Since a new era is dawning, we need to review what was going on around 1900.
Industrialism and the Machine Age
The years between 1880 and 1900 were an era of great prosperity and a belief in a glorious future. Progress was everywhere. Trains were moving people and goods faster than ever and at reduced prices. Transportation influenced prices on all kinds of goods and services so as transportation prices fell prices on nearly everything fell. Mass production became common, and this made textiles and a wide array of manufactured goods available at lower prices. At sea, fast ships traveling around the world brought goods to Europe and America from across the globe. As Europe thrived, the third world prospered by supplying the Europeans with their needs and wants which consistently grew. New factories were constructed, and new factories meant better machines and more competition, driving prices down. It also upped employment numbers. International trade was booming, and the future looked brilliant. Machines seemed to be the key to the future. They made everything better.
In terms of warfare, the last ninety years were good because very few large wars between major powers occurred. Since Napoleon’s defeat in 1815, European nations cooperated as never before in preventing war. If events in Europe appeared to be moving toward an armed clash, the ambassadors gathered and started working out terms to prevent a conflict.[153]
Overall, the world seemed to work well; however, underneath it all a growing angst presided. Philosophy started predicting an irrational world, one ruled by harsh reality, power, and greed. Art was coming undone. Reality evaporated, and modern painting started taking over wherein the minds of artists turned to images of wilting watches and fantastic scenes never glimpsed before. Even this degenerated into darker paintings of worlds without recognizable features. Literature followed suit with stories of meaningless existence overlain by horror. Music also echoed the tune of no rhyme or theme and began to declare there was no unity in music or in life. It all came together in science, where the world people thought they knew melted away with incomprehensible theories that failed to fit everyday experience. The theory of relativity (Einstein) told the world that the universe was a strange place where the speed of light never changed, and events changed depending on a person’s viewpoint in space. Plank’s quantum theory postulated a world of atoms where “certainty” was a calculation which stated only the possibilities—NOTHING was certain here. Freud displayed the power of hidden areas of the human mind and proved rational decisions were anything but rational. Decisions and ideas were not based on systematic thought (logic and reason), but on the emotional, and very irrational, part of the mind he called the subconscious. Freud made the mind irrational and thus the world irrational. Where could this be leading?
Little did anyone realize how close this placid Victorian world was to the ultimate irrationality; World War I.
Machines
By 1900, machines ran the modern Western world. Machines took jobs and created jobs. Machines ruled nearly every aspect of work and life. From the factories to the fields, machines performed more and more work under the oversight of humans. Trains made hauling people and possessions faster and cheaper. Railroads were crisscrossing continents other than Europe by 1900. From England to India, trains were the center of modern urban life and the center of economic life everywhere in Europe, America, and the colonial empires. Ships began running on coal-fired engines, and a new product—the automobile—ran on gasoline (mostly). The automobile became the foundation of the machine age when Henry Ford (1863-1947) introduced the Model T Ford October 1, 1908. Using assembly line methods he cut the cost of production making the vehicle affordable. The price was $825 when it rolled off the assembly line in 1908, and the price fell as Ford improved his manufacturing methods. The first airplane flew in 1903 when, at Kitty Hawk, the Wright brothers made the world’s first powered flight using a gasoline engine. The need to fuel the machines began dominating business and governmental decisions worldwide. Oil was the key to both fueling and maintaining the new mechanical world. Without a large supply of oil the machines would die. As electricity became more useful, ways to generate electricity became more valuable. Falling water runs electric generators, but not everyone lives near a big river. Once more, power from burning coal or oil became the answer. As machines came of age, coal and then oil became the gold of the machine era.
Politics
Figure 43 The British Empire in 1923
Britain ruled the sea and an exceptionally large part of the world. She was the most powerful and prosperous nation in the world long before 1800, and her position seemed unassailable. Britain desired free trade and, as a nation, committed herself to keeping the oceans open to shipping, and keeping trade barriers low. All in accordance with Adam Smith’s ideas as set forth in his book, The Wealth of Nations, published in 1776. Britain believed the goods and raw materials flowing to England strengthened her as a nation, and strengthened the colonies producing the goods and raw materials. As a whole, Britain ran her colonies well and relatively free of corruption. India, the crown jewel of Britain’s colonial empire, attracted many English citizens to live in the comforts of the imperial possession.
