Europe has known a golden age from the Renaissance to the early 20th century. Between the late 15th century to WWI, about all the great inventions, discoveries, socio-economic progress, new political system and freedoms, great artistic styles, etc. came from Europe (and a bit from the USA from the mid-1800's).
Then came the First World War, which left Europe devastated, and most of its young men dead. This was the first major mistake of European nations, but at least it had a lasting effect in the heart of the Europeans, who swore never to have such inhuman war again. Indeed WWII was much less barbaric, combat-wise (no more poisonous gas, flame-throwers, trenches...) and caused much less (military) casulaties. It also led to the downfall of many big monarchies : Russia, Germany, Austro-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire... Women also got more rights and became more active in society.
The end of WWII left space for the biggest succession of major blunders in European history.
The arts
We had seen radical changes in the arts since the aftermath of WWI. People's mind were so troubled by what they had experience that the "arts" became a way to express tragedy and confusion rather than beauty and harmony. European paintings, which had been known for their extreme realism since the 17th century, had become abstract monstruosities, leaving most people wondering if that could still be called "art". It is time that European artists stop lamenting on the harshness of their existence and come back to a more classical style. The so-called modern art is anti-art, and whoever disagrees with that does not have a clear mind.
Urban planning
WWII left less deaths in Western Europe than WWI, but more material damages through the new carpet bombings. The Americans have been particularily eager to raze all big German cities. But even in countries that were left relatively unscathed, like France or Italy, the worst eyesores the continent had ever seen were constructed in the 2nd half of the 20th century . France got its concrete cités with their soulless HLM towers. During the 1950's and 60's, governments across Europe, and most badly in the UK, Netherlands and Belgium, built huge, bunker-like administrative buildings, hospitals and other public buildings. These architectural abominations only start being demolished and replace by nicer structures now, but it will take decades of "cosmetic surgery" to repair those architectural scars.
Society
The end of the war gave rise to a general euphory (at least in Western Europe) and different vision of the world. This resulted in major changes in lifestyle, beliefs and values, a great liberalising momentum. Little by little, over 3 decades, people started criticise their government and system more freely, revolt against the traditional education system, criticised religion and religious taboos, especially about sex. This was all for the better - well at least if the old-fashioned ideas, values and systems had been replaced by efficient new ones. Instead we saw society divide itself (with the rise in individualism) and look for alternatives, some more fortunate than others. What is certain is that many new systems have been tried, and many failed. We only start realising that now, after the youths of the 50's and 60's start getting old, retire, and it becomes easier to criticise them or make the "balance sheets".
Education was a particularily sensitive thing to reform. Each European country have reformed it in a slightly different way, some many times. Now that we look back at the achievements of each system, we realise that some countries have better ways of teaching foreign languages, other are stronger in maths and sciences, and others yet do a better job at teaching history, geography and philosophy. But we also see that the systems that have remained the most traditional (e.g. teaching Latin and Greek), have resulted in the highest unemployment levels as well (France, Belgium, Germany, Italy...) because they teach everything to theoretically, and not enough useful subjects (e.g. psychology, accounting, economy, I.T.) for the modern job market.
Government-wise, the big post-WWII mistake was the socialist idea of "dole" (unemployment benefit), in other words giving tax-money to all unemployed people so that they can live with it. I am not against the dole, but the system has been far too generous in countries like Germany, France and Belgium. No need to look further at why unemployment is so high; who wants to get a badly paid job when you can get almost as much by staying home ? (see article)
Values
The 2nd half of the 20th century has also brought an immense change regarding marriage, divorce, sex and having children. New contraceptions and disappearing religious taboos about sex meant that people became more promiscuous (until the arrival of AIDS from Africa in the 1980's). Consequently people had the chance to "try" more sexual partners before marriage (another taboo before WWII), and so began to get married later and have less children. What is more worrying is that divorce rates also surged, despite people knowing each others better by cohabiting before marriage. This is due to what I consider one of the most obvious erros of the late 20th century : ignoring social classes. Thanks to the process of liberalisation of society, some people mistakenly thought that social classes were imposed from above (like caste in India), either by religion, tradition or even the ruling class. This idea partly came from the communist concept of class conflict (Marx), partly from the Hippie movement inspired mostly by Indian society (hence the mistaken comparison of European classes with Indian castes).
