classless society and the abolition of the state and a totally free society. D After the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1814, conservatism became predominant in France, the German states, Italy, Russia, and Great Britain. In France, the successive rules of Louis XVIII and Charles X saw the predominance of conservative policies; the former imposing a mild militaristic style and the latter favoring the old aristocracy. In the German states, which included Austria and Prussia, conservative policies likewise prevailed. Matternich, a conservative diplomat, together with the Habsburg emperor, imposed conservative policies fearing that any of the ethnic groups constituting Austria will harbor nationalistic inclinations and disturb the status quo. In Prussia, on the other hand, the Hohenzollern kings ruled backed by the Junkers, the conservative landed aristocracy. They ruled conservatively and did not favor liberal policies or laws. In Italy, the deposed aristocracy came back and put things in order, overpowering pockets of revolts by overwhelming forces while the Papacy reinstituted the Inquisition, and other conservative policies. In Russia, the successive reigns of Alexander I and Nicholas I ensured the rule of conservatism. In Great Britain, the conservative landed aristocracy and the Tory party dominated imposing strict measures that curtailed all reform threats. E The White Man’s Burden is the underpinning motivation of the western world to bring civilization to less civilized areas, whether to introduce religion, hygiene or the concept of governance. However, this was a big hypocrisy because what the colonial powers really did was made conquest for more riches and resources and instead of converting the colonies into civilized people, the latter were exploited and treated inhumanly. F 1. Romanticism flourished during the first half of the 19th century influencing literature and art. It stressed the emotionalism, complexity and sometimes irrationality of humans. It was first brought to the fore by Jean Jacques Rousseau, a writer and philosopher, whose works mirrored romanticism as well as the German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe whose novel The Sorrows of Young Werther was about a person searching for love and understanding. In literature, this romanticism was reflected in love of nature, love of God and the emotions of humans, in the works of such great poets as William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 2. In art, the paintings of Karl Friedrich contained the elements of romanticism: glorification of nature, religious mysticism, adoration of the medieval era and deep emotions. In music, the works of Ludwig van Beethoven, whose lyrics contain description of nature, especially Pastoral Symphony, are examples of romanticism in music. G In the early 19th century in Great Britain, the conservative government was threatened by the possibility of impending riots from the masses as famine seemed imminent. When the people gathered in the St. Peter’s Fields to hear speeches calling for reforms, the British troops in horses barged in to break the congregation, trampling and using their sabers at everybody, including hapless children and women. Many were killed prompting many to call it the Peterloo Massacre. H In Italy, several states moved for national unification inspired by Giuseppi Mazzini, an idealist. Mazzini advocated insurrection as the means with which the masses can free themselves from tyranny. The people held numerous demonstrations and in the end, Pope Pius IX was forced to vacate Italy and flee to Rome and Mazzini was installed as the head of the country. I Garibaldi appealed to the Sicilians’ sense of duty and patriotism saying that Italy’s success against its enemy was dependent on this sense of duty, bravery, pride in their Roman ascendancy and patriotism. This appeal has parallelism to a call for nationality because it invoked the Sicilians’ pride of their heritage, and sense of duty towards their place of birth. II A New Public A The theory of the national state was a concept convincing people to lay allegiance, loyalty and service to their nation freely and voluntarily. It stressed the need to convince the citizens that they are part of one nation, and had a say in the making of the laws through suffrage and that they should understand these laws, the concept of suffrage and legislation. To make them see beyond their localities, the citizens’ perspectives should be broaden to keep their awareness of the nation as a whole, a process that can best be done through education in schools. B Schools were not only useful for a person to be able to find better opportunities in life then, but they also laid down basic social values like patriotism, civic duties borne out of that patriotism, like obeying the laws, paying taxes and rendering military service. C The Bessemer processes sped up the removal of impurities from molten iron; advances in chemistry allow textile manufacturers to color their cloths cheaply with dyes; the invention of electrical dynamo, the steam turbine, and the internal combustion engine which made the manufacture of automobiles possible; the telegraph, by Samuel Morse in 1844, which made possible the travel of news from one end of the Atlantic to the other; the telephone by Alexander Graham Bell; and advances in railroad building making transport to long distances possible. D Bagehot connected natural selection to history by pointing out that the best state is the strongest state which naturally prevails over all other weaker states and the conquest of the stronger states allow for intermixture of strengths resulting in the best possible combination. And since the strongest men had driven weaker men out of Europe, Europe is a country of strong men as can be attested by its prevailing power in the various stages in history. III Fin de Siecle A 1 When the states finally enacted laws that would alleviate working conditions, one of the things granted was holidays or days off to give time for rest. Workers spent this time to play with one another until it caught on. Organizing games were done by church organizations, industries and schools. At the end of the 19th century, people were beginning to pay to watch games being played, covered by newspapers. The interest in sports made the papers sell. Teams travelled to other towns to play hometown teams and people were drawn to watch these games to support their own homegrown teams. 