Chapter 20 - Blog #15

In the reading, Strayer makes a good point with the war “mocking” Enlightenment values of progress, tolerance and rationality. The war was sparked by the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. Strayer mentions that the outbreak of the war was caused by a series of “accidents”. With the three enlightenment values kept in mind: progress is put on hold with the war going on, there was a low tolerance considering that many accidents caused the conflict, and the war, I guess you could say, was irrational. One of the accidents that stood out to me was the idea of industrialized militarism. Quoted from the text, “…heads of state wore uniforms in public.” Keeping that in mind as well as the Stanford Prison Experiment, a level of superiority is established and because of that the idea of power flooded these elites and could have possibly provoke outbreaks contributing to the war. 

What I also found interesting was the ending of the war resulted in women being allowed to vote. After many suffragists fought for their rights, it took a war to grant them to vote in many different countries. Women made their point when men were needed, but many of them were fighting in the war, and the women showed courage and willingness during of war by making sacrifices. 

The treaty that concluded the war created a level of superiority to the winners and left Germany restricted and to blame of the war. Of course in a country that feels inferior, one individual, or a few, is going to fight against that power, that person is Adolf Hitler.  

Germany seemed to have been able to recover quickly within the two decades because of their quick recovery during the Great Depression. The Europeans were smart enough to produce their own goods to save their money, but at the same time it helped America produce less goods to save money as well. 

In Hawaii I grew up learning the culture of Hawaii and it wasn't until high school was I exposed to learning about the world wars. Learning about the World Wars always caught my attention because of the late exposure to World History and the need to understand how our society was formed because of significant past events.