Dictionary of the History of Ideas Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas |
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4 | ![]() | IV. | CRISIS IN HISTORY |
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![]() | Dictionary of the History of Ideas | ![]() |
CRISIS IN HISTORY
During the last fifty years the word
“crisis” has
achieved a popularity among writers and
their audi-
ences which stands in need of
clarification. The prolif-
erated use of
the term can be attributed neither to
vogue nor fad; it indicates, rather,
an awareness of crisis
as a salient feature of contemporary
consciousness.
However, the frequently indiscriminate use of the word
has resulted in considerable confusion as to its exact
meaning. Newspapers
and magazines employ the ex-
pression to
describe any change in human activities,
whether impending or completed,
thus permitting it
to cover a multitude of topics from the production
of
moving pictures to political action. Historians have
spoken of the
Crisis of the English Aristocracy, or the
Crisis of the European Mind, or the Age
of Crisis,
failing to give a precise meaning to the word,
though
we are occasionally warned that such terms should not
glide
inadvertently from the pen.
In view of the uncertainty pertaining to the word,
we must without delay
reach some understanding of
the sense in which the expression is used. Even
if there
were a tacit consensus as to the significance of the word
“crisis,” such elucidation would seem necessary. The
dictionary tells us that it is of Greek origin
(κρίσις) and
carries the meaning, to separate or to divide. Three
different, though
obviously related meanings are listed:
“1. the turning point in
the course of a disease, when
die, 2. a turning point in the course of anything; deci-
sive or crucial time, stage or event, 3. a crucial situa-
tion; a situation whose outcome decides whether possi-
ble bad consequences will follow: as, an economic
crisis” (Webster's New World Dictionary, 1966).
A precise history of the word does not exist. Of the
three meanings given in
Webster, the medical one was,
we should judge, the oldest. It was used
frequently in
professional treatises and in literary descriptions to
give
an account of human illness. The wider purport of the
word is of
more recent usage and was rarely applied
before the end of the eighteenth
century. Thomas Paine
wrote in 1776 about The American
Crisis, saying,
“These are the times that try men's
souls.”
Both his assertion and the date of his assertion are
significant. The end of
the ancien régime in the West-
ern
world was hastened by three great revolutions: the
American, the French,
and the Industrial Revolutions.
Their impact on many observers was that of
precip-
itous, even calamitous, change;
in a word, crisis. Al-
though premonitions of
even greater transformations
yet to come were voiced many times during the
early
nineteenth century, no general theory of crisis had been
developed even by those thinkers most deeply con-
cerned with the future of European civilization, such
as Henri
de Saint-Simon or Auguste Comte. It should
be noted, however, that the term
was introduced and
acquired wider currency in the conceptual language
of economic analysis.
Although earlier centuries had experienced frequent
economic disturbances,
it was only during the period
following the great revolutions that
economists under-
took a preliminary analysis
of what is today known
as “the business cycle.” It is
in these descriptions and
dissections of the business cycles that we first
encounter
a broader use of the term “crisis.”
Theorists did not
at first distinguish between external influences,
which
might produce a disruption of the economic process,
and internal
causes produced by the dynamics of the
business cycle proper. Gradually,
however, it came to
be recognized that the term
“crisis” as used in eco-
nomic theory should be applied in a restricted sense
indicating the
span of time required for the trans-
formation of extraordinary phenomena from a patho-
logical to a normal situation. Such a definition
would
imply that a crisis is only a transitory occurrence, and
that
after it has passed, the economy returns to a state
of health. Indeed, this
was the conviction of most
economists of the nineteenth century, J. B. Say,
for
instance, or J. C. L. S. de Sismondi, Thomas Malthus,
and J. S.
Mill. The frequency of economic crises, oc-
curring in 1815, 1825, 1836, and 1847, seemed to
confirm this
belief. Most economists were concerned
with locating the cause or causes of economic crises,
and they
found them variously in overproduction,
underconsumption, disequilibrium of
production and
consumption, oversaving, etc. Their findings might be
summed up in the epigrammatic remark of Clement
Juglar in Les Crises commerciales et leur retour péri-
odique en France, en Angleterre et aux
États Unis
(Paris, 1862), that the only cause of
depression was
prosperity; in other words, crises were natural phases
of the business cycle which ran its course in accordance
with its own laws
and dynamics.