2. The emergence of sports as national and popular events carried with them the popularity of commercial items associated with them like jerseys, shorts and boots, tonics for strength, embrocations, patent medicines and beer. B 1. Henri Bergson was a French philosopher who theorized that the truth can be discovered not by the limited way of reasoning and scientific thinking but by intuition and unconscious feelings. He believed that science cannot really teach or uncover the truth for humanity but its purpose is only to serve as a rule of action. Bergson was one of those who were disenchanted by the ideas espoused by the middle class. 2. Max Planck was a German physicist whose theory that heated bodies emit energy in regular packets was Einstein’s inspiration for his theory of relativity. 3. Emile Durkheim, a Frenchman, was dubbed as the father of modern sociology. Durkheim strongly opposed trends in society and during his time, he had an adverse view on the industrial trend and viewed it as something that would eventually break down the tie that held society together. This is because it tended to focus the individual on his own advancement at the expense of others, thereby propagating disunity. This disunity will result in the disorientation of the individual from the rest of society and leave him with no sense of purpose. C The period of 1879-1914 can be considered an era of progress and was in fact called the Second Industrial Revolution and the French called it “La Belle Epoque” or the beautiful era. It was during this period that electricity, telegraph and the telephone was discovered – the three fundamental elements of progress. IV The First World War and the Rise of Fascism A In 1921, Winston Churchill predicted that a war at that time will result in the devastation of the loser and the winner will nevertheless suffer from commercial dislocation and exhaustion. His prediction turned out to be true as both first and second world wars turned out to be wars of attritions as each side tried to wear off each other in protracted battles. Defeated Germany was forced to accept the harsh terms of the subsequent agreement after the first war. B The Central Powers constituted Germany, Bulgaria, Turkey, and Austria-Hungary and the advantage of this alliance was it was headed by Germany which had well-equipped military and well-trained army which had high mobility and very good coordination of military strategies. The Triple Entente, on the other hand, was comprised of Russia, Great Britain and France and they had numbers on their side. C World War I was a costly war because more than ten million people were lost in its wake with both Germany and France losing 16% of their male population to it. The ensuing general weakness caused by the war catalyzed an epidemic that killed so much more people, perhaps thrice as much. D Fascism is a state-centered doctrine headed by a charismatic dictator and characterized as antidemocratic, anti-individualist and anticommunist. It grew to prominence in Italy after the World War I, feeding on the people’s disappointment and frustration over their government. Benito Mussolini, who served in the Italian Army, rose to power after the war. He organized the National Fascist Party which grew to prominence and overthrew Italy’s parliamentary system. Mussolini organized trade into corporations headed each by a fascist official. Although he had a reputation of being in control, many of his policies failed. During his reign, women workers’ wages were diminished through decrees and they barred from some profession. E Stalin’s Five year Plan is a blueprint of the massive industrialization that Russia will be undertaking in five years starting 1928. It is a plan to step up and close the gap between Russia and the leading industrialized countries. The plan called for the increase in industrial production two-fold, the construction of 1,500 factories and the generation of electric power more than five times its present output. In 1934, the assassination of a high government official created an opportunity for Stalin to purge his government of all his enemies, real or imagined. Many were imprisoned or assassinated and his former political rival Trotsky who was on exile was killed. More than one million died or imprisoned, and many others fled outside of the country. V The Second World War A 1. When Hitler rose to power and invaded Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia, and annexed it to Germany, both France and Great Britain were reluctant to go into war because they were just reeling from the Great Depression and they did not want another war on their hands. Besides, many agreed that the Versailles Treaty was too harsh for Germany and thus, they were ready to pacify Hitler, allowing him to take Sudetenland. This however, did not only pacify the ambitious Hitler but encouraged him to go back to Czechoslovakia later and invaded it again. 