Pulling the course together...

1. What defines a golden age? What qualities make one "age" stand out over others? Significant cultural achievement: does it only reflect something "good"
   1. lit, theater, poetry,
   2. in the arts and architecture
   3. in political / philosophical contributions
   4. in discovery: exploration, science, and technological advances
2. What conditions promote a golden age?
   1. Consensual government? Role of the middle?
   2. Economic prosperity? to provide the resources to support, preserve the achievement
   3. Personal and/or civic freedom; "liberation" from established and monolithic culture?
   4. Self conscious reflection? empathy, toleration of different opinions or social / political unity/coherence.
   5. Liberty vs. license (1. authority to act; formal permission. 2.excess of liberty; freedom abused; licentious: lawless; unrestrained by strict rules of correctness); how to find a balance? how much of the latter does one have to tolerate to be able to enjoy the former?
   6. What is the connection between society, its values, and individual genius?
   7. Do we favor these elements because they are familiar to us or because we judge them to be "objectively" true?
   8. The critical social mass of understanding.
   9. Consensual govt allows for peaceful innovation and improvement.
3. But: to what extent is it true[in the case of Berlin] that the very turmoil of the period was the root innovation? Does one need a cathartic event to "liberate" / foster cultural innovation?

Humanities 254: The City: What constitutes a "Golden Age"?

Achievements (innovative):

• Art, Theatre, Literature, Architecture, Music.
• Art: Should evoke Empathy and Self-Conscious Reflection.
• Architecture: Symmetry creates certain harmonies that are pleasing to see and experience.

Conditions that promote a Golden Age:

• Politics (government), Economy, Tolerance.
• Politics (government): flexibility and social mobility.
• consensual government: A necessary condition, unless a monarch is willing to allow artist freedom of expression.
• Economy: strong middle class is a necessary condition. The economy needs to be fairly prosperous in order to support innovative art.
• Tolerance: liberty versus licence.

• Art
• Architecture
• Music
• Poetry
• Science
• Theater
• Literature
• Philosophy
• Film
  

So what makes something into transcendent cultural contribution? 

• should demonstrate empathy and self-conscious sustained reflection… 
  
• So why does architecture show this empathy, the self-conscious sustained reflection? certain architectural forms create a symmetrical aesthetically pleasing experience… and these compositional forms translate to all forms of art…  
  

Tolerance 

• Little societal constraints, a flexibility that encouraged innovation.  
  
• Somewhere between a constraining stable government and chaotic anarchy there is an optimal amount of freedom that enables humans to create; the “sweet point” that allows for tolerance of new forms of expression. 
  

Is democracy necessary for these optimal conditions to occur? 

• In the examples we have explored, all three societies have consensual government (kind of…, consensual government for the few) Or maybe it’s a ruler allowing for these optimal conditions to occur as well…? 
  
• The balance between liberty and lewdness… Where do these societies draw their lines? Eros and the Cabaret??? 
  

Economic Prosperity 

• A necessary condition or merely a secondary condition? 
  
• A reasonable surplus is necessary, cannot be a society only focused on surviving… But how much of a surplus is necessary? Can the society be subject to depression and inflation?  
  
• What about a critical mass of prosperous, educated people, like a middle class, or can there just be a select few who are prosperous?