Physical Education and Social Transformations: Welfare states, well-being and eugenic habitus (1914 -1945)

A tragic world opens. Two deadly conflicts. The fall of empires upsets the old world. Taylor's efficiency invades the factories. Slow disappearance of the rural world. The first revolts occur in the colonies. 

In France, the workers' conquests. In Spain, transition from social revolution to civil war. In Europe, the business community favors the fascist rise. The nation-state becomes a tyrant.

At the end of the Great War, the nation-state manages the established order. The welfare state asserted itself. Responsible for economic growth, social progress and cultural development. In the United States, crisis of 1929. Social programs. The state engages in the economy. Roosevelt and the New Deal. 

More generally, the state guarantees a minimum level of well-being for the entire population. Variations according to the countries and the times. In the most developed countries, social policies are emerging. Including health, education, notably physical, or housing.

The state remains the providence of the dominant interests confused with the general interest. The state strengthens its powers. Control, supervision and framing of people. All aspects of social life are concerned. The threat of a totalitarian grip.

How have welfare policies relayed providence, protection, control and mass culture? Until the excess.

France is struggling to recover. Casualties. Aging of the population. Human body, energy source of the industry. Tuberculosis, social illness. Problems of hygiene. But also, the Pasteur’s discoveries. A new conception of clean air and nature. The will to reduce misery.

Compulsory physical education is changing. Health for eugenics. Perfection of the race versus degeneration. Doctors, hygienists versus military. Scientific education versus complexity of sport. 

These transformations are embodied in two contradictory examples. Hébert and Tissié.

College of athletes in Reims. Champagne region. Georges Hébert, naval officer, relies on the naturist medical school. To build the natural method.

His targets. Atmosphere of cities. Sedentary lifestyle. Unhealthiness. Intellectualism. Vaccines.

His references. Noble savage. German naturist movements. What practices? Exercises and games in nature. Baths of air, water and sun. Bare bodies. Vegetarian diet.

Hébert disrupts cognitive structures. Hébert versus Ling. Nature versus city. Natural method versus rational gymnastics. 

But Hébert fails to change social structures. The attempt encounters opposition. Science versus empiricism. Decency versus nudity.

Hébert finds a result. The natural method becomes an ethics and a commercial success for women.

Naturist regeneration interest politicians. Leo Lagrange and the Popular Front. But also the collaborationist government of Vichy. The method is promoted national.

Another transformation. Philippe Tissié. Physical education comes to the aid of the degeneration of French youth. The child, the first victim of the Great War.

Targets. Triumphant Americanism. Sport, bad state of mind. Its moral deviations. Disease generator.

What is new? Neuropsychiatrist, nicknamed the French Ling. He promotes a patriotic and republican physical education. Influence of medical hygienists. Franco-Swedish method, grammar of gestures. Good human engines. Moral regeneration of the race. Defence of the "land of France".

He changes the cognitive structures. Regeneration versus degeneration. Hygiene versus social Darwinism.

He influences social structures. Interest of the Third Republic. Method applicable to the masses. The Vichy regime takes its vision. Useful effort, will and self-sacrifice.

Mass culture applies to colonies. The Joinville School defines physical education. Human capital and bush left fallow. Natives to guide on the paths of civilization, the other word for capitalism. Robust bodies. The people resist. Relents of slavery.

1930s. The nation-state became providential. Defence of the land. Regeneration of the race. Conquest of the territories. The horror occurs in Germany. Inequality of the races. National Socialism and Racial Darwinism. Chancellor Hitler radicalizes the cognitive and social structures.

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German boy as strong and stainless as Krupp steel. The Nazi body is committed to the service of the final solution.