Civilization #49: The Dutch Golden Age and the Rise of the Middle Class

Okay, good morning. So, um we start the very last section of the course today. It's on the AngloAmerican Empire which rules the world today. So, um we will first look at the rise of the British Empire. Um and to understand the rise of the British Empire, we first need to discuss the rise of the Spanish Empire.

So, let's go back. Um, and we discussed that um, it was the Spanish who were the first to colonize the new world. And they did so because they were looking for gold and silver. And it turned out they found a lot of gold and silver. And all this money was now going back to Spain.

And that became the basis of the Spanish Empire. And you would think it's a really good thing that they found all this gold and silver, but it was a disaster for the nation. Okay? And the reason why is that at this time in history, Spain was a feudal Catholic monarchy and the all this money just made the system even worse. So let me explain.

A feudal system means that there are rigid um there's a rigid hierarchy of status. The nobles and the clergy at the very top. And because of all this gold and silver, the clergy and the nobility don't actually have to pay taxes anymore and they actually have to make no contribution to society. All right? So you have this, you know, this group of parasites that are sucking up a lot of wealth.

um a lot of energy within Spain. Okay, so that's the first problem, this feudal system. Second is the idea of Catholic. Um so because of the Catholic religion, people don't really care about what happens today. They care about what happens when they die.

They care about making sure that they have a place in heaven. So they get all this money from um the new world and none of it goes into industry and innovation and technology and science. All of it goes into uh religious activities. For example, religious festivals, churches, masses and all this money is being wasted on these religious festivals. Okay.

And the third thing is monarchy. So they have a king and this king also happens to be through marriage the king of the Holy Roman Empire which is most of Europe. So if you're a king you have you have an infinite amount of money. What do you do? Well you go on a series of stupid pointless wars all around Europe.

And he was fighting the Ottomans. He was fighting um um uh the French. uh he was even fighting the Catholic Church because he wanted to be stronger and and have more authority than the pope and he was paying for these wars through with this gold but also uh by borrowing uh and so at the end of the 16th century Spain even though it was at this point in history the most powerful empire the wealthiest empire with the largest army it went bankrupt basically. All right. So this system was was a disaster for Spain.

Okay. Another issue is um because of feudalism, the Spanish nobility thought it was beneath them to work hard. They believed that it was um uh contemptuous to to exert yourself to be a noble means to sit back and enjoy life. Okay. So this money um was a disaster for Spain.

So um to understand what happened, just think of an analogy. Let's just say today I give each of you 100 million US. You think that's a lot of money. And so you go and you waste it all on ski trips, on buying a new Maserati, on buying a private plane. And then you recognize, oh, you know what?

If I keep on doing this, I'm eventually going to go bankrupt. So what you what do you do? Well, you go and you invest in businesses, right? And you recognize that, hey, if I go to invest in businesses, what I should do is borrow money from the bank in order to have greater leverage in order to make more money. And the bank says, well, you have $100 million, so I will give you uh money.

And so you get you take about a billion dollars um in loans. And because you're not a very sharp business person, you have absolutely no business. You you have actually no experience running a business. Well, in 10 years time, all your businesses go bankrupt. Okay?

And so you find yourself a billion dollars in debt. You start you start out with $100 million and then through reckless expansionism, you have a billion dollars in debt. And that's exactly what what happened to Spain. Okay. All right.

But this system created opportunities for those who did work hard. Okay. And these three countries that will take advantage of the system are um France, England and Holland. Okay? Or what we call the Dutch Republic.

Okay? Uh don't worry about the name for now. And so there are three ways in which they took advantage of this new system that the Spanish created. The first is through industry. Okay.

And what this means is um the Spanish didn't have any industry. They were still an agricultural based nation but they wanted textiles. They wanted finished goods. So the French, the English and the uh Dutch, they they did work hard because of the religion. they were Protestants, okay?

And they believed in in hard work and so this created a middle class for them. All right? So they industrialized uh because of Spanish demand. So that's the first way that these three countries benefited. The second way is through piracy.

So what was happening was that these ships were transporting all this gold and silver from the new world back to Spain, which means that you can just hijack these ships and steal all their gold and silver for yourself. and piracy became the official policy of the English. All right. So, um Francis Drake was the most famous pirate of this time and he was like an admiral in the British Navy sponsored by the queen, Queen Elizabeth the first and he was a national hero because he would go and he would steal all this gold and silver from the Spanish and replenish the uh the English crown. All right.

So, piracy was a really important way these three countries made money off uh Spain. Also, because of piracy, these three countries were forced to innovate in their navy. So, the system of naval warfare at this time is like you would ram your ship um at another ship, you would board it and then you would uh take over that ship. Okay? So, it's it was hand-to-hand combat.

And what the English figured out was, you know what, we can just have cannons on our ship and then just pound the other ships from a distance. Okay, basically artillery and uh long range fighting. And that's what the English pioneered and that's why eventually they become over time the greatest navy in the world. All right, so piracy was u a very important factor in the development of the English navy. The third thing um is for trade.

Okay. Um, but specifically through smuggling. So the idea is all this territory in the new world was controlled by the Spanish crown. And so everyone started to smuggle in order to avoid paying taxes and levies to the crown. So what were they smuggling?

Well, they they were mainly smuggling slaves. Okay. So um slaves were for most of human history the most profitable product that you could trade and this was even more true at this time because the new world had these plantations um and they needed people to work these plantations. So they started to transport slaves from Africa to the new world. Now there is a misconception um in history that the Europeans went to Africa, kidnapped these slaves and then transport them to the new world.

