ShmoopTube
Where Monty Python meets your 10th grade teacher.
Search Thousands of Shmoop Videos
Playlist Dystopian Literature: Shmoopversations 19 videos
What does Plato say about justice in Republic? We're not quite sure...it was all Greek to us.
How does a class division form in a society? What's the highest position in a society? We know the answer to the second question: it's that wise ol...
According to Plato, who would be an ideal candidate for a leader, and what type of speech should be allowed in society? Man, this Plato dude was su...
Dystopian Literature 14 The Time Machine 106 Views
Share It!
Description:
What was life like during the writing of The Time Machine ? What was Social Darwinism? Bet you weren't expecting that to be the follow-up question, were you?
Transcript
- 00:00
Thank you We sneak in Dystopian literature The time machine
- 00:09
last month What was life like during the writing of
- 00:15
the time machine The time machine is published in the
- 00:18
eighteen nineties and this is the time of huge technological
- 00:22
innovation So we're on the brink of the twentieth century
Full Transcript
- 00:26
and think about the things that are invented in the
- 00:28
twentieth century Suddenly we're goingto have cars computers not yet
- 00:33
the computers are coming and everything in between So at
- 00:39
the end of the nineteenth century life had been getting
- 00:42
better for people and it seemed like it was going
- 00:44
to continue to get better There was increasing urbanisation people
- 00:48
were living in cities and people have been making all
- 00:51
sorts of gains in scientific knowledge This led to all
- 00:56
sorts of theories about what was going to happen to
- 00:58
society in the future and one theory that was bouncing
- 01:02
around a lot of this time Wass social darwinism What
- 01:08
is social darwinism So social darwinism is a kind of
- 01:12
misguided outgrowth of actual darwinism which is the scientific theory
- 01:17
of evolution Social darwinism argues basically that within human society
- 01:25
the buddhist among us are going to survive But the
- 01:28
fittest means all sorts of different things So the smartest
- 01:33
people the kind of most socially aggressive people and that
- 01:37
basically gives a lot of people license to trample all
- 01:40
over others assuming that they are better and fitter and
- 01:46
more deserving So this is basically a justification of inequality
- 01:51
and unequal wealth distribution so that people who thought that
- 01:54
they were strong thought that they deserved to be rich
- 01:58
And they didn't need to help people who were poor
- 02:00
because those were weak people who would die out hopefully
- 02:05
anyway So these air the ideas that h g wells
- 02:09
is playing with and he is wondering if you project
- 02:12
several thousand years in the future like what could possibly
- 02:16
come out of all of this What was life like
- 02:22
during the writing of the time machine What is social 00:02:25.72 --> [endTime] darwinism
Related Videos
They say that honesty is the best policy, but Jack lies about his identity and still gets the girl. Does that mean we should all lie to get what we...
Ever wish you could remember everything that you ever studied? How about everything that everyone has ever studied? Yeah, pretty sure our brains ju...
Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man is an American classic. Hope you're not expecting any exciting shower scenes though. It's not that kind of book.
Do not go gentle into that good night. In fact, if it's past your curfew, don't go at all into that good night. You just stay in your good bed and...
