Human Thought in the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries
Human thought is an element that has gone through various modifications. Evidently, this change in human thought is evident with what transpired during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. You will notice that this period played a significant role towards various ways that people perceive issues in the society. Unlike other periods when most thinkers focused on one line of thought, between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, there were significant philosophical developments. In this era, the world embraced a lot of both scientific and humanistic way of life.
The Enlightenment Period and Increased Individualism
Between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the society had gone through the enlightenment period. The enlightenment period entailed a situation where people developed increased awareness regarding individualism. Previously, Karl Marx had addressed the issue of exploitation; wealth owners were misusing the workers. Evidently, the thoughts of Karl Marx made people recognize the need to empower themselves. Increased level of individualism characterized the time between nineteenth and twentieth century. What created this situation is the fact that the workers were awakened by Marx's sentiments regarding exploitation by the rich; the poor became resistant, and this is the reason for numerous actions such as strikes during this period. Similarly, when you look at the Nietzsche’s thoughts, one notices that human beings overcame the dogmatism of religion in between the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. In religion, people are taught on the need to forgo earthly possessions (Roberts, 2016). What this means is that people should not care about issues such as salary increase. As such, the implication in this context is that people should not fight for their rights. Nietzsche advocates for realism where human beings deal with issues practically affecting them. In this case, it was expected for workers to fight for their welfare rather than dwell on the thinking that earthly wealth is insignificant. With the thoughts of Nietzsche and Marx, workers during the period between nineteenth and twentieth century realized the importance of industrial actions in fighting the opportunistic tendencies among employers. Markedly, this is also enhanced by Fyodor Dostoevsky in his realism perspective. In the argument, Dostoevsky argues that there is the need for people to look at issues from a practical standpoint. For instance, when a person realizes that he or she is being misused by the rich, then actions such as strikes are paramount. Considerably, this appears to have motivated the increased industrial actions between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Liberalism and the Capacity to Think Freely
Between the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, a lot of liberalism has thrived. In the past, people were advised to conform to the popular cultures of the community. However, you will notice that under the thoughts of Freud, free association is a concept where a person engages the self in unrestricted thoughts. When a person gets the opportunity to think about a wide range of issues, it becomes easy for a person to design measures that correspond to his or her immediate environment. According to Darwin, external factors make people evolve. For instance, because of environmental challenges such as famine, the society has embraced genetically modified products (Hulme, 2011). What this means is that as a result of the capacity to think freely, people have gotten the chance to determine elements that suit their lives.
References
Hulme, M. (2011). Reducing the future to climate: a story of climate determinism and reductionism. Osiris, 26(1), 245-266.
Roberts, A. (2016). The history of science fiction. Palgrave Macmillan.