Okay, this is not true. The reason why it's not true is the Europeans actually did not want to go to Africa and stay there. And the reason why is malaria. So what's happening was that the Europeans set up um trading centers around Africa and it was the Africans themselves who would give the European slaves. And the reason why is um these nations, these tribes in Africa were fighting against each other.

And the custom at the time is if you lost a war, then we would enslave the entire um population and then sell you to the Europeans. So, so not only were the Europeans getting rich off this trade, but so were many African um uh clans and tribes. Okay. So, so, so that is what happened. All right.

Um the other thing is what what people misunderstand is most of the profit was actually not in gold and silver. Okay. At this time in history, the most profitable product, the thing that was most valuable is actually spices. Things like nutmeg, cinnamon, peppercorn, right? These are the things that Europeans really valued.

One ship of these things was enough to make fortunes for entire families for generations. All right? So, in other words, the center of trade was not actually in the new world, but actually in Southeast Asia. Okay? Southeast Asia.

Okay. So from China, the Europeans imported silk and porcelain. And from um the Southeast Asian islands, Indonesia basically they imported spices. Okay. So this became known as the East Indies.

The East Indies. And this is where the money was to be made. Okay. So the key to world conquest was who could control the trade routes into the East Indies. Okay.

So the the the people uh that first really figured this out were the Dutch. Okay. So the Portuguese are here, but the Portuguese are like the Spanish. Okay, they are a Catholic nation, but the Dutch are the ones who figure out how to make a lot of money out of the East Indies. All right, so how did the Dutch how were the Dutch able to succeed?

Um, it has to do with the fact that at at this time in history, the Dutch were controlled by the Spanish. Okay, the Spanish were in charge of the Hapsburg Empire, which included Spain. Uh, sorry, which included the Dutch. Okay. So at this time in history uh the Dutch are part of something called the low countries.

Low countries include includes today the Belgium and the Netherlands. Okay. That's considered the low countries. And for for the longest time the low countries have been part of the Holy Roman Empire. And um this system worked well for the low countries because they were they were poor.

They didn't have much resources. So they were left alone by the Holy Roman Roman Empire. they they had a lot of local autonomy. They were very independent and very egalitarian uh nation and everyone there because it was cold, it was poor, people worked hard and the low countries was one of the first places developed textiles and as such did they start to trade with Spain. They became wealthier.

But over time as Spain became more and more powerful it went to exert more authority over the low countries. What's happening at this time is protest protestism is spreading all across Europe and the king of Spain wanted to maintain capitalism in the low countries and this brought them to conflict with the low with with the people in the low countries. Okay. And this created something called the 80 years war. It was really a war of independence um between um so so um there were certain individuals certain um cities and low countries that want independence from Spain and of course Spain want to maintain control this war will last for 80 years now the problem is that Spain it is the most powerful nation in the world at this time the low countries it's it's it's it's like 1.5 million people at this time okay so it's very very small place and so they can't possibly fight um Spain but they persist because because they're led by religious fanatics and over time what they realize is even though they can't beat Spain on land they can actually beat Spain on in the sea.

Okay. So what they recognize is, you know what, the way to beat Spain is if we can control the trade in the East Indies, that's going to give us the military, that's going to give us the wealth and the resources to fee to defeat Spain. But we are a small and poor nation. So how can we best do this? And the solution would forever change human history.

in6002. Okay, 1602 they created something called the Dutch East Indies Company and uh it's known as VOCC in uh Dutch. Okay, the Dutch East Indies Company. This is really important in human history because this is considered the first multinational corporation in the world. Okay, this corporation it's not controlled by the government but it has the power of government.

It can raise its own military. It can create its own laws. It can issue its own currency. Okay. And this company will go on to become the most profitable and most valuable company in the whole world.

If you take Apple, Microsoft, and Google, these three companies, and you combine them together, they would still not be as wealthy as the Dutch East Indies company. And the reason why is they had a monopoly over trade for spices in the East Indies. Okay. So then the question then is why would the Dutch do this? Why would the Dutch go out and create their first multinational corporation?

And the answer is they needed a way to unite the people of the low countries into fighting the Spanish. How do you incentivize the people into fighting the Spanish? Most people were indifferent. They're like, "We don't really care. The Spanish are far away." But you had some fanatics who wanted independence.

But you also had some individuals who were heavily Catholic. Okay. Eventually what will happen is the people who want independence will move north to the Netherlands and the people who want to m to remain Catholic will move south to Belgium. Okay? That's why if you go to Europe today, if you go to Belgium, it's heavily heavily Catholic.

But if you go to the Netherlands, which is still uh one of the wealthiest countries in the world, it's actually Protestant. Okay, that and that's what happened. Okay. So they need to unite the people and the best way to do that is to incentivize them by giving them shares equity in a company. Okay.

So now people have actually have an incent incentive to actually fight the British because if the Dutch East Indies company makes money they get rich and that's what h actually happened. The east the Dutch East Indies company will become extremely wealthy and and so that will create a middle class in Holland. So the first issue is equity. Okay. But also if you think about it this is actually a very clever way to raise taxes because if you try to get taxes from people they will rebel against you right but if you say hey listen we have this company and if you uh invested in it uh you might get rich well it's it well this is equivalent of selling war bonds to people right so that's the idea and that's why the Dutch East Indies company it really marked a turning point in the war between the Dutch and Spain.

Also, this will allow the Dutch East Indies Company to work hard to control the trade in the East Indies because if they work hard, they are the ones who profit, not not the not the king. And over time, what will happen is the Dutch East Indies Company will push out the Portuguese and they will monopolize this entire area. And as a result um they will become extremely wealthy. What's important to remember and this is why the Dutch actually don't really talk about this history is um a lot of brutal horror happens because of this process. Okay?

