Thursday, October 23, 2014

The Ideologies of the 19th Century

Last and This week in history, the class worked on "One Minute Projects" in which we had to describe one ideology of the 19th century. The essential question we had to answer was "What were the major political ideologies of the 19th century and how did they influence social and political action?". My group did our project on the ideology of conservatism.

Here is the video we did to represent conservatism: [link here]. Our presentation helps define conservatism pretty simply, giving a basic definition to it, and providing a few examples of what conservatism means. Conservatism influenced social and political action in the 19th century by maintaining a classic, structured government system which was time tested and secure. Conservatists argued against innovation, using the French Revolution as an example of how innovation can lead only to bloodshed and violence.

Conservatism was not the only ideology in the 19th century. Two other famous ideologies were Liberalism and Nationalism. Liberalism was the ideology that stated that the job of the government was to mainain individual liberty. Liberalism was against tradition and, viewed it as a way of blocking one from freedom. Liberals believed in God-given natural rights and laws that men should obey. Liberals promoted constitutional monarchy more so than absolutism. They wanted to replace the aristocracy with a meritocracy, having the middle class have a say in government affairs. Nationalism is the idea that said that a nation was a natural, organic entity whose people were bound together by shared language, custom, and history. According to nationalists, every nation has its own specific borders, culture, and destiny to fulfill. Nationalism was ultimately allinged with liberalism in the early nineteenth century. Both shared a more positive outlook than conservatism, which would ultimately help them progress into the future. 

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