'What Goes Up Must Come Down': Lecture Series Continues

The second in an eight-part lecture series was presented at the Hollidaysburg Area Public Library earlier this month. Professor John Eicher continued his series on Modern Western Civilization (1500 to present) From Dawn to Decadence to Disillusionment. His presentation "What Goes Up Must Come Down" featured the period from 1750 to 1830, which includes the Enlightenment, Napoleon and the Romantic Movement.

Building on the lecture series themes of abstraction, bureaucracy and control, which Eicher calls the ABCs of modern and European history. He emphasized that the enlightenment solidified bureaucratic control over Western Civilization, especially under Napoleon and his conquest of Europe. Bureaucracies rose in strength to control more aspects of people's lives.

The Enlightenment itself created a lot of real abstractions.

"When we think of freedom or democracy, these are kind of abstract ideas," Eicher said. "We don't know what they look like in reality."

According to Eicher, this builds on the themes that he has already presented in his last lecture and will be a stepping stone to his next lecture, which concerns the rise of Nationalism in Europe.

"We talk about how Nationalism is a rather new concept. It developed out of the Enlightenment and the Romantic Movement in the late 1700s and early 1800s."

He continued by saying that before that time, people didn't think about themselves in national terms. They thought of themselves as villagers and as peasants. It took about 100 years of really hard work by a lot of powerful people to get people to start thinking of themselves as national citizens.

Accompanying that was the rise of industrialization, which standardizes products, workers and citizens under national labels.

Part three of this series, entitled "Nationalism: An Invented Tradition," will take place Nov. 8 at 6:30 p.m. at The Hollidaysburg Area Public Library.

Note: The online version of this story on mcheraldonline.com includes a QR code to access Eicher's lectures.