User:LGreg/sandbox/Approaches to Knowledge (LG seminar 2020/21)/Seminar 18/Power/Power in Philosophy

Power to change the world

• In 1848, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote the Communist Manifesto. In it they exposed their social, economic and political philosophy to fight against capitalism, which became most commonly known as "marxism". This led to the Russian Revolution which started in 1917 with Lenin and the Bolsheviks, until 1923. In 1921, Mao Zedong created the Commnist Party of China, inspired by Russia's model. Fidel Castro too, implemented communism too on the island of Cuba in 1959. This uprising of communism in different parts of the world led to the Cold War. Indeed, the aim of the war was to eradicate completely communism as the Western World feared communist states would become too powerful.
• The 17th century, also known as the Enlightenment, was a period where philosophy and knowledge were at the center of scholars' preocupations. Most literature from that century has a philosophical dimension. Such as the Encyclopedia, which was created aorund that time by French philosophers such as Diderot.
• Locke's Second Treatise of Government in 1689, is about his vision of a righteous government. It is said to have inspired Thomas Jefferson when coming up with the Declaration of Independence which in a way, is at the origin of the United States Constitution.

Power to change people

• Nietzsche is often regarded as the father of Nihilism as the idea is omnipresent in his work. When talking about Positivism, Heidegger maintains that science and technique were testimonies of Nihilism. In a way, when most states stopped having a state religion, meaning that religion (which is non-scientific) had lost of its importance, and people prioritised objectivity and progres: Positivsm began to rule most societies.
• When Henry David Thoreau wrote Civil Disobediance and Walden, it inspired the Hippie and Yippie movements of the 1960s. (Whose ideas originate from Diogenes with the Cynicism philosophy).