Conflicts During The 1920s :: essays research papers

Conflicts During the 1920sThe contrast between the impertinently and changing attitudes and traditional set was unmistakably present during the 1920s. This clash between the oldand the new had many roots and was inevitable. A new sense of awareness washedover minorities in our nation, especially blacks who began to realize that theywere entitled to their own subculture, pursuit of success, and share of theAmerican dream. This ideal was expressed by Langston Hughes in "The NegroArtist and the Racial Mountain." They were back up by the growing number ofyoung, financially well-to-do liberals who formed the new intelligencia. Eachgroup sought the use of logic and rational reasoning in their rethinking ofreevaluation of societys current status. Still, they constituted a minorityand their reformist views were not well- squeezen by the greater part of thepopulation who had become accustomed to a certain focussing of thinking were notwilling to budge, thus keeping the radicals si lent. Individualism was alsopartially suppresse d by the succession of three traditionalist Republicanpresidents whose illusion to the strong was displayed by their strong backingof big business while discouraging the Labor Union movement. Literature was onemedium by which the new intelligencia could express their views onimpracticality and injustice of the social system and government in the 1920s.     Sinclair Lewis was one such author who used his writing to condemn thestale and overage ways of thinking that were so widely popular in our nationduring the 1920s. In addition to exposing the poor working conditions of mostfactory labor, particularly the meat-packing industry, he criticized the commonman who could not think or act individually in his novel, Babbit, which waspublished in 1922. His description from the novel of the common man pictured aperson who acted in a manner that was socially acceptable who also strived forsuccess based on societys definitio n of purchasing material goods. In essencehe was a man defined by the society that he lived in.     Religion was also a topic of controversy during the twenties.Traditionalists who were usually sr. and less intelligent than the risingyoung class of liberal intellectuals were primarily Christian and would onlyaccept literal interpretations of the Bible. The liberals were not so quick totake the Bible at face value and came up their own interpretations. The tensionbetween the old and the new regarding religion was perhaps most obviously plethoric at the Tennessee Evolution Court Case of 1925.     In this time of where individual thinking was a rarity, publicmisconception and ignorance ran abound. People looked to scapegoats to account