The Iron Cage — By: Heidi Schave

During the 20th century, the historiography of American intellectual thought was altered by the rise of industrialization and technology. The process of modernization challenged the philosophical world by introducing new dilemmas regarding the vulnerability of the human condition. These vulnerabilities were derived from the horrific aftermath of World War I, which eradicated “hope” from the human psyche by demonstrating the fragility of human existence through the use of modern weaponry. The rise of modern industry also created turmoil within the philosophical world because it provoked the development of a new culture in which consumerism overshadowed the simplistic needs for human individuality and imagination. The modern age exiled the human spirit to a desolate realm while scientific revelations and consumerism plunged intellectual thought into a continuous state of existential crisis. In turn, all American intellectual and philosophical discourse during the 20th century stems from the process of modernization, which tampers with the human condition and condemns the human spirit to a state of perpetual disillusionment and dissent.

Intellectuals first identified the corrosion of the human spirit by modernization in the aftermath of World War I. The modern weaponry produced during this era resulted in the overwhelming violence that shattered the “Lockian” notion that human nature is inherently good. The promise of “hope” was always built into the foundations of early American philosophical thought. This belief originated from the early ideologies centered on the liberal tradition of America’s past. Louis Hartz discusses the history and background of America’s liberal legacy in The Liberal Tradition. Hartz believes that the beliefs that arose from early American intellectual thinkers developed because, unlike European countries, America lacked a feudal past.[1] The absence of a feudal past cemented the spirit of individuality into America’s culture. John Locke identified this idea as one of the major foundations for American philosophy. To Locke, America represented a distinct Utopia where the human spirit could develop uninhibited in a perfect state of nature. The inherent guarantee of social mobility and individual freedom became the catalyst that launched the democratic origins of American politics. The arrival of industrialization in America incorporated these doctrines and constructed a culture centered on consumerism. The outbreak of World War I shifted the previous philosophical optimism adopted by most intellectual thinkers regarding the future and the Lockian ideas of the past became shattered.

The use of technology did not seem to better humanity, but instead was being used to destroy any progress that mankind hoped to offer the new century. The devastation of the war shed a bleak curtain over the intellectual community. The condition of the human spirit was placed in jeopardy by the threat of technology. In order for the human spirit to exist in a perfect “Lockian” state of nature, there must be a soul. The advancements in science seemed to disprove the existence of a soul and this notion, mixed with the horrors of the war, contributed to the intellectual discourse in the early 20th century. The horrific aftermath of the Great War ingrained guilt and hopelessness into the human psyche. In the dawn of a new age that promoted human advancement, technology isolated the individual by creating feelings of despair, which led to the questioning of human relevance. 20th century intellectual writer T.S. Elliot writes about the devastating effects of World War I on the human spirit in his poem The Hollow Men:

We are the hollow men

We are the stuffed men

Leaning together

Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!

Our dried voices, when

We whisper together

Are quiet and meaningless

As wind in dry grass

Or rats’ feet over broken glass

In our dry cellar[2]

In Elliot’s poem, the “hollow men” are the solders returning from World War I. The terrors of the war left them empty and devoid of emotion. This process of modernity altered the concept of individuality in culture. It was this questioning of existence which paved the way for the various schools of intellectual thought during the duration of the 20th century.

In the Modern Temper, Joseph Wood Krutch presents a dark response to the scientific achievements of the 20th century. Krutch, writing in the aftermath of World War I, provides insight into the repercussions that early technology had on philosophy. His intellectual study was the first writing of the 20th century to address the crisis of modernity. The Modern Temper argues that the human spirit cannot survive in the world of science because technology crushes the human spirit and exiles humanity to a world of “escapism.”[3] Science introduces society to certain irrefutable “truths” pertaining to man’s anthropologic origins, which have divorced the element of “hope” from human thought. Similar to the modern weaponry which destroyed man’s lives in the battlefields, scientific revelations murder man’s faith. Religious faith provided humanity with the comfort and reassurance that its existence contained meaning. Science questioned the existence of a god and eliminated this comfort.

