Answer to Question #182432 in History for Unknown

Question

Pick one pair of cultural movements from the 1920’s:

1. Prohibition & Temperance and Jazz Music

2. Fundamentalism & Evolutionism

3. Consumerism & Prohibition and Temperance

4. Limits on Immigration / Nativism & Fundamentalism

Compare and contrast the two cultural movements in your selected pair.

* How did these movements shape America in the 1920’s either socially, politically, or economically?

You can pick whatever pair. Basically, I only need 2 paragraphs, 1 compare, and 1 contrast.

*Note: please help me use simple words only, as simple as possible. Not the high-level words.

Answer 1

Fundamentalism refers to a global religious impulse, particularly evident in the twentieth century that seeks to recover and publicly institutionalize aspects of the past that modern life has obscured. It typically sees the secular state as the primary enemy, for the latter is more interested in education, democratic reforms, and economic progress than preserving the spiritual dimension of life. It reflected several concerns particular to the religious setting of the United States at the turn of the century. Cultural evolution” is the idea that human cultural change––that is, changes in socially transmitted beliefs, knowledge, customs, skills, attitudes, languages, and so on can be described as a Darwinian evolutionary process that is similar in crucial respects to biological or genetic evolution.

Social changes that occurred for both fundamentalism and evolution involved protests in American society. Fundamentalists felt displaced by the waves of non-Protestant immigrants from southern and eastern Europe flooding America's cities. They believed they had been betrayed by American statesmen who led the nation into an unresolved war with Germany, the cradle of destructive biblical criticism. On the other hand, William Jennings Bryan launches an anti-evolution crusade. In The Menace of Darwinism and a series of other speeches, Bryan rallies against the teaching of evolution. Known as "the Great Commoner," Bryan was one of the most influential politicians in America. Secondly, fundamentalism insisted upon the necessity of a conversion experience through faith in Jesus Christ alone, the accuracy of the Bible in matters of science and history, and theology. Further, on the imminent physical return of Christ to the earth where he would establish a millennial reign of peace and righteousness and evolutionism.

In contrast, Fundamentalists insisted upon the timeless validity of each doctrine of Christian Orthodoxy, and evolutionism advocated a conscious adaptation of religion in response to the new scientific discoveries and the moral pressures of the age.

These movements were very influential in American politics, making Bryan a very prominent politician. It moved others into Christianity entirely as per the anti-evolutionists and made others not believe in Christianity.