Deck 30: Thought and Culture in an Era of World Wars and Totalitarianism

Question 1

In terms of post-World War I art, one may correctly say

A)Dadaists and surrealists expressed contempt for reason.
B)the old masters had departed and a new generation emerged.
C)Dadaists said one must seek the divine, for nothing else mattered.
D)nihilism was rejected.
E)Dadaism sought a new pragmatism to art.

Answer 1

Dadaists and surrealists expressed contempt for reason.

Question 2

André Breton may be associated with

A)new hues in landscape painting.
B)a call for rationality in art.
C)stressing that writing should flow least from the intellect.
D)composing a ballet with an emphasis on space and silence.
E)atonal music.

Answer 2

stressing that writing should flow least from the intellect.

Question 3

When the text refers to "the God that Failed," it is a reference to

A)nationalism.
B)Communism.
C)Social Darwinism.
D)existentialism.
E)capitalism.

Answer 3

Communism.

Question 4

Who said of World War I, "We cannot but feel that no event has ever so destroyed so much that is precious in the common possessions of humanity"?

A)Freud
B)Valéry
C)Joyce
D)Brooke
E)Jung

Question 5

According to the text, which of the following statements is correct?

A)There is a similarity in the works of Kierkegaard and Kafka, in that both illustrate a pervasive uneasiness in Western society.
B)Postwar anxieties appear to have prevented writers and artists from pursuing innovations in their works.
C)Kafka's works had the redeeming feature of offering solutions to the confusion besetting modern man.
D)Thomas Mann maintained his powerful anti-democratic position in spite of the appalling specter of Nazism.
E)Pessimistic writers such as Kafka directly contributed to the absurdity of modern society.

Question 6

Surrealists in the 1920s were likely to

A)be interested in fantasy.
B)satirize political movements.
C)focus on absolute truths.
D)portray historical events.
E)pursue "industrial art."

Question 7

If one follows Thomas Mann's career, one may conclude that he

A)shed his conservatism and embraced liberalism when the consequences of conservative policies became clear in World War I.
B)never regretted his political conservatism when World War I began.
C)supported socialist totalitarianism.
D)saw Nazism as a reversion to the primitive and never abandoned his old-fashioned conservatism.
E)confirmed the observation that a young person who is not a socialist has no heart and an old person who is still a socialist has no brains.

Question 8

Which of the following took as its focus the grim lives of English workers? ​

A)Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier
B)Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front
C)Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus
D)Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls
E)Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath

Question 9

The notion of absolute truth was rejected by ​

A)Nietzsche. ​
B)modernism. ​
C)the new physics. ​
D)D. H. Lawrence. ​
E)all of the above ​

Question 10

D. H. Lawrence, writing in Women in Love , expressed the idea that

A)instinctual urges were primitive and should be abandoned.
B)intellect must be fostered and pursued.
C)Christianity alone offers solutions to modern man.
D)modern businessmen fail to treat their workers humanely, recognizing only their function to work.
E)a businessman can come to an epiphany and realize that human beings should never be treated simply as tools.

Question 11

Which of the following authors wrote "The Waste Land"?​

A)​William Butler Yeats
B)​Karl Jaspers
C)​Albert Schweitzer
D)​Erich Maria Remarque
E)​T. S. Eliot

Question 12

The German-speaking Jewish writer in Czech Bohemia, Franz Kafka, wrote about all the following themes EXCEPT

A)the intense anxiety of modern life.
B)alienation and isolation of everyday individuals.
C)the possibilities of inner peace in an absurd world.
D)the futility of fighting irrational forces that operate everywhere in modern society.
E)the innocent have absolutely no guarantee of justice.

Question 13

To what was Thomas Mann referring with the statement "Fanaticism turns into a means of salvation... politics becomes an opiate for the masses...and reason veils her face"?

A)liberalism
B)Nazism
C)anarchism
D)Stalinism
E)politically active churches

Question 14

Which of the following statements concerning European moods and beliefs in the 1920s is NOT correct?

A)Feelings of stability and security were revealed to be illusionary by the war.
B)Science and technology were capable of releasing uncontrollable destruction.
C)Most felt the values of old Europe could be recovered quickly.
D)Sources of hope for some could be found in the League of Nations and in the easing of international tensions.
E)Many intellectuals felt they were living in a "broken world."

Question 15

The most influential expression of pessimism, Oswald Spengler's The Decline of the West, argued that Western Civilization was in the last of which three stages?