Because they are multinational corporation only interested in profit. They commit ethnic cleansing. They basically wipe out the population. They enslave people to work in plantations to grow these spices. They will constantly engage in a series of wars against the Portuguese.

this in the English and the French in order to m maintain control over the monopoly. Okay. But over time, what they will recognize is they don't actually have the population resources to to maintain their empire. So they will retreat and leave this empire to the French and the English, but they will still be subcontractors to the English and the French. And that's why the Netherlands remains one of the wealthiest countries in the in the world today.

Okay. a lot of their wealth is hidden. Okay. All right. So, what's important for us to um understand is this war is actually driving the growth of the middle class and Protestantism in Europe.

All right. So, let's let's review um the process of religion. Okay. So it's this actually Calvinism. So there are actually two major ideas that differentiate Calvinism from Catholism.

Okay. The first is the idea of justification by faith. So in the Catholic religion, you show your faith to God by doing good works, by giving money to the church basically. But in the coven religion, which is what the Dutch Republic adopts, it's justification by faith, which means that you and God communicate. And God knows if you are faithful and you yourself know if you're faithful.

So if you spend money, if you build stuff, that doesn't matter. The works doesn't matter. What matters is your true faith. Okay, that's the first thing. Second thing which is more important is the idea of double predestination.

So remember from our lecture on the Protestant religion reformers are trying to destroy the influence of the Catholic Church because they think the pope is evil. All right. So the main power of the Catholic Church comes from the idea that is a church who decides whether or not you go to heaven and for how long. Sorry, whether or not you go to heaven. If you don't go to heaven then uh what then then do you go to purgatory and for how long?

Okay. So the church has control over your afterlife. And so what what the Calvinists believe is no the church doesn't because at the beginning of time even before the world was created God had already decided who would go to heaven and who go to hell. Okay that's the idea of double predestination. Your destiny has already been decided and only a minority called the elect will go to heaven.

Everyone else will be damned to hell. Okay. And again these ideas were created in order to erode, dilute, destroy the influence and power of the Catholic Church so that people can be liberated um from the church in order to celebrate God um in the proper way. But we discussed this. These two ideas will now create a new problem which is how do you know if you are party elect, right?

How do you know? Well, I believe so. I believe. But how do you how do you really know? Okay.

And the answer they discovered is you know through your virtuous hard work. Okay. through simple hard work. Okay. Um and so how do you know if you are working hard?

How do you know that your life is simple enough? Well, because you're accumulating money, right? Does that make sense? Money now is actually useful. Before it wasn't that useful, but now money is now a testament to your faith.

Okay? Okay. And this marks a radical change in human perception in human identity. Before we were people very much focused on status, right? Now we focus on wealth.

So let me explain the difference. Okay. What does status mean? Status just means how you are perceived in your community. So you work hard um in order to win approval from your peers.

So remember the Vikings, okay? The Vikings would go on these crazy adventures. Why? Because they would come back and tell these stories that would entertain and impress their peers. Okay?

Also remember the Vikings, if they have money, what they what they would do do is this. Remember the Viking funerals, a third of all their wealth would go into funeral expenses, okay? Having a big feast for everyone. A third of their wealth would then uh go into the funeral clothes, dressing well for the funeral and a third of their money would then go on to the family members. All right?

So for most of human history, we didn't believe it was important to have money. What's important was to impress the community. And that's why you make any money, you would immediately come back and hold a huge feast for the community, right? And that's still true in China today where you know you you you are um from a village, you come to Beijing, you open a restaurant, you make a lot of money. What do you do?

You go back to your village and you hold a huge feast for the villagers, right? Okay. So that's the idea of status. And that's what before we were concerned about. Now we're concerned about wealth.

Why? Because wealth is a measure of your faith. It is a testament to whether or not you will go to heaven or not. All right. And this marks a radical change in human perception and this creates the idea of class now.

Okay. And the market. All right. So, does this make sense guys? All right.

All right. So the other issue is now that the Dutch food trade they're making a lot of money but at the same time they're actually not allowed to spend their uh money because they have to um exemplify simple hard work. Then how do they enjoy their wealth? Okay. And the answer is through art.

So now you have a art market in the first time in human history. Before art was something that was patronized by the wealthy. But as the middle class rose in the Dutch Republic, now the middle class can enjoy art. And this will mark a radical change in uh in how art is created. Okay.

Now and also because of this you have a new idea called materialism. So the accumulation of goods, if you don't if you don't spend your money on the community, if you don't spend your money on the church, where do you spend your money? You spend your money on the house, right? On where you live. So that's why it's important to buy silk and porcelain from China.

That's why you want to buy spices because it's a measure of your wealth within the household. Okay, remember and this is really important. This is driven by three factors. Okay. The first factor is anxiety.

Anxiety comes from the fact that um you don't know if you're faithful to God or not. So you must prove to yourself you are faithful. Okay. So that's the first idea, anxiety. Second is the idea of uncertainty.

Uncertainty means like at this time in history the Dutch Republic is at war with Spain. Spain again is the most powerful empire in the world. You don't know if you'll survive. You don't know if um the Dutch Republic will survive against Spain and it probably will not. All right.

But the uncertainty come also comes from the fact that trade is precurious. Okay. right now you're wealthy because the Dutch East Indies indies company is is profitable and you you have stock in the Dutch Dutch East Indies company but it's also possible tomorrow um England or France or Spain comes and whips out the Dutch East Indies company. Okay. So there's a lot of uncertainty in your life.

