Modern Civilization And The Age Of Enlightenment

Over the next few posts I'm going to discuss the philosophers of The Enlightenment and how we've become disconnected and perhaps apathetic to the reasoned ideas they bestowed upon our civilization in the West.

My belief is contemporary politics has completely forgotten - perhaps conveniently so - the heritage in our possession thus putting us on a foolish path designed and maintained by knaves and jesters.

I will, furthermore, attempt reveal that while the left are fond of warning us about 'history repeating itself' they in fact sit on the wrong side of The Enlightenment. Sometimes comically and disgracefully so as we see, to be sure, with fundamental Christians.

The weird thing I've detected is that if you suggest a simple position like 'small government' you're chastised. If you warn against rising taxes, you're an 'extremist' or "right-wing extremist." If you ask to consider free-enterprise more profoundly, you're "greedy" and that capitalism is a failed system. Equally destructive and reminiscent of the ignorance of time long gone, if you posit an idea that stands in the way of the progressive (socialist) agenda, you are, apparently, a racist now. Above all, the base root of Enlightenment thought - neigh, of man's thought stretching back to Athens, Rome, Paris, Amsterdam, London and Washington - is liberty.

Could you imagine Smith speaking of "free-enterprise" on campus of our universities? Or Montesquieu or Locke or any of the others? Their talk would be viewed with suspicion and outrage I would guess. Dead-men talking.

Unwittingly, or perhaps otherwise, we've positioned the narrative to lull people into believing we are free and that the state does all for our benefit. Perhaps there is some truth and validity to this up to a point but...I don't believe we're as free as we think. We're freeish. But not free. Alas, like sheep, we've accepted this deal with the government - at best a necessary evil as the Age of Enlightenment believe.

What makes modern punditry on the left so maddening and frightening is their claim to be the holders or spiritual inheritors of the The Enlightenment. That they represent the soul of men like James Madison and Thomas Jefferson. Even though, it's been said, "they are dead white men and the Constitution is a piece of paper that doesn't evolve with the times." Code for it doesn't fit our visions.

Therein lies the major weakness in their views. All that is dead in the flesh, can be safely ignored since those ideas died with them.

They seem to accept this notion for contemporary debate. Yet, they will resurrect the parts of the past that attempts to prove their modern points. It's a knaves game.

To be fair, this is a problem we all face when understanding history. 

We believe civilization persists only with government involvement where the power strings remain in its hands. It's an irrational value to hold indeed since official are but mere mortal men with the same vices and virtues of any man. They suffer the same wounds by their swords we do.

There's a malaise in Western thought.

The thinkers of this period sought to subjugate if not eliminate superstition outright so evident in the Middle-Ages. They drew upon and expanded on the Humanists of the Italian and Northern Renaissance. In their writings, you see their respect for great minds of the period offset with an outrage and scorn for parts of our existence they considered irrational.

We're in an irrational stage.

It is our job to keep alive their ideas and thoughts for when the time comes real leaders of true courage and ability enter the political realm once again.