World War I’s disillusionment killed progressivism’s reform mood
Evidence
At least in native American opinion, the issue after the armistice no longer concerned the desirability of restriction but simply the proper degree and kind. The war virtually swept from the American consciousness the old belief in unrestricted immigration. It did so, very simply, by creating an urgent demand for national unity and homogeneity that practically destroyed what the travail of preceding decades had already fatally weakened: the historic confidence in the capacity of American society to assimilate all men automatically. — John Higham, Strangers in the Land, 1811 (
#exemplifies, via linked claim)
Some credence must be given to Kern’s judgement that ‘in four years the belief in evolution, progress, and history itself was wiped out’ as the war ‘ripped up the historical fabric and cut everyone off from the past suddenly and irretrievably.’ — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, 1766 (
#exemplifies, via linked claim)
After World War I, these same values weakened as the Third Republic attempted to come to terms with the losses and traumas of the war and the growth of nationalist protest throughout the empire. Colonial discourse echoed this shift: established republican verities now surfaced in a more attenuated form in Dakar, replaced by a more conservative vision of progress-as the new respect for the African aristocracy and the greater emphasis on human mise en valeur attest. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 42 (
#complicates, via linked claim)
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: The 1919 Reconstruction Commission report summed up the whole Progressive reform movement — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 452; World War I weakened republican ideology and shifted colonial policy toward conservatism; World War I weakened liberal republican ideology in French colonialism. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 42 (+6 more)
Related
- World War I weakened liberal republican ideology in French colonialism. (similarity 0.84)
- World War One erased belief in unrestricted immigration from American minds (similarity 0.82)
- World War I weakened republican ideology and shifted colonial policy toward conservatism (similarity 0.81)
- World War I disillusionment discredited militant Christian masculinity among mainstream Protestants (similarity 0.79)
Broader Connections
- World War One erased belief in unrestricted immigration from American minds
#exemplifies(0.85) — John Higham, Strangers in the Land, 1811 - World War I destroyed faith in progress, evolution, and continuity with history.
#exemplifies(0.78) — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, 1766 - World War I weakened republican ideology and shifted colonial policy toward conservatism
#complicates(0.75) - World War I weakened liberal republican ideology in French colonialism.
#complicates(0.75) — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 42 - World War I disillusionment discredited militant Christian masculinity among mainstream Protestants
#exemplifies(0.75) — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 46 - The delusion of progressivism is structural, not psychological, in liberal democracy
#responds-to(0.72) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1390