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The Jazz Age and the Present Age

   by David S. Mann, Professor of Political Science

What experience and history teach is this—that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.

—GWF Hegel

Déjà vu is a phrase with which most are familiar. We have been there before, or at least it seems like it. And surely if we have been there before, we have learned from our experience, profited from our mistakes, and have gained insight from our choices. In studying the Jazz Age, or any other age, however, it not only seems as if we have been there before, but also it seems as if we haven't learned our lessons very well.

In "bullet" form, take a long look at the following. Have we been here before? Are we there again?

  • Are we trying to legislate morality?
  • Are there political scandals about oil and natural gas?
  • Is there a rise in evangelical Christianity?
  • Does there seem to be a motto, to wit: "More business in government, less government in business?" (A motto attributed to a president of the United States)
  • Is there a concern about immigration?
  • Are there critical social and political disputes that focus on race, ethnicity, and gender?
  • Does American foreign policy seem disjointed, isolationist on the one hand and "regime building" on the other?
  • Is there a wave of social revolution, as evidenced by changing tastes in music and art?
  • Is there a revolution in the development of home electronic and electric devices?
  • Are intellectual forces displaying a sense of disillusionment in their writings?
  • Is there a sense of urgency to reform the ways in which we travel from place to place?
  • Are financial markets becoming less predictable in their growth patterns?

The Jazz Age indeed. The first decade of the 21st century indeed, as well. I would assert that we have been here before. And we are here again. Study the Jazz Age. Maybe we could learn from Hegel, take a lesson from history, and not make the same mistakes again.