Sunday, February 1, 2009
Weekly Summary
For this week's summary, I will merely respond to Nate's summary, thus summarizing my opinions of the week as they relate to his. It is true that everything was chaotic, wild, and changing in most places on a governmental level, but I am not sure whether the events of the actual people were as related. In Russia, serfdom was abolished, and a few serfs who were able to go to the cities now did, but the majority of people remained as serfs. To most Germans' daily lives, the only effect of Germany being one nation is a psychological and minor one. The same thing goes for Italians. The major effect that these changes would have had upon people were the wars that swept through periodically, not the vast change in perspective and culture.
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“To most Germans' daily lives, the only effect of Germany being one nation is a psychological and minor one. The same thing goes for Italians. The major effect that these changes would have had upon people were the wars that swept through periodically, not the vast change in perspective and culture.”
ReplyDeletehttp://laudandus.blogspot.com/2009/02/weekly-summary.html
Some German historians might beg to differ. The Protestant North and Catholic South was a prickly issue. The Kulturkampf (or culture war) was a direct result of trying to reconcile these two currents in Germnan cultural life. And what of these wars? Did they get exacerbated by the need to unify Germany—setting up new hatreds (i.e., France with Germany) that would work itself, materially in the trenches of WWI?
“Industrialism was the true focus of the abolition of serfdom - it left life just as bad as it had always been for the farmers, but also gave them the ability to leave and go to cities, where they could begin the slow process of turning Russia into an industrial nation.”
http://laudandus.blogspot.com/2009/02/abolition-of-serfdom.html
Yep...
“This week was not only about nationalism - it was more about nationalism as a response to the liberal/conservative conflict.”
http://laudandus.blogspot.com/2009/01/week-summary.html
This is an interesting thesis—could one not also say that nationalism was a way for these two forces to work out a modus vivendi. A conservative could appeal to nationalism, to help shape liberalist demands for more political rights—the state must survive so that we can go on as well as a nation—if we have to take some rights, or delay them—well, that is necessary. Alternatively—the nation's soul is expressed in the limited franchise of the people. Isn't the liberal position inherently self-undermining? After-all, if we are all members of the nation, shouldn't we all have a say in how it moves, and with what purpose? Aren't we good citizens to, even if we don't have property...?
“there was a clear divide between the more idealistic and more pragmatic rulers and revolutionaries, with the more pragmatic almost always being more effective.”
http://laudandus.blogspot.com/2009/01/nationalism-and-idealism.html
Why are pragmatic leaders more successful? Is it something inherent in pragmatism? Why does idealism fail? Is it an unwillingness to compromise with the forces of “darkness”? Or a proclivity to impatience?
“His first point, that we have a variety of other classes which are in-betweens and make our society less polarized, requires examples - most social classes have the means of production, don't and serve those who do, or occasionally, such as lawyers, work in some other field that has nothing to do with either. However, it hardly seems to me that lawyers are going to prevent a proletariat revolution.”
http://laudandus.blogspot.com/2009/01/proletariatophobia.html
I do not follow this—can you put this comment into context—lawyers are part of the mode of production, e,g,. corporate lawyers helping to shape merger deals, etc, are directly implicated in capitalism and its growth into monopoly capitalism.
I was really talking more about stuff that happened before 1848. I agree with you that a lot of the top-down nationalism probably didn't change people's lives that much.
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