England also advanced on the social front. Under Queen Victoria (1819 to 1901), the second and third Reform Acts passed giving more classes of people the vote, and better labor laws passed to protect working people. In the United States, amendments to the Constitution passed ensuring voting rights and citizenship for blacks and minorities, and social welfare programs expanded to help the poor, the uneducated, and the insane. Powerful business interests operating to the detriment of small enterprise, such as railroads, at last began to face serious regulatory threats from state governments.
France also possessed a great worldwide colonial empire, but it did not add as much to the economy of France as English colonies did for Britain. The French empire was rife with corruption and incompetence. France and England viewed their empires differently. England built schools, hospitals, railroads, and the like for its colonies. Overall, the English colonies received much from the mother country. France did build railroads and generally improved its colonies, but the British did more. France viewed the colonies as benefiting France and little else. Britain viewed the colonies as a two-way exchange where the mother country owed the colonies, and both benefited from the colonial system. While the French did not acutely oppress people in their colonies, they let them know about French superiority in all things.[154] Holland, Portugal, and Germany held colonial empires, but they were a shadow of the English empire. Germany was especially desirous of obtaining more colonies to equal England, its rival for world power. Germany’s numerous problems included coming very late to the colonial game, and being a land power in Central Europe—not a sea power. Sea power brought colonies, and Germany was nowhere near the equal of Britain at sea.
Germany’s ship building program pushed Britain’s policy of having a fleet twice the size of any other nation to the limit. Germany was making headway by building more ships than England. Nevertheless, England’s outstanding naval architects pulled a rabbit out of the hat, outperforming Germany in innovation. Britain’s navy under the First Sea Lord, Fisher, invented a new kind of battleship,[155] the HMS Dreadnought (1906). This revolutionary ship made all other battleships obsolete the instant it hit the waves, because it had more large guns and greater speed than anything else afloat. The Dreadnought’s new turbine engines made the ship amazingly quick. All those many ships Germany constructed to catch up with England became useless. As England constructed moreDreadnought type battleships Germany retreated into the doldrums of naval power, but Germany strained every muscle to keep up. The very costly Dreadnoughts resulted in England and Germany spending piles of money on an arms race that increased world tensions and damaged their economies in the process. By World War I Britain had 21 Dreadnoughts and Germany 13.
Large standing armies impoverish the people.—Sun Tzu, The Art of War
At a fundamental level, Germany was a land power. She beat France in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 to 1871 rather easily and obtained Alsace Loraine from France as a result. Germany’s population was outpacing the population of France, and Germany’s industry out produced France in key economic areas. France recognized these facts, which were terrifying the French government and people.
Germany needed to rethink copying Great Britain as its strategy for gaining world power. Enjoying a central position so as to benefit from trade with France, England, Russia, Central Europe, and others, Germany could grow her economy without preparing for war at sea or an aggressive war on land. Germany could position herself to gain allies rather than cause others to seek treaties to isolate her. Germany’s aggressive Prussian military heritage impaired her in the international arena since Prussia’s renown was its formidable army.[156] Had Germany chosen to spend money on industrial infrastructure rather than warships it would end Britain’s worries about German sea power. Britain would have no pressing reason to ally with France. If Germany constructed defensive lines and reduced the size of her army France could have relaxed, and alliances with Russia would be unnecessary. By befriending the nations around her Germany’s economic power could grow immeasurably, and Europe—and the world—would benefit owing to no arms race and the positive influence of a good trading partner. All this is speculation, because Germany would challenge France and Britain for world power and prestige with appalling results for Western Europe and the world.
France decided its best protection against Germany was alliances, especially with England and Russia. Once France secured the alliance with Russia, Germany was facing a two-front war. Otto von Bismarck, Germany’s leader for years, made it a point to keep his nation from encirclement by co-joined enemies; however, by early 1900 Bismarck was gone, and the new German leader, Kaiser Wilhelm, was irresponsible in foreign policy. By allowing Bismarck’s alliances to ebb away he gave France the opening it needed to gain an alliance with Russia, proving again that heredity and competence are not synonymous.