A)feudalism, capitalism, and socialism
B)hunting and gathering, herding, and farming
C)religion, nationalism, and cosmopolitanism
D)heroic youth, creative maturity, and decadent old age
E)despotism, aristocracy, and democracy

Question 16

Johan Huizinga argues in  In the Shadow of Tomorrow that

A)the tragedy of the age was that not even philosophers and sociologists had understood the problems of modern civilization prior to the war. ​
B)people need to realize how far the decay of the West has truly progressed. ​
C)delusion and misconception have been eliminated by the violence of war. ​
D)"our poor Europe" emerged from the war battered and bruised but still strong in spirit. ​
E)despite its setbacks, the West still prioritized reason over myth. ​

Question 17

The doubts about core Western values in the interwar period yielded

A)a reaffirmation of the rational-humanist tradition.
B)a complete despair about Western civilization.
C)solace in new radical ideologies: the variations of totalitarianism.
D)a rediscovery or reanimation of Christianity.
E)all of the above

Question 18

According to the text, which movement in literature achieved a brilliant flowering in the interwar period?

A)realism
B)modernism
C)naturalism
D)romanticism
E)classicism

Question 19

Dadaism embraced the observation that

A)Dadaism is "calculated irrationality."
B)"beauty is dead."
C)"like everything in life, Dada is useless."
D)"through reason , man becomes a tragic and ugly figure."
E)​all of the above

Question 20

All of the following pieces of art take injustice and suffering as their themes EXCEPT ​

A)Ben Shahn's The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti.
B)William Gropper's Migration.
C)Joan Miró's Harlequin's Carnival.
D)Pablo Picasso's Guernica.
E)Marc Chagall's White Crucifixion.

Question 21

Which was the culminating point that led to Arthur Koestler's revulsion toward Communism   and his break with the party ?

A)murder of the tsar and his family
B)results of forced collectivization
C)totally unrealistic propaganda
D)liquidations of Stalin's enemies
E)the death of millions of Ukrainians

Question 22

In Darkness at Noon , the fictional Rubashov

A)is an anti-Communist peasant who reflects on the irony that peasants were freed from serfdom by the tsar but enserfed again by the Bolsheviks.
B)is an example of the new Soviet man purged of materialism and critical thinking.
C)is an Old Bolshevik who comes to see the atrocities committed by the party in the name of the people but, nonetheless, sacrifices himself for the cause by admitting to bogus charges of committing political crimes.
D)is actually a cleric in disguise who exemplifies the essential religious character of Communism.
E)finally abandons Communism and embraces liberalism after witnessing Communism's atrocities.

Question 23

Søren Kierkegaard sought to overcome a sense of nothingness by

A)making choices.
B)abandoning religion and its sense of guilt.
C)initiating psychotherapy.
D)metaphysical studies.
E)spontaneous, irrational actions.

Question 24

The text identifies which of the following Catholic thinkers as emphasizing the historic link between Christianity and Western civilization in his work? ​

A)Karl Barth
B)Christopher Dawson ​
C)Reinhold Niebuhr
D)Jacques Maritain
E)Paul Tillich

Question 25

A number of prominent Christian thinkers writing in the wake of World War I argued all of the following EXCEPT ​

A)there was no evil in human nature. ​
B)Marxists put too much stock in a secular philosophy of history. ​
C)the tragedies of the twentieth century resulted from a clash between human will and God's commands.
D)liberals held too high an opinion of human reason. ​
E)liberals and Marxists erred in believing that an ideal society could be achieved within the realm of historical time. ​

Question 26

According to your text, all of the following were basic tenets of most existentialist thinkers EXCEPT

A)reason alone cannot guide our lives.
B)thoughts need to be acted on.
C)human existence has no externally determined purpose.
D)human life cannot have meaning.
E)self-realization comes when one's uniqueness is affirmed.

Question 27

Which novelist and journalist provided indictments of totalitarianism in  Animal Farm  and  1984 , shaped in part by his experiences in the Spanish Civil War?

A)José Ortega y Gasset​
B)George Orwell
C)Julien Benda
D)Ernst Cassirer
E)Erich Fromm

Question 28

Arnold Toynbee believed all the following about modern society EXCEPT

A)though flawed, the liberal humanism of the Enlightenment is the best hope of humankind.
B)nationalism is a primitive religion.
C)modern political ideologies have substituted the community for God.
D)politico-religious movements such as Nazism have been developing for over four centuries.
E)the emphasis on community has released the brutal side of human nature.

Question 29

Jacques Maritain would agree with all the following EXCEPT

A)medieval scholasticism should be revived.
B)without God's help, human reason is powerless against irrational drives.
C)modern democracy developed largely independent of the Christian Gospels.
D)human beings can think for themselves only if they subordinate their powers to reason to the Christian faith.
E)without a commitment to God's values, people find meaning in fanatic and belligerent ideologies.

