Victorianism vs. Modernism

[laircy]

I’ve been reading a ridiculous amount of modernistic literature in my AP English class this year. A prevailing theme in seemingly EVERY work is the ‘rejection of traditional x y z’ in favor of things like relativism, absurdism, atheism or new age etc. And it’s always hostile to the so-called Victorian era (which admittedly, I don’t even know much about other than that it was “hypocritical” and “oppressive” according to these authors). But was it really? Wasn’t G. K. Chesterton of that era? And yet he wasn’t like that. Though I did just read A Doll’s House in which the husband was rather condescending to his wife, always calling her a “little” something or another or even “featherbrain” which doesn’t seem right. I don’t know whether this sort of thing is a misrepresentation or if it really was like that. If it’s true, would it be right to say that both of these opposing ideologies are wrong?

 

[GEddie]

I’ve been reading a ridiculous amount of modernistic literature in my AP English class this year. A prevailing theme in seemingly EVERY work is the ‘rejection of traditional x y z’ in favor of things like relativism, absurdism, atheism or new age etc. And it’s always hostile to the so-called Victorian era (which admittedly, I don’t even know much about other than that it was “hypocritical” and “oppressive” according to these authors). But was it really? Wasn’t G. K. Chesterton of that era? And yet he wasn’t like that. Though I did just read A Doll’s House in which the husband was rather condescending to his wife, always calling her a “little” something or another or even “featherbrain” which doesn’t seem right. I don’t know whether this sort of thing is a misrepresentation or if it really was like that. If it’s true, would it be right to say that both of these opposing ideologies are wrong?

The Victorian era was contemporaneous with the reign of Queen Victoria of England (1837-1901).

Apart from this being a period culturally and politically dominated by Great Britain, it was also a time of extreme social conservatism and class and gender rigidity. It is usually the latter that critics of the period object to.

ICXC NIKA

 

[ClearWater]

I don’t know about G.K. Chesterton’s age, but I will say even in my mother’s time, she said when there was ONE murder, it was BIG news! Now, she said murder’s an everyday occurrence, that nobody bats an eyelash, any more!

From what I can gather, they didn’t have all these kids killing their classmates and teachers en masse, then committing suicide. There was still respect for parents, teachers, police, and authority in general and themselves.

We didn’t have men marrying men, women marrying women, and people switching genders. Men were men. Women were women.

You didn’t have promiscuous sex to the epidemic proportions of today or anywhere the rate of teen, and out-of-wedlock pregnancies. Abortion wasn’t prevalent then.

You didn’t have people celebrating the future possibility of polygamy, say.

As to language, there used to be something called “manners”, “courtesy”, “etiquette”, chivalry. While “little” and “featherbrain” probably were used on occasion, they seem mild compared to what people say today, every other word being…@!%$#!

I realize we can’t go back, but despite its many flaws, Victorianism is looking better and better, especially if you compare it with Modernism.

 

[George_Stegmeir]

I have to agree with the contemporary critics of the Victorian Era, at least the VE as it happened in the US.
To begin with, the social conditions as described by Charles Dickens were very accurate, and much of what he described happened in the US as well as the UK.
Slaves in the South were not the only ones oppressed. Newly arrived immigrants, especially if they were Catholic or Jewish were really taken advantage of.
It was widely believed during the VE that a woman’s place was “Children, Cooking, and Church” in that order,
The Sexual Mores of the age were really hypocritical. Proper woman were expected to be “above sexual endeavor”, and any woman , even ones wife, was condemned as wanton if she had an orgasm. There was little to no legitimate employment for women outside the home. If for some reason, a woman did not have close family, or was deserted by her husband for any reason, the only way she could survive was through prostitution
There were brothals in every town in the US. For many women, They were the male social clubs of that day…and women had no say in the matter. Men could do anything they wanted!
Social change in the US did not occur until the end of the American Civil War. In its aftermath, the immigrants became citizens and got the right to vote. In particular, the Irish excelled in politics which brought social change. Then, in 1920 women got the right to vote in the US. That, combined with women getting jobs in offices and shops, and the ability of the average man to own an automobile (which gave young couples the privacy they never had in their own homes) spelled the end of wide spread prostitution.
However, it wasn’t until the late 1960’s and 1970s did public attitudes change and people publically admitted to what they had been doing in private all along.
So, open your eyes. You do not have to accept modern thinking such as relativism, but you cannot expect to be able to counter it if you do not know about it and how it works. You have to face up to the fact as you learn in any university, there is no thing as “the good old days”. In today’s society, at least in Western Europe and North America, you have a much easier life ahead of you than existed ever before in history. At the same time, you will find keeping your Faith and Moral Values will be more difficult. At least in Western Society, no one is being forced to die for their religious beliefs.