England also became an informal ally of France. This was most unusual, in that Britain and France were consistently at war with one another for over four hundred years. From before Agincourt (1415) to Waterloo (1812), England and France fought over ownership of Europe and the world. Even in the late 1800s, the antagonism remained strong, particularly over colonial issues. Nonetheless, in 1900 French policy changed, as did English policy, and the two became informal allies. The man behind this change, and probably the man who saved France from conquest in WW I, was the Minister of Foreign Affairs for France, Theophile Déclassé. For years Lord Salisbury, Prime Minister of England, had been trying to hammer out an alliance with the Germans to forward England’s policy of containing Russia. Failing at that endeavor, he managed to gain an alliance with Japan to limit Russian expansion in the far east. Déclassé saw his chance after Salisbury finally soured on his chances with Germany. The French Foreign Minister knew the major difficulty with an alliance was the colonial competition with the British, however, he saw that the real issue was the fate of only two areas, Morocco and Egypt. Déclassé negotiated a deal where Egypt went to England and Morocco went to France. The deal was cut and finalized on April 7, 1904. Germany objected because she had an interest in Morocco, and under pressure Déclassé resigned; nevertheless, Germany was not satisfied and called for a large conference of the major powers to work out the fate of Morocco. The conference did not go well for the Germans and their constant threats of war disturbed England and France. The net result was a stronger relationship between Britain and France, just the opposite of what the Germans wanted. The fear of Germany drove England and France to partnership. As the ancient enemies came together as friends, it was certain the world was a much-altered place in the era of 1900.
The European arms race not only produced new ships, it also produced new weapons of land warfare, terrible in their portent but untried on the battlefield. Machine guns, fast-firing breach loading cannons, howitzers (high-firing long-range cannons), fast-firing rifles (breech-loading bolt actions with magazines holding several rounds), and other innovations made the prospect of war chilling. Some even said the new weapons of mass destruction made war impossible or unthinkable (compare to the atomic bomb). However, thinking and planning future wars went on as if the new weapons might shorten the war. Worse, these new weapons had unknown effects. Some generals maintained that machine guns could not kill enough men to stop a determined assault. The French generals in particular decided men had to have a real spirit of the offensive (élan) to overcome machine guns and massed artillery fire, and with that spirit they would prevail. This kind of thinking did not bode well for French privates.
Russia was improving its military. Stung by the defeat at the hands of the Japanese in 1904, Russia made great strides in training and equipping its military. Still, Russia lagged well behind England, Germany, and France in military firepower. The Russian army’s size, along with the ability of its troops to withstand hardships without complaint, frightened potential opponents. Germany watched the Russians closely since they were the major threat from the east and now allied with France. Economically, Russia was far behind Western Europe in both methods of farming and manufacture. Russian Tsarist traditions also failed to help its society to develop a proper concern for the individual. The result was appalling oppression of the peasant population.
Japan continued growing in power. After adopting Western ways and technology, Japan advanced as the only real industrial power in the Far East. Japan defeated Russia, a major Western military power, in 1904, and now believed she deserved honorable treatment as a world power. However, European powers still viewed Japan with condescension, angering Japan’s people and inadvertently handing power to the militarists who were demanding the forcible expansion of Japanese territory into Korea, Manchuria, China, and the Pacific.
On the fringes of Europe, the Ottoman Empire was imploding. Once stretching from Morocco to India’s borders it had steadily shrank to encompass what is now modern Turkey, Palestine, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Syria, and parts of Greece. Contracting since 1800, the Ottoman Empire devolved into a threat to peace. Because of colonial competition each European colonial nation, including Russia, became highly interested in the Ottoman’s fate. While Britain and France gave aid to Greece in its revolt against the Ottoman Empire, they sent aid to the Ottomans to forestall their loss of Egypt. Eventually, the major powers of Europe decided to support the continuation of the Ottoman Empire because it helped maintain the balance of power in Europe. An Ottoman breakup could cause a scramble for colonies and confrontations leading to war. This shows the ticklish nature of the European situation. A weak nation on the fringe of Europe was warily dealt with to avoid a general war involving the great world powers of Europe.