2a) This aspect of collectivization is devastating because the state deprived the farmers not only the fruits of their labor but also there was a tendency of the collectors to go overboard and take away even those not pertaining to agriculture like stashed money, clothing and other personal property. The worst thing about it was that it was the state doing it to the people which means that the last bulwark of protection of the citizens is the thief who is taking away what is rightfully his, leaving him with virtually no one to turn to. b) Kopelev justified his participation in the collective process by thinking that it was the right thing to do, to ensure steady supply of basic necessities against the uncertainty of the market, the ignorance and backwardness of the farmers and the fact that these farmers may be potential bourgeoisie and impediment to the progress of socialism. B 1. In Hitler’s speech, as Germany is being hit by inflation, Hitler provided another form of government as a solution to the country’s economic woes and appealed to the Germans’ sense of nationalism and anti-Semitism. 2. In the 1923 speech Hitler’s emphasis was economic reform to free the people of their woes as the main reason for turning to dictatorship as the alternative form of government. It turned out however that what Hitler wanted was really the conquest of other territories which he could annex to Germany and to consolidate his powers in Europe. C Weimar Republic is the new name of Germany after the First World War and it symbolized the new democratic republic. It did not prosper however because of the various oppositions to it. In the first place, its officials were the same people who ran the country before the war. There were also challenges coming from both the left and the right wings. In the first instance, two communist leaders had to be assassinated while in the second, the people had to stage a massive strike to oust the right wing group from succeeding. The worst challenge however which dealt the final blow to the fledgling republic came from abroad. When Germany was not able to pay war reparations, France and Belgium took over Germany’s richest industrial area – Ruhr Valley, resulting in inflation which made German money worthless and untold woes to its people. D The first of these setbacks was the determination of Churchill, then Italy’s error to enter the war siding Germany and forcing the latter to come to their aid and support instead of moving forward and Japan’s aggressiveness in Southeast Asia which called the attention of the US. The turning point however was when Germany broke the pact it had Russia and invaded it. E The turning point in the WWII occurred just between June and August of 1942, when the Germans pushed inward into Russia in Stalingrad, anticipating victory. However, Stalin and his army refused to budge and fought every inch of the way. The protracted battle took a toll on the Germans who ran out of food and in November, with the disadvantage of the winter cold, Stalin put into action his encircling strategy and diminished the once 300,000 German soldiers to a mere 80,000. VI The Cold War A George Marshall was the US Secretary of State at the time the world was recovering from the effects of the World War II. His battle cry was an all-out war against chaos, desperation and poverty brought about by the war. The good point about the Marshall Plan was that it enabled Europe to coordinate and plan the distribution of the aid from the US and thereby forcing a common effort to European recovery. B After the Second World War, Western Germany was emancipated from the eastern part and the struggle over Berlin resulted in the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Meanwhile, the eastern part of Germany became a sovereign known as the German Democratic Republic. The Warsaw Pact established Russia’s dominance over Western Europe. C In the US, the baby boom increased population rapidly in the 60s. As a whole, women became independent, working not only for money but to have careers. Children, on the other hand, had to spend longer time in school, making them dependent on their parents even in their early twenties. Education started at age 3 and more and more activities and choices for the youths lay outside of their homes. D 1. The reason why Vostell captioned the collage as Miss America is perhaps to impress that the image of America as represented by the woman is being tainted by the events that happened in Vietnam, which is the reason why the woman representative of the country can no longer be viewed as she should be viewed – beautiful and clean. 2. The artist could have intended to send across the message that America’s beauty is being tarnished greatly by the violence in Vietnam. It could also be interpreted as America having two sides – one of beauty and the other of ugliness. 3. It is a realistic portrayal of the events during the Vietnam War, for while the United States was being perceived at that time as an abundant nation, this was offset by the fact that it got itself into a war that brought ugly consequences. VII Europe and the Third World A 1. Cold war refers to that period in history when the US and the then USSR were the two most powerful nations in the world and tipping the balance to one side would have resulted in dire consequences like a nuclear war. Images of the cold war are: the Berlin blockade where the US and Great Britain tried to sped up economic recovery in Germany by introducing a new currency and Russia tried to avert this by blocking three sides of Berlin to which the countries responded with the Berlin Airlift; the US Marshall Plan to aid Europeans in the recovery after the WWII, while the Russians ordered Eastern Europe not to participate and instead drew up a counter-plan called COMECON, and; in 1949, NATO was created by the military alliance of several countries including the US, while Russia created its counterpart – the WARSAW. 