But social classes exist in every society, even in the Communist countries that deny them, even in societies where people don't seem to be aware of them. It isn't because people aren't aware of something or don't talk about it that it doesn't exist. Social classes as I understand it is a natural division of society by sensitivity inherited from the milieu one is born into. It is mostly in the mind (values, tastes, style, manners...), and the jobs people decide to do or the clothes they decide to wear are just an expression (conscious or not) of the class they belong to. But major differences exist between at least 4 or 5 main social classes in every civilised society (i.e. non-tribal). Ignoring or denying their existence is dangerous, especially when it comes to marriage. People understood that (again consciously or unconsciusly) before WWII, and some still do now. The problem is that more and more people in the Western world have become class-blind, thus marrying a person with completely different values, manners or tastes, with inevitable result a sharp rise in divorce rates.
Decolonisation
The last and most sensitive point I want to raise in this article : decolonisation. Believe it or not, many errors were made there. We could start to argue whether colonisation itself was not an error. This could take long because there have been so many kinds of colonisations. There is hardly anything in common between the 16th-century colonisation of the Americas and the relation between the UK and Australia, nor even with France and its DOM-TOM. The motivation and way of colonising were entirely different. When the Spaniards arrived in the Americas, it was only a bunch of gold-hungry, ultra-Catholic mercenaries plundering, raping and destroying everything. In the 20th-century, all colonising powers (but Japan) had a much more civilised way of colonising, building schools, railways, administrative buildings, etc. Their intentions were quite humanitarian, in addition to trade and political influence worldwide. In fact, the British or French colonial armies kept peace ans stability in the occupied regions much more than they caused war.
If we look at Africa since the decolonisation, all we have seen was a combination of very bad dictatorships, genocides, misery, famine, AIDS pandemics, a deterioration of the colonial infrastructure, and the anihilation of the democratic systems put in place by the former colonial powers before the independence. Few, if any, African countries have experiences less than two of these. In comparison to many dictatoship the vast majority of the people were better off under foreign rule. It is not so hard to comprehend, when we see the huge influx of Africans coming to Europe to seek a better life, even from relatively stable countries like Senegal or Tanzania.
Decolonisation was maybe sucessful in some countries like India, Malaysia or Singapore, but it was a terrible blunders for Africa, and even for some Asian countries like Burma (dictatoship), Cambodia (dictatoship, war, and genocide) or Vietnam (dictatoship and war).
I believe that decolonisation was too fast and too careless. Colonisating powers should have given them only partial autoomy, with an appointed governor to suppervise the transition, until the new countries were mature and experienced enough to self-manage themselves. India was more sucessful because of its long political experience before colonisation. In Africa most societies were still tribal, or small "medieval" kingdoms before colonisation, with no experience of a modern administration, and even less of a democratic system.
I blame the heavy immigration from Africa to Europe (to this day and increasing) on this lack of consideration of European leaders in their way of granting independence. Who are they to think that tribal people can manage to establish a successful modern and democratic country when not even European countries would have been able to do the same had they been colonised by a hypothetic modern and democratic nation a few centuries ago. The gap was too big, and it might now take centuries for Africans to catch up in the mess they were left in. Look at South American countries, that have been independent for 200 years, many with a ruling class of European descent, and are only starting to emerge economically and slowly becoming more democratic. It is almost statistically proven that the more European immigrants in a Latin American country and the more prosperous and democratic it becomes. The best examples are Chile and Argentina, where 90% of the population is of European descent.
Then came the First World War, which left Europe devastated, and most of its young men dead. This was the first major mistake of European nations, but at least it had a lasting effect in the heart of the Europeans, who swore never to have such inhuman war again. Indeed WWII was much less barbaric, combat-wise (no more poisonous gas, flame-throwers, trenches...) and caused much less (military) casulaties. It also led to the downfall of many big monarchies : Russia, Germany, Austro-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire... Women also got more rights and became more active in society.