America
The United States of America was a growing economic power by 1900, but its diminutive army and midsized navy were no threat to Europe.[157] Oil became a major industry in America after 1864, fitting right into the dawning machine age and giving its promoters excellent profits from the very first. Americans were strongly isolationist even though some elements of society wanted America to join the great powers, acquire colonies, and help rule the world. Most Americans wanted nothing to do with world power. The Spanish-American War was fomented by the press (Hurst mainly) allegedly to sell more newspapers. Hurst’s papers printed outright lies to whip up public opinion for war, and a strange explosion that sank the USS Maine in Havana harbor was enough to tip the Congress for war. For the average American, the purpose of the war involved revenge against Spain for dishonoring the USA. Americans on the street never expected colonies from the war with Spain. However, Spain lost, and America gained the Philippines, Cuba, and other small-island possessions formerly belonging to Spain. The United States gave Cuba its independence but kept Puerto Rico in the Caribbean and the Philippines in the Far East as virtual colonies. Many in America detested owning colonies because it was antagonistic to American principles of national sovereignty and individual liberty. To some extent, the split over world involvement revolved around an urban versus rural viewpoint. The urban dwellers often wanted the United States to become more involved in world events, while the rural citizen wanted to stay away from the world. In 1900, the United States was more rural than urban, so the rural ideology favoring isolation still ruled nationwide.
Since America was a democracy the Congress reflected the split mood of the nation, but overall, the nation was still isolationist, wanted to stay out of European affairs, and did not want to be like Europe—at least politically. The warnings of George Washington, American’s first president, to stay out of foreign entanglements still rang true with a majority of voters. Thus, while some leaders, such as President Theodore Roosevelt, loved to send the Great White Fleet (the American navy) around the world to show off American power, most Americans just wanted out of world politics.
From the end of Reconstruction in 1877 to 1933 and Roosevelt’s New Deal, neither Republicans nor Democrats had unfettered control of the Federal government. Even when one party controlled in name, divergent forces within the parties tended to reduce their power. Liberal and Conservative were often better labels to describe a politician’s position than Republican or Democrat. Meanwhile, blacks sunk into oblivion as the US courts helped the “Redeemers” [158] in the South recover the old southern political culture. In 1896, the US Supreme Court in Plessey vs. Ferguson upheld “separate but equal.” This allowed the South to segregate its society and relegate blacks to second-class status (again). In Washington, DC, Corruption ruled as men of money bought Congressmen and judges as easily as flapjacks. Reform movements, such as the Progressives, called for fundamental changes in government. The civil service system, introduced by the Progressive movement, required testing for government positions and prohibited firings for political reasons. Several states allowed proposed laws onto the ballot so the public could pass legislation, and state constitutional amendments, by popular vote. This cut into the ability of corrupt political bosses to prevent reform legislation from passing. All this was trying to end government corruption and influence peddling which deeply damaged the American political system. The results of their efforts were uneven.
Power of Women
In 1900, the role of women in the world was up for debate—at least in the Western Democracies. Women wanted to vote, become professionals (doctors, lawyers, university professors, etc.), and to work at the same jobs as men for the same pay.[159] For centuries, women were relegated to the home and rearing children, stuck with only household employment. Some exceptions were around, like textile manufacturing where women made up 50 percent of the workforce in 1870. Of course, there already were women doctors, architects, university graduates, and the like; however, women wanted this to be commonplace rather than unusual. In 1893, New Zealand gave women the vote. By 1920, women in the United States obtained the right to vote. Britain, Germany, Austria and Poland gave the vote to women in 1918. France waited until 1944 to extend the vote to women, and Switzerland stalled until 1971. When women obtained the vote the size of the electorate effectively doubled.
Women prevailed, obtaining all of these things much faster than supposed in 1900. The Great War and World War II propelled women to equality with men in voting, the workplace, professional life, and a host of other realms; but in 1900 these changes were over the horizon. Women started exercising their feminine muscle and, as they gained the vote, began to win elections, work in factories, and do the things men alone used to do; they gained stature. Women balked at being the chattels of men as they began shaking off history’s cobwebs.
