Compare and Contrast Early and Late Modernity Summary of IdeasA. Early Modernity1. Natural Rights2. Science3. Human goodness4. Humanity’s capacity to improve society for human betterment.5. REASONB. Late Modernity1. Insights into human nature, the social world, the physical universe2. Human rationality and goodness was questioned3. Natural rights questioned4. Shattered European’s comfortable thinking5. IRRATIONALAII. Early Modernity: ThinkersA. Locke1. Environment shapes the person2. Moderate religion is good3. Humans can be can be educated to be rational and responsible4.Tabula Rassa (evil is created in the upbringing)B. Adam Smith1. Economist2. Laissez-Faire3. Published the Wealth of Nations4. Depended on individual people not governments to bring economic prosperity5. People worked for income, not to specifically help people out. People are selfish.III. Late Modernity: ThinkersA. Nietzsche1. Wanted Supermen to lead civilizationa. Supermen were not held back by moralsb. Sets his own standards 2. Not “Shall Not” it should be “shall”3. Nietzsche discredited the last of Christianity, its ethics4. Believed that the greatest gratification for man was power, it’s the motivating force for humans5. There is only naked man in a godless and absurd world”6. “God is dead”B. Dostoevski1. Humans are inherently depraved, irrational, and rebellious2. People freely choose suffering because it is gratifying3. Humans are not directed by self-interest, they are driven by instinctual cravingsC. Bergson1. His philosophy pointed away from science toward religious mysticism2. Depreciation of Reason3. Appeal of the nonrationalD. Sorel1. Unlike Nietzsche, Sorel placed his hope in the proletariat2. Sorel applauded violence3. Life is an unremitting battle4. History is a perpetual conflict between decay and vitality, passivity and action5. Struggle purified invigorated and promoted creative changeE...
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