dialecticism in nineteenth century european thought

8/14/2019 Dialecticism in Nineteenth Century European Thought

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From Aprile to Paracelsus :The Changing Dialectical Thoughtscape

of Nineteenth-Century Europe and America1

[...Adapted with near-reckless abandon from http://www.sparknotes.com/history/european/1848/section5.rhtml, as

accessed Spring 2006.]

Consider the dueling heart-versus-head priorities featured in this exchange from the work of thenineteenth-century English poet Robert Browning (1812-1892):

Paracelsus: "I am he that aspired to KNOW: and thou?" Aprile: "I would LOVE infinitely, and be loved!"

The years from 1800 to 1900 saw the rise of a number of competition-oriented , dialectical, ideologies inwestern European and American cultures. Roughly speaking, up to 1848, heart-oriented Romanticism

dominated, with reason-worshipping scientism gaining ascendancy thereafter. Roughtly put, the period

began with Aprile's outlook gaining ground, culminating in a wave of political revolutions in 1848 andconcluded, after 1848, with Paracelsus' attitude reasserting cultural power.

1 Adapted from http://www.sparknotes.com/history/european/1848/section5.rhtml as accessed Spring 2006.

http://www.sparknotes.com/history/european/1848/section5.rhtml









Romanticism The term “Romanticism” was coined in the 1840s, in England. Yet, the movement had been

around since the late 18th century, primarily in literature and the arts. In England, Wordsworth, Shelley,Keats, and Byron typified romanticism. In France, the movement was led by men like Victor Hugo, who

wrote the Hunchback of Notre The basic idea in Romanticism was that reason cannot explain

everything. In reaction to the Enlightenement cult of rationality that had in turn been inspired by theScientific Revolution, Romantics searched for deeper, often-subconscious appeals. This led the Romantics

to view things with a different spin than Enlightenment thinkers. Where the Enlightenment embraced

science, often to the point of scientism, Romantics, such as Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein

in 1818, saw dehumanizing dangers in scientism, if not in science. Few would argue that Shelley's

Frankenstein is the best work of the British Romantics, but it is indicative of their fears concerning

scientism. In the famous tale, a scientist, by the name of Frankenstein, is able to master life, animating an

artificially constructed person. But this new science," far from being a heroic or benevolent case of manmastering nature through reason, ends up having monstrous results.

Shelley's Frankenstein explained his motivations thus:

Attempting to use science to vanquish death itself and so become the benefactor of all of humankind,Frankenstein set aside human emotional misgivings, an attitude which allowed him to see humans

reductively as mere bodies and body parts, as mere physical entities, devoid of sanctity, and caused him to

neglect emotional human relationships.



In the end, the creature that Frankenstein produced was a monstrosity that repelled the scientist, and filled

him with regret:

Romanticism and NationalismRomanticism and nationalism were often intertwined, especially in Germany. There, Friedrich Schiller

produced plays known for their sense of a German "Volk", or national spirit. German romantic

philosophy was dominated by W.G.F. Hegel. He construed the development of the state as part of ahistorical process, or "teleology". He is particularly famous for outlining a concept of the dialectic: the

mind makes progress by creating opposites, which are then combined in a synthesis,. Hegel tied his

philosophy into nationalism by arguing for a German national dialectic that would result in synthesis intoa state. Hegel's work increased the emphasis people put on historical studies, and German history-writing

boomed. Partially as a result of Hegel's influence, the idea developed that Germany's role was to act as a

counterbalance to France. Seeing themselves as such, Germans began to feel that politial liberalism, suchas France had become known for, was not appropriate in Germany.

The French had Romantics too, though Romanticism was not so strong there as in Germany.Romantic painting is often associated with Eugene Delacroix, who prized the emotional impact of color

over the representational accuracy of line and careful design. Delacroix painted historical scenes, such as

"Liberty Leading the People" (1830), which glorified the beautiful spectacle of liberal political revolution,

perhaps construing it as part of the French national character. Despite a founding French influence,Romanticism was most widespread in Germany and England, largely as a reaction to the French

Enlightenment. It also was a response to French cultural domination, particularly during the Napoleonic

Wars. The Romantic's emphasis on individualism and self-expression deeply impacted Americanthinking, especially the transcendentalism of Emerson.

Romanticism as a Protestant Heresy?Interestingly, because of its geographical distribution, some historians argue that Romanticism was the

secular continuation of the Protestant Reformation, a sort of heretical offshoot of the Reformation.

