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Hi, this is the lecture on; What changes in science, literature, art, and society occurred during
the postwar era?
What I want you to understand, the link, is the age of uncertainty.
After World War 1, the world was very uncertain, people were disillusioned, they had felt lied to.
That's what disillusioned meant, is that they feel lied to by their governments.
Science kinda of leans into this.
Einstein. My favorite picture of Einstein because he is being completely rational.
And what he does, in his theory E=MC^2 (Energy is equal to Mass times the square root of the
Speed of light.
He basically proves, or theorizes that space and time are not constant
These concepts, that space and time are not constant creates that feeling of uncertainty
In addition you got this guy, Freud
He theorized the human mind
is not rational, but irrational, and we are all driven by the irrational part of our minds
And most famously he comes up with the Oedipus complex
That every boy wants to kill their Dad and marry their Mom,
and they are driven by those unconscious desires.
And those scientific theories really, in the postwar era become popular
They make everybody feel uncertain or disillusioned.
That feeling of being lied to.
Disillusion began here and tone after the Great War.
Most famously in Literature, here is a very popular poem.
The Second Coming; Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; Mere anarchy is
loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony
of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passion
intensity. So, people felt disillusion, they had felt
lied to by there governments and their cultures. And the literature
in this type of poetry, in the age of uncertainty kind of reflected
that tone. This is my all time favorite painting
This is the persistence of memory, by Salvador Dali, and he was
disillusioned as well. You can see the influence of Freud and Einstein
in the painting. He was a surrealist, where he was trying to show the
absurdity of life and you can see his attack on the rational part of the mind.
Cause he is painting dreams, and in his dream
He is seeing the melting of clocks, and somehow the death of man.
And these ants here are feasting on the clocks. So people started to
this is the tone of the interwar period, the period between 1919 and
1939. In the next slide Music
The type of Music that is really popular is Jazz,
in this time period, it is uninhibited and improvisational.
and it breaks from the classical forms.
Those romantic ideas, where the state was all
great and you wanted to promote nationalism. Now in the Interwar period,
you have a feeling of breaking away from those norms.
Women gain the right to vote, and
they really begin to wear band and restrictive clothing
Most famously with the Flapper style with the short hair and the short hair cuts
..the short skirts, so these are Flapper women
dancing in the Flapper style. It is kind of a retro movement in some areas.
..Travel also changes we have
mass production, by Ford Automobiles. Charles Lindbergh
flies across the Atlantic. The world is really changing in that regard.
That changes society as well, we are no longer kinda of
kind of put in our own areas, we can kind of communicate with the rest of the world
As well as with Entertainment, this is a very famous
movie star in the very beginning of the movie star ages,
People would not only watch movies that were black and white, they were without
sound, in this time period. They started doing sound in the 1930's
They were very popular. People started listening to Radios
and directly to their leaders. So
what they are starting to do, is have more massive communications
and in this communication they are feeling more and more uncertain.
About the world. Thats kind of a theme that leads us to
leads people in Europe especially, for strong leaders. Cause when you're
uncertain and feel disillusion you want people to lead you.
And they turn to stronger leaders like Stalin,
And Mussolini, and Hitler unfortunately.
Alright, thanks. Bye.