Youth, Christianity, and the Crisis of Civilization, 1930–1945

2014 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 259-296 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas E. Bergler

AbstractDuring the 1930s and 1940s, the Great Depression and the rise of communism and fascism in Europe convinced a broad spectrum of Americans that they were living through a prolonged “crisis of civilization” with real potential to destroy all they held dear. Meanwhile, they saw evidence that these global problems put young people especially at risk for immorality, loss of hope, and political subversion. Because the “youth problem” and the “world crisis” seemed to be inextricably linked, even the everyday behaviors of young people took on a heightened political significance in the eyes of many adults. Christian leaders from across the spectrum of churches—Mainline Protestant, Evangelical, Roman Catholic, and African American—did not just capitalize on this obsession with youth and the fate of civilization; they did all they could to fan those flames. They did so not cynically, but sincerely, believing that they could and should save the world by saving American youth. Yet these leaders were also making a bid for influence in American society and for control of the future of their churches. The resulting politicized views of youth and youth work would not only influence the outcomes of internal church battles, but they would also shape how various Christian groups responded to the Cold War.

Author(s):  
Sára Czina ◽  

At the turn of the 20th century, Budapest was famous for its Coffeehouse Culture. One of the most popular Café was the New-York Coffeehouse; today, it is remembered for its literary life. After 20 years of operation, in 1913, new people bought the tenant’s rights and established the first Coffeehouse joint-stock company in Hungary, called New-York coffeehouse Company Limited. This paper aims to analyze the operation of the Company in relation to the stock transfers, analysis of its profitability, and the changes in the transformations in the shares. The main goal was to figure out how the profitability and the stock transfers were connected to the contemporary social and economic circumstances. The years of the World Wars, Revolutions, the Great Depression, and the cultural/social life of the twenties had their deep effects on the life of the Company. The changes were perceptible for the public, too. Many articles were published about the hardships of the Company and the changing atmosphere of the Coffeehouse. These were different; not all of them damaged the interest of the Company Limited equally. Still, the difficulties influenced the stock transfers, profitability, and the everyday life of the Managers and Shareholders. These circumstances are parallel to the changes of the Company.


Human Affairs ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-39
Author(s):  
Nicholas Maxwell

Abstract Humanity faces two fundamental problems of learning: learning about the universe, and learning to become civilized. We have solved the first problem, but not the second one, and that puts us in a situation of great danger. Almost all of our global problems have arisen as a result. It has become a matter of extreme urgency to solve the second problem. The key to this is to learn from our solution to the first problem how to solve the second one. This was the basic idea of the 18th century Enlightenment, but in implementing this idea, the Enlightenment blundered. Their mistakes are still built into academia today. In order to le arn how to create a civilized, enlightened world, the key thing we need to do is to cure academia of the structural blunders we have inherited from the Enlightenment. We need to bring about a revolution in science, and in academia more broadly so that the basic aim becomes wisdom, and not just knowledge.


Author(s):  
Madeleine Leonard

This chapter outlines the importance of space and place in ‘post conflict’ Belfast by critically unpacking how territory and division remain important for certain groups. Through outlining important links between place and identity, the book calls into question Northern Ireland’s status as one of the most successful ‘post conflict’ societies in the world. This sets the scene for the book’s primary purpose which is to illuminate the everyday spatial practices of teenagers who grow up in divided localities. By redressing the relative lack of research on the lives of young people who grow up in estranged and declining communities, the book illuminates what young people’s everyday spatial movements can tell us about the visible and invisible borders of politically contested cities.


Author(s):  
Uschi Klein

Photographs are created, recreated and shared extensively and repeatedly, suggesting that people have little choice but to look at them. Nonetheless, the diverse ways of seeing in contemporary visual culture entail different visions, experiences and practices of visuality. This article suggests autistic people approach photography in their own ways to visually express their everyday lives. While sensory experiences differ in autistic individuals, they appear to embody visuality with their sensory modalities, using primarily their vision, but also their kinaesthetic experience and proprioceptive awareness to photograph the world around them.   Drawing from findings from an empirical study on the photographic practices of young people on the autism spectrum, this paper discusses how two participants use photography to capture the ways they see the world. Photography provides a context in which individuals can illustrate their visual experiences, and specific and diverse social and personal realities. The medium encourages them to make, use and discuss their own photographs, which, in turn, generates thoughts of lived experiences on which they may otherwise never reflect. While offering new insights into how photography mediates autistic individuals’ sensory perceptions of their visual world, this paper will further consider the contributions photography makes to the everyday lives of autistic people. 