The great exception to this interpretation was taken
by Karl Marx, who saw
in economic crises one of the
characteristic features of the prevailing
capitalistic
system which he considered of enormous significance.
Though Marx distinguished between general institu-
tional conditions that allow for cyclical movement
of
the economy, and extempore conditions which actually
spark the
outbreak of crises, he accepted the notion
of the periodical recurrence of
crises as a matter of
course. The idea was first expressed in the Communist
Manifesto (1848): “In these
crises a great part not only
of the existing products, but also of the
previously
created productive forces, are periodically destroyed.
Society suddenly finds itself put back into a state of
momentary
barbarism... industry and commerce
seem to be destroyed....”
Furthermore, it was stated
that crises tend to become more and more
destructive
in the course of capitalistic development, thus leading
to
the final breakdown of bourgeois society in a
“super-crisis” from which the old society cannot re-
cover and during which the working class will
seize
power through the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Marx restated his theory of crisis several times, espe-
cially in Das Kapital
(1867-94), but he died before
he could clarify some of the ambiguities of
his doctrine.
As Joseph Schumpeter has said in his History of Eco-
nomic Analysis (p.
1131), it remains “the great unwrit-
ten chapter” of Marx's work. Consequently, his disciples
disagree in their interpretations of this cardinal point
in the Marxian
theory. The crucial issue concerns the
prognostication of the nature of the
final crisis, whether
it would be a violent overthrow of the existing
order,
or a gradual transformation. Lenin, in Imperialism
(New York, 1939), assumed that a world war would
bring on the end-crisis from which the world revolution
would emerge with
irrepressible force.
We need not delay over other details of the Marxian
crisis theory which are
still under debate. Its value lies
not only in the explanation it offered
for the cyclical
movements of the capitalistic economy, but even more
for allocating the latter in the framework of a universal
historical
process, making the final crisis the decisive
step from man's pre-history
to his history. Its limita-
weighted toward the economic factors of history, thus
precluding any objective evaluation of crises that stem
from other sources. Finally, its eschatological deter-
minism forces the crisis phenomenon into the pattern
of a revolutionary development that allows of only one
solution. Nevertheless, it seemed the most plausible
explanation of the changes that took place in the world
during the nineteenth century, and it was given added
credence by the outbreak of the great depression of
1929. Since then, however, the resilience of the capi-
talistic economy in combination with the new Keynes-
ian theories has greatly weakened the influence of
Marx.
Several thinkers and statesmen of the nineteenth
century felt, for different
reasons, as did Marx, that
the Western world was in a cataclysmic state,
and they
shared in his consciousness of crisis. Among them were
Metternich, de Tocqueville, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche,
and Henry Adams. Yet,
strangely enough, none of these
developed a theory of crisis. The Swiss
historian, Jakob
Burckhardt, would appear to be the only outstanding
thinker who accepted the gambit. Burckhardt was as
much concerned with the
future of Europe (“Alt
Europa,” as he called it) as
any one of the politicians,
historians, and philosophers we have mentioned.
How-
ever, he was a historian by profession,
and thought it
his duty to elucidate certain processes which had es-
caped the attention of other observers. He
carried out
this self-imposed obligation in a course of lectures at
the University of Basel, first given in 1868. His notes
were published
posthumously under the title, Reflec-
tions on World History (Weltgeschichtliche Betrachtun-
gen), and included a chapter on historical crises.
The earlier lectures dealt with the three great forces
which make up the
fabric of history: state, religion,
and culture. But Burckhardt goes on to
contend that
these slow and lasting mutual influences and interac-
tions are accompanied by certain
phenomena which
provoke an acceleration of the historical process. He
called them historical crises. Bypassing the crises of
primitive times,
about which there is insufficient infor-
mation, Burckhardt begins his review with migratory
movements and
invasions, such as the invasion of the
Roman empire by the Germanic tribes,
the rise of
Islam, or the conquest of the Byzantine empire by the
Ottoman Turks. Movements like these are important
because they provoke a
clash between old cultures and
young ethnic forces. Invasions may bring on
rejuvena-
tion or barbarism, and, says
Burckhardt, not every
invasion rejuvenates; only those that carry a
youthful
race capable of assuming the culture of an older, al-
ready cultured race can do so. Clearly, as we
might
expect from the historian of the Italian Renaissance,
Burckhardt's criterion is culture. He goes on to say that
there
is a healthy barbarism just as there is a negative
and destructive one.
