philosophies of the late 1940s

[pretty faythe]

I know one of the major philosophies of the golden era was make due and make mend. What are other popular philosphies of the era?
My daughter is trying to find background info on the era for a literature assingment, the book is A Street Car Named Desire. Tried setting up an account for her but its not letting her post here yet.
Thanks

 

[Paisley]

Eric Hoffer was writing The True Believer at the time, and the book was published in 1951. I think there was more of a tendency to put faith in authority figures during that era.

 

[LizzieMaine]

If there was one philosophy that dominated the first few years of the postwar era it was "Back To Normal." The war was over, the Depression was over, America was sitting on top of the world, and it was time to just move forward. And they didn't want to think too hard about what all that might mean. And then the Russians got the
bomb and "normal" had to wait a while longer.

 

[Undertow]

How to Win Friends and Influence People was a popular book by Dale Carnegie in the 30's and 40's - and remains popular to this day. I wouldn't say his ideas were necessarily a "philosophy" of the times, but they certainly helped shape young professionals.

 

[Alex Oviatt]

Well, I don't know if this is a philosophy of the late forties but it certainly is a philosopher writing in the forties: L'âge de raison (The Age of Reason) is a 1945 novel by Jean Paul Sartre. It is the first part of the trilogy Les chemins de la liberté, the road to freedom--very interesting and the best of the trilogy, in my opinion. The theme of freedom is certainly common to these two works....

 

[Atomic Age]

Another idea that permeated the post war (and pre-war for that matter) era was the "tomorrowland" syndrome. The notion that the future was going to be bright and shiny and everyone was going to be driving an atomic powered flying car.

Look at the original Tomorrowland in Disneyland and you get an idea of what I mean. The House of the Future exemplified this notion.

BETTER LIVING THROUGH SCIENCE!

Doug

 

[Richard Warren]

I'm rather fond of General Semantics, which has little to do with the semantics and much to do with the primitive human tendency to ascribe reality to abstractions (i.e., Platonism). Its most famous maxim is "the map is not the territory." It was pretty much done in by Martin Gardner, who apparently believed the contrary.

 

[poetman]

William James' pragmatism and Ayn Rand (sort of)