Romanticism was most prominent in highly Protestant countries like Germany, England, and the United

States. France, which had a significant Protestant movement yet remained Catholic-dominated, had lessof a Romantic movement. Other solidly Catholic countries were still more weakly given to Romanticism.

Classical Liberalism



Beginning in Spain and France during the 1820s, political “liberalism” soon spread to England.Consisting of businessmen and professionals, the liberals wanted modern, efficient self-government,

although they were not always for universal male suffrage. They wanted freedom of the press and

freedom of the assembly. They wanted constitutions, and Laissez Faire economic policies, such as freetrade and low tariffs. They were generally against unions.

Liberalism in the early 19th century was not the same as what we in the United States think of as"Liberalism" today. Much of what was “liberal” in the 19th century (free trade, keeping government out

of business) is today considered “conservative.” Really, liberalism then was the ideology of the bourgeoisie

(the business and professional class), and was geared towards protecting bourgeois interests. Still, theliberals invariably argued that what was for their benefit was actually to the benefit of everyone.

Nationalism

Today, we often think of nationalism and patriotism as something that "just makes sense". "Of courseeveryone loves their country," we think, "it's always been that way." Not true. Modern nationalism on the

wide scale it is seen today is actually a fairly new phenomenon, especially in Eastern Europe. The

numerous ethnic groups there had been more or less happy to live under Austrian Hapsburg rule for

hundreds of years, and their languages and histories were being forgotten. Only the advent of the ideologyof nationalism led to the creation of "national identities" and a "desire for self-government." Today, it is

easy to think that people everywhere have always wanted their own countries for their own ethnic groups.In fact, this modern conception of nationalism developed in large part between 1815 and 1848.

Nationalism may indeed have been the most powerful of all the "isms" in this period. France and Great

Britain's strong nation-states had inspired jealousy throughout the rest of Europe; other nations,disorganized as they were, wanted to unify. German intellectuals living in (and hating) the loosely

organized German Bund provided much of the vocabulary for nationalism, stating that each nation had a

particular Volksgeist , or national spirit. Soon, just about every European language group wanted to havetheir own nation. Quickly outlawed by reactionary forces, nationalist groups formed secret societies such

as the Italian Carbonari and German Buschenschaft. These societies distributed propaganda leaflets and plotted rebellions. Often, nationalism combined with other ideological issues, from liberalism tosocialism.

In 1831, Joseph Mazzini founded "Young Italy" as a nationalist group, which soon tried to

organize a coup in the Italian state of Sardinia. Soon exiled, Mazzini remained a leading writer onnationalist issues. Nationalism, though pushed underground by the Carlsbad Decrees, was still very much

alive in Germany in the 1820s and 1830s. In Eastern Europe, the Poles wanted their own state, and in

Austria, the Magyars wanted their own kingdom of Hungary. Throughout the Austrian Empire, thevarious language groups revived the study of their languages and hoped to carve their own nations out of

the empire. A particularly potent nationalist force known as Pan-Slavism began to circulate among

various Slavs in Russia, Poland, and Austria. All of these Eastern European groups began a renewedinterest in their own cultures.

The idea that each language group should have its own nation, to express its own volksgeist,especially frightened the Austrian Empire, of which Metternich was foreign minister. Since Austria

contained dozens of subjugated language groups (including the Magyars, Czechs, Slovaks, Slavs,

Rumanians, Serbs, Croatians, etc.), the upsurge in nationalism threatened to tear Austria to pieces. The

Austrian government's position as prime reactionary was certainly due in large part to its fear of dissolution were nationalism to win out.

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Conservatism

The final important "ism" of the period was what was then called “Conservatism,” a reactionary

philosophy supporting monarchy and the old ways. Championed by Edmund Burke, who had beenhorrified by the French Revolution, Conservatism argued for only allowing the most unavoidable,

prudent, gradual changes, made as slowly as possible.

1848: Year of Revolutions2

There have not been many years like 1848. 1848 was the ultimate year of Revolution throughout Europe.

Among the major European powers, only Great Britain, where some reforms had blunted the wrath of theworking class, and Russia, where the monarchy still held firm control, escaped from 1848 without

undergoing a revolution. Was the simultaneity of the revolutions a product of an international conspiracy?