Thus in exhausted civilizations a
crisis may bring out greatness, but it
may be the
euphoric vigor of the dying.
The next phenomenon Burckhardt considers as a
contributing factor in the
coming of crises is war.
Inevitably his horizon here is the nineteenth
century,
a century that accepted war as necessary and even
beneficial.
Burckhardt admits to some of the standard
arguments of his age, but his
overall evaluation is
skeptical and pessimistic. That wars may produce
crises
could not be denied, but, “Men are men, in peace as
in war, and the wretchedness of earthly things lies
equally upon them
both.”
In discussing wars as elements of crises, Burckhardt
makes an important
distinction between surface crises
and genuine crises. For instance, he
considered the
wars of his own century as surface crises only. He even
went so far as to describe the entire history of the
Roman empire, from
Augustus to Constantine, as un-
touched by
genuine crises. Genuine crises are rare, he
asserted; they should not be
confused with civil or
religious disputes which fill the air with
deafening
clamor and soon fade into oblivion. The test of the
genuine
crisis is that it leads to vital transformations,
such as followed the
invasion of the Roman empire
by the Germanic tribes.
The distinction between surface and genuine crises
is one of the significant
contributions of Burckhardt's
study, as is also his differentiation between
genuine
crises, abortive crises, and arrested crises. He asked the
questions asked by every historian: Why do certain
crises go unchecked?,
Why do others fail to reach the
turning point and fizzle out?, and finally,
Are there
some crises which could have been avoided, and if so,
how
could this have been accomplished? Burckhardt's
originality lies not so
much in the answers he offers
(they were necessarily conditioned by the
scholarship
of his period), as in the queries he poses, for instance,
his assertion that the Reformation could have been
checked, and that the
French Revolution might have
been moderated. However that may be, what
counts
for our study of the problem of crisis is his observation
of
the dynamics of the true or genuine crisis. Genuine
crises, he asserts,
produce a sudden acceleration of the
historical process in a terrifying
manner. Developments
which under “normal”
circumstances might have ex-
tended over
centuries, are completed in a matter of
months or weeks.
At this point it might seem as though Burckhardt
meant to identify crisis
and revolution, but this would
be an erroneous assumption. According to
him, every
revolution is a result of the interaction of one or several
to or ends in revolution. Crisis is the general term, and
it encompasses revolution. There can be little doubt,
however, that many crises tend to unleash revolu-
tionary upheavals. As Burckhardt sees it, one of the
psychological motives for the eruption of crises is man's
perennial and deep-rooted desire for change. More-
over, he seeks revenge for his sufferings, and since he
“cannot reach the dead,” his blame falls on the existing
authorities. There are sufficient instances in the history
of communism and fascism to support Burckhardt's
observation. A blind coalition between all malcontents
combines with a radiant vision of the future: the bril-
liant farce of hope.
One further comment of Burckhardt's deserves our
attention. He maintains
that the force and value of
a crisis cannot be assessed at the initial
stage; a crisis
should not be appraised by its program but by the
quantity of explosive material at hand. The test of a
genuine crisis lies
in its actual force under pressure.
Once again, he introduces here a new
concept to clar-
ify his idea of the genuine
crisis: “counterfeit crises”
are easily paralyzed;
only the real ones will prevail.
In praise of crises, Burckhardt states
that they are the
result of real passions and that passion is the
mother
of great events.
Crises do not necessarily interfere with spiritual or
cultural achievements.
Whereas continuity and tradi-
tion may induce
a favorable climate for culture, man
may thereby be lured into a false
security and his
intellectual life become a matter of routine. Crises,
argues Burckhardt, may be regarded as authentic signs
of vitality.
“All spiritual growth,” he says, “takes
place
by leaps and bounds, both in the individual and in the
community.” Moreover, crises should be regarded as
a proof of
growth. Negatively speaking, they clear the
ground of institutions that
have long since withered
away or of pseudo organizations which had no
reason
to exist except as obstacles to excellence. In proof of
his
point, Burckhardt says that The City of God would
never have been written had it not been for the col-
lapse of the Roman empire in Italy, and he adds that
the
Divina Commedia was composed while Dante
was
in exile. Crises teach men to distinguish between what
is trivial
and what is fundamental in human life, and
he quotes Ernest Renan, who
asserted that philosophy
has never flourished more freely than it did
during the
great days of history. We may, however, be allowed
to
question whether the great days of history are per-
force days of crisis. Crises may indeed fertilize human
thought,
but they may also annihilate it.