Krutch identified science as the cause for man’s discourse in the early 20th century. Science’s revelations created a dismal world where humanity felt out of place. The human spirit has difficulty coping with the modern world because science provided answers for all questions. Krutch comments on this dilemma, “In the laboratory there can be found no trace of the soul except certain rather undignified phenomena which gave rise to the illusion that we have one.”[4] The use of science led to man’s disenchantment with life. When man begins to question the existence of a soul, then, according to Krutch, he will turn to “escapism.” Humanity retreats into a culture comprised of “escapism” where comfort can be found in an altered sense of reality. Ironically, the bleak future predicted by The Modern Temper originated from the process of modernization itself. Krutch’s intellectual discourse is a result of his exposure to the devastation of World War I and his dark predictions for the human spirit are birthed from the rise of technology.

The disillusionment found in The Modern Temper strained the human condition throughout post-modern society and also stressed a prevalent group of intellectual writers in the 1920s referred to as “The Lost Generation.” This generation of thinkers paved the way for American intellectual writings during the dawn of the 20th century. It is also during this period of intellectual discourse that the process of modernity is distinctly identified as the culprit. In Exile’s Return by Malcolm Cowley, the discourses of the “Lost Generation” are presented in his autobiographical study of the culture of the 20th century. The Lost Generation, feeling frustrated and exiled in American culture and society after World War I, fled to Europe to combat their feelings of disillusionment through literature and art. Cowley provides insight into the origin of their generational name: “It was lost because it tried to live in exile. It was lost because it accepted no older guides to conduct and because it had formed a false picture of society and the writer’s place in it.”[5] The reasons for their plight can be attributed to Krutch’s discourse. The creative mind becomes displaced and alienated in a culture plagued with consumerism and technological advancement. The artist and writers who fled from America became disenchanted with the changing culture, which was being molded by industrialization. Europe represented a cultural oasis where the roots of intellectualism and the tolerance of individual expression still remained sacred. Sadly, as Krutch had predicted the pressures that science and technology inflict on the human condition cannot be ignored.

Directly after the Great War, modern industry rapidly increased in America. In the new modern world, a new class structure arose in American cities, which focused on the solidarity of the middle class. The rise of the middle class in American society was part of the natural process of democracy. Industrialization, in correlation with the success of the middle class, allowed a society to flourish where consumerism became an addicting habit. This process of industrialization, combined with the anguish of war, led to the self-imposed exile of the art world. The intellectual community of Greenwich Village and other artistic hubs felt alienated by American society due to changes in societies that were perpetrated by modernization Cowley comments on such dissent:

The young writers could not but luxuries even on the installment plan. They didn’t want to advertise or sell them or write stories in which the salesmen were the romantic heroes. Feeling like aliens in the commercial world, they sailed for Europe as soon as they had money enough to pay for their steamer tickets.[6]

The contributions of the Lost Generation to intellectual history are crucial in order to understand why the human spirit is so scrutinized by the modern world. The new culture of consumerism defined individuals by the products they consumed and not by their beliefs or morals. The creative and intellectual mind cannot be defined through this process and this is why intellectual thought in the early half of the century was placed in turmoil by the modern world.

The effects of modernization during the 1920s encouraged an American culture in which the individual spirit felt isolated and ignored. The members of the Lost Generation turned to Europe to seek refuge from a society were their art and ambitions seemed to have lost purpose. When the exiles eventually returned to America, they felt even more alienated from society. One of the leaders of the Lost Generation, F. Scott Fitzgerald, wrote about this existential crisis in his novel The Beautiful and Damned. In his works, Fitzgerald describes the members of a society were the process of industrialization has left his characters feeling disillusioned and void of basic artistic expression. Like Krutch who predicted that the human spirit could not flourish in the modern age, Fitzgerald discusses this transformation about his character “Anthony Patch” who is a young, educated, handsome and wealthy American devoid of emotion. Fitzgerald writes, “There were the bells and the continued low blur of auto horns from Fifth Avenue, but his own street was silent and he was safe in here from all the threat of life, for there was his door and the long hall and his guardian bedroom-safe, safe!”[7] The “bells from Fifth Avenue” are a reminder to the reader of the dangers of consumerism and Anthony is safe from life’s disappointments because, unlike the creative individual who needs risk to become inspired, men affected by modernity choose escapism and avoidance. This is the only way that the human spirit can survive the pains of modern culture. During the 1920s, the discourse in intellectual thought arose from the conditions that technology and modernization inflicted on the human condition.

