As Americans entered the post-World War II era, their mental world included two overlapping, but markedly different layers: one relativistic, another absolutist. / The relativistic layer had begun to emerge late in the nineteenth century as scholars developed open, dynamic, and evolutionary patterns of thought while rejecting closed and static systems. As a result, by mid-twentieth century there prevailed among most educated Americans an acceptance of the ideas of relativity and uncertainty concerning everything from subatomic physics to social ethics and religion. / The absolutist layer, expressing the grass-roots mind, stretched back virtually unchanged through the nineteenth century into the eighteenth. Characterized chiefly by belief in the free individual, traditional social values, and moral law, this layer has persisted among those whose education did not extend beyond high school, as well as among some who had attended college. / When confronted by urgent postwar crises, tens of millions of Americans sought final solutions for them. Even those of relativistic orientation succumbed to "yearning for absolutes"; they had had certainty, lost it, and then tried to regain it. / This study describes both mental layers and explores Americans' postwar quests for certainty. The most dramatic instance surfaced during the Civil Rights Movement, concerning equality. Going beyond legal equality and equality of opportunity for individuals, revolutionary measures sought equality of results for minorities (and later women) in employment, advancement, compensation, and preparation for living and working. These efforts, in turn, evoked a conservative reaction which became another quest for certainty, restating, reaffirming, and reasserting the traditional emphasis upon equality of opportunity with reward for the meritorious individual. Other quests for certainty which are explored here unfolded in (1) religion, particularly the vigorous new evangelicalism, and (2) education, whose goals became dual, involving delivery of education of excellent quality while assuring equality of educational opportunity. / Emanating from different mental layers, these quests were alternately creative and preservative, counterbalancing each other. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 50-10, Section: A, page: 3340. / Major Professor: Maurice Milton Vance. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1989.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_78081 |
| Contributors | Owens, Rameth Richard., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 442 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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