Keeping The Flame Alive
‘Dare to know! Have the courage to use your own reason!’ — Emmanual Kant, What Is The Enlightenment?
‘Dare to know! Have the courage to use your own reason!’
— Emmanual Kant, What Is The Enlightenment?
We, the people need a “reenlightenment”. When I think about the great events of pre-history and history, I think of the dawning of human consciousness and intellect — man the toolmaker. I think of the appearance of language — man the meaning maker. I think of the spread of agriculture and city growth — man the social, communal creature. Lastly, I think of the Enlightenment, just a moment in time ago — man the questioner, free, a self-thinker, under nobody’s thumb. The individual as the basis of all that is political, social, even holy.
The Enlightenment was a social force empowering individuals to stand in dignity and to eschew authority for their own reason and wits. As Kant summed it up — we dare to know. The rights of a man are the foundation upon which since, we’ve built societies full of dignity, freedom, wealth.
Erasmus argued that man’s free will was the holiest aspect of all. To be respected by all entities and facets of life. No longer would royals, regents, popes and princes, cardinals and capitalists rule over an uneducated, powerless populace. The will of the people would be paramount and sacrosanct. We would all live and die as free, sentient, fulfilled beings.
The consequences of the Enlightenment have been profound. The hospitals, schools, roads, the glittering towers and abundance of food are all a consequence of the unbottling of the human potential that happened during the enlightenment. People felt empowered because the work they were doing resulted in enough of their own benefit and they had dignity.
However, if you raise your nose to the winds of time, you’ll smell that the smoke off the flame of the Enlightenment is a little less strong. The flame flickers and light is lower.
Over the past few decades, we’ve seen the rise of the corporate behemoth. In concert, governments have bowed to their financial might. The result is a world that isn’t getting better as Pinker insists. There is more to the world than abundance, Netflix and Gucci bags. There is the problem of individual freedom, meaning and self-determination. No, today it’s a world of 996 as the Chinese say — working all day, all week and dying on your feet. It’s a world of 3 jobs for all and a race to the bottom.
Further, it’s a world where governments trample on the rights of individuals and group rights sadly take precedent. Over and over we see judicial rulings that trample on individual rights and favor that of the group. The individual is no longer in vogue or respected. The state, the corporation is primary. Hell, they’ve even defined the corporation as a “person” to co-op statutes protecting individual, human rights.
We forget the message and promise of the Englightenment at our own peril.
In this time of the pandemic, the issue isn’t to vaccinate or not to vaccinate. That’s a sideshow to the real issue — to be free to think on your own feet or to be punished for thinking freely for yourself.
Just like in the early days of the Enlightenment, we see information being censored. We see those who would echo Voltaire’s cry of “ecrasez l’infame” (erase the infamy) stifled and gagged. Journalists are killed daily in the world. The press has become a blowhorn of propaganda. NYTs, CNN, Fox, Atlantic et al. There is no longer a debate, a reasoned (a treasured word of the Enlightenment) debate. No, it is just one side, all the time.
Will people easily turn to their default setting … shut up, accept orthodoxy, let those higher up, the regal, the academics, the leaders decide? Will people just go back into their little room and get ready for work the next day, be happy with the crumbs they’ve got from the knowing ones. Will people?
I see signs that reason is returning. Signs that we won’t allow our governments and corporations to stop us from thinking for ourselves, deciding for ourselves and living our lives freely upon those decisions.
Human thought and reason is essentially good. People are rejecting the belief system that proposes if you don’t do X, you are killing others, evil, a heretic. A belief system that doesn’t treasure the so valuable “dare to know” that Kant proposed so long ago.
The world is not coming to an end as so many want you to believe. You don’t have to take their medicine if you don’t want. You are not a harm to others. You don’t have to accept a self-imposed “nonage” — the inability to use one’s own understanding without another’s guidance. You can, we can, keep the flame of the Enlightenment alive.
We must reject the fear, the pessimism that is winning the day today. Our reach should exceed our grasp, or what’s a heaven for. We must keep on holding the flame of the Enlightenment high.