And the third thing um is competition because remember only a few people will go to heaven. But there's a lot of wealthy people in the Dutch Republic. So how do you prove that you're better than your the other members of the middle class? Well, there's going to be competition. Okay?

You have to prove that you are a more simple, more faithful individual. All right? And because of these three factors, anxiety, uncertainty and competition, it will drive three major developments in human society, the creation of money, uh the creation of the art market. Okay, the art market also includes literature by the way, but that comes later. And the the idea of materialism in human life.

And if you think about it, this is now becomes the prototypical middle class identity, right? And so even though we're in China and we are not a Christian nation, um, and we don't we've never went through this history, the middle class in China still has the values and the ideas that the Dutch had 500 years ago. Okay? Chinese, the Chinese middle class is obsessed with moneymaking. It's obsessed with materialism and it's obsessed with the accumulation of artistic objects.

All right. And so that's the history here. All right. Any questions before I go into the evidence and some of the history. It was this clear to you guys.

Okay. I I know I'm going fast, but but but we have to we have a lot to do. All right. Uh in order to finish the semester, okay, so let's go over some of the history. Okay.

So, uh the Dutch golden age. All right. So 1588 is is basically uh when uh the war between the Dutch Republic and Spain really begins to take off. So let's go over some basic background about the Spanish Empire. Okay, so remember Spain has territories in the new world.

What's important is that Spain is not colonizing the new world. Okay, Spain is only interested in extracting resources, specifically gold and silver, from the new world. Okay, so there's no there's no colonization going on. There's just e economic exploitation going on. And the ships, the navy is designed only to take the gold and back to Spain.

And again what this does is it creates opportunities for piracy which the English and the Dutch will exploit very heavily. Okay? And these um centers of e economic exploitation will also need a lot of slaves. And so the English, the French and the Dutch will take these slaves from um Africa and smuggle them into the plantations to feed these colonies. Okay.

Um so this wealth allows um Spain to enter its golden age. And one of the main um um artists of this golden age is actually Magal Cervantes and he's famous because he wrote a novel called Don Cahotei de Lamancha and it's considered the first great novel or or the first novel in human history. It is an amazing book, Donote De Laancha. I would teach I would love to teach it to you at the time, okay? But it's about a thousand pages.

But you know what? It's it's it's easy to read. You can read it by yourself. Okay? I highly I highly recommend it.

Donkea de Lancha. Okay? But during this time, of course, you also had great artists um and great um um literature happening as well. This money was being wasted in Spain. Okay?

It was being wasted in building these wonderful beautiful buildings like El Escaro in Madrid. It's just outside Madrid and it took took about an entire year of bringing back gold and silver from the new world to build this building. But for the longest time this was the largest building complex in the entire world. Okay. Um Spanish because the Spain because it was so wealthy became became the fashion trends center for all of Europe.

So um Spanish dress, Spanish clothing became popular throughout all of Europe, especially England. Um so what will happen is the Spanish royal family will marry into the Hapsburg and the Hapsburg family controls the Holy Roman Empire and the Habsburgs are like the most famous dynasty in Europe at this time. they will marry uh and then Carl Charles will inherit both Spain as well as the Roman uh the Holy Roman Empire which includes the Netherlands. Okay. And so this is his empire and as you can see it's actually most of Europe.

This is Spain and this is the Holy Roman Empire which includes the Netherlands, the low countries. The problem though is once you have this territory, you have to defend it. And so he comes in conflicts with all the great powers of the day, okay, including France, which is the peer competitor to Spain at this time. You he will also come come into conflict with the Protestants under Martin Luther, okay? He's trying to step up uh the rise of Protestantism, especially Calvinism in Europe.

He will also come in conflict with with the Ottomans. Um and he will also come in conflict with the pope. Okay. So with all this money uh the king of Spain is causing wars with just basically everybody and he he becomes a bit of a bully which bankrupts the nation. The problem with the Habsburg is they have a terri terrible reputation for um inbreeding.

Okay? They only marry within the family. And if you do that over three or four generations, you get this guy. Okay? Uh King Charles II.

And this is what you get. So do not incest is a bad thing. Okay? We outlaw incest for a very good reason. And because of this, he has no here, which causes the end of the Spanish Empire.

All right? So the Spanish Empire as we discussed will allow for the rise of the Dutch Republic. The Dutch Republic it's rising because it has very strong industry and then it builds it builds trade networks all around the world. Okay. So as we discussed it controls the Baltic trade and it and what it does is it um basically trades textiles across this area and then it will capt it will trade slaves across the Atlantic and then it will monopolize trade in the um East Indies and that's why um in the 17th century the Dutch Republic will become the wealthiest nation in the world and its middle class will become the most prosperous and wealthiest in the world at this time.

Okay, because all this trade. All right, so this is a map that shows you the extent of trade uh in the Dutch Republic. Okay, so this is a Spanish and as you can see most of the trade is actually focused across the Atlantic. All right, this is the French. They get involved as well, but their trade is nowhere near as dense as the Dutch and the British.

Okay. And eventually the Dutch and the British will come into conflict with each other in the Anglo Dutch wars for dominance over the seas. And what will happen is the Dutch will win most of these naval battles. Okay, the Dutch are superior uh are superior sea people, but the British are much more persistent and the British have a much greater population. The British are like the Romans.

Remember, the Romans didn't didn't win that many battles, but they just never gave up. They were relentless, and they were willing to make they were willing to sacrifice most of the population in order to eventually win. Okay, that's just the British mentality. All right, they weren't great at they were not as superior as the Dutch uh at sea or against the Spanish and the French and um on on land battles, but they were just much more relentless and persistent. Okay.