Question 30

José Ortega y Gasset argued that European civilization was the product of​

A)humble peasants. ​
B)a godly community. ​
C)a creative elite. ​
D)modern democracy. ​
E)none of the above ​

Question 31

Jacques Maritain condemned belief in

A)the autonomy of the individual and the mind.
B)the notion that people can define their values and be in charge of their own lives.
C)a nonreligious humanism.
D)the separation of reason and faith.
E)​all of the above

Question 32

Ernst Cassirer may be remembered as

A)a literary figure of the lost generation.
B)a cleric who defended religion against atheistic trends.
C)describing Nazism as a culmination of mythical thinking.
D)an artist who tried to depict emotional emptiness.
E)a critic of the liberal tradition.

Question 33

Those who championed the Soviet Union believed ​

A)it had successfully ejected capitalist greed. ​
B)it had instituted socialist cooperation and a "workers' paradise." ​
C)its economic policies dealt more capably with the problem of unemployment than the West's capitalist states. ​
D)it was the only force that could stem the rising tide of Fascism. ​
E)all of the above

Question 34

Which of the following ideas fit into Erich Fromm's historical analysis?

A)The medieval social system gave people a sense of security.
B)An advantage of the medieval social system was that the divisions in society were stable and given meaning by the Christian worldview.
C)Modern society has broken up medieval structures and left the individual alone and insecure.
D)Modern society is leading people to choose subordination to the strongest as the remedy for aloneness.
E)all of the above ​

Question 35

When Erich Fromm spoke of a "burden of freedom," he meant

A)the disintegration of all artistic rules.
B)the problems faced by political refugees.
C)feelings of doubt and aloneness in a world without purpose.
D)the responsibility of an individual to vote in states that had suffrage.
E)in a free society, each person is responsible for everyone's well-being.

Question 36

Who described history as a place where an individual's faith is tested?

A)Karl Barth
B)Arnold Toynbee
C)Theodor Mommsen
D)Arnold Spengler
E)Jean Paul Sartre

Question 37

One of Julien Benda's central ideas was that

A)the average person prefers not to think for himself.
B)intellectuals have been intensifying hatred and should expect mass slaughter as the result.
C)intellectuals should be reeducated by living and working among the toiling masses.
D)the breakdown of tradition has released homicidal forces.
E)violence begins with a corrupted will.

Question 38

Which of these artists gave expression to postwar Germany's sense of disillusionment in paintings such  The Night ? ​

A)Kathe Kollwitz
B)Ben Shahn
C)William Gropper
D)Max Beckman
E)Marcel Duchamp

Question 39

The author of the Revolt of the Masses sees which of the following dangers in modern politics?

A)The masses insist on ruling, but they lack the capacity to do so.
B)Anyone who is different runs the risk of being eliminated.
C)People no longer see a need to defend views with a rational argument.
D)Many believe that they have the right to be unreasonable.
E)all of the above

Question 40

Arnold Toynbee believed that history's most important actors were

A)entrepreneurs.
B)the common people.
C)religious prophets.
D)monarchs.
E)philosophers.

Question 41

Instructions: Please define the following key terms. Show Who? What? Where? When? Why Important?
"burden of freedom"

Question 42

Who wrote "Thoughts for the Times on War and Death"?

A)Sigmund Freud
B)Franz Kafka
C)William Butler Yeats
D)T.S. Eliot
E)Oswald Spengler

Question 43

Responding to those who criticized reason, some philosophers

A)argued that reason should not be abandoned because it was indispensible to civilization. ​
B)reaffirmed the value of rational tradition initiated by the Greeks and given modern expression by the Enlightenment. ​
C)championed the broadening of the scope of reason to include new insights into human nature. ​
D)stressed the necessity to humanize reason so that it could not reduce human life to a thing.
E)all of the above

Question 44

Instructions: Please define the following key terms. Show Who? What? Where? When? Why Important?
Dada

Question 45

Instructions: Please define the following key terms. Show Who? What? Where? When? Why Important?
existentialism

Question 46

Albert Camus faced the absurdity of existence and discovered that

A)nihilism is the only honest response.
B)it is a God-given opportunity for a leap of faith.
C)human fraternity and human dignity are the only worthwhile responses.
D)each person seeks power, therefore, happiness is the conscious acquisition of power.
E)life is consciousness, therefore, a higher consciousness should be the goal of life.

Question 47

Joan Miró's work is an example of which artistic style?

A)classicalism
B)realism
C)surrealism
D)cubism
E)expressionism

Question 48

Charlie Chaplin was forever associated with the role of  the

A)gentleman tramp.
B)benevolent philanthropist.
C)gruff but kindly millionaire.
D)bored intellectual.
E)decadent playboy.

Question 49

In Jean Paul Sartre's philosophy, a person is determined by

A)material forces such as the economy.
B)unconscious drives.
C)history.
D)the choices that person makes.
E)an interaction of genes, environments, and luck.

Question 50

Instructions: Please define the following key terms. Show Who? What? Where? When? Why Important?
"god that failed"

Question 51

Instructions: Please define the following key terms. Show Who? What? Where? When? Why Important?
mass-man

Question 52

Instructions: Please define the following key terms. Show Who? What? Where? When? Why Important?
"broken world"

Question 53

When Erich Maria Remarque writes, "I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear," he is talking about what event?

