On April 4, Dr. Patrick Deneen visited the McConnell Center to discuss the middle portion of The Education of Henry Adams. Dr. Deneen serves as an Associate Professor of Government as Georgetown University and holds the Markos and Eleni Tsakopoulos-Kounalakis Chair in Hellenic Studies. Deneen’s seminar focused on the influence of science and technology in late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century thought.
Deneen began the event by examining Henry Adams’s emphasis on coal-powered technology. Adams expressed amazement at the ability of coal to transform everyday life, stating that his eighteenth-century education failed to prepare him for that innovation. Deneen argued that coal technology initiated a shift in the way people viewed time. Prior to the use of coal for electrical power, people lived their lives in cycles based on the sun. The repetition of day and night, months, seasons, and even liturgical calendars in some religions demonstrated the prevalence of these cycles. These cycles also penetrated the way that people viewed history. They believed history repeated in a similar cycle as compared to the remainder of their lives. Deneen asserted that coal altered this cyclical thought. Coal allowed people to ignore the night and the concept of a daily cycle. The loss of these cycles encouraged people to think in a new linear mode.
However, Deneen stated that people needed a new philosophical underpinning for their linear thinking. Adams’s chapter on Darwinism highlighted the new philosophy that would come to justify these ideas. Darwinism allowed people to view time and history as an endless, upward progression. Adams lamented that he could not force himself to believe in this concept. His education prepared him for the cyclical world, and if history was linear, he could not believe in the transcendent progression of humanity. Adams made a stab at both Darwinism and President Ulysses S. Grant by declaring that the he could never consider Grant’s administration an improvement on that of George Washington.
Deneen concluded his seminar by arguing that Henry Adams considered his education a failure because it left him as a man out of time. Adams received an eighteenth-century education in the nineteenth century and applied it to the changing world of the twentieth century. Adams claimed that he could not adapt to the new environment and new paradigms of thought. The Education of Henry Adams illuminated the concept of historical perspective and how that perspective's influences the actions of the present.
Deneen began the event by examining Henry Adams’s emphasis on coal-powered technology. Adams expressed amazement at the ability of coal to transform everyday life, stating that his eighteenth-century education failed to prepare him for that innovation. Deneen argued that coal technology initiated a shift in the way people viewed time. Prior to the use of coal for electrical power, people lived their lives in cycles based on the sun. The repetition of day and night, months, seasons, and even liturgical calendars in some religions demonstrated the prevalence of these cycles. These cycles also penetrated the way that people viewed history. They believed history repeated in a similar cycle as compared to the remainder of their lives. Deneen asserted that coal altered this cyclical thought. Coal allowed people to ignore the night and the concept of a daily cycle. The loss of these cycles encouraged people to think in a new linear mode.
However, Deneen stated that people needed a new philosophical underpinning for their linear thinking. Adams’s chapter on Darwinism highlighted the new philosophy that would come to justify these ideas. Darwinism allowed people to view time and history as an endless, upward progression. Adams lamented that he could not force himself to believe in this concept. His education prepared him for the cyclical world, and if history was linear, he could not believe in the transcendent progression of humanity. Adams made a stab at both Darwinism and President Ulysses S. Grant by declaring that the he could never consider Grant’s administration an improvement on that of George Washington.
Deneen concluded his seminar by arguing that Henry Adams considered his education a failure because it left him as a man out of time. Adams received an eighteenth-century education in the nineteenth century and applied it to the changing world of the twentieth century. Adams claimed that he could not adapt to the new environment and new paradigms of thought. The Education of Henry Adams illuminated the concept of historical perspective and how that perspective's influences the actions of the present.