All right. So let's go over the major differences between Spain and the Dutch Republic. Okay, how was the Dutch Republic Republic able to rise and defeat Spain and win its independence? Well, the first thing is Spain was a Catholic religion that focused on orthodoxy. Okay, so everyone had to be Catholic and um everyone had to obey the power of the church.

And so you may have heard something called the Spanish Inquisition, right? So it was the Spanish who created the people call the Jesuits were responsible for enforcing orthodoxy within the Catholic world. The Jesuits will will come to China as well and spread the Catholic religion. Right? The Dutch because they were smaller, they had few people, they were forced to be tolerant.

So all these Jews that were being expelled from Spain end up in the Dutch Republic. And it's important that you to have a a a group of Jews within your nation. Why? The first reason is they have these trading networks. Okay, remember there's a Jewish diaspora and the Jews have these trading networks all across the world, especially within the Ottoman uh empire.

Okay, that's the first reason, trade. Second is uh finances. Okay, so historically Jews have these financial networks all across Europe. And so if you need a lot of money to start a war, well, you all you you often go to Jewish financers. Okay.

The third is intellectual. Um the the Jewish people are extremely open-minded, extremely intellectual. They bring in new ideas. So one of the most famous intellectuals at this time is named Barack Spinosa. Okay?

And he's he's he's Jewish. All right? Uh but it was not just um Jews. Everyone was allowed to practice a religion in the Dutch Republic freely. And that was one of the main drawing points about the Dutch Republic.

Okay, the tolerance. This is important because the Dutch Republic will become the model for the American Republic. Right. Second difference is Spain was a empire focused entirely on economic exploitation. They were only concerned about extracting resources whereas the Dutch was just focused on mercantile trade.

Okay, this is important because if all you do is focus on exploitation um this will lead to mismanagement and this will lead to a lot of wealth inequality and that was the issue facing Spain. Okay. But if you but you focus on mercantile trade then you can create a middle class which is what happened in the Dutch Republic. The third major difference of course is uh noble and clerical privilege. So only the elite benefited from the Spanish Empire whereas the Dutch Republic because they were small um they had to focus on middle class growth on making sure that as many people as possible benefited from uh trade and commerce.

Okay, it was really trade and commerce that allowed the Dutch Republic became wealth so wealthy over time. And because the Dutch Republic um it's very small and the land isn't great, they uh as the Dutch Republic became more wealthy, they focus a lot of the resources on building canals and on uh land land reclamation from the sea. Okay. And so um and so as time as time progressed their land increased. All right.

So another really important thing to remember about the Dutch Republic is that is a coalition is a federation of different citystates. Okay. There's seven um different places within the Dutch Republic. Okay, that's why it's a republic and not a monarchy because a lot of their decision-m has to go through um cons consultation and diplomacy. Now this is also why they created the Dutch East Indies company because the fear was that if they didn't have a monopoly a company to control the monopoly then if different city states would open would compete against each other for the East Indies trade and they didn't have the resources to do to do that that that's why they combine the resources to create the east uh the Dutch East uh Indies company.

Okay. Okay. Um what's important to first remember is that throughout its history the low countries uh the Netherlands they are they were an egalitarian independent and open-minded people and so some of the most famous philosophers were coming from this region including Arasmus who um is contemporary of Martin Luther uh and who was one of the main consider one of the great philosophers and theologians. Okay, he's he's he's he's primarily responsible for something called the Northern Renaissance. Uh Arasmus will allow for the rise of Spinosa.

Okay. And again, he's formerly um Jewish, but then he becomes he creates a new religion called pantheism. You may have heard, you might have heard about pantheism, but pantheism is the idea that God is within every living being, including trees, including animals, including us. and therefore we're all connected through the essence of God. Okay.

Um let's talk about art. Okay. So I I want to focus the rest of the lecture on art because art will give us a um a portal into the mindset and psychology of the Dutch people. But before we do that, let's let's talk about Spanish art. Okay.

So this is a Spanish um golden age and a lot of this money is going into patronizing great art. And as you can see, Spanish art, it's very Catholic. So if it's Catholic, then it's very allegorical. So they're drawing they're drawing uh images from the Bible and from the Catholic tradition. Um and it's a worship of um the religion.

Okay. So this is Madonna the Mary and this is baby Jesus. As you can see, everyone's worshiping uh Jesus. The problems are iconoc class which is they don't they do not they do not allow for depictions of their god in uh im imagery. Okay.

Um this is another great artwork from the Spanish golden age. As you can see it's heavily um allegorical. Okay. Metaphorical. All right.

Um this is the most famous painting of the Spanish golden age by a painter named Diego uh Vatacquz. Okay, you probably have heard of him. He's he's one of the most famous painters in the world. This is his most famous painting called Last Menades the Handmaids. Okay, what's amazing about this painting is that we are actually as we are observing the painting this painting is actually observing us as well.

Okay, does that make sense? Because this is a painter, right? So the painter is looking at us as we're looking at him. Now um what he's really who who he's really drawing um is the royal couple. Okay, as this mirror shows, but as you can see, we are also within the universe of this painting.

Okay, I I mean there's a lot to say about this painting. It's it's it's the most famous paintings in the world. All right, but but I but I but we'll but we we have a lot to do today, so I'll move on. Um these are landscape paintings and as you can see there's a lot of spirituality, a lot of allegory, a lot of divinity embedded within these paintings. All right.

So this is a Catholic mentality. All right. So now let's move on to the Calvinist Dutch mentality of paintings. All right. Um so let's do a compare and contrast.

This is the Dutch this is a Dutch painting. This is a Catholic Spanish No, sorry. This is actually an Italian Renaissance painting by Karajio. Okay. And this is baby Jesus and Madonna.

