I’ve been nurturing the prejudice that the so-called Enlightenment is responsible for the mess of today’s American “democracy.” The truth is, we’ve never followed through.
The Enlightenment I’m referring to is the economic, intellectual, and social movement that emerged in Western Europe in the early 18th century. Scientific investigation, industrial and technological developments, and laws governing the interactions of workers and owners began adding up to what we’ve come to view as modernization. During that time, Religion lost its power to illuminate humanity’s Ultimate Concerns (let’s say) as Reason stepped in. A few names associated with the Enlightenment include Descartes, Newton, Spinoza, Kant, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Voltaire.
The American experiment, as some call it, was launched in the late 18th century on the coattails of men who subscribed to Enlightenment ideas. On fire with the opportunity to establish something new in human history, they prosecuted a shooting war for independence and a war of words for the re-creation of democracy from an ancient model. As a consequence, laden with its ideals and its flaws, we’ve rolled with the fruit of Enlightenment down these two hundred years. Or rather, lumped along with it.
In the light of my short lifespan, it appears to me that Enlightenment philosophy has come to mean something less than its lofty and humane ideals. In brief, the principle of self-determination has come to mean “do-as-I-please individualism.” Liberty is perverted to “every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost.” Compassion is denigrated as “socialism.” Science is set in opposition to Faith, and faith has taken a literalist spin in defense of God (who didn’t need defending) and dug in its dogmatic heels. All this adds up to endless divisions among people supposedly devoted to the common cause of democracy–that is, to the value of each and every voice.
The Enlightenment may have set the human mind free from superstition and the fear of natural forces. The Enlightenment may have opened minds to the doubts and questions that energize science. The Enlightenment may have broken the bondage of hereditary tyranny in Western Europe. What The Enlightenment did not do was bring about liberty and justice FOR ALL in America. After two hundred years, we’re still struggling with how to do that.
Where we have most failed, in my opinion, is in public education. We’ve edited our own history down to a mythology. We’ve utterly devalued the calling of teachers. We’ve let the infrastructure of schools from the nursery to the university decay and crumble. We’ve lowered the expectation of learning from critical thinking to picking right answers.
No one has time in this complicated world to learn all the answers. But everyone has the capacity to ask creative questions. Everyone deserves a door to opportunity. We must teach those two fundamental languages: words and mathematics. We must encourage curiosity over success. We must support the many paths to life-sustaining work for all kinds of minds, all kinds of abilities. We must determine to pay for all this out of our national abundance, dreamed in the hearts and built on the backs of people “yearning to breathe free.” Wealth hoarded at the top is worse than taxation without representation.
Time for some real enlightenment. Liberty and Justice and Education for all.
I have long thought the Enlightenment was overrated — both in its low view of religion and its failures to free the human mind in generative ways. Sigh.
You are so right about our education. We just have to look at our political results to know we have failed to educate our young people.
Hear, hear!! Very well said, my friend! May you have a joyous Easter.
You are so correct when you point out that education has failed. This failure is escalating because schools are abandoning the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic and instead focusing on social issues: race, gender, etc. Every subject us being filtered through these criteria first. Critical thinking is no longer permitted! Just ask any high school or college student if he dares to espouse a contrary opinion in the classroom. Words are being redefined every day and many are no longer permitted, eg. “illegal alien.” I respectfully disagree with your characterization of self-determination and individualism as every man for himself. I would define it as being responsible for one’s own words, thoughts and actions. And if each of us takes responsibility for himself, we are so much better equipped to take care of others. And is that not your ultimate wish?
Hello, Caroline McQueen. Thanks for your comments. I have little firsthand contact with education these days, so I can’t comment on any curriculum. Indeed, states and communities seem to set different standards according to local persuasions. Perhaps that’s how it should be, as long as constituents take time to be informed and communicative.
As a “word person,” I am certainly interested in the implications of certain words and phrases. We no longer call people with disabilities “cripples” or “handicapped.” Yes, “differently abled” or “person with [name of disability]” might seem cumbersome. But these words emphasize the humanity of the person, not the category that separates them from others. Obviously, there are many other revisions in language that are more or less successful. We can be sure that such changes will continue, whether we like them or not. Critical thinking will shape what sticks and what doesn’t.
Finally, I do not believe that self-determination, etc. means “every man for himself.” I called that description a perversion of the original meaning. I believe in independent thinking, personal ambition, compassion, and other qualities that create a strong society. However, society, or community, means working together, assisting others, and in many cases, compromise. Let’s fix our eyes on the goal of “love thy neighbor.”
Hope you’ll come back here.