In class this week, we have been learning about three major political ideologies that are still present today: liberalism, conservatism, and nationalism. Our essential question for this unit was: what were the major political ideologies of the 19th century and how did they influence social and political action? We wanted to figure out how these ideologies were defined in the 19th century, and how that differs from how they are defined today. Firstly, you might be unfamiliar with the term ideology like I was. An ideology is very similar to a theory; it is a system of ideas and ideals especially to help you form the basis of economic or political theory or policy. Once we had defined ideology, we individually defined liberalism, conservatism, and nationalism as we know them today. My definition of liberalism was wanting to please everyone's needs and help everyone, even if that means self-sacrifice. Conservatism today is belief in protecting the rights of each individual and free choice. Lastly, nationalism was pride in one's nation. However, as we came to see, these modern day definitions are different from what these words meant in the 19th century. So, in order to better learn about these ideologies, we were put into groups and were assigned to become experts on one of them. We read articles by Jeffrey Brautigam on the three ideologies back in the 19th century, and we highlighted key ideas. We then had to make a creative presentation that was only one minute long explaining the definition and key points about our ideology. Since there were only 3 ideologies and 6 groups, each ideology was assigned to two groups, and our goal was to try to make a better presentation than the other group that had the same ideology. Our presentation is shown below.
My group was assigned to make a project for liberalism. We made our project using the app ChatterPix. ChatterPix is an app that allows you to make pictures talk. You import your picture, draw a mouth on the picture, and then record what you want it to say. The app will make it look like the person in the picture was saying it. We used John Locke and Adam Smith, the forefathers of liberalism, in our ChatterPix, along with two 19th century men discussing this ideology. In our project, we described how liberalism is a system of government in which the government would have to listen to the middle class instead of only listening to the aristocracy. The ruler would have to be a constitutional monarch, meaning the ruler's power would be limited by the people's constitution. Liberals promoted the natural rights and liberty of each individual, and how these God-given rights cannot be taken away. The ruler would have to respect the middle class' rights instead of only respecting the aristocracy's rights. This political change also involved social impacts. Liberalism would most likely lead to revolution because the middle class will revolt. The middle class will require that the kings listen to them, but the kings will not give up their power so easily. When the kings deny the middle class power, the people will get together and start a revolution against the king and aristocracy. However, even with this system of government that promoted natural rights, it did not include women or the poor, so their rights were still not respected. This would make them very mad as well, and they would eventually get fed up with not being listened to as well.
From other group’s presentation, I learned how conservatism and nationalism were defined in the 19th century. I learned that conservatives wanted to preserve the aristocracy and monarchy like government was traditionally established. Unlike liberals, conservatives wanted to keep the social classes and monarchy in which the higher social classes rule. They believed that a revolution to try to reform the government was a bad idea because it will only lead to disaster. After the brutal French Revolution, the word revolution had a negative connotation, and conservatives believed that it could only lead to bloodshed and chaos. So, they wanted to keep the traditional system of government because they believed that it was "time-tested", meaning it was trustworthy because of how long it had been used. Monarchy was the only traditional solution to social and political problems, and conservatives wanted government to go back to the way it used to be. Nationalism is a system that strives for the unity of a nation. Often times, like in Germany, the nation was divided into provinces or smaller countries. The goal of nationalism was to try to unite these smaller provinces into one, big country that shared common culture, language, and history. Most often, this unity was especially used to fight and overthrow foreign rulers. This happened with France and Germany when all of Germany's provinces united to overthrow Napoleonic France. Napoleon was ruling over Germany at the time, and Napoleon had a negative social impact in the German provinces; they all disliked being under his control. All the German provinces, sharing the same culture, language, history, and hatred for their foreign ruler, united to form a nation that was strong enough to overthrow France.
Sources:
Brautigam, Jeffrey. “The Rise of New Ideologies in the Nineteenth Century for AP European History.” Education.com. March 4, 2011. http://www.education.com/study-help/article/rise-ideologies- nineteenth-century/ (Accessed October 21, 2013).
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