It is, rightfully so, said that the history of the nineteenth century is the history of -isms. Rationalism, Romanticism, Liberalism, Socialism, Capitalism make up the mental landscape and if some individual thinkers can be especially influential, they get their own isms like Darwin and Marx. But Nietzsche and Freud, who so predominantly inspire the end of the nineteenth century, where everything has a place in one or several isms of various kinds, have no such suffix and stand on their complex own.Especially Nietzsche I find hard to get a grip on and I am very grateful for the brief way in which Professor Hunt explains him. Naturally this falls short of any philosophical expose, but it amply serves to give Nietzsche's writings and persons the content it needs to clarify the historic influence. I have never had that handed to me in such a comprehensive fashion. And this is one of the many reasons why History 1c is a great history course to follow on podcast.
More History 1c:
Industrialization and Italian unification,
History since 1715.
6 comments:
Thanks for the tip on this course. I have this on my list.
enjoy. Glad to be of service and extremely pleased you give feedback through comments
A
Thanks for pointing out this lecture. Nietzsche certainly is weird! I was glad to hear that Hunt also thinks he is difficult to understand.
Indeed. And this brief explanation about N was not as weird and esoteric. And it makes clear why, as was mentioned by others on other occasions, every second German soldier went into WW1 with Nietzsche in his bag.
I especially liked the way that Hunt connected Nietzsche with Freud and Stravinsky, all of whom emphasized the importance of the wild/primitive/unconscious side of human nature.
It occurs to me that this kind of thinking is also part of a lot of the fin-de-siecle nationalisms (including Zionism) which celebrated the virility and virtue and authenticity of the peasant, who was close to nature, as opposed to the less authentic bourgeois city dweller. Balkan and Slavic nationalisms had real peasants to celebrate, while Zionism sought to manufacture a new Jewish peasant in the land of Israel.
some of those came into existence, but may turn extinct in the coming decades
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