“Narcissistic and Depressed” (or, one of the great many letters I wish I had the guts to send to my Religion professor.)

Dear Professor —— :

I have a lot of suggestions for how this course could be improved, in order to be more sensitive to the diversity among the members of the class, but right now I want to talk about when I first realized this class was not the right place for me. It happened roughly thirty minutes into the first class session, which was the amount of time before you began pontificating about how and why my generation are all ‘narcissistic and depressed’.

“I’ll tell you why we’re all depressed,” I thought immediately. “It’s because the world is dying and we can’t fix it because we’re all slaves under late-stage capitalism.”

Look—There's a Colorful Rock Behind You!

The Industrial Revolution was truly a great period of societal advancement. There were new jobs, new wonders of technologies, and new ways to gain fortune that opened doors to many groups, and in turn, the individuals. Although the response to new machines, techniques, and iron making were praised by many, others disapproved of the advancements from industrial life.

In protest to these hazardous machines, toxic pollution, and meaningless deaths, Romanticism arose.

Newton, William Blake, 1795-c.1805

In the picture above, William Blake, a prestigious romantic artist, portrays Isaac Newton as young and muscular, rather than the older figure of popular imagination. Here, he is crouching naked on a rock, covered with algae, at the bottom of the sea and his attention is focused on his diagram which he draws with his compass. Blake, critical of Newton’s scientific approach, shows that Newton merely follows the rules of his compass and is completely blind to the colorful rocks behind him.

Romanticism was in essence a protest of the Enlightenment period. The fact that scientific discoveries were being made about nature, many disapproved and wanted nature to stay as a pure, as a work of God, not scientific discovery. Public protest was developed into an art form during the 20th century, known as the Modernist era; thus, playing into the romantic theme of Individualism and Romanticism as Reaction. Main points of protest and popular discontent include:

1. The Civil Rights Movement
2. The Women's Rights movement
3. The protest against prohibition