M & M's

This week in Honors History 10, we have been learning about ideologies. Ideology is a “system of ideas and ideals.” These ideas and ideals form theories about economic or political systems. The ideologies that we studied were liberalism, conservatism and nationalism. These three major ideologys of the 19th century greatly affected the decisions that people made and the actions they took during the 19th century. In order to learn about this, our class created projects about nationalism, liberalism and conservatism. In groups, we had to create projects to explain one of the three ideologies, and we only had one minute! My group chose to create a chatterpix. We animated five m&m's to make their mouths move. We had to explain our topic in an informative and fun way because once we were finished, we had a "throwdown". We viewed everyone's projects in class and then voted on which project was the best in each topic. (Winners got candy :)) The rest of the class then had to formulate a definition of the ideology that the project represented from the groups presentation. 

View our project about nationalism here. 

Although the presentation seems silly because we used candy to represent nationalism, it gets the point across. In the 19th century, nationalism was the idea that a nation was bound together by their past, their language and their customs. Nationalism influenced social and political action by making Germany and Italy feel the need to unite within their respective countries while Napoleon controlled them. If people with similar customs and beliefs work together and combine their efforts, they can make progress faster, and make advancements in society. Our project is similar to the situation that arose in Italy in Germany. The m&m’s are divided because they are all different colors, just as the city- states in Italy were divided. Then the skittle (he isn’t chocolate like the m&m’s) tries to take over. The m&m’s then realize that they need to unite and gain their freedom back. The ‘people’ that had similarities combined their efforts, united and worked for a common goal. In the 19th century, people with similarities, such as those in Italy and in Germany united to fight for a common goal, to drive Napoleon out of their respective countries. 

In addition to learning about nationalism, our class also learned about liberalism and conservatism. We learned that liberalism is a system of government based on rights, freedom and merit for the middle class during the 19th century. This means that liberals not only believed in rights and freedom, but that they also believed in giving jobs to those who were the most qualified instead of giving jobs to people because of their birthright. Liberals also advocated for the middle class to be able to make their own choices about contributing to the economy. This could mean that they could choose what goods they bought, sold and generally how they participated to the economy. Liberals advocated and promoted the middle class, but not the poor. They feared the poor a bit. Liberals were also against traditional ideas such as the monarchy, aristocracy and the power of the Roman Catholic Church. They wanted change for their respective countries, not for traditional values and practices to remain in place. Liberalism influenced social and political action during the 19th century. Instead of absolutism of monarchs, people had ideas to create the government themselves and to involve the middle class in the government. On the other hand, conservatives promoted traditional values. For example, conservatives believed in things such as the traditional monarchy, the power of the kings and the power of the Roman Catholic Church. They didn’t believe in change and believed revolutions were bad. Conservatism influenced social and political action during the 19th century by keeping monarchy's in European countries and reinstating the monarchy in places such as France after Napoleon was exiled.