The Same Four Threads, Finished
Unit 9 completes unit 8's claims
- Total war and political instability in the first half of the 20th century gave way to a polarised state order during the Cold War and eventually to efforts at transnational union.
- That sentence has three stages, and unit 8 delivered only the first — this unit delivers the other two.
- So 9.1 is less a new context than the second half of a sentence you already know.
Put the three stages of the CED's first thread in order.
Unit 8 delivered only the first.
The ideological battle narrows to two
- 8.1's battle was between and among democracy, communism, and fascism; after 1945 one of the three is defeated.
- So the polarised order is what remains when a three-way contest loses a party.
- The word polarised is exact: two poles, and states in Europe distributed between them.
'Polarised' is exact because it means...
What remains when a three-way contest loses a party.
Knowledge and belief keep being questioned
- Diverse intellectual and cultural movements questioned the existence of objective knowledge, the ability of reason to arrive at truth, and the role of religion in determining moral standards.
- 9.14 will name the results: existentialism and postmodernism in the post-1945 period.
- So the thread that began with 5.8's Romanticism has not resolved by the end of the course, and the CED never claims it does.
Which thread, in unit 9's form?
Sort each statement into its thread.
Select all three verbs in the objective.
Three verbs, three places to look.
The 'polarised state order' is what remains when a three-way contest loses a party. 8.1's ideological battle ran between and among democracy, communism, and fascism; after 1945 two poles remain, and European states are distributed between them.
The knowledge thread has not resolved by the end of the course.
The CED never claims it does — 9.14 names existentialism and postmodernism.
And everyday life keeps changing
- Demographic changes, economic growth, total war, disruptions of traditional social patterns, and competing definitions of freedom and justice altered the experiences of everyday life.
- In this unit that means the economic miracle, the baby boom, consumer culture, migration and civil-rights movements.
- Competing definitions of freedom and justice is the phrase that ties the daily thread to the ideological one.
Competing definitions of freedom and ____ tie the everyday thread to the ideological one.
The phrase appears in the fourth thread itself.
Developed, spread, and ended
- The objective is the context in which the Cold War developed, spread, and ended in Europe — three verbs again.
- Developed: a wartime alliance with deep-seated tensions and no shared conception of the state.
- Spread: a global stage, 9.3's phrase. Ended: 9.7's stagnation, reform and collapse.
Two states that fought the same war on the same side disagree about what a state is for. While the fighting lasts, that disagreement is a background noise. When it stops, it is the only thing left to organise the map around.
Unit 9 completes unit 8's four threads: total war gave way to a polarised state order during the Cold War and eventually to efforts at transnational union; the ideological battle narrows from three parties to two; movements keep questioning objective knowledge, reason, and religion's moral role; and competing definitions of freedom and justice continue to alter everyday life. The objective's three verbs are developed, spread, and ended.