Transformation of Culture - Transformation of Western Culture

Transformation of Western Culture

"Western" or European culture began to undergo rapid change starting with the arrival of Columbus in the New World, and continuing with the Industrial Revolution. The Modern Period, from 1914–1945, is characterized as a highly transformative era, with World War I serving as the watershed moment initiating and forever marking the Modern period. In literature, the work of the High Modernists ruled this period. Notable High Modernists include: T. S. Eliot, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and James Joyce. The High Modernists were predominantly American expatriates living abroad after the war and strongly marked by the war experience. A great deal of literature was written attempting to convey the World War I experience. Among these is Ezra Pound's poem, "Hugh Selwyn Mauberley", published in 1920. The poem points out the perceived pointlessness of World War I, but also the loss of faith in the British Empire and Western ideals. Another example of literature during this time is the anti-war poem "Dulce et Decorum Est.", written by Wilfred Owen. This poem contests the deep-seated tradition of noblesse oblige, and questions the idea of dying for one's country. The 1960s were a tumultuous time in Western culture, especially in Europe due to the severe restructuring necessary following the aftermath of the Second World War and in the United States due to its controversial participation in both the Cold War and South East Asian political affairs with the Vietnam War, where the US role was perceived from a numer of directions as prolonging the residual effects of decades of colonial patronization in the Asian region by economically well to do European powers. This period was marked by a number of nascent social changes including a heightened sensitivity to the futility of war which sparked hundreds of protest marches and popular uprisings on a world-wide scale, rising tides of awareness concerning the need to change overwhelmingly negative race-relations in the USA, experimental drug use, a new genre in popular music, and a general shift away from social normatives of previous generations. Out of this era stemmed some of today's most powerful forces, such as the internet. The internet was created in large part by people cooperating, taking chances, and experimenting outside of corporate settings. Many of the individuals who were drawn to the technology in its infancy were activists and progressives. Some scholars and social theorists recognize that we are undergoing another cultural change brought about by the New Industrial Revolution. This Revolution is changing the way that products are made and disposed of, how buildings are constructed, and our relationship to the natural world and its capital. See also: segregation laws, conscientious objection, May 1968.