After the decadence and disillusionment of the 1920s, the American intellectual community was presented with a different crisis caused by modernization in the 1930s and 40s. The Great Depression of the 1930s changed the political atmosphere surrounding American tolerance for the consumer culture. The Great Depression illustrated to intellectuals that the society, which had alienated the writers and artists of the 1920s, might not be the perfect solution for American prosperity. Capitalist vulnerability during the 1930s created a shift in the political world and gave rise to the powerful political faction deemed the “Left.” The rise of the Left appealed to many intellectuals. In The Rise and Fall of the American Left, John Patrick Diggins presents a detailed analysis of the Left’s appeal to many intellectuals. Diggins comments on this allure below:

Pre-Civil War utopian socialism elicited the enthusiastic response of many intellectuals, and it influenced a wide variety of campaigns for educational reform, women’s rights, pacifism, and the abolition of slavery. Significantly, the romantic utopians were the first generation of American intellectuals to try to integrate socialism with culture, to unify the life of work with the life of mind…”[8]

Once again, like the generation before them, intellectuals turned to Europe for answers. The rise of Marxism in Russia seemed to offer the Leftist leaders a solution to the discourse caused by modernity. After all, the Russian Revolution had been a revolution inspired by European intellectuals. Since, the aftermath of World War I, the American intellectual community had felt alienated from American Society and was eager to shed the shackles that inhibited the human spirit. In order to quell feelings of disillusionment, many influential writers and artists felt that political action would provide solutions to the 20th century’s intellectual discourses. It was the rise of industrialization that had allowed for American culture to embrace the delicacies of consumerism so tightly and it was this embrace that nourished the constraints on the human condition.

The ideologies incorporated in the Socialist doctrines offered a solution to the new American society that intellectuals wished to improve. The New Left eagerly redefined American political history by compassionately rejuvenating the liberal ideologies of America’s pre-industrial liberal past. It was the return to the simple philosophies dictating equality, which attempted to alter the social environment created by modernity in the early 20th century. The attempt to follow Russia in a social revolution failed in America because the liberal traditions of America’s past were too strong to be broken. The upheaval of a culture birthed from the principles of democracy beyond the Left’s influence. Ironically, the grievances argued by the Left were birthed from modernity. Modern culture alienates the individual and the early socialist adaptation of the Left felt that the solution to this problem could be resolved by combating the social injustices they identified as stemming from the process of industrialization. The political activism of the Left was an attempt to improve the human condition. The decline in the human spirit was a direct result from the process of modernity and, just like the “hollow men” in T.S. Elliot’s poem, the lyrical intellectuals of the 1930s and 40s were searching for a way to combat the feelings of alienation which the culture of consumerism promoted. Unfortunately, the reconstruction of American society by the Left, based on European ideas, would never occur because the process of modernity, fused with the ideologies of democracy, was too strong to be defeated.

By the 1950s, American culture had become completely centered around consumerism. It was this progression of the middle class and the society that followed it that still condemned the human condition. By the middle of the 20th century, the American intellectual community had developed a new school of thought known as Pragmatism. The development of Pragmatism seemed to offer the intellectual community of the 1950s a fresh way to explore the discourse surrounding the changing American culture. Instead of turning away from the culture of consumerism like the Left, pragmatic thinkers invented a philosophy that originated from the same principles as America’s liberal traditions. However, the dawn of the modern age altered the course of democratic ideologies by introducing a new political power obtained through technological advancement. Pragmatism seemed to offer a solution to crisis of modernity by providing tools to explain it. It deduced philosophical revelations from history using practical scientific reasoning in their methodology. Hence, any problem could be solved and “truths” revealed through experimentation and personal experience. In reality, the principles of pragmatism could be used to justify war and modernization.

In The Revival of Pragmatism, Morris Dickstein comments on this belief, “The war discredited the kind of enlightened planning with which pragmatism had become identified. The reaction against progressivism after 1920 also became a reaction against pragmatism among conservatives who celebrated America’s exceptionalismn and achievements as well as among radicals who castigated its abuses and inequalities.”[9] Pragmatism’s true function in the political arena becomes cloaked under the illusion of democratic roots. It is based on a liberal legacy, but this tradition becomes mutated as it grows along with science. Pragmatism can explain the process of modernity, but it does not offer a solution to the discourse plaguing the human spirit. The culture of the 1950s can be justified using a pragmatic approach, but it offers no escape from the decline of “hope” within the post-modern culture. Modernity created dissent for the human condition and the introduction of Pragmatism in the American intellectual community seemed to also be one of modernity’s children.

