HUM 223 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Existentialism, Heinrich Himmler, Jean-Paul Sartre
8 Jun 2018
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Searching for Stability after WWI
-Multiple reactions to the devastation of WWI
:Relativists and the end of old ethics only one response
:Most people sought the creation of a new stability that could alleviate the problems of WWI
-Political change was a universal solution by the early 1920's
-Search for a moral and ethical center to a stable society in a "post Christian" society
Albert Schweitzer Decay and Restoration of Civilization
-Reaction to WWI was to revitalize western civilization
-The nature of civilization is based on ethics
-"The essence of civilization…depends on the mental disposition of the inidividual sand nations who exist in the
world"
-Ethics is what gives meaning to humanity
-Absence of ethics brings a collapse of civilization
-The problem with Europe is a departure from moral guidelines
-Europe lacks a coherent world view
-Albert Schweitzer is responding to European nihilistic philosophy
-Provides a secular vision of morality
-Morality is based on a reverence for life
-Similar perspective as Nietzsche
-"Man finds a meaning for his life in that he strives to accomplished spiritual and ethical self fulfillment and
simultaneously, and in the same act, helps forward all processes of spiritual and material progress which have t
be actualized in the world"
Hitler and German Nationalism
-Service in World War I instilled Hitler with a strong sense of German national identity
-Nationalism crosses political boundaries
-Hitler represents a wider group of disgruntled Germans at the loss of WWI
Nazi Values
-Purpose of the national socialist party is to revitalize the German people
-Restoration of German family values
-Children are the future
-Ideal model of the family means stay at home moms
-Hard working fathers loyal to German national values provide the perfect model for young boys
:Also similar to Nietzsche
Appeal of the nazi party
-Restoration of order in Germany
-German overcomes the jews
-Jews as Marxists
-Jews as bankers and moneylenders
-Ethnicity as the basis of solidarity and ethics
Communist Alternative
-Bolshevik revolution
-Vladimir Lenin as the spokesmen Bolshevism
-Violent revolution as necessary to achieve social and political change
-Traditional Marxism too slow a process
Goals of the Bolshevik Revolutoin
-Elimination of the Tsarist Regime
-Purge Russia of all counter revolutionary activity
-Creation of a society centered on a communist state
:People as best represented in a communal government
:Collective identity supplants personal identity
:Requires a cooperative society state policy as the good
Collectivization of Farms
-Collectivization under Stalin represents the communist ideal for community
-Artwork of 1936 represents the ideal harmony of a peasant communal festival
-Government regulates output
-Farms receive dividends after making deliveries
Resistance to Collectivization
-Peasants did not like lack of autonomy
-Many peasant communities simply refused to work
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