Tuesday, March 19, AD 2024 12:04am

Myths of the Enlightenment

Few historical categories are more fatuous than the lumping together of very diverse movements and individuals in the term “Enlightenment”.   Like many bad ideas in reference to History, the idea of The Age of Enlightenment was a product of late nineteenth century historians.  It is an erroneous concept that gives us a very bad misunderstanding of the eighteenth century, and creates out of whole cloth an intellectual movement that existed, in part, only in France, and when applied to other nations gives a completely false impression of the times.  It lumps together technological advancements, philosophical skepticism of religion and various reform movements that usually had little in common.   That the eighteenth century came to a sudden end with the catastrophe of The French Revolution, a monumental event that cast a backward shadow over all that occurred in that century, makes the century hard enough to understand without the self-inflicted wound of “the Enlightenment” that has been visited by most historians on the study of that fascinating, and complex, time.

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Micha Elyi
Micha Elyi
Monday, December 30, AD 2019 3:17pm

Tut-tutting at “dogmatic medievals” is the other side of the Enlightenment-worship coin.

If you like modern physical science then thank medieval Catholic churchmen, they invented it. If you like due process then thank medieval Catholic inquisitioners, they invented it. If you like limited government then thank medieval Catholics, that renowned Magna Carta which curtailed the Norman King John was written by our Catholic bishops (the Latin name should have been a clue to its Catholic origins.)

I’m not claiming that Catholic Christians invented everything, but I do see that Yoram Hazony has overlooked a lot that could have made his case against reflexively attributing all that we consider modern to the so-called Enlightenment.

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Monday, December 30, AD 2019 5:31pm

Science medicine markets and freedom aren’t part of the modern miracle of the Enligjtenment?

That’s the second headline I’ve seen today that, had he known, ought to have caused Jonah Goldberg to pulp his latest book.

Alas, poor Jonah. I knew him, well. Before the corruption of NeverTrump took him.

Tom Byrne
Tom Byrne
Monday, December 30, AD 2019 6:35pm

Micha:
The speaker surely refers to the immediate rather than the ultimate sources of the things you mention, particularly focussing on the Anglo-sphere, since English and Scottish thinkers would have the greatest influence on US traditions and law.
A few objections: Rousseau was hardly a central Enlightenment figure, considered a fraud and imposter by Hume, Diderot, Voltaire and the rest. Goethe was a foundational winter of German Romanticism. Hard to see why he’s in the frame above.

Michael Dowd
Michael Dowd
Tuesday, December 31, AD 2019 2:21am

The Enlightenment is a Progressive PR term used to promote a rejection of the past and Catholicism in particular. Now even our “Pope” is on the same bandwagon.

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