And there are two individuals uh who supplicants who are worshiping Madonna. Right? So this is the Catholic mentality which which is God can be with us at any time. Right? So this is the Dutch equivalent where um this is a middle-ass woman and these are two street mi musicians who are um trying to interact with this world.

Okay. What's really important for us to understand is with the rise of the middle class there's a huge focus on hierarchy and boundaries. Why? because the middle class itself is a very fluid, very flexible, very an uncertain group of people. Okay?

So their paintings will reflect this anxiety and this uncertainty. All right? So as you can see the inner world, it's full of light. The out the outer world it is pretty dark. And this this door is a portal.

Okay? Within the house um there's this divinity. But in the outside world there's only darkness and mystery. Okay. So God is within your household basically.

All right. So there's a lot more more uh to be said but as you can see there's a huge contrast between the Catholic mentality and the Calvinist mentality. All right. Let's move on. Um so still life is a very important aspect of Dutch painting.

Dutch um still life it is a encaps it captures the material world as it is. It's a celebration of material world because remember the Catholic celebrate the out the afterlife but the Calvinists the Protestants celebrate the the here and now. Okay. They do that through depictions of the um of of life in in the household. Okay.

And and what will happen is this. At first, um the Dutch Republic is at war and it's very poor because all this money is being is going into the military. But when the war ends, when the Spanish actually conceded independence to the Dutch, you can see the wealth for everyone increases dramatically. Okay? And once there's peace established, then the Dutch will become the wealthiest nation in the world.

and and arguably okay arguably even today the Dutch are still the wealthiest middle class in the world but a lot of their wealth is hidden okay all right um because the Dutch are communist they feel that life is a struggle between their urges and their faith okay so in this painting depicts that um this man who's fat he represents festival he who represents giving into your urges, eating, drinking, being merry and this person is called Lent who which is the Christian virtue of fasting and showing uh restraint, showing temperance. Okay, so the Dutch see life as a constant struggle between your urges and your faith, between your emotions and reason. Okay, and this picture depicts that. And so what what paintings are doing is it's taking all this internal anxiety within you as a person because of your faith and it's transposing it projecting it on to uh the painting in order to create a visual visual depiction of your anxiety as to relieve your anxiety. Okay, that does that logic make sense to you guys?

And that's and that's and that's what drives the need or the desire the demand for middle class art during uh the 17th century. It's it's only about 100 years right from 1600 1700 in the Dutch Republic. And we're only talking about between one and two million people 5 to 10 million paintings will be sold. Okay. 5 to 10 million paintings will be sold.

That's that's the um that gives you a sense of the appetite for the sort of visual depiction. Um one thing that obsesses the Dutch middle class are the poor. Okay. Why? Because the middle class they are an anxious uncertain group of people.

So the way they define themselves is um they try to differentiate themselves from other other groups of people including the poor and the nobility. Okay. So in their in their in their imagination the poor are just gives give themselves up to temptation. Okay. They're drinking all the time.

They're getting drunk. They're they're they're they're lazy. Okay. All right. Does that make sense?

And by depicting the poor in this way, it's almost like like a talisman to protect themselves from being poor. You know, it it it's really taboo. You know, the worst thing that can happen to us is if we become poor people like these people because we'll end up drunks. Um prostitution is also a very um popular theme among um the Dutch middle class. So what's interesting is prostitution at this time it's very popular in the Dutch Republic and hey if you go to the Amsterdam today it's still popular right um it's Amsterdam is sort of famous for the legalization of of prostitutes so at this time what was happening is you have all these prostitutes but good middle class women were responsible for going and negotiating with them in order to satisfy their husbands.

Okay, does that make sense? So this is so the idea of prostitution it is a huge topic um in the Netherlands and it's a cause of a lot of anxiety and uncertainty um and desire within the middle class. All right. Um another depiction of poor people. Okay.

So I can as you can see they're having fun all the time. And if you focus on these two individuals, this man who's who clearly has these sexual urges, he's trying to slowly take this maiden who's resisting but really can't resist into his world, right? And so this is saying like if you ever become poor, you just cannot resist the temptations and the urges of this world. So the worst thing that can ever happen to you is if you become poor. Um another depiction of what it means to be poor.

Okay. To surrender yourself to luxury and to the moment. Um this is a still life. And so the idea of here is one of access. Okay.

And so um the psychology here it's it's it's very interesting. All right. But but let let me give you an analogy. Let's just say that you are trying to lose weight. Okay.

You're kind of fat. You are or you're not you're not fat but you feel um you could lose weight, right? So when you're trying to cut back on food, you have all these temptations. You have all these desires. So one way one strategy that you have is if you watch a lot of videos where fat people are binging on food okay just by watching these people your sort of anxiety your sort of desire decreases and that's the strategy of these paintings where you have these paintings of access and wealth and just by observing these paintings by by putting up these paintings in your household they become signals to you that you should you should not engage in any excessive activity.

You should lead lead a life of moderation and temperance. Okay. Another picture of uh a prostitute, a poor person. Okay. So, you have all these paintings about the life of the poor.

And what's really interesting is yes, um it's obvious we don't be poor, but these paintings are also very seductive, right? They're trying to show you, oh, you know what? It's actually pretty nice, a lot of fun to be poor as well. And and that's what the judgmental class really enjoy. They like they like to enjoy this anxiety between not having something because you because it's bad for you and wanting it.

Okay. Um this is a very famous painting called the precursor. Okay. So remember in this within this world it's very common for middle- class women to go solicit prostitutes for their husbands and the middleman is some is someone called the picarus okay and she looks satanic right so this is an image that is supposed to uh represent sexual desire but as you can see there's very there's some demonic qualities to it okay you can see sort of like the evil eyes and laughter after of the people involved. Does that make sense to you guys?