2. Even Latin American, whose governments were controlled mostly by right wing groups, was not spared by the effects of the cold war as illustrated by the case of Cuba. Because of the corrupt manner by which these countries were governed, many Latin Americans turned to communism. The US, fearing that communism will spread under its nose assisted these governments by sending in their own troops. In Cuba, Fidel Castro and his group deposed their leader and instigated social and economic reforms. When Russia installed missiles in Cuba in 1962, the US reacted by threatening an all-out offensive if they were not removed. Russia backed down by the removal of the missiles averting a possible nuclear war. 3. Detente is the seemingly implicit cooperation between the two superpowers, best illustrated by the Helsinki Agreement in 1975 which confirmed the political frontiers of Europe. Detente was probably brought on by the fact that both the superpowers knew the kind of global destruction they would bring if they meet on a head-on collision. B By the mid 20th century, the British, feeling the growing challenge to its authority in their colonies started the process of dismantling its empire. In Africa, this process was completed by 1965. Decolonization however, did not bring peace and prosperity to the newly freed republics. These young nations were economically bankrupt, had illogical borders and internal conflicts that made survival difficult for them, a fact that was capitalized by agents of the cold war. C The ‘Great Leap Forward’ was an ambitious plan of China to spur progress in the industry and agriculture sectors. It included the building of irrigation dams and ditches, steel mills, factories, railroads, schools and hospitals all throughout China. This was however arrested by a deadly famine which hit China in 1959, killing about 20 million people. On the other hand, China’s split with Russia began in the early 1950s when China criticized it for tolerating capitalistic influences to a certain extent. Russia responded by withholding economic and technological aid, the gap worsening when the latter exploded its first nuclear device in 1964. D Israel was founded when Britain turned over Palestine to the United Nations in 1948 and the Jews declared the state of Israel. UN divided Palestine between the Jews and the Arabs, a division that was objected to by the League of Arab States. Thus, the Palestinian conflict began. The Jews, although outnumbered, was better organized and were able to gain territory and drove Palestinian Arabs out, many of whom settled just out of the borders. Israel, with the aid of the western world, began modernization. E 1. Ali’s views are revolutionary with respect to the fact that he knew exactly the purpose of his being a revolutionary and was disdainful of other so-called revolutionaries who allow petty things to get in the way of their being revolutionary. Of the left, for example, he was critical of their focus against each other rather than attack capitalism. 2. Ali’s analysis reflected what many students activists favorite topic were in the 60s – the Vietnam War, collapse of the de Gaulle government in France, and the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 by the WARSAW Pact allies. VIII The Technological Revolution A 1. After WW II the following were invented: jet engines, first passenger jet service in 1952, wide-bodied jumbo jets, supersonic concorde in 1976, accessible cars, oral contraceptive in 1956, motorcars, radios, telephones, mass-circulation newspapers, cinema, and television. 2. Existentialism is a philosophy that was developed by Jean-Paul Sartre. It posits the theory that there is no right or wrong, or that life has a purpose but rather it is the person himself who will determine the course he will take and the kind of existence he will lead. Albert Camus, a writer, exposed his readers to the essence of the philosophy in his novel The Stranger where the main character is in search of the meaning of his existence in a world without a purpose. 3. The civil rights movement began in 1950, as the African Americans clamored for equality. In 1954, the Supreme Court made a huge decision to abolish segregation in public schools and a year later Rosa Parks, an African American, sat on the ‘whites only’ section of a bus. In the South, the whites put up a resistance and in the North, the whites fled to the suburbs. In 1964 and 1965, Congress enacted a law granting African Americans the right of suffrage and outlawing racial discrimination. The tension continued however capped by the assassination of Martin Luther King in 1968. 4. In the 1970s, the oil-producing countries, mostly Arab states in the Middle East, intentionally limited oil-production and brought oil price at a critically high level. This was a ploy to punish the US and some western countries for their continued support of Israel. Since at that time, industrialized nations have already shifted their power source from coal to oil, many industries had to cut down operations or totally shut down due to inability to meet costs. This led to massive unemployment, the rate of which turned double –digit in many western countries. 5. In 1949, Simone de Beauvoir published The Second Sex, the bible of the women’s liberation movement. It analyzed the condition of women as one imposed on them by men, a condition that will remain so long as they are economically dependent upon them. It recommended independence, economic and otherwise. This was seconded by Betty Friedan’s book The Feminine Mystique in 1963. In the late 60s, women all over the world organized themselves, marched in the streets and called the attention of the public to press for equality with men especially in job opportunities and wages. Slowly, women won their battles gaining greater control of their lives. B In the 1970s, a new phenomenon called stagflation emerged. The condition was a combination of stagnant growth and inflation. In the center of the crisis is oil, a commodity that fuels the industrialized nations. Due to maneuverings done by oil-producing countries, the price of oil shot up bringing a worldwide