In the 1900s this movement confined itself to Europe, its colonies, and America. For much of the world, even in 2010, women do not have equality with men. Many religions require women to be inferior, and many traditions do the same. Women won in the Western Democracies and expanded the economic and intellectual power of those nations. In places where women are excluded from the benefits of society, society itself suffers. This is one seldom discussed reason the West dominated the world for so long. By opening its societies to women, they freed about one-half of their population to contribute to the growth and power of their nations. Other societies forfeited this intellectual and economic dynamic by suppressing women and radically limiting their role in society.
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 (TheInterpretation 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 and 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 WaterLilies 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 clairvoyant 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.
Music was also predicting the chaos to come. In music, the Renaissance period gave way to the Baroque era followed by the Classical era of music that lasted from about 1730 to 1820. Romantic followed classical music, in vogue from approximately 1815 to 1910. The composers from the Classical and the Romantic periods of music are literally household names: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, and others. During the Classical age the symphonies became ever more complex and the musical instruments available to the composers expanded. The symphony’s complexities are astounding. The composers coordinated every aspect of dozens to perhaps a hundred instruments, which would all be playing at once, to create just the right sound. So many aspects of the music were involved it is difficult to understand how one person could have written a major symphony.
These symphonies enclosed literally hundreds of thousands of notes, and each nuance of each note was vitally important to the overall composition. An accomplished listener would instantly know something was wrong if even one note was left out or significantly changed. As time went forward, much of this complex harmony started to fade. When Stravinsky performed the “Rite of Spring” in 1913 in Paris, this idea of deep complex harmony was broken. Note the date, one year before the Great War when all harmony in the Western World would cease. The “Rite of Spring” is a brutal and disjointed work. At its first performance the complex and violent music, depicting a pagan fertility rite, drew boos because of the harmonic discord. Arguments followed and then a riot requiring the intervention of the Paris police to restore order.
Whether Stravinsky knew he was predicting the future or not he managed the feat with astounding accuracy. The classical world of music where each note enjoyed a distinct place was withering, eventually to be replaced by a world where no one note meant anything in relation to the other notes. People would soon fall into the category of meaningless, just as the notes in Stravinsky’s work became; however, at least the notes were there and recognizable. If a note were left out it might be hard to discern at certain points in the work, but a close listener would still know something changed and the piece was somehow out of sorts; accordingly, the notes still mattered, but they were not part of some grand harmonious universe where all fit together so nicely. One note might be moved or removed and not affect the whole as much as such a similar move or removal would influence a symphony of the classical age. If the analogy applies to the worth of the individual, the implication is clear: the individual was a part of the whole, but how important to the whole was open to interpretation. One person would not have a massive impact on the whole just as one note would not have a great impact on the whole of Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring.” In the late twentieth century even that would be lost, and the individual note in a musical piece would disappear in importance just as the individual’s importance would disappear in a meaningless universe. In music, art, and literature chaos replaced harmony, disunity replaced unity, meaninglessness replaced meaning, and ugliness replaced beauty. Just like the world to come in 1914, it was harsh and irrational.
Philosophy has a way of moving slowly, so theories that come forth take years to bear fruit. Nietzsche wrote in 1883 and sold perhaps one book. He died insane and unknown. Nevertheless, by 1900, people began to notice his ideas and the brutal future of which he wrote. Mill’s Utilitarianism, published in 1863, espoused the “greatest happiness to the greatest number” as the definition of morality, but it too foresaw a world where decisions had to be based on something other than religious grounds. By 1900, this philosophy was also gaining adherents.[163]
Another art was coming of age, and it combined art and science; it was photography. I can hear what you are thinking now . . . so what? Why does photography matter? If you have never seen a Mathew Brady photograph of an American Civil War battlefield you have not fully experienced the impact of photography. These photographs are simply statements of what was in front of the lens at the time of exposure. It is art by a machine. The man places the camera (that is the art part), but the scene is the scene and cannot be altered from its basic truth (at least in 1864); and that is the science part.[164] The photos of the battlefields of the 1860s are a blunt statement of death or life. They are stark and plain, almost without a soul. I will name this “harsh truth.”
Compare these photos with the many drawings or paintings of the age. Battlefield artists painted and drew much of the Civil War action. In comparison with the photographs the drawings, even those made on the scene, depict a different nuance or feel even though very accurate. Comparing the drawings to the photographs, rather than paintings, is interesting because both creations took place on the spot during the event. Paintings were finished back at a studio far away from the event. The drawings (or paintings) show what I will name “heroic truth.”