Um, this is Yanstein, one of most famous painters of this time. Okay. So, so as you can see, there are a lot of paintings that follow these themes. At the same time, you have also depictions of what it means to be a good middle class household. Okay?

So, as you can see, these paintings are ones of simplicity, ones of restraint, ones of temperance, ones of prudence. Okay? So, within these paintings captures a lot of middle class Christian values. All right. Uh this this is another representation.

All right. So you can see the simple Calvinist work ethic being depicted in this picture. Uh this is Rembrandt who is the most famous painter from this par from this period. Okay. Rembrandt.

This is probably the prototypical portrait of a wealthy person in the Dutch Republic. Okay, she's wealthy, but the most important thing is for you to understand, she's simple, right? She's not luxurious and decadent like the Spanish are. She is very restrained. She's very focused.

She's very temperate in her behavior. Okay? So she represents the quintessential wealthy middle class uh woman. All right. All right.

So now let's just discuss why the Dutch are buying these paintings. Okay. The question then is why is why is there an art market? What's the purpose of an art market? And so there are different reasons.

Okay. Well, the first major reason is to show that you're refined. Okay. to engage in beauty to show you have taste. Okay, that's the first reason.

Um, second reason is because of the Cal Calvinist religion, the money not now no longer goes to churches. Okay, churches are meant to be simple. If you go into a Catholic church, it's luxurious. It's golden. But if you go into a Calvinist church, it's very simple.

All right? So now people are transferring their wealth from the temple into the household in order to better worship God. All right? So a lot of these paintings are religious in nature because they're trying to turn the houses house houses houses into churches. All right.

That's second reason. The third reason is the idea of con conspicuous consumption. Conspicuous consumption to enjoy your wealth and to show your wealth off to your neighbors. All right? So when you invite people off to dinner parties, they can they can see how wonderful your artwork is.

U nostalgia is you are thinking about classical Greece, classical Rome. Now and another reason is meditation. Okay. And so we talked about this where the middle class um they're always afraid of becoming poor. Okay.

Um, so what they do is they freeze their anxiety, competition, and uncertainty in a contemplative hole. Okay? They take their anxiety and they project it onto the painting in order to better meditate on the idea of what it means to be middle class. Okay? Does that make sense?

But there are also three more reasons which are more important for us. These three reasons are the representation of the other taboos and boundaries. Okay. So as we can see um the paintings of the poor represent the poor as lazy, excessive and violent. Okay, always giving into their sexual urges.

And so they're trying to create the idea of the other. Okay, the poor are the other that we must at all times avoid. Second reason is transference. Okay. So you have all these desires to eat good food, to engage in sex that you cannot do because of your religion, right?

So you transfer these feelings onto the artwork itself. So the artwork itself becomes the subject of your desire. Does that make sense guys? All right, that's second major reason. The third major reason is just simply hypocrisy.

All right, the artwork is a shield. It's an armor. It's a dress for you to show that you have good values. All right, so these are the three more nefarious reasons why dark becomes popular. And guess what, guys?

They're still true today. All right, these are still the reasons what drives culture today, including literature, uh, movies, okay, artwork. Okay, and so in every age you Sorry, sorry. Um, so let's let's now just summarize what we've learned. Okay, so the Italian Renaissance, you have great artwork from the Italian Renaissance, you have great artwork from the go the Dutch Golden Age.

Okay, what what are the three differences? Well, the first major difference is the Italian Renaissance, it's patronized by the wealthy people. All right? And as such, they're trying to have nostalgia for the past. That's why a lot of the paintings are of classical Greek and Roman uh individuals and his historical and and history and the art is meant to be celebrated by the community.

Okay, that's why they're hung up in churches or public places or in the Vatican. Okay, does that doesn't make sense? That that's the main idea of Italian restaurants. When we get to the Dutch golden age, um it's pigeonized mainly by the middle class who are interested in depicting the present in the here and now. And they're only interested in their individual contemplation with the art.

Okay? Their individual communication and dialogue with the art itself. And this will give rise to the modern art market. Right? Any questions before I move on?

All right. So to summarize, art is a response to the anxiety, uncertainty, and competitiveness of middle class life. Okay? It's still true today. Art encapsulates the alienation of the individual.

And that's still true today, right? That's what art is. Um, this is happening because there are certain pathologies to middle class life. uh that's still true today. All right.

The first pathology is middle class identity demands the control and regulation of yourself and other people. All right. But why? Because you are you have a fear of disorder. Right?

So so we we discussed this where middle class life is competitive, it's anxious, it's uncertain, right? So this creates pathologies within you. And how do these pathologies express themselves? Well, through a fear of disorder, but you also have a fear of germs, okay? Cleanliness, right?

The middle class is obsessed with cleanliness. That's why the middle class, if you if you just mentioned the idea of infectious diseases, okay, germs, they just run away. Okay? They're really afraid of the idea of infectious diseases. Now, last is um sorry, sorry, I sorry, is a fear of loss.

Okay. Sorry, I um this is wrong. Okay. to be fear of loss. So, uh the middle class is also consu obsessed with accumulation achievement.

Okay? And if you think think about it, okay, this explains why Chinese parents are so obsessed with getting their kids into good universities, right? The Ivy League, because of regulation of yourself, cleanliness, and accumulation achievement. So there's no logical reason why your kid must get into Ivy League. All right?