Probably not, though the revolutionary groups throughout Europe were transnational and did

communicate. More likely, French leader Metternich's hypothesis that revolution could spread from onecountry to another was proven true. Revolution in Paris inspired revolutions throughout Europe.

In France itself, the February Revolution's radical socialist changes were doomed from the start. Outside

of Paris, the people in the countryside (the majority of France) were much more conservative than theworkers in the city, and were generally anti-socialist. After the Paris reformers went beyond what the

country was willing to accept, it was only a matter of time before their revolutionary changes werereversed. Furthermore, by 1848 France had had so many governments in the past 50 years that new

governments were easy to bring down. This was very much unlike Britain, whose government had been

so stable for so long that discontented people were hesitant to overthrow it, merely because it had such a

long tradition behind it. In Britain, reforms would pass gradually within the system rather than by violentrebellions.

Back in France, Louis Napoleon appealed to the "Napoleon Legend" that was starting to take force inFrance around this time. In 1836, the Arch-de-Triumph had been completed, and in 1840, Napoleon

Bounoparte's remains had been brought back to France from Saint Helena. All France now remembered Napoleon as a great hero, and Louis Napoleon cashed in on his family's "name recognition" to gaincontrol of France.

2 Adapted from http://www.sparknotes.com/history/european/1848/section8.rhtml as accessed Summer 2006.






Darwin and Marx: Scientific Materialism and Dialecticism in Late Nineteenth-Century Biological

and Political Theory

The half century after the “romantic” nationalist revolutions of 1848 saw the rise of new self-consciously

“scientific” dialectical outlooks, particularly Darwinian evolution and Marxism. In 1859, Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection.” His argument was that life

originated and perpetuated itself through a push-and-pull struggle in which the successful forms adapted

themselves to changing conditions and survived, while those that did not chance became extinct. Thoughhe never used the word "evolution," the basics of the concept noticeably suffused the work. Over time, the

scientistic notion of what subsequent thinkers dubbed"social darwinism"--the application of "survival of

the fittest" to political and economic arenas--offered a distinctly conservative approach that advocatedunregulated capitalism as the natural form of progress.

An enemy of capitalism, Karl Marx also admired Darwin's dialecticism, seeing it as a biological

manifestation of material conflict that Marx already saw as the driving force of history, especiallyeconomic history. Of Darwin's Origin of Species, Marx would later assert: “Although” Darwin's book “is

developed in the crude English style,” it is nonetheless “a book which contains the basis of natural history

for our views.” In 1848, Karl Marx and his associate Friederich Engels published The Communist

Manifesto. Engels years later would eulogize Marx at graveside, declaring: “Just as Darwin discoveredthe law of evolution in organic nature, so Marx discovered the law of evolution in human history.”

Marx had followed Origin of Species with his seminal work in 1867, Das Kapital, a copy of which

he sent with a personal inscription to Charles Darwin, who, in turn, seems not even to have entirely

opened the book, though he did send Marx a polite thank you note, which the latter presumptuously liked

to show off to imply that he had the endorsement of a famous scientist.3 In Das Kapital , Marx introduced"scientific socialism." Here was a materialist, dialectical interpretation of history and society. Labor, as

Marx defined it, was the essential effort to transform nature into things useful for survival. Building on

this, Marx and Engels, saw society as divided into two groups: those who owned property and those whodid not. The middle class “bourgeoisie” owned property and the means of production, while the workers,

or “proletariat,” owned nothing. In history, Marx argued, any society based on class division maintained, by its very divided nature, the seeds of its own demise because, inevitably, the proletariat would rise upand overthrow the capitalist system that kept them down. Marx predicted that as the bourgeois society

expanded and grew its capitalist base, it would employ more workers in ever larger factories and

industries, bringing the working classes into association and organization and thus creating the

atmosphere conducive to the eventual progression from capitalism to socialism.

3This summation of Marx's admiration of Engels is based upon Kevin Dixon's “Darwin and Marx,” athttp://www.devonhumanists.org.uk/d200dev/?page_id=269 , as accessed July 2009. Dixon's article is helpful

for stressing how exaggeratedly and unfairly proponents of Marxism alike tried to conflate Marx's and

Darwin's philosophy and notes that under Joseph Stalin, the Soviet Union rejected Darwinian biology infavor of Lysenkoism.

http://www.devonhumanists.org.uk/d200dev/?page_id=269



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