Viewed as a whole, what Burckhardt gives us is less
an anatomy of crisis
than a typology of crisis. As such
it has lasting value and may be used as a foundation
for those
crises which Burckhardt did not adequately
analyze or which have been
clarified by later events.
Thus, the Reformation must be seen, regardless
of
Burckhardt's evaluation, as a chain reaction of crises.
The
personal crisis of Luther led to his confrontation
with the authorities of
the Old Church, and eventually
his reforms engulfed the politics and the
economy, first
of Germany, and finally of nearly all Europe. Viewed
from close range, a crisis often turns out to be com-
posed of two or more interlocking crises in which the
strongest
element subdues the others or drives them
underground, where they may live
a subterranean
existence and emerge again at a more propitious mo-
ment. Nor is it always an easy matter to
determine
the moment when a crisis has come to the end of its
course.
For instance, it would be fair to say that the
Reformation had spent itself
in Germany by 1648,
whereas it was still vigorous in England and in
the
New World.
The Protestant Reformation did not overthrow the
reign of the Papacy; it can
be said, rather, that, since
its triumph in the eleventh century, it has
weathered
all crises that threatened its existence, but that the
marks
left upon the institution are clearly visible.
It is worthy of note that Burckhardt in his treatment
of historical crises
never refers to the Renaissance,
though he was without doubt the most
outstanding
historian of that period during the past century. Fur-
thermore, his own treatment of the
Renaissance seems
to suggest that he did in truth see it as the
end-crisis
of the medieval world and as the nativity of modern
man. We
do not know what moved him to exclude
the Renaissance from his analysis,
but whatever the
reason may be, he thereby came closer to the contem-
porary view of the Renaissance than
might have been
expected.
After a long debate about the origins, the character,
and the impact of the
Renaissance, most historians of
today would agree that it should not be
treated as a
genuine crisis in the Burckhardtian sense. Certain his-
torians have argued that the term
“Renaissance” should
be eliminated entirely (F.
Heer); some emphasize the
gradual transformation of the world from
medieval
times to the present (C. H. Haskins, J. Huizinga); still
others point to the persistence of the Latin tradition
which permeated
literary expression throughout the
Middle Ages, delivering itself to the
future without
benefit of crises ( E
. R. Curtius, 1954). These views
support the belief that the Renaissance cannot be pre-
sented as a sudden break with the medieval perspec-
tive, but should rather be looked
upon as a constant
ground swell, reaching such proportions by 1500 that
in man's outlook upon himself and upon the world.
Needless to say, violent upheavals occurred, and the
struggle between the republican ideal prevailing in
Florence and Venice, and the absolutism to which the
rulers of Milan aspired created a favorable climate for
the rise of the new humanism (H. Baron, 1955).
Nevertheless, these sporadic events do not permit
us to classify the
Renaissance under the heading of
crisis. If we accept this stricture, we
may be able to
arrive at a more concise use of the word
“crisis” than
is commonly accepted: only a
precipitous change over
a short span of time affecting the very vitals of
institu-
tions, mores, modes of thought
and feeling, power
structures, and economic organizations, may rightly
be
termed a “crisis.”
Economic and political crises are most easily de-
tected, perhaps because they affect the lives of more
people
more directly and more brutally than intellec-
tual or emotional changes. It does not follow, however,
that
they are always understood as such. More often
than not, economic crises
can only be properly under-
stood in
retrospect; take for instance the economic
changes which took place after
the Black Death in
Europe, or the price revolution of the sixteenth cen-
tury, which left observers completely
bewildered. Po-
litical upheavals, on the
other hand, seem less opaque
and less difficult to group under the heading
of crisis.
But here, too, we should beware of hasty generaliza-
tions which stamp every change
with the trademark
of crisis. Political crises may be more readily recogniz-
able because they have a greater
degree of visibility;
their protagonists attract the limelight in history
and
provoke a more complete documentation both of the
actual events
and of the motives behind them.
