© Roger M Tagg 2009 revised 2010
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When people talk about Enlightenment, they could mean either of two different things. One I call The Enlightenment, the other I call just Enlightenment. The Enlightenment is primarily a Western concept, while there are both Western and Eastern forms of Enlightenment. I will mainly be talking about the Western form of Enlightenment. I have added a few comments on the Eastern form at the end.
In Western countries (primarily northern Europe, and North America) there was an enormous opening up of knowledge that came with the so-called Age of Enlightenment between about 1650 and 1800 AD. I take this to mean that ordinary people started to think for themselves, and were no longer afraid to question what was previously held - by authority and tradition - to be unquestionable. Associated with this, as an earlier version of the Wikipedia "Age of Enlightenment" page put it, was the desire to "supplant the authority of aristocracy and established churches in social and political life, forces that were viewed as reactionary, oppressive and superstitious". A suitable Latin motto was sapere aude, i.e. "dare to know".
My question is whether we, as modern individuals, have yet accepted enlightenment.
In medieval times, the individual was not expected to think for him or herself - as the bishop says in GB Shaw's play St Joan, thinking should be left to "mother church". The church and the feudal system supported each other - duty to master and sovereign was part of the deal. All the same, popes and rulers often jostled for power. With wider accessibility to higher education, however, (universities in Europe started around 1200) the situation was bound to change. No-one had a monopoly on thought any more.
There have been brief enlightenments in earlier times, for example the Athens of Socrates and Plato, and the tolerant period or Convivencia in Spain between Moslems, Christians and Jews before the Inquisition got going.
The relatively sudden emergence of The Enlightenment was partly due to the stunning advances of Science at the time. There was a need for the way that many people thought about life to "catch up". Maybe some of those involved went a little too far, either in over-emphasizing the role of reason, or in mandating some integrated and structured system of thought. While some might point the finger at Kant, at least one of his main works had the title "A Critique of Pure Reason".
Others would say that The Enlightenment got hi-jacked by university philosophy professors, some of whom liked to build complex structures and emphasize logical rigour (or rigor if you prefer, but that makes me think of rigor mortis - maybe not such an inappropriate tag).
There are several movements these days that do not like the idea of enlightenment very much. It is possible that they are advocates of their favourite "ism", which they feel is so correct that everyone should follow it without too much thinking and questioning. Fundamentalist religious groups, doctrinaire political parties, marketing people, advertisers and believers of "Authority with a capital A" (see Stephen Law1) are the chief opponents of people thinking for themselves. I call this the "Cassius syndrome" from Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar (where Caesar says of Cassius "he thinks too much - such men are dangerous"). Thinkers are always a prime target for dictators - think of Stalin or Pol Pot; even Socrates was forced to drink the hemlock, and that was in what claimed to be a democracy. Religious authorities, too, sometimes try to "put-down" free thinkers as falling into "secularism" or "apostasy".
Some firebrands blame the Enlightenment for causing the rise of Fascism and the Nazi death camps. Personally, I don't agree at all; but if there is a smear of blame, I would put it down to those extremists who emphasized integrated structures and down-played the role of the individual as against the state or "society". These led to "The Triumph of the Will" (i.e. the rule of physical bully boys) and "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" (alias a clique of doctrinaire power-seekers).
Other critics may attack - with more justification - the idea that rational thought is the answer to everything. I would accept that some extremists of The Enlightenment give that impression; the critic Alastair MacIntyre talks about the failure of the Enlightenment Project - and if the aim was to rationalize everything, then I agree. But I do not think that this was the point, even of The Enlightenment. The aim, to me, was to release mankind from its self-imposed ignorance.
In practice, human instincts, emotion (especially mass hysteria) - and the slog of everyday living - often relegate reason to a back burner. We need to understand these other currents in human existence and the world in general. The essay on Emotional Needs and Traits says more on this topic, and so does "Roger's Hot Cross Buns". For another writer's view, see the Introduction and last 3 pages of Francis Wheen's " How Mumbo-jumbo Conquered the World".
In my view, Enlightenment (as opposed to The Enlightenment), at least in its Western form, is a bit like Existentialism, without the tortuous verbiage and extreme positions of writers like Heidegger and Sartre. It accepts that what we do is our individual choice, and that we have to take personal responsibility. Remaining ignorant, or following the crowd (or someone else's "doxy") is a cop-out. But we have to accept that not everything is totally under our control or "within reason".
Note - for a long time Heidegger was a willing Nazi.
A lot of schools do not turn out enlightened individuals. They allow peer pressure to dominate, and often encourage conformance, seniority by right and passing exams by whatever means. They do not encourage individuals who dare to be different. Mediocrity often thrives because students fear being ostracised for being too keen.
Religions help to bring much good into the world, but they do not always encourage enlightenment either. Recent centuries have seen the decline of compulsion, at least in the West. However some religions and sects have replaced compulsion by the concepts of infallible scripture and "once off revelation". Re-interpretation of original writings to address modern day contexts is discouraged. Our nearest church advertises itself as bible-believing - with whatever that implies. Fundamentalism - and intolerance of other views - seem to be increasing.
Enlightenment is also at risk from political propaganda, advertising, media bias and spin in general.
Possibly the biggest barrier to enlightenment is the "pressure of living". When people are flat out working for a living, making ends meet or avoiding starvation, there is not much time for reflective thinking. I myself only have the chance to write this because I have recently become retired and am in comfortable enough circumstances.
A primary difference with the Eastern form of Enlightenment is that one achieves it though contemplation and reflection. This reflection does not come through theories, reason and empirical scientific observations, but by self-discovery. The idea is to withdraw from the distractions of everyday life. We in the West might criticize the associated notion of "non-action" or "letting things be" as fatalism, but it might be more realistic to describe it as "not overdoing it"2. In Hinduism and Buddhism, the goal is to achieve Nirvana, which is a release from the cycle of re-incarnation. In Zen Buddhism, one does not need to become a hermit to achieve enlightenment, but "scriptures, texts and theory" do not provide the path either2.
Eastern Enlightenment seems to be what strikes one when one stops trying to think too hard and just focuses on the immediate experience. I think it is true that some of our best insights come to us when we are not trying to think so hard. Mine come in the shower, on a walk by myself, or even when I wake up in the middle of the night.
I am not sure that the differences between West and East will always remain. Much of the Western Enlightenment was triggered by a sudden rush of new knowledge - the recovery - after several centuries - of Aristotle's works and the blossoming of the Renaissance and science. A lot of these changes have arrived in the East more recently. India is not the same as it was before it experienced English bureaucracy, cricket and IT, and China is certainly not the same after Mao and the more recent economic boom. These changes won't be turned back, and our philosophies have to cope with them. Let's hope that East and West can share the best aspects of each other's approaches.
I'm not sure that I meet that many people around today who I would call really enlightened. Many hide behind their work, family and other pressures. Even religious involvement can be very "busy", or concerned with orthodoxy, rather than reflective. I wonder if it is inevitable that only a few people will have the time, or make the effort, to take the path of thinking for themselves about things. Maybe the opponents of Enlightenment don't need to worry after all.
If am called on to answer the question "does this all matter?", I would say yes, because thinking for oneself is one's chief defence against all the bullshit that is thrown at us these days.
1 Stephen Law, The War for Children's Minds, Routledge 2006, p62
2 Richard Osborne, Introducing Eastern Philosophy, Icon, 1996
Index to more of these diatribes
Some of these links may be under construction – or re-construction.
This version updated on 2nd March 2010
If you have constructive suggestions or comments, please contact the author rogertag@tpg.com.au .