An Analysis of Cultural Influences in the 19th and 20th...

An Analysis of Cultural Influences in the 19th and 20th Centuries The 19th and early 20th centuries were a time of massive cultural mutation, out of which came varying worldviews that intermingled with and reacted against one another. As Professor Ambrosio (2011) states in A History of Suspicion, of the biggest intellectual and/or philosophical influences in that time period, Marx, Darwin, Freud, Nietzsche, and Dostoevsky each represents a decisively different view of history than the view of history previously dominant in Western culture. This paper will discuss the historical and cultural events surrounding these five thinkers and show how they shaped, concurrently with scientific developments, the course of human thought in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Karl Marx, for instance, reacted powerfully against Hegels dialectic and produced a more poetic and yet more materialistic vision of mankind. Dispensing with Hegels rational spirit, Marx turned Hegels dialectical history of spirit upside down by creating historical materialism (A History of Suspicion, 2011). The means of production was Marxs focus. Marx examined Capitalism, Industrialism and ideology, and by viewing life in solely material terms developed the Communist Manifesto. This was a radical departure from Hegels attempt to spiritualize the world. If Hegel was the embodiment of one extreme, Marx was the embodiment of its opposite. Charles Darwins scientific analysis of the origin of theShow MoreRelatedThe Important Role of the Rivers in Russia Essay781 Words   |  4 Pagesbetween nature and urban dwellers in the study period. Perhaps the only published work characterizing the sanitary condition of Novgorod, the degree of contamination of its territories and environmental policies of the city government at the early 20th c., is a brochure of MD Alexander G. Kurkutov, published in 1915 . 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