The most important political crises are to be found
in the great
revolutions; from them, as E
. Rosenstock-
Huessy (Die europäischen...,
1961) has said, the
characteristics of the different European nations
emerged. There was the Papal Revolution of the
eleventh century, the
English Revolution of the seven-
teenth
century, the French Revolution, and the Russian
Revolution. This writer
would rank the revolt of the
Netherlands and the American Revolution among
the
genuine historical crises which fulfill the criteria we
have
listed above. The revolution of 1848, however,
must be rejected; it was, in
the felicitous phrase of
G. M. Trevelyan, “the turning point at
which modern
history failed to turn” (Trevelyan, 1946). It was
an
arrested crisis brought to fruition at a later date in those
countries affected by it.
Many of the revolutions and pronunciamentos in
Latin America and Africa are
called revolutions,
whereas they are in reality only “counterfeit
crises”
which do not result in a vital transformation of
the
status quo, but merely a change of the guard with
promises which
remain unfulfilled after victory has
been achieved.
The rise of the absolute monarchies in Europe, su-
perseding feudalism without destroying it, furnished
further
examples of the genuine crisis. It is in the nature
of crises to change
complexion in accordance to the
country in which they occur. Consequently
the rise
of absolutism presents a different picture in Spain,
France,
Germany, Denmark, Austria, and Russia. Yet
in every instance the
concentration of power in the
hands of a dynasty supported by bureaucracy
and
military power seems essential. The crisis character of
the
situation lies in the political subjection of the no-
bility to the will of “The Prince” with the
subsequent
economic and social changes effected thereby. In many
instances certain events marked the crisis, such as the
journée des dupes (“the day of
fools”) by means of
which Richelieu cemented his power in
France. Such
occurrences might be called sub-crises, since their full
meaning can be grasped only within the framework
of the greater genuine
crisis.
Abortive political crises are frequent, though it is
not always easy to
distinguish them from arrested
crises. The Russian revolution of 1905 might
come
under either heading. On the other hand, La
Fronde
is a classical example of the abortive crisis, as is
also
the Nat Turner rebellion of 1831. Another abortive
crisis
occurred in Prussia in 1819; it determined the
policy of that country for
half a century and prevented
the liberalization of the state at a time when
such a
move could have had a decisive influence on the des-
tiny of Germany.
Apprehension of the political crisis is not always
followed by
comprehension. There are some which re-
semble
earthquakes; they are felt by everyone, but they
defy explanation. The
phenomenon of German national
socialism is a case in point. In spite of the
large body
of literature on the subject, no convincing explanation
of
this greatest retrogression in the history of Western
civilization has been
provided thus far.
As we have said, wars must be counted among the
most important causes of
historical crises, and this is
twice true. Wars may be themselves indicate
a turning
point in history, and we regard the great battles as
engagements in which the survival of this or that power
was at stake; we
recall the Spanish Armada, or the
battle of the White Mountain, or
Trafalgar, the Battle
of the Marne in 1914, or, more recently,
Stalingrad.
Yet wars spark crises in still another way. They release
economic, social, and moral forces of unforeseen power
status quo impossible. Karl Marx called them the ex-
press trains of history. Not every war, however, is a
genuine crisis; it may be a surface event or a counter-
feit crisis.
Special attention should be given to the effect that
technological changes
produce on the course of history.
Here too, one must beware of generic
statements. Not
all technological inventions have produced crises, and
much depends on the cultural environment in which
they occur. A comparison
between Western and Chi-
nese technology would
be very enlightening in this
respect. Yet, without question, technological
discover-
ies or improvements must be
counted among the prime
agents of precipitous change. For instance, the
inven-
tion of gunpowder, of the compass
and the printing
press, figure in every school book as instruments in
the
fracture of the medieval mold. During the last two
centuries this
process has continued with tremendous
speed. The advances in communication,
the new mass
media, or the steady increase in firepower by the intro-
duction of nuclear weaponry have
become matters of
almost daily acceptance. By themselves, these discov-
eries are rather symptoms of a
long-lasting crisis than
crises themselves, and in many instances we shall
have
to wait for their sequel. In other cases, the impact of
technological artifacts on society becomes clear at the
outset. The
introduction of farm machinery deprived
the southern American Negro of his
job. This led to
the migration of the Negro to the great industrial
centers of the North, the Midwest, and the West, and
the migration, in
turn, contributed to the growth of
the “ghettoes.”
