PSCI 2302 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Radical Empiricism, Social Forces, Materialism
14 Apr 2016
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Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the horizon. Aren"t we straying through an infinite nothing. God is dead, we have killed him. Height of the victorian era stifling and hypocritical morality, extreme conformity, self-righteous bourgeois/protestant ethics; snobbery and social control. The decadence of urbanization and industrialism; effeminent gentility, cult of display and consumerism; excess and corruption among elite society. Rise of darwinism and social darwinism (spencer) justification for social stratification life as struggle and might makes right . Rise of nationalism and empire european expansion and colonialism, hierarchy of civilizations and biological racism. Nietzsche like marx heavily influenced by hegel; centrality of history; but from the right, concern with elite culture and ideology; not the masses and material needs. Rejected democracy and socialism; last stage of liberal equality and decadence; weakness and decay of european civilization. History without a purpose; history as radically contingent; no rational evolution or development; no meaning and no progress.