Figure 46 Drawing of Pickett’s Charge, Gettysburg
Note that both are “truth,” but truth seen through the eyes of science and truth seen through the eyes of a human are different. The photographs have no “heroic” sense about them. Men are lying dead in the fields or roads with little around them except more dead. The men seem part of the landscape. The figures are unmoving, unknown, and without a higher purpose. That is the view of science, rather harsh but blunt, plain and very straightforward. The drawings have a heroic sense to them. Men seem to move, waving hats and sabers, falling in battle while smoke fills the air, and horses thunder toward waiting masses of men. A higher purpose screams from the artist’s paper. These men have purpose, because they are defending the rights of other men or their homeland, and showing courage in fierce combat. It is humanity at its highest, sacrificing for God and country, family and friend, wife and child.
Figure 47 Photograph of Confederate Dead at Antietam
War is much more like the harsh photograph than the heroic drawing. Therefore, here is the contradiction; the photograph is as real as it can be given the state of science at the time, but it adds to the philosophy of chaos and meaninglessness because it displays the human being in a mechanical way. Nothing is special about the humans in the photographs because they end up as objects, like all other objects in the photograph. Nothing moves, even the men lay still, their color and the color (shade is more like it) of the surrounding objects nearly the same (1864, all black and white). Of course, in 1864 photographs remained silent again reducing the humanity.
Nonetheless, the photographs were striking. They brought the war home to the civilians left behind with a gruesome truthfulness. Photographs were nothing like the heroic battle drawings of men pushing forward for the cause. Photographs of dead men refuse to look like much, but they reveal a startling fact; these men were once alive. Now they lay lifeless in a mechanical picture. The impact of photography on life was an important part of the New Age.[165] In many ways, photography became the most powerful art form of all time.
The Power of Change
Before 1900, big change was rather unusual. People lived out their lives often never leaving the small villages in which they were born. After 1900 in the West change came so fast people struggled to adjust. From 1900 to 1970, one lifetime, history saw WWI, WWII, Korea, and part of the Vietnam War. A person would have seen soldiers marching off to war in 1914 with bolt-action rifles and horse drawn carts. By 1970, that same person would have seen men marching off to war with automatic rifles, tanks, trucks, jet aircraft, and huge cargo aircraft to carry them across the seas. In 1914, our viewer of history could have seen a small bi-wing airplane putting along overhead, but by 1969, that same person could have witnessed, as it happened, men walking on the moon. In 1900, no radio, but by 1970, TV broadcast from around the world and even from the surface of the moon. Of course, outside of Europe and the United States of America many people did not experience any change in their way of life. Worldviews also changed, and that was the hardest fact of all to adjust to. What was accepted as absolute truth in 1900 was openly questioned by 1960.
This pace of change influenced the early 1900s, as people thought change was endless. The world was advancing, they thought, and people should welcome change. World War I smashed those illusions. Still, the idea that changes represent progress hung on and it is still with us today. Not as much as in 1900, but to this day in the year 2010, people think the world can get better, and change is thought to be positive for the most part.
The concept that change is expected and is good goes a long way toward explaining how the West accelerated ahead of the rest of the world and stayed there so long. Many regions of the world view change with skepticism, impeding progress. The acceptance of change is a powerful agency forming one of the many foundations for vigorous progress by the Western world.
Let Us Learn
Citizens of this new world of the 1900s had to adapt to its manifest traits of turmoil, uncertainty, exploding knowledge, and apparent meaninglessness. But is our world meaningless? Are we, as individuals, meaningless? Recall that the universe is marvelously well ordered, as is life here on earth. Is it possible that such a harmony forms the underpinnings of chaos? If the universe is well ordered, and if life on earth is exactly harmonized, can it also be meaningless? From the moment of the Big Bang, the universe seems to have been designed for life by the very nature of the universal elements, and the exact timing of events (inflation). Can such fine tuning set the foundations of chaos for the individual life? Since everything in the universe is ordered to an exactness beyond imagination, can the individual exist for nothing? Isn’t it possible that every life has an precise place in the universal order? The symphony writers thought so. Each note was supremely important. Isn’t it possible that you have that same significance in the symphony of the universe?