Cognitive Psychology During the Cold War Era, 1955–1975

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hunter Heyck
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
World War ◽  
New Model ◽  
Stimulus Response ◽  
The World ◽  
Unlimited Time ◽  
Problem Solvers ◽  
The Cold War

The first 30 years after the end of World War II saw marked changes in the discipline of psychology: in ideas and institutions, problems and practices, funders and philosophies. These changes can be grouped together and described as a new, “high modern” style of psychological science, a new style grounded in a new model of “man.” This new model of “man” cast humans as fundamentally forward-looking prediction machines rather than as past-governed stimulus-response machines or creatures of habit, instinct, or drives. According to this view, the past still matters to our decision-making, but in a new way: it informs our expectations—the futures we imagine—rather than determining our behavior or saddling us with half-remembered traumas. From this perspective, we use mental representations of the world to generate predictions about future states of that world, especially states that are contingent upon our actions. Even more, we are finite prediction machines in an infinite world. Our mental representations of the world, therefore, must simplify it, and since we have neither perfect knowledge nor perfect cognitive abilities nor unlimited time, our fundamental state is one of uncertainty. We are problem-solvers that depend upon information to adapt, survive, and thrive, but we live in a world in which that information, and the time necessary to make sense of it, is expensive.

Dreams of Freedom, Temptations of Power

2019 ◽  
pp. 243-280
Author(s):  
Melvyn P. Leffler
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
National Security ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
September 11 ◽  
World War ◽  
Memory Culture ◽  
The World ◽  
September 11 Attacks ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter considers the end of the Cold War as well as its implications for the September 11 attacks in 2001, roughly a decade after the Cold War ended. While studying the Cold War, the chapter illustrates how memory and values as well as fear and power shaped the behavior of human agents. Throughout that struggle, the divergent lessons of World War II pulsated through policymaking circles in Moscow and Washington. Now, in the aftermath of 9/11, governments around the world drew upon the lessons they had learned from their divergent national experiences as those experiences had become embedded in their respective national memories. For policymakers in Washington, memories of the Cold War and dreams of human freedom tempted the use of excessive power with tragic consequences. Memory, culture, and values played a key role in shaping the evolution of U.S. national security policy.

The World around Us

2021 ◽  
pp. 31-60
Author(s):  
M.I. Franklin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
September 11 ◽  
John Cage ◽  
World War ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World ◽  
Singular Individual ◽  
The Cold War

Chapter 2 sets the compass through a work that seems to have little to say about sampling. 4’33” (four thirty-three) by John Cage is based on no (performed) sounds, no flashy pyrotechnics in its execution, nor reverence for the notion of music as a singular, individual creative act, or performance. The chapter considers Cage’s evocation of “silence” as the sampled material that is at stake in this iconic piece. I consider how silence, and silencing work in the context of censorship and social control given that the timeframe for the inception of 4’33” resonates with post-World War II, mid-twentieth-century United States during the Cold War. Engaging with this work can also tell us something about the role of censorship in public arts life half a century later, in the US shortly after the Al Qaeda attacks on September 11, 2001. As I argue, when regarded as a material of music, and thereby as a source from which to “sample” silence, 4’33”offers both a sonic and “sound-less” baseline for the four case studies to follow. “Silence” as rendered in Cage’s work, its wider connotations and evocation of the sensation of sound-filled stillness also serve as a signal for instances of domination, of how oppression can take place quietly, without fanfare. Considering silence as a geocultural, socio-musicological matter allows us a moment to retune our ears and minds by encountering the broader (in)audible domains through, and from which sampling practices take place.

Howard Fast and the Refashioning of Postwar Protest

Prospects ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 489-513
Author(s):  
Lily Phillips
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
The United States ◽  
National Narrative ◽  
World War ◽  
The Road ◽  
American Century ◽  
The World ◽  
The Cold War

The American Century began in 1945. In the Cold War national narrative that arose in the United States after World War II, America was the hero of the world, a glorious empire called to victory in the war and destined to help others along the road to the American Dream. This narrative advanced a tropology that anchored the construction of the United States as culturally supreme and morally preeminent. It was a nationalistic, self-congratulating celebration — and in the midst of it Howard Fast appeared, the ultimate “Party” crasher.

scholarly journals Cultural Cold War and 1939 Republican Exile: the World Congress of Intellectuals in Defense of Peace (Wroclaw, 1948)

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 009
Author(s):  
Manuel Aznar Soler
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
International Committee ◽  
World War ◽  
World Congress ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The World ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The Cold War

The cultural battle between the USA and the Soviet Union belongs to the chapters of the Cold War held by the two superpowers in the aftermath of World War II. This article studies how the intellectuals of the 1939 Republican exile took part in the Soviet Union-fostered World Peace International Committee of Intellectuals in Defense of Peace Council, which started with the participation of a delegation of Republican intellectuals in the World Congress of Intellectuals for Peace, held in Wroclaw (Poland) on August 25-28, 1948.