 

[St_Francis]

This is an interesting question, Lacey. I wonder if the Victorian Era might not be a strawman for what modernists are actually fighting, which is the truth of God and His truth?

 

[laircy]

I have to agree with the contemporary critics of the Victorian Era, at least the VE as it happened in the US.
To begin with, the social conditions as described by Charles Dickens were very accurate, and much of what he described happened in the US as well as the UK.
Slaves in the South were not the only ones oppressed. Newly arrived immigrants, especially if they were Catholic or Jewish were really taken advantage of.
It was widely believed during the VE that a woman’s place was “Children, Cooking, and Church” in that order,
The Sexual Mores of the age were really hypocritical. Proper woman were expected to be “above sexual endeavor”, and any woman , even ones wife, was condemned as wanton if she had an orgasm. There was little to no legitimate employment for women outside the home. If for some reason, a woman did not have close family, or was deserted by her husband for any reason, the only way she could survive was through prostitution
There were brothals in every town in the US. For many women, They were the male social clubs of that day…and women had no say in the matter. Men could do anything they wanted!
Social change in the US did not occur until the end of the American Civil War. In its aftermath, the immigrants became citizens and got the right to vote. In particular, the Irish excelled in politics which brought social change. Then, in 1920 women got the right to vote in the US. That, combined with women getting jobs in offices and shops, and the ability of the average man to own an automobile (which gave young couples the privacy they never had in their own homes) spelled the end of wide spread prostitution.
However, it wasn’t until the late 1960’s and 1970s did public attitudes change and people publically admitted to what they had been doing in private all along.
So, open your eyes. You do not have to accept modern thinking such as relativism, but you cannot expect to be able to counter it if you do not know about it and how it works. You have to face up to the fact as you learn in any university, there is no thing as “the good old days”. In today’s society, at least in Western Europe and North America, you have a much easier life ahead of you than existed ever before in history. At the same time, you will find keeping your Faith and Moral Values will be more difficult. At least in Western Society, no one is being forced to die for their religious beliefs.

Hmm, I see. Thank you. That makes sense.

 

[laircy]

This is an interesting question, Lacey. I wonder if the Victorian Era might not be a strawman for what modernists are actually fighting, which is the truth of God and His truth?

I often think so… Actually that seems quite right. Either it’s a strawman or they honestly don’t see a better alternative, maybe? It does seems strange that in literature (at least the well-known literature they make us read) it is so rare to find a book with a good, clear message.

 

[PaulfromIowa]

Modernism is anti-Christian and therefore gravely evil. It is interesting that in the past modernists would use code words like “anti-Victorian,” whereas today they are more openly anti-Christian.

 

[VeritasLuxMea]

Modernism is anti-Christian and therefore gravely evil. It is interesting that in the past modernists would use code words like “anti-Victorian,” whereas today they are more openly anti-Christian.

There may be some overlaps between modernism as a philosophical movement that the Church has opposed and modernist literature, but I don’t believe that the two are one and the same, so let’s be careful.