The end of WWII left space for the biggest succession of major blunders in European history.
The arts
We had seen radical changes in the arts since the aftermath of WWI. People's mind were so troubled by what they had experience that the "arts" became a way to express tragedy and confusion rather than beauty and harmony. European paintings, which had been known for their extreme realism since the 17th century, had become abstract monstruosities, leaving most people wondering if that could still be called "art". It is time that European artists stop lamenting on the harshness of their existence and come back to a more classical style. The so-called modern art is anti-art, and whoever disagrees with that does not have a clear mind.
Urban planning
WWII left less deaths in Western Europe than WWI, but more material damages through the new carpet bombings. The Americans have been particularily eager to raze all big German cities. But even in countries that were left relatively unscathed, like France or Italy, the worst eyesores the continent had ever seen were constructed in the 2nd half of the 20th century . France got its concrete cités with their soulless HLM towers. During the 1950's and 60's, governments across Europe, and most badly in the UK, Netherlands and Belgium, built huge, bunker-like administrative buildings, hospitals and other public buildings. These architectural abominations only start being demolished and replace by nicer structures now, but it will take decades of "cosmetic surgery" to repair those architectural scars.
Society
The end of the war gave rise to a general euphory (at least in Western Europe) and different vision of the world. This resulted in major changes in lifestyle, beliefs and values, a great liberalising momentum. Little by little, over 3 decades, people started criticise their government and system more freely, revolt against the traditional education system, criticised religion and religious taboos, especially about sex. This was all for the better - well at least if the old-fashioned ideas, values and systems had been replaced by efficient new ones. Instead we saw society divide itself (with the rise in individualism) and look for alternatives, some more fortunate than others. What is certain is that many new systems have been tried, and many failed. We only start realising that now, after the youths of the 50's and 60's start getting old, retire, and it becomes easier to criticise them or make the "balance sheets".
Education was a particularily sensitive thing to reform. Each European country have reformed it in a slightly different way, some many times. Now that we look back at the achievements of each system, we realise that some countries have better ways of teaching foreign languages, other are stronger in maths and sciences, and others yet do a better job at teaching history, geography and philosophy. But we also see that the systems that have remained the most traditional (e.g. teaching Latin and Greek), have resulted in the highest unemployment levels as well (France, Belgium, Germany, Italy...) because they teach everything to theoretically, and not enough useful subjects (e.g. psychology, accounting, economy, I.T.) for the modern job market.
Government-wise, the big post-WWII mistake was the socialist idea of "dole" (unemployment benefit), in other words giving tax-money to all unemployed people so that they can live with it. I am not against the dole, but the system has been far too generous in countries like Germany, France and Belgium. No need to look further at why unemployment is so high; who wants to get a badly paid job when you can get almost as much by staying home ? (see article)
Values
The 2nd half of the 20th century has also brought an immense change regarding marriage, divorce, sex and having children. New contraceptions and disappearing religious taboos about sex meant that people became more promiscuous (until the arrival of AIDS from Africa in the 1980's). Consequently people had the chance to "try" more sexual partners before marriage (another taboo before WWII), and so began to get married later and have less children. What is more worrying is that divorce rates also surged, despite people knowing each others better by cohabiting before marriage. This is due to what I consider one of the most obvious erros of the late 20th century : ignoring social classes. Thanks to the process of liberalisation of society, some people mistakenly thought that social classes were imposed from above (like caste in India), either by religion, tradition or even the ruling class. This idea partly came from the communist concept of class conflict (Marx), partly from the Hippie movement inspired mostly by Indian society (hence the mistaken comparison of European classes with Indian castes).
But social classes exist in every society, even in the Communist countries that deny them, even in societies where people don't seem to be aware of them. It isn't because people aren't aware of something or don't talk about it that it doesn't exist. Social classes as I understand it is a natural division of society by sensitivity inherited from the milieu one is born into. It is mostly in the mind (values, tastes, style, manners...), and the jobs people decide to do or the clothes they decide to wear are just an expression (conscious or not) of the class they belong to. But major differences exist between at least 4 or 5 main social classes in every civilised society (i.e. non-tribal). Ignoring or denying their existence is dangerous, especially when it comes to marriage. People understood that (again consciously or unconsciusly) before WWII, and some still do now. The problem is that more and more people in the Western world have become class-blind, thus marrying a person with completely different values, manners or tastes, with inevitable result a sharp rise in divorce rates.
