Strong Leadership, a New Government, and No More Class Wars: A Recipe to Make the Trains Run On Time

Mussolini had three points that were the most important in creating his idea of the perfect society. Mussolini decided that Italy needed to have strong leadership, to stop the class wars, and to destroy parliamentary government.

Mussolini said Italy needed strong, charismatic leadership that could bring Italy up from its past shames it had suffered. This charismatic, strong leader was in Mussolini’s mind, Mussolini. He said that they needed to stop class conflict. His thinking was that by organizing the economy in a way where everyone was producer that Italy would have great economic growth and that the country would thrive.

Finally Mussolini’s biggest point was that he wanted to destroy parliamentary democracy. How? By replacing it with a more elite government.  In Mussolini’s mind this elite government happened to be Fascism (with Mussolini, of course). If you haven’t figured it out already Mussolini was not a very humble man, and despite his theatrics and his charisma the only thing he really managed to accomplish was making the trains run on time.

Fascism and Nazism- the Solutions

Benito Mussolini

After WWI many people thought that the old governments (Socialism, Communism, and democracy) were the cause of the war so they did everything to reject the ideals of old governments and supported anything that wasn’t even if they didn’t truly believe it was a good idea. George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) believed that democracy substituted the rule of the incompetent many for that of the corrupt. Two of the most influential people of this time were dictators Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler.

Benito Mussolini was the leader of Italian Fascism. Italian Fascism was not a consistent doctrine but a fusion of ideas. It was successful in Italy because at the time Italian society was neat collapse. Fascism’s aim was to end class conflict. Fascism was a large anti-liberal, anti-communist movement that was willing to apply force whenever necessary and held all high-class values in contempt.

Adolf Hitler- the leader of Nazism

Adolf Hitler borrowed Fascism from Mussolini but took it one step forward- turning it into Nazism. Nazism was fascism but with an added racist twist. This movement was very successful in Germany because it gave people someone to blame for their issues:  capitalism, communism, the Jews, the pacifists and liberals, the weak and the insane- except they rolled it all into one thing and called it ‘the Jewish conspiracy’. Nazism said that by purging anyone who was part of the ‘Jewish conspiracy’ that Germany could take its place back in the sun.

Challenging the Status Quo- Pablo Picasso, Jazz, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Ernest Hemingway

After WWI a lot of things changed. Overall, society was in a ‘challenge the status quo’ mind set. Movies and sports became popular because of new philosophies brought back from the war, which said that there was no purpose in life than to live.

Still Life with a Bottle of Rum
Cubist artwork from Pablo Picasso

          In Art a new style called Cubism came out. It was a style of art that wasn’t pretty, something expected of art before WWI, which fits with the previously mentioned ‘challenge the status quo’ ideals. The artists who founded this movement were Pablo Picasso and George Braque who took images and broke them into pieces, rearranging them into an abstract work.

In music Jazz became a popular style. Before WWI music was supposed to be composed and then performed back exactly as the composer had written it.  Jazz was basically the exact opposite, you came up with it on the spot, and it was never exactly the same. Jazz tended to be fast paced and a lot more fun, which makes sense if you believe there is no meaning to life.

Falling Water- a home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright

In architecture Frank Lloyd Wright pioneered the idea of natural architecture. He challenged the status quo with his buildings that mimicked and incorporated nature in their design. He had been refining his style long before WWI but his architecture would not have been popular had it not been for WWI.

Ernest Hemingway in Milian (1918)

In literature before WWI writing had been romantic and flowery. After WWI writers such as Ernest Hemingway had begun to shine with their realistic writing that portrayed the horrors of the world.

Nietzsche- A Worthless Man Without WWI

Frederick Nietzsche

Frederick Nietzsche is known for being one of the first men to question the meaning of life. Nietzsche attacks morality because of its commitment to standards that humans don’t have the means to maintain and he attacks the foundation of religion by saying that there is no meaning to life. He’s often associated with Nihilism (the idea that life is meaningless) because he was one of the first people who wrote about it.

However, had WWI not happened Nietzsche’s ideas never would have become popular. Nietzsche died about 20 years before the war ended but because of the horrors of WWI, the soldiers who were thinking about life after the war, and life in the trenches, it became a popular idea. Nietzsche’s philosophy didn’t come from WWI but without it his philosophy would have simply been ignored.

Dadaism- a Protest Against WWI Society

Fountain- a Dada sculpture by Marcel Duchamp

Dadaism was an art style that sprung up as a reaction to the brutality of WWI. The artwork was designed to be displeasing and ugly, and to alter the ideas of normal. Dada artists ridiculed their culture with absurd drawings, performances, and sculptures. German Dadaists created the first substantial body of Dada artwork in the form of photo collages, reacting the suffering their country was suffering after the war.

 The idea behind Dadaism was to make society aware of themselves and what they were doing. Their artwork mirrored the world they were living, in the ugly world that was after World War One.  Dada artwork condemned the nationalist and capitalist ideals that started the war in the first place, and attacked government and society for the way they behaved.

When Nothing is Everything Anxiety Occurs

The 1920's, now known as the Roaring Twenties was once known as the Age of Anxiety. And for good reason. As mentioned in the previous post the world changed forever after the World War One. Everything that was once regarded as a fact was changed, and even the greatest accomplishments were scary because of this.
 New philosphies introduced that there was no purpose to life- which introduced a new kind of anxiety, known as the Anxiety of Meaninglessness. This is essentially the fear of there being nothing to life other than life. In science, it was decided that the only true constant in the universe was the speed of light, which is not a very comforting thought. Even art, literature, and architecture were changed drastically, leaving really nothing but unknowns. The word was suffering from the anxiety of uncertainty.

Everything They Were Told was a Lie, and That Made Everyone Question the World

World War I was known to many as the "Big Lie" because there appeared to be no real enemy to the soldiers fighting it. When soldiers looked to the men they were shooting at they saw a version of themselves. To them the 'enemy' was a bit of propoganda put out by the press. Everything they were told about war, that is was glorious and great, was all a lie. It was horrendous, and lead to people questioning what was true, and what was right.

After the Great War, the world was given a big slice of humble pie. Beforehand everyone thought they were very civilized and that they could work through anything without war. The sheer destruction and volume of death from WWI shattered that. For the soldiers who lived through this war with advanced technology and old ideals there world would never be the same.


Paul Valery wrote:

"Everything came to Europe," he wrote, "and everything came from it. Or almost everything."

"-- until recently."


People began to rethink the world and the way it worked and after WWI there were major leaps in Science, Phsycology, and changes in Art and Architecture. During this time Einstein came up with the theory of relativity. Freud put out the idea that the subconsious controls more than the concious mind, and new philosphies of life were put out. Ideas that there was no purpose to life, which threatened the foundations of religion. In literature and art there was a negative twist. Art no longer had to be pretty, and writing didn't need to be flowery. All of this was a result of the end of WWI.