inflation as well as stagnation. C The discovery of antibiotic drugs and vaccines turned medicine around in the 20th century, making once incurable diseases controllable and non-life threatening and in some cases, eliminating them. New surgical techniques like open heart operations and organ transplants became usual, and new machines that made diagnosis of diseases easier were invented, such as the ultrasound machines, CT scanners, MRI devices, dialysis machines. IX Towards the Future A Recent events like the collapse of communism in eastern Europe, the migration of people from one country and continent to another, the politics of group identity, and the disintegration of old regimes. All these events can create insecurity, disorientation, and divisions, where people bound by the same language and ethnic orientation come together to the exclusion of others and extreme nationalism and towards separatism. B Mikhail Gorbachev introduced a three-pronged approach to revive the economic slump of Russia: perestroika; glasnost, and; disarmament. Perestroika means ‘restructuring’ and it was a plan to reform the economy by letting market forces dictate the prices of commodities and lessen large state farms’ ownership of agricultural lands in favor of small farmers and cooperatives. Glasnost, on the other hand, means ‘openness’ which means that Russia was willing to open herself up as well as allow freedom to a certain degree. It means discarding censorship. Finally, disarmament refers to its willingness to enter into talks with the US to discuss mutual reduction of their respective armaments. C 1. The Brezhnev Doctrine was a Russian foreign policy which states that when a socialist country is being undermined by capitalistic influences, the same is not only a problem of that particular country but of all other socialist countries as well. The Doctrine therefore advocated interference in the domestic affairs of another state. In 1989, Gorbachev declared that Russia will no longer intervene, revoking by implication the said Doctrine. It had a rippling effect as socialist and communist countries in Europe deposed their respective governments by popular uprisings. Communism collapsed and the Soviet Union crumbled. 2. Like a domino, the collapse of communism in Poland, Czechoslovakia and East Germany started the break down and falling apart of the USSR as Romania, Bulgaria and Albania all followed suit and deposed their own communist governments. One by one, these states moved to cut off of ties with the USSR, a development that the Gorbachev government was unable to hold off. D 1. The perceived imperialistic attitude towards Islamic countries, and the encroaching influence of Western secular ideas, and support of Israel, triggered the animosity of these countries against the West. Islamic fundamentalism, which demands that traditional Islamic practices undiluted by Western practices be upheld, became popular. Khomeini, Libya’s fundamentalist leader, called US “great Satan.” This hatred was graphically illustrated in the deadly attack against the US on September 11, 2001 when the Islamic fundamentalists hijacked several planes bound for different USA cities and rammed them into strategic buildings. 2. Economic growth, population explosion and urbanization created environmental havoc. Pollution, acid rain, great rivers turning dirty and foul from industrial toxic wastes, diseases, the extinction of thousands of animal and plant species, the drying up of fossil fuel resources are but some of their negative results. 3. Global warming is the heated up condition of the earth’s atmosphere caused by the heat-trapping gases in the earth’s atmosphere making it impossible for earth to reflect back the heat outside of its atmosphere. The build-up of these gases is caused by the combustion of coal and petroleum products, emitted by factories, power plants, urban growth and motor vehicles. Global warming can alter radically global climate as ice sheets and glaciers melt faster, coasts flood, droughts become longer, hurricanes worsen and an anticipated extinction of a considerable number of plants and animals looms in the horizon. E 1. A preemptive strike, like the one made by the United States against Iraq, is an attack against another country on the assumption that the latter will attack it in the future. The fundamental error in this is that it violates the rules in international engagement that a country attacks only as a means of defense. Many countries viewed this as a sign that the US was practicing unilateralism, or shaping an international policy that is based solely on its own interests and without regard of other states. On top of these is the mishandling of the Iraq occupation as result of which is Iran gaining influence over Iraqis. 2. In the 1990s, when Europe opened itself to immigrants, millions went on an exodus to migrate to the different European countries. They came from all over especially from troubled countries with internal strife. The problem however with many immigrants living in Europe today is that many are unassimilated to the culture of the place. Many are frustrated because they have no jobs, illustrated in the 2005 and 2006 incidents in France where French-born youths of foreign parents held violent riots to protest their being outcast of society. 3. Globalization and free trade naturally results in growing international economic ties and the downside of this is that any incident in one area of the globe will have a ripple effect on the rest. This was illustrated in the 1998 Asian financial crisis where the crisis did not remain localized in Asia but spread quickly like a wildfire. Thus, the hardship being experienced in poverty-stricken countries will in a way impact on wealthy nations and the rise of population in any part of the world will also affect other countries with lesser population. Read More