Decolonisation
The last and most sensitive point I want to raise in this article : decolonisation. Believe it or not, many errors were made there. We could start to argue whether colonisation itself was not an error. This could take long because there have been so many kinds of colonisations. There is hardly anything in common between the 16th-century colonisation of the Americas and the relation between the UK and Australia, nor even with France and its DOM-TOM. The motivation and way of colonising were entirely different. When the Spaniards arrived in the Americas, it was only a bunch of gold-hungry, ultra-Catholic mercenaries plundering, raping and destroying everything. In the 20th-century, all colonising powers (but Japan) had a much more civilised way of colonising, building schools, railways, administrative buildings, etc. Their intentions were quite humanitarian, in addition to trade and political influence worldwide. In fact, the British or French colonial armies kept peace ans stability in the occupied regions much more than they caused war.
If we look at Africa since the decolonisation, all we have seen was a combination of very bad dictatorships, genocides, misery, famine, AIDS pandemics, a deterioration of the colonial infrastructure, and the anihilation of the democratic systems put in place by the former colonial powers before the independence. Few, if any, African countries have experiences less than two of these. In comparison to many dictatoship the vast majority of the people were better off under foreign rule. It is not so hard to comprehend, when we see the huge influx of Africans coming to Europe to seek a better life, even from relatively stable countries like Senegal or Tanzania.
Decolonisation was maybe sucessful in some countries like India, Malaysia or Singapore, but it was a terrible blunders for Africa, and even for some Asian countries like Burma (dictatoship), Cambodia (dictatoship, war, and genocide) or Vietnam (dictatoship and war).
I believe that decolonisation was too fast and too careless. Colonisating powers should have given them only partial autoomy, with an appointed governor to suppervise the transition, until the new countries were mature and experienced enough to self-manage themselves. India was more sucessful because of its long political experience before colonisation. In Africa most societies were still tribal, or small "medieval" kingdoms before colonisation, with no experience of a modern administration, and even less of a democratic system.
I blame the heavy immigration from Africa to Europe (to this day and increasing) on this lack of consideration of European leaders in their way of granting independence. Who are they to think that tribal people can manage to establish a successful modern and democratic country when not even European countries would have been able to do the same had they been colonised by a hypothetic modern and democratic nation a few centuries ago. The gap was too big, and it might now take centuries for Africans to catch up in the mess they were left in. Look at South American countries, that have been independent for 200 years, many with a ruling class of European descent, and are only starting to emerge economically and slowly becoming more democratic. It is almost statistically proven that the more European immigrants in a Latin American country and the more prosperous and democratic it becomes. The best examples are Chile and Argentina, where 90% of the population is of European descent.
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Unfortunately I don't have time right now to think about a clear response to all points before I have to disappear on work, but I just quickly wanted to say something about the arts...
). But the only way to go is forwards. I am emphatically NOT saying that artists can't or shouldn't use ideas, techniques and influences from the past. Indeed they should! We should use all the armoury at our disposal! But sometimes it's necessary to go through things in order to learn from them, and I can say with confidence that the visual arts are richer and more teeming with possibilities because of the somewhat 'melee' of the 20th century and its developments. Movements that did indeed produce a lot of crap have also generated an amazing amount of creative ideas and diverse ways of thinking, which gives an incredible benefit to artists working today - even if they choose to work in 'traditional' media and themes. 
Rather, my brain works in a more... erm (not sure how to put it >_<) 'structured' way? or 'logical'? I mean, there has to be something in there for my brain to get a grip on, as well as my eyes... I can't just enjoy something on the visual level, it has to contain something to think about, as well. :buuh:
though, I have to say it's one of those things that's necessary... sometimes you have to try something before you realise that it doesn't work... and until you've done that, you can't move forward... so even if the thing itself isn't a success, it has worked like a pathway to a further place... if you see what I mean. :bluush:
