Science and Revolution

This week brought up a lot of interesting points about science and revolution. Hobsbawm discusses the influence science had on different cultures and societies during the time period discussed. Science brought a new understanding for the way we thought during this time period and was a revolution in itself. The transformation is broken down into two different kinds by Hobsbawm. One can be of intellectual thinking and the understanding of the universe. This was a huge leap for many cultures at this time as it separated the “intellectual structuring of the bourgeois world.” This way of thought almost eliminated the religious and spiritual beliefs of how our universe works proximately and ultimately. In order for this to happen there would have to be a societal change in which the church did not always have the right answer, and if someone else has a different explanation or reasoning society would have to allow them prove what they found before they were burned at the stake. Also, thinking became more about general intuition and common sense. I was trying to think of an example so if you have one call me out.

While people became more self aware with common sense, they also began to separate science from intuition. This had psychological effects on the new thinkers as well as the old. From talking about science and reasoning to discussing the revolutions occurring. Many revolutions were happening during this time period. These revolutions were mostly not the violent overthrowing of core governments as we have seen, but sub-revolutions that had great influences on society.

I feel like science or the evolution of self-awareness and common sense go hand and hand. I like how Hobsbawm discusses the different topics in the order that he does. He made it all come together for me and I do not study this time period on a regular basis. This is such an interesting time period as core countries find their identities, but are quickly changed by new ideas. I feel like this was a time period that started our exponential growth of knowledge and technology through science, and as a species we could not handle it. I am saying we could not handle it because we would soon move from a time of peace into a time of massive death and destruction. Science and technology allowed core countries to gain much more than the peripheries and this created chaos. I am interested in seeing what Hobsbawm goes into in his chapter from peace to war. Why after a time called the Golden Age or Gilded Age to we end up in a world war? And what can we learn from a time period like this?