Finally, the ghettoes provoked the
urban crisis which began in the 1960's
to shake the
United States from one end to the other, causing in
its
very beginnings a profound transformation of the
American society.
Medical discoveries are in the same category, and
have had a far-reaching
effect on the demographic
structure of the world. Overpopulation is at
least in
part the result of medical advancements; on the other
hand,
it is not at all certain that medical remedies will
be successful in
checking the population explosion and
the specter of a world famine which
for some holds
more frightening perspectives than a nuclear war. One
is tempted to speak of a suspended crisis.
Since technology is basically applied science, our
rapid survey must move
into yet another field, namely
the cultural sciences. As we have noted
above, the
permanent crisis in which we are forced to live has
produced a crisis-awareness. This has opened our eyes
to cultural changes
and transitions which heretofore
escaped notice. Huizinga, in one such
attempt, de-
scribed the forms of life,
thought, and art in the four
teenth and fifteenth centuries in The Waning of
the
Middle Ages (1948), and Paul Hazard's La
Crise de la
conscience européenne (1935) is even
more in line with
our reasoning.
In all probability, the First World War made the
Europeans aware that all
was not well with their civi-
lization. A
number of minds began to probe the depth
of the sickness that had come over
Europe; Rudolf
Pannwitz's Die Krisis der
europäischen Kultur (1921),
was one of many efforts
in this direction. It is impossi-
ble to say
whether the general concern over the fate
of the occident inspired Hazard's
enterprise, though
there are good reasons to think so. In the final
chapter
of his book, he speaks of the genius of Europe which
is never
content with itself, which at all times pursues
contradictory aims, one of
truth and one of happiness,
whose labor is like the labor of Penelope,
unravelling
at night what she had woven during the day. Yet the
immediate purpose of this remarkable work was a more
limited one: Hazard
wanted to establish the moment
at which the European mind passed from its
timid
beginnings in the Renaissance to a determined revision
of
age-old prejudices and preconceived notions by
applying the new standards
of critical, rational think-
ing. Hazard proved
that the “moment” spanned the
years 1680 to 1715,
that it provoked a violent clash
of ideas, and that modern ideas emerged
triumphant
in the end, though some corners of Europe continued
to
harbor the old ones. Hazard demonstrated that over
the thirty-five years to
which his essay is limited there
occurred a lasting and vital
transformation of the
European consciousness.
The word “crisis” seems to imply a break in conti-
nuity, but such breaks are often more
apparent than
real. The crisis of the late seventeenth century had
been
nourished by many subterranean waters until it finally
broke
ground and reached the light where historical
decisions take place. Hazard
is deeply conscious of this
continuity, and presents the crisis with all
its real and
apparent contradictions.
The second cultural crisis—romanticism—of which
we now
must speak, would have been fortunate to find
such a master analyst as
Hazard; but although it caused
an enormous amount of literature and
discussion, no
consensus emerged as to its origins, its essence, and
its scope. The historian is obliged to grope through
a labyrinthian
profusion of scholarly effort to come to
grips with the phenomenon.
Romanticism presents a crisis that in many ways
parallels the one described
by Hazard, but in other
respects it gives evidence of fundamental
differences.
It too was European in scope, and was also accompa-
nied by a deep-reaching change in
perspective for
almost all aspects of human life: poetry and philosophy,
Yet any perusal of the literature devoted to its under-
standing shows the widest divergency. The movement
was at first called the romantic school, later the ro-
mantic protest. It was alternately praised and vilified,
its influence exaggerated or belittled. At the outset it
seemed clear that its origins lay around 1790, and that
its birth took place in Germany concurrently with the
other great revolution across the Rhine. However, its
beginnings have gradually been pushed back to 1750.
Preludes have been discovered that are called pre-
romanticism, and its origins have been traced back
to such movements as German Pietism and the French
and Spanish Quietism. To compound the difficulties,
scholars have failed to realize that romanticism could
not be comprehended simply by taking note of the
ideals it proclaimed or the political parties it espoused.
There was a conservative romanticism, just as there
was a liberal and a democratic one, and one could even
list a socialist one. But it is hopeless to arrive at any
definition of romanticism by regarding the objects it
emphasized or discovered, as for instance, the Middle
Ages, or folk poetry, or the Catholic Church. Thus we
come to the essential question: Was romanticism a
matter of being or seeing or both, and in what order?
