“Twentieth Century Crisis of Belief” by Marheine

The article by Marheine titled “Twentieth Century Crisis of Belief” summarizes many ideas and social phenomena that distinguished 20th-century ideology, philosophy, and art. The main trends discussed by the author in the compilation of famous artists’ abstracts are the disgusting wartime pictures in literature and reflection of despair and exhaustion of art on the background of stumbling political instability and unheard pace of technological development leaving an individual aside (Marheine 1). The dominant thought was about death – it can be seen from the behavioral trend in psychology, from the notion of “alienation”, from decadent moods in society and art. It can also be seen in the degradation of art and artists, which was seen from phenomena of hedonism, nihilism, and the appearance of “the society of the spectacle” (Mahreine 2-3). This all pointed at the pessimism and depression resulting from the natural sequence of inhuman stresses that humanity suffered throughout the 20th century. The compilation made by the author is really fascinating in its accuracy of the account of the major tendencies in the 20th-century society – driven to insanity by horrifying pictures of the war massacre, seeing no way to success and improvement in the near future, suffering from the decay in all spheres people had no hopes for the better, which was evident in all spheres of human activities.