 

[St_Francis]

There may be some overlaps between modernism as a philosophical movement that the Church has opposed and modernist literature, but I don’t believe that the two are one and the same, so let’s be careful.

Well, now, I don’t know. Seems to me that modern**ist **literature would be the literary equivalent or exposition if modernist philosophy, no? While keeping in mind, of course, that not all modern literature is modernistic?

 

[Bob_Crowley]

While the modernists may scorn what they see as the moral hypocrisy of the Victorian era, they forget that part of the reason for the Victorian moral attitude was a reaction against the licentiousness of the preceding Georgian period.

Eventually there will be a reaction against the immorality of our era as well, and when it does occur, we’ll probably find it swings too far in the opposite direction.

It reminds me of Screwtape’s advice to Wormwood on just this very issue in “The Screwtape Letters”, in Chapter 25.

The use of Fashions in thought is to distract the attention of men from their real dangers. We direct the fashionable outcry of each generation against those vices of which it is least in danger and fix its approval on the virtue nearest to that vice which we are trying to make endemic. The game is to have them running about with fire extinguishers whenever there is a flood, and all crowding to that side of the boat which is already nearly gunwale under. Thus we make it fashionable to expose the dangers of enthusiasm at the very moment when they are all really becoming worldly and lukewarm; a century later, when we are really making them all Byronic and drunk with emotion, the fashionable outcry is directed against the dangers of the mere “understanding”. Cruel ages are put on their guard against Sentimentality, feckless and idle ones against Respectability, lecherous ones against Puritansm; and whenever all men are really hastening to be slaves or tyrants we make Liberalism the prime bogey.

From “History Today” -

historytoday.com/nicholas-dixon/georgian-victorian

Nowhere could the moral transition between the 18th and 19th centuries more clearly be seen than in the monarchy. The aristocratic debauchery of the late Georgians was exemplified by the Prince of Wales, the future George IV. His countless extra-marital affairs, beginning with the actress Mary ‘Perdita’ Robinson at the age of 16, were compounded by his excessive gluttony and drunkenness and the immense debt he accumulated. Forced to marry his cousin Caroline of Brunswick in 1795, he separated from her after producing a daughter, returning to the Catholic mistress whom he had illegally married a decade earlier, Maria Fitzherbert. These divers entanglements culminated in George’s accession in 1820, when Caroline returned to England demanding to be recognised as Queen, with her name included in the State Prayers of the Liturgy. In response, George instituted a parliamentary enquiry into her conduct, with public opinion firmly on the Queen’s side (she was eventually exonerated). Despite the excessive pomp of George’s coronation in 1821, the monarchy – and thus the establishment – had reached its lowest point. In the eyes of many, including the growing number of political radicals, it had lost all moral integrity and could no longer command the respect of the nation. Upon the death of George IV in 1830, The Times noted that ‘there never was an individual less regretted by his fellow creatures than this deceased King’.

William IV was nearly 65 when he succeeded his brother, and initially wanted to dispense with the coronation ceremony altogether, seeing his role as that of caretaker for his niece Victoria. The coronation did occur, but it was a simple ceremony, in marked contrast to the extravagance of George IV. As one historian has noted, ‘George IV had made the Throne unpopular; William IV restored its popularity, but not its dignity’.

When Victoria became Queen at the age of 18, her unenviable task was to restore the moral authority of the British establishment. Despite the Conroy affair, Victoria’s union with Prince Albert in 1840 brought a new sense of purpose to an essentially moribund institution. Albert went a considerable way in restoring the reputation of the monarchy as a moral exemplar for the nation. He believed that the ‘exaltation of Royalty is possible only through the personal character of the Sovereign’. The following oft-quoted comment of a lady in the audience at a performance of Antony and Cleopatra would have been unthinkable in the Georgian Era: ‘How unlike, how very unlike the home life of our own dear Queen!’ It was a transformation of which the Clapham Sect would have thoroughly approved.