Language Policy and Planning: Political Perspectives

1994 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 34-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Florian Coulmas
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
World System ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Language Policy And Planning ◽  
World War ◽  
The World ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Policy And Planning ◽  
Economic Ties

Since World War II, the political order that divided the world into nationstates has been remarkably stable. The balance of terror during the Cold War prevented major changes in the world system. With minor exceptions, such as the emergence of Singapore as an independent polity shortly after the foundation of Malaysia and the breakup of highly artificial geographically divided Pakistan into two separate states, even most of the countries that had come into existence as the result of decolonization did not change their borders. However, while the bi-polar system of the political and military stand-off of the two superpowers continued, a triangular world system developed on the economic plane. During the 1970s Japan became a major economic force, while the integration of the European Economic Community continued. Since the end of World War II, the United States has had close economic ties with both of the economic powers.

The United States and Eastern Europe in 1945: A Reassessment

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Trachtenberg
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
American Government ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The World ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter examines the policies pursued by the American government to deal with the problem of Eastern Europe in 1945. At the end of World War II, the Soviet Union, it was said, sought to communize eastern Europe; the western powers, and especially the United States, were deeply opposed to that policy; and the clash that developed played the key role in triggering the Cold War. But historians in recent years have been moving away from that sort of interpretation. American policy is also being seen in a new light by many historians. Increasingly the argument seems to be that U.S. leaders in 1945 did not really care much about eastern Europe—that their commitment to representative government in that region was surprisingly thin and that by the end of 1945 they had more or less come to the conclusion that the sort of political system the Soviets were setting up in that part of the world was something the United States could live with.

Global Radio Broadcasting and the Dynamics of American Evangelicalism

2017 ◽  
Vol 51 (4) ◽  
pp. 1139-1170 ◽  
Author(s):  
TIMOTHY STONEMAN
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
World War ◽  
Dynamic Tension ◽  
Radio Broadcasting ◽  
The World ◽  
Global North ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
American Evangelicalism ◽  
North And South

During the middle decades of the twentieth century, American evangelicals broadened their global outlook and operations, becoming the largest private radio broadcasters in the world. As they expanded overseas after World War II, American evangelicals encountered a world in crisis due to the Cold War, population growth, and processes of decolonization, affecting Western missions. Evangelical broadcasting advocates promoted mass media as a means to address the shifting demographic, political, and religious balance between the global North and South. Global radio broadcasting demonstrated a dynamic tension within American evangelicalism between innovative and conservative impulses, which was particularly evident in the area of reception.

Liturgical Development between Ecclesiastical Normativity and Societal Perception

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-230
Author(s):  
Florian Wegscheider
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Recent History ◽  
The Political ◽  
World War ◽  
Political Situation ◽  
The World ◽  
The Cold War

Abstract The historical kiss of peace between Polish Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl in Krzyżowa/Kreisau in 1989 serves as an example for how existential experiences can profoundly impact and even alter liturgy. However, liturgy can also be an obstacle for the further reflection and processing of such experiences, if they are not taken up in the liturgical setting. The political situation of a divided Europe as well as the Cold War following World War II indicate a unique situation in recent history that concernes believers all over the world. The question that results from taking this immediate past seriously is what kind of experiences liturgy can and should address (and in what form) and if there might be experiences or forms of handling such experiences that threaten the power of the ritual.

NORWEGIAN WAR FLEET ON GUARD OF THE SECURITY OF NATO DURING THE COLD WAR, PART 1

2020 ◽  
Vol XIII ◽  
pp. 3-4
Author(s):  
Jerzy Będźmirowski
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Geographical Location ◽  
World War ◽  
The North ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The World ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The Cold War

Due to its geographical location, Norway was, is and will continue to be an important component of the security system of NATO countries. Its direct border with the Soviet Union (now Russia) over a distance of over 170 km has influenced the fact that this region has been perceived as pivotal. After the end of World War II, when Europe and the world split into two political and military factions, a dynamic process of conventional and nuclear armaments began, and thus the world was heading toward an armed conflict and an extermination of civilization. Today we know that the Cold War did not turn into a hot war. This region, the North European region, was of particular importance. It offered the possibility for the Soviet nuclear fleet to leave for the Atlantic Ocean and carry out a nuclear attack on the USA and Canada. In order to prevent such a situation, the North Atlantic Theatre of War was created which included without limitation the Norwegian naval forces. The aim of this article is to present that issue

scholarly journals Soft power and public diplomacy of Germany: past and present

2021 ◽  
pp. 133-145
Author(s):  
Alexander Naumov
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Soft Power ◽  
Public Diplomacy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
World War ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Cold War

The concept of “soft power”, which gained popularity in recent years, was developed by the United States at the end of the Cold War. However, Germany has been using similar foreign policy tools long before the emergence of this term in 1990. The subject of this research is the German strategy of “soft power” with its own tradition and specificity that differs significantly from other countries. Public diplomacy remains the key instrument in building the “soft power” potential of Germany. Therefore, analysis is conducted on the evolution of the main vectors of “soft power” policy of the country and the activity of the key actors of its public diplomacy for the past 150 years. The article describes the use of “soft power” strategies by various political regimes that were in power in Germany. The conclusion is made that in foreign policy of the Federal Republic of Germany, which appeared on the world map in 1949, “soft power” and public diplomacy have played and continue to play an important role, allowing to achieve significant gains on the international arena in light of restrictions imposed after the World War II regarding the use of “hard power” tools. However, the German experience shows that excessive enthusiasm for building the internationally attractive image of the country may lead to quite unpredictable consequences.

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