The distinction has been made of late between in-
trinsic romanticism and historical romanticism
(Barzun), and
this at least gives the basis for viewing
the historical romanticism of the
period between 1750
and 1850 as a change in mood and temper before it
became a change in thought and ideas. Such shifts in
mood had occurred in
Europe in earlier times and had
not always been recognized for what they
were. In
the case of the romantic movement an emotional
subjectivism
was brought to the fore, and it formed
the core of the entire trend and
constituted the crite-
rion for the separation
of the true romantic from the
fellow traveller, of which there were many.
It merits
further study.
It is considerably more difficult to describe a third
crisis in the cultural
evolution of Europe. There is some
reason to believe that it is still in
process, and if this
be true, the historian can do little more than note
some
of its aspects while its full impact is reserved for later
writers. Keeping these reservations in mind, it may be
said that around
1890 Europe entered into one of the
most profound transformations of its
entire history.
There were those who interpreted the symptoms as
indications of a final breakdown; such were the apoca-
lyptic prophets Nikolai Danilewski (Rossiia I Europa,
1895) and Oswald Spengler (Der Untergang des
Abendlandes, 1918). More
restrained minds contented
themselves with describing and analyzing the
phenom-
ena as they were revealed to a
critical mind. H. S.
Hughes undertook such a study in his Consciousness
and Society (1958), and the present writer offered
a
similar essay in Prophets of Yesterday (1961).
There are
differences of opinion as to the chronology of the crisis
and about the comparative value of the contributions
made by the various
European nations, but these are
minor matters. It is clear that the crisis
was advanced
by a “cluster of geniuses” somewhat like
that which
ushered in the crises of 1680 and 1790. To come upon
a
common denominator for the crisis is more difficult.
Some observers have
used the term, “the new irra-
tionalism,” and certainly this marks one, though not
all, of the decisive changes that took place. The crisis
of 1890 touches on
the very vitals of the intellectual
life of the West, its attitude toward
science, the hu-
manities, and religion, as
well as toward poetry and
the arts.
Future historians may well see the two World Wars
with their social and
economic concomitants as wave
movements in the great transformation that is
taking
place at all corners of the earth. Few will doubt that
the
crisis which has engulfed our century is a genuine
crisis in the
Burckhardtian sense. One of its results
appears to be the emergence of a
consciousness which
is learning or trying to learn a way of life that
can
accommodate the antitheses of crisis. We are beginning
to wonder
whether our destiny is to live under condi-
tions of permanent crisis throughout any predictable
future. The
emergence of the New Physics, the experi-
mental way in which modern art changes its methods
and its goals
every year, the questioning of historicism,
all would seem to prove that
old concepts are failing
—i.e., that the idea of crisis is
penetrating the most
varied fields of human activities.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The term “crisis” in its economic sense is discussed
by
H. Herkner in the article “Krisen,” Handwörterbuch der
Staatswissenschaften, 3rd ed. (Leipzig, 1910), VI, 253-76;
and by J. Schumpeter, History of Economic Analysis
(New
York, 1955). Jakob Burckhardt's theory is presented in Welt-
geschichtliche Betrachtungen, Vol. VII (Berlin and
Leipzig,
1929); trans. J. Hastings Nichols as Force
and Freedom,
Reflections on History (Boston, 1964). See also:
H. Baron,
The Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance, 2 vols.
(Prince-
ton, 1955); E
. R. Curtius,
Europäische Literatur und Latein-
isches Mittelalter,
2nd ed. (Bern, 1954), trans. as European
Literature
and the Latin Middle Ages (Princeton, 1953); Paul
Hazard,
La Crise de la conscience
européene (Paris, 1935),
trans. as The European Mind (reprint New York); H. S.
Hughes, Consciousness and Society (New York, 1958); J.
Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages (London,
1948;
New York, 1954); Gerhard Masur, Prophets of
Yesterday
(New York, 1961); E
. Rosenstock-Huessy, Die europäischen
Revolutionen und der Charakter
der Nationen, 3rd ed.
Nineteenth Century and After (1782-1919) (London, 1946),
p. 292.
GERHARD MASUR
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