You can't explain to me through pure analysis, pure reason, pure logic why it's important to get your kid into Ivy League. It doesn't really benefit you or the the kid. In fact, I personally believe that um getting Ivy League will actually hurt and hamper your life chances for success. Okay. But if you think about the pathology of the middle class, what it means to be middle class, the fact that they're uncertain and anxious and getting them created IV League is a way to relieve their anxiety, okay?

Their OCD, then it makes sense. Okay. All right. All right. So now I will conclude by talking about who I think is the greatest artist of the Dutch Golden Age.

His name is Johan Vermeier. Okay. In every age um in every movement you will emerge a great artist who subverts the movement okay who shows you the pathologies the problems the ironies the paradoxes within this movement okay so what Johan Verier is really good at doing in his artwork is demonstrating to us the hypocrisy of middle class life right so this is one of his most famous paintings called View from the dev guys. This was paint painted about 1650. I have no idea how he did this.

No one has any idea how he did this. The lighting is perfect. Okay, it's like he had a camera like like an iPhone and he snapped a picture of his city. It's perfect. The lighting is absolutely perfect.

How was he able to do this? All right. And so my only my only explanation, okay, and again it's my theory is what makes great artists different is they're able to dissolve their ego. They're able to dissolve their body and their soul becomes part of the moment. Okay, does that make sense?

So in other words, what Verimeir did is he became the painting itself. The painting became him and then he became the painting. And what he's doing right now, he is just expressing his soul. Okay, so that's my theory. All right, this is his most famous painting.

Okay, I'm sure you guys have seen this girl with the um pearl area, right? This is a beautiful painting, but I will show you some problems or some ironies in this painting. Obviously, this pearl earring is a problem because she's an ordinary person, right? She's maybe a maid. She's a young person.

She's poor. Why would she have an a pearl earring which is extremely precious, extremely valuable, extremely expensive? Okay, that's a question. That's the paradox or mystery within this painting. Then this gives this leads to the question um why is she looking at us seductively right?

She's looking at us with like desire with yearning and then you recognize well she probably has a master a patriot right? She's probably working in a household and maybe there's a relationship of sorts between the maid and the husband. Okay. And so it's a story, it's a novel that draws in your imagination, but more importantly, it shows you the hypocrisy within middle class life. Because the entire purpose of prostitutes is so that the husband would not do this crap at home, right?

Because it's important to maintain the sanctity of the middle class household. It's your temple of worship. So you're not allowed to to seduce your servants. Okay? So this is extremely subversive painting that at the same time seduces us.

It almost begs us to do do the same thing. Okay? It's trying to demonstrate our own sexual deprevity and our own sexual desires. Okay? It shows us the relationship between sex and power.

Does that make sense, guys? Right. Uh this is the milkmaid. Okay. Another really famous painting.

Uh again, and I have no idea how he does, but the lighting is perfect, right? The lighting is absolutely perfect. Not only that, but the lighting is able to highlight the blemishes of the wall, right? So, he could have just made the wall white, but instead he's showing us the cracks, the blemishes within the wall, which is a metaphor for the blemishes and the cracks within middle class boures life. All right.

Now, when you first look at it, you think, "Oh, this is a picture of middle class, simplicity, and hard work, right? She's a virtuous, faithful young woman who's hearty, uh, who's dedicated to her work." Okay? But then you focus on this, right? And there's sexual qualities to this, which is the center of the picture. It's almost like she's peeing or this I mean use your imagination.

Okay, do you understand? Right. So within this wholesome picture is embedded a picture of sexual possibilities. Does that make sense guys? Okay.

And the idea here is it's meant to be subversive. It's it's meant to make you uncomfortable, right? You guys laugh a bit, but but but if you're a middle class person, you have this painting in in your house, you're a bit disturbed by what you see. All right. All right.

Another really famous painting by Vir. Okay. Interesting is we are sneaking in, right? We are looking in. We're spying into the scene.

And that's what and what Vamir is saying is that's what the middle class do. The middle class are afraid of participating, but they love spying, right? They love peering. They love peeking into the taboo and the forbidden. That's that that's why we have art to peer into the forbidden.

Okay? And as you can see, the painter and the model, there's a bit of a sexual energy between the two. Okay? And that's what excites us. That's that's why we're sneaking that that's why we are peeking into this scene.

Okay? We're hiding ourselves behind the curtain and we're trying to capture the sexual possibilities between the two. Okay? Doesn't make sense, guys. Um so these ideas that middle class life, um it's inherently flawed.

There are blemishes, their cracks be uh behind the veneer. It's fundamentally hypocritical. It gets captured in literature later on. Um first in Madame Bovery. Okay.

And then most famously the most famous novel of all time, Anna Karina, right? That middle class life, it's fun fundamentally hypocritical. So on the surface it seems you know Anacarina uh she married a very faithful very loving husband and then she betrayed him to mar and and had this affair that destroys entire families. Um on the surface it shows you the importance of maintain maintaining the sanctity of middle class life of maintaining rules and order because if you don't do so it will lead to disaster and heartbreak. Okay.

But at the same time, you read this novel very closely. It's about a thousand pages. By the way, it also shows you the hypocrisy of middle class life. How Anakrina herself has been oppressed by the taboos and the boundaries set upon her by the world that she lives in. All right.

And that's and that and this is what's going to drive literature from now on. Right? Okay. That's it. Okay.

So, next class we will we will do the rise of England. All right. But it's important that we remember that the British Empire, a lot of the ideas of the British Empire are now being seated in the Dutch Republic, including the idea of multinational corporations, including the idea of capitalism, including the idea of middle class life. Okay. Including the idea of artwork and literature.

Okay, any questions about today? Okay. So, uh next class we will do the rest of England.