1941 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua Loth Liebman
Keyword(s):  

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 120-130
Author(s):  
Coline Covington

The Berlin Wall came down on 9 November 1989 and marked the end of the Cold War. As old antagonisms thawed a new landscape emerged of unification and tolerance. Censorship was no longer the principal means of ensuring group solidarity. The crumbling bricks brought not only freedom of movement but freedom of thought. Now, nearly thirty years later, globalisation has created a new balance of power, disrupting borders and economies across the world. The groups that thought they were in power no longer have much of a say and are anxious about their future. As protest grows, we are beginning to see that the old antagonisms have not disappeared but are, in fact, resurfacing. This article will start by looking at the dissembling of a marriage in which the wall that had peacefully maintained coexistence disintegrates and leads to a psychic development that uncannily mirrors that of populism today. The individual vignette leads to a broader psychological understanding of the totalitarian dynamic that underlies populism and threatens once again to imprison us within its walls.


2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-34
Author(s):  
Trish McTighe

In an era of public consciousness about gendered inequalities in the world of work, as well as recent revelations of sexual harassment and abuse in theatre and film production, Beckett's Catastrophe (1982) bears striking resonances. This article will suggest that, through the figure of its Assistant, the play stages the gendered nature of the labour of making art, and, in her actions, shows the kind of complicit disgust familiar to many who work in the entertainment industry, especially women. In unpacking this idea, I conceptualise the distinction between the everyday and ‘the event’, as in, between modes of quotidian labour and the attention-grabbing moment of art, between the invisible foundations of representation and the spectacle of that representation. It is my thesis that this play stages exactly this tension and that deploying a discourse of maintenance art allows the play to be read in the context of the labour of theatre-making. Highlighting the Assistant's labour becomes a way of making visible the structures of authority that are invested in maintaining gender boundaries and showing how art is too often complicit in the maintenance of social hierarchies.


1945 ◽  
Vol 14 (11) ◽  
pp. 150-151
Author(s):  
Bruno Lasker
Keyword(s):  

Author(s):  
Thomas Borstelmann

This book looks at an iconic decade when the cultural left and economic right came to the fore in American society and the world at large. While many have seen the 1970s as simply a period of failures epitomized by Watergate, inflation, the oil crisis, global unrest, and disillusionment with military efforts in Vietnam, this book creates a new framework for understanding the period and its legacy. It demonstrates how the 1970s increased social inclusiveness and, at the same time, encouraged commitments to the free market and wariness of government. As a result, American culture and much of the rest of the world became more—and less—equal. This book explores how the 1970s forged the contours of contemporary America. Military, political, and economic crises undercut citizens' confidence in government. Free market enthusiasm led to lower taxes, a volunteer army, individual 401(k) retirement plans, free agency in sports, deregulated airlines, and expansions in gambling and pornography. At the same time, the movement for civil rights grew, promoting changes for women, gays, immigrants, and the disabled. And developments were not limited to the United States. Many countries gave up colonial and racial hierarchies to develop a new formal commitment to human rights, while economic deregulation spread to other parts of the world, from Chile and the United Kingdom to China. Placing a tempestuous political culture within a global perspective, this book shows that the decade wrought irrevocable transformations upon American society and the broader world that continue to resonate today.


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 52-79
Author(s):  
V. T. Yungblud

The Yalta-Potsdam system of international relations, established by culmination of World War II, was created to maintain the security and cooperation of states in the post-war world. Leaders of the Big Three, who ensured the Victory over the fascist-militarist bloc in 1945, made decisive contribution to its creation. This system cemented the world order during the Cold War years until the collapse of the USSR in 1991 and the destruction of the bipolar structure of the organization of international relations. Post-Cold War changes stimulated the search for new structures of the international order. Article purpose is to characterize circumstances of foundations formation of postwar world and to show how the historical decisions made by the leaders of the anti-Hitler coalition powers in 1945 are projected onto modern political processes. Study focuses on interrelated questions: what was the post-war world order and how integral it was? How did the political decisions of 1945 affect the origins of the Cold War? Does the American-centrist international order, that prevailed at the end of the 20th century, genetically linked to the Atlantic Charter and the goals of the anti- Hitler coalition in the war, have a future?Many elements of the Yalta-Potsdam system of international relations in the 1990s survived and proved their viability. The end of the Cold War and globalization created conditions for widespread democracy in the world. The liberal system of international relations, which expanded in the late XX - early XXI century, is currently experiencing a crisis. It will be necessary to strengthen existing international institutions that ensure stability and security, primarily to create barriers to the spread of national egoism, radicalism and international terrorism, for have a chance to continue the liberal principles based world order (not necessarily within a unipolar system). Prerequisite for promoting idea of a liberal system of international relations is the adjustment of liberalism as such, refusal to unilaterally impose its principles on peoples with a different set of values. This will also require that all main participants in modern in-ternational life be able to develop a unilateral agenda for common problems and interstate relations, interact in a dialogue mode, delving into the arguments of opponents and taking into account their vital interests.


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