What’s in a worldview? | Todd Weir | TEDxUniversityofGroningen

It is often said that those who don’t understand history are doomed to repeat it. As a historian, I am a bit more humble. I think the task of history is to illuminate key aspects of the present day from a new angle and in this way give us new approaches to old problems. In this TED talk I will challenge you to rethink your assumptions about one of the key concepts in today’s thinking about politics and religion: worldview. If you turn on the news, you may hear pundits ask “what is Trump’s worldview?” or speak of a “clash of worldviews” behind Brexit. Yet, this word, which seems so suited to our present day, has made a long journey. Where did the term worldview originate? How did it come to represent both religion and secular philosophies, politics as well as culture? What is “Christian
worldview”? Why did Hitler embrace this term for his movement, while after the war American liberals rejected it? By delving into the history of Germany, the Netherlands and the United States to answer these questions, we will arrive back at the present moment and see the clash of worldviews in a new light. Todd Weir is Professor of History of Christianity and Modern Culture at the University of Groningen. His research revolves around the relationship between religion and secularism. In 2014 he published a study on Secularism and Religion in Nineteenth Century Germany: The Rise of the Fourth Confession with Cambridge University Press. Todd is now researching the transnational history of the term worldview/Weltanschauung from 1790 to the present. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx