The Art of Intellectual History

The Art of Intellectual History: For some people, intellectual history is nothing more than the history of philosophy. To others, it is the history of ideas. The variety of -isms conceived throughout history are essentially ideologies or sets of beliefs that determine the way a society functions. For the Puritans, it was providentialism, which saw the hand of God playing an active role in everyday life. Intellectual historians, therefore, find that what happens in people's minds is more valuable and intriguing than what occurs on battlefields or in courtrooms. Religious movements like the four Great Awakenings and cultural movements like the Enlightenment are just a few examples of when ideas changed the fundamental course of social progress in Western civilization. More specifically, the Puritan settlements in seventeenth-century New England had profound implications for the intellectual development of early America. Some intellectual historians actually prefer an anti-intellectual approach to history whereby instinct trumps reason. Thus, what people feel is more important than what they think. Feelings presuppose thoughts, and hence, they are more visceral in defining human experiences. And as Martin Heidegger so eloquently stated in his essay What Is Called Thinking?, "the most thought-provoking thing in our thought-provoking time is that we are still not thinking."

That "Otherness"

That "Otherness": In twentieth-century America, race relations were often unstable. As noted civil rights activist and sociologist W. E. B. Du Bois suggested, the African American constantly battled with the dilemma that existed between his blackness and his American citizenship. There was a distinct "color line" that persisted among whites and blacks. How could the United States endorse liberty as a civic virtue and then substantiate de jure segregation to keep blacks in their place? This contradiction tugged at the root of the African-American identity crisis. Du Bois argued that African Americans possessed a kind of "double consciousness" in The Souls of Black Folk (1903). What was it about being a black American in the early twentieth century that elicited feelings of "otherness" in the faces of whites? Nevertheless, the United States could no longer promote a colorblind society. Recognizing race was vital to realizing inequalities. If one recognized race, then one became cognizant of the separation that existed between the races. And like the Brown decision in 1954, which stated that separate educational facilities were inherently unequal, Americans began to understand that programs such as mandatory busing and affirmative action had to be enacted to rectify the inequities among black and white Americans.

Kraftwerk - Das Model

Kraftwerk - Das Model: After thirty years, Kraftwerk's "Das Model" is still a popular song, and not just in electronic music circles. In fact, metal groups like Rammstein have covered the song, as well as alternative groups like The Cardigans. Even so, the song is considered by many to be a harbinger in the genre of electronic music. Much like The Beatles' song "Hello Goodbye," this song speaks to how human beings perceive one another. And for that reason, "Das Model" is highly existential in its overall tone. The lyrics talk of how a model has to quickly change her entire disposition whenever there is a camera present. She has to contain a split personality in order to survive the brutally critical world of modeling. She is deeply self-conscious about her appearance and overly self-confident in her talents; a contradiction in outlooks to say the least. Yet the ability of the model to straddle both her personal world and the modeling world is precisely what attracts the singer to her. What's ironic here is that whenever Kraftwerk performs the song, they are in the spotlight just as models are. As a result, the band itself has to adjust to being viewed by hundreds, if not thousands, of pairs of eyes all at once. Certainly, that kind of pressure makes one question the true extent of his or her capabilities.

The Conscience of an Atheist

The Conscience of an Atheist: Is the human conscience fundamentally opposed to atheism? It's difficult to see how a rational person could devote full attention to both his conscience and atheistic outlook. The human conscience is, at bottom, wholly oriented toward God. To be clear, every person is naturally endowed by God with a conscience. Like ideas and words, the human conscience has evolved. The question then becomes whether each individual chooses to utilize his conscience. In choosing not to utilize his conscience, man embarks on a basic separation from God. And it's precisely this separation which pushes man to develop ardent beliefs in the material world. Yet atheists believe in more than just matter. They believe in time, energy, mortality, and rationality. To suggest that theists do not hold these beliefs as well is simply ludicrous. Even so, Article 20 of the Catholic Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes (Joy and Hope) states, "Favoring this doctrine [atheism] can be the sense of power which modern technical progress generates in man." This statement effectively captures the origins of atheism; the Industrial Revolution. In short, without God, there would be no atheists, because (a.) He would not have been there to create them in the first place, and ( b.) there would be no One for the atheists to oppose.

Heinrich von Kleist and German Romanticism

Heinrich von Kleist and German Romanticism: As one of the most prodigious authors in the literary genre of German Romanticism, Kleist often lived in the shadows of bigger names like Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller. He constantly felt pressure to write short stories and perform plays at his very best, especially since most of his critics seemed to express a perpetual disregard for his works. Probably his two most reputable works include Penthesilea (1808) and The Marquise of O (1808). One of Kleist's favorite literary techniques involved the insertion of an anachronistic idea into a historical situation, which could leave the reader both bemused and intrigued. In fact, Mark Twain adopted this technique to write A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889). Above all, Kleist's work epitomized not only class consciousness and misogyny in the Napoleonic Era, but also a distinct penchant for Counter-Enlightenment thinking. In a series of philosophical pamphlets such as On the Gradual Production of Thoughts Whilst Speaking, Kleist advocated the idea of acting before thinking, which certainly qualified as both anti-intellectual and hyper-romantic at the same time.