In The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations by Christopher Lasch, the effects of modernization and culture during the later half of the 20th century are discussed. Like Krutch, Lasch paints a dismal prediction regarding the future of American culture. The massive social upheaval that occurred during the 1960s is a reflection of the intellectual discourse created by technology and modernization. The counter culture of the 1960s was a youthful movement, which rejected the middle-class solidarity of their parent’s generation. The 1960s echoed the previous disillusionments of the Left during the 1930s and 40s by demanding a return to the simplistic ideologies preserved in American liberalism to correct social injustices. The Culture of Narcissism explores how the process of modernity engulfed this movement and how by the 1970s the participants of 1960s radicalism became disillusioned, like the generations before them, by the process of modernity. Once again, scientific advancement and consumerism inhibit the spirit of individuality in modern society.

Lasch argues that due to advancements in the field of psychology, the modern American becomes self-observed and narcissistic. The culture of the modern world is derived from American obsession of material possessions and the individual becomes primarily focused on his/her own self-image and progress. The culture of consumerism created this crisis because it has altered the existing work ethic of Americans and imposed new values on society. Lasch provides insight to this dilemma, “A profound shift in our senses of time has transformed work habits, values, and the definition of success. Self-preservation has replaced self-improvement as the goal of earthly existence.”[10] Like the dismal world of the Lost Generation, the modern American’s spirit becomes crushed by the culture created by modernity. The purpose of the liberal tradition was to ensure the continuing success of the human spirit because only in a land of equality and freedom could man exist pure in a perfect state of nature. However, these liberal ideologies become overshadowed by the presence of consumerism, which has sentenced existential survival in modern America to a dismal fate which repeatedly crushes the human spirit.

The American liberal heritage attempted to ensure that the spirit of individuality would not become removed from American culture. The arrival of scientific technology and modernization during the 20th century threatened to diminish the presence of individual freedoms from American society. The unveiling of certain scientific “truths” and the use of modern weaponry during the course of the century stressed the human psyche. The intellectual community who sustained its principles through the use of philosophy and creativity became endangered in the modern age. The culture of consumerism exiled the human spirit and created dissent and discourse in the philosophical realm. The human spirit was left vulnerable to the perils of alienation and escapism. European philosopher Max Weber described the process of modernization as “the disenchantment of the world.”[11] He compared the rise of industrialization to an “iron cage” in which all humans were forced to dwell. The intellectual discourse of the 20th century can be witnessed in all chapters of modern intellectual history, starting with the exile of the Lost Generation and ending with the egotistical endeavors of the 1970s. In conclusion, the intellectual discourse of the 20th century was perpetrated from the rise of industry and the culture of consumerism, which placed the human spirit into a state of constant jeopardy. It is in this state where the Lockian spirit of individuality is forced to reside in the “iron cage” where freedom becomes a distant memory.

[1] Louis Hartz, The Liberal Tradition In America ( New York: Harcourt Brace & World, 1955) , 3

[2] T.S. Eliot, Collected Poems: 1919–1962 (New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1963), 79.

[3] Joseph Wood Krutch, The Modern Temper (New York: Harcourt Brace and Company, 1929), xi.

[4] Krutch, Modern Temper, 46.

[5] Malcolm Cowley, Exiles Return, (New York: W.W. Norton Press, 1934), 9.

[6] Ibid., 6.

[7] F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and the Damned, (New York:: Macmillian Publishing Company, 1922), 27.

[8] John Patrick Diggings, The Rise and Fall of the American Left (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanochich inc 1973), 73.

[9] Morris Dickstein, ed., The Revival Of Pragmatism: New Essays on Social Thought, Law, and Culture (Durham: Duke University Press, 1998), 9.

[10] Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in An Age of Diminishing Expectations (New York: W.W. Norton & Company , 1979) ,53.

[11] Diggings, The Rise and Fall, 245.