A)trench warfare during World War I
B)Stalin's purges
C)modernism
D)the Great Depression
E)the spread of Fascism

Question 54

Twentieth-century existentialists drew from Friedrich Nietzsche the notion that

A)philosophic systems are projections of one's being, they do not have independent existence outside of people.
B)religion does not provide truth.
C)to overcome nothingness, a person must define life for himself.
D)people must create meaning.
E)all of the above

Question 55

The variety of attitudes toward reason in the late nineteenth and the twentieth centuries included the belief that

A)the long tradition of objective facts and truth was mistaken.
B)if objective truth does not exist, the individual and society are faced with the question of what values do exist.
C)the secular tradition is finally seeing its limitations and the answers are where they always have been: religion.
D)reason is flawed and can dehumanize life, but it is the best that humanity has; it must be adjusted according to the new insights but not abandoned.
E)all of the above

Question 56

Which of these existentialist thinkers were most likely to believe in the existence of God?

A)Sartre and Jaspers
B)Berdyaev and Marcel
C)Heidegger and Camus
D)Camus and Marcel
E)none of the above

Question 57

Twentieth-century existentialists drew from Fyodor Dostoevsky

A)an aversion to the Western tradition.
B)a person's need for a simultaneous revolt against established norms and his search for meaning.
C)a deep love for the mysticism at the heart of Orthodox Christianity.
D)the conviction that existential absurdity is cured by spiritual nihilism.
E)the conclusion that freedom of choice is an incomparable source of deeply spiritual joy.

Question 58

Instructions: Please define the following key terms. Show Who? What? Where? When? Why Important?
surrealists

Question 59

Though existentialism is a diverse philosophy, most existentialists would believe that

A)the world is absurd, but people still have the freedom and heavy responsibility to create their own essence.
B)the world is absurd, and no one can say anything else with any degree of certainty.
C)existence comes before essence, but essence is determined by factors outside a person's control.
D)existence is but a prelude to a higher existence after death.
E)absurdity and responsibility result in a great silence.

Question 60

Writer D. H. Lawrence was the son of

A)an aristocrat.
B)a liberal politician.
C)an illiterate coal miner.
D)a union organizer.
E)a disgraced general.

Question 61

Instructions: Please write a thorough, well-organized essay to answer each question. List some of the main elements of twentieth-century existential thought.

Question 62

Instructions: Please define the following key terms. Show Who? What? Where? When? Why Important?
"life-philosophy"

Question 63

Instructions: Please write a thorough, well-organized essay to answer each question. Compare and contrast the interpretation of intellectuals to Communism and its manifestation in the Soviet Union? What accounts for their variety of evaluations?

Question 64

Instructions: Please define the following key terms. Show Who? What? Where? When? Why Important?
European psyche

Question 65

Instructions: Please write a thorough, well-organized essay to answer each question. The text refers to the "somber mood" that overtook many European intellectuals following World War I. What contributed to this dismal perception of civilization?

Question 66

Instructions: Please write a thorough, well-organized essay to answer each question. How did the continued expansion of bureaucracy, capitalism, and industry contribute to the sense among many intellectuals that modern life lacked meaning?

Question 67

Instructions: Please define the following key terms. Show Who? What? Where? When? Why Important?
historicists

Question 68

Instructions: Please write a thorough, well-organized essay to answer each question. How did Christian intellectuals grapple with modernity and the crises of the twentieth century?

Question 69

Instructions: Please write a thorough, well-organized essay to answer each question. How did visual artists react to World War I and the interwar malaise?

Question 70

Instructions: Please use this outline map of Europe to answer the question(s).
The following individuals are the major sources of existentialist thought: Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Sartre, Camus, Marcel, and Jaspers. Using arrows, designate on a map the country with which each should be associated.

Question 71

Instructions: Please write a thorough, well-organized essay to answer each question. How would you compare the basic outlook of Oswald Spengler and Arnold Toynbee?

Question 72

Instructions: Please write a thorough, well-organized essay to answer each question. How did some intellectuals defend rationalism, freedom, and the Enlightenment tradition in the interwar period?

Question 73

Instructions: Please use this outline map of Europe to answer the question(s).
Locate and label the homeland of Dada, Franz Kafka, and Leni Riefenstahl.

Question 74

Instructions: Please write a thorough, well-organized essay to answer each question. What nineteenth-century ideas helped to shape twentieth-century existentialism?

Question 75

Instructions: Please write a thorough, well-organized essay to answer each question. Explain why interwar thinkers experienced tremendous disillusionment with the rational and humanistic traditions of the Enlightenment. Why did this disillusionment create a predicament for modern society?