Radical Modernism

The turn of the century also witnessed the birth of a new movement and one which reacted against all past ideologies of the enlightenment era. It's roots originate from the middle of the 19th Century, when the composer, Richard Wagner, completed the piece, Tristan and Isolde. It was critically received, Wagner having broken all time-honoured rules of classical composition to create a dark, brooding piece that shocked the Western World. Here was born the modernist movement, intended to revolutionize the way in which people considered traditional, often dogmatic, values and thus change the way the world was viewed.

Perhaps the most famous and influential philosopher of the time was a man named Friedrich Nietzsche, whose novel, Thus Spake Zarathustra, would seem to epitomise the new, radical concepts of the time. His aphorism, 'God is dead', introduced an entirely revolutionary take on the debate between science and religion. Nietzsche argued that whether God did exist or not, the universe was now 'Godless', and mankind now stood alone in its fight to evolve. Individualism was key, and a democratic society was no longer workable if man hoped to achieve a higher status within the universe.

The 'Superman' is the highest of all entities; man must fight everyday weaknesses that make us mortal, such as hunger and fatigue, and all unnecessary emotions, in the pursuit of his ultimate destiny.

Nietzsche seems to be suggesting that this be the answer to life itself and echoes the theories of Hegel, in that mankind has a greater purpose in reaching an ultimate haven, (reminiscent of a 'Garden of Eden'), and becoming 'godlike'. What distinguishes modernist views on life, from those of past centuries, however, is that religion is wholly disregarded as part of the old mentality, and must also be overcome to achieve this 'perfection'. It was proposed that we live in a 'de-centred universe', in that all matter is relative only to itself, and that space will continue to expand forever, into infinity, dwarfing everything until it is entirely empty.

The movement continued to shock the post-romantic world. Operas and plays were largely sombre, moving productions and often sexually explicit in their content. Feminism branched out of this, particulalry as the century wore on, and women began to gain positions of greater importance, and thus greater success. Marie Curie is one example, winning two Nobel Prizes for her exploits in both physics and chemistry.

While modernism may no longer be considered 'modern', the movement itself can be credited with injecting new and exciting ideas into society, thus overseeing a crucial stage in its development into what we know today. What used to be considered radical, no longer is.