I'm interested in finding out how many people agree that the "enlightenment" is in crisis. The Enlightenment refers to the "Age of Enlightenment" dating back to the 18th century in which reason became the primary source of authority and legitimacy, an emphasis on the scientific method and reductionism whilst questining religious orthodoxy and ultimately leading to the advance of ideals of liberty, progress, tolerance, constitutional government and the seperation of church and state.
Trump's election victory is symbolic in that the United States is now governed by a person who has regularly rejected scientific evidence (such as on Climate Change), advanced conspiracy theories (such as the Birther Controversy) as well as adopting a range of policy positions that are at best incoherent, assuming he can or does go through with them at all. You could perhaps say the same of George W. Bush junior, but with Trump its more even acute. Taken in isolation this is pretty shocking, but seen in terms of a bigger picture it represents a symptom of the intellectual decay of western societies as we have increasingly attacked the concept of objective truth and using science and reason to attain it.
Depending how you look at it the "symptoms" of crisis could be dated as far back as the early 20th century and the adoption of theories in physics, such as Qauntum Mechanics, Choas Theory or Big Bang Cosmology, that undermined our belief in science's ability to gain knowledge of the physical world. Whether it is the unpredictability of quantum particles, the belief in "unobservable" phenemeona such as "dark matter", or questioning the existence of matter itself- all of this fundamentally weakened materialism as a philosophy by which we could claim to know the world around us through science. [Some may put it earlier or later, but for the sake of argument I'll say it started here.]
The rise of Fascism and Communism in the 1920's and 30's both represented challanges to our understanding of Science, Reason and many of the liberal political ideals that arose from it. This was particuarly true in the 1930's when it looked likely liberalism might go extinct as an economic and political system during the Great Depression. There ultimate failure however, came at the cost of a retreat in science away from "scientific" explanations of man and society as threats to personal liberty such as Marxism or Social Darwinism, as well as making the accusation that these are unproven dogmas opposed to free thought and are pseudo-science.
By the 60's, many ideas of the "New Left" and what eventually evolved into "political correctness" restricted the scope of legitimate free thought in society, Post-Modern views which attacked the objectivity of truth and science as a social construct essentially "equal" to religion in it's subject value, along with many "New Age" religious beliefs as western and eastern religions began to meet and converge on a large scale.
By the 70's, we saw the rise of Islamic Fundamentalism in the Middle East and a resurgence of Christian fundamentalism in the USA. each of these have made significant inroads in challanging belief in natural science such as advocacy of young-earth creationism, intelligent design, literal readings of the Quran and the bible, and deriving political authority from revelation rather than reason.
By the 1980's, the rise of "neoliberalism" was driven heavily by the power of Cold War propaganda that treated liberty as a natural and unalterable condition, based using economic theories which focus on individual transactions and ignoring much larger historical changes as capitalist economies evolved towards "corporate capitalism" with a high degree of planning within corporations, the exercise of corporate power in the state and through mass media over public opinion by advertising and manufactured realities like "reality TV".
Whilst these are tenous threads drawn together and could be debated in turn, each of them represents a significant retreat in the Enlightenment in so far as reason has been replaced by sources of authority other than the individual and the de-valuation of science as a means to attain knowledge. Where this gets serious, is how these forces have then gone from being intellectual challanges to political ones that endangers democratic and liberal institutions, particuarly by undermining public confidence in these institutions by propaganda, and systematic mis-information to manipulate people to vote, think, buy and ultimately "life" in a way that suits a small minority who gains either wealth and power by denying the people the knowledge that means they could govern themselves.
I realise pointing at Trump is not going to be popular with his supporters who- rightly- point to many of the failings and injustices of the status quo as a source of discontent that needs to be addressed. However, many of the criticisms of the current system are the same on both the right and the left in attacking unrestricted government and corporate power, as well the influence of religion on government and societ, as a threat both to reason, science and personal liberty. Both the "right" anf the "left", however you define them, originate from principles shared from the Enlightenment so this is an area where common ground can and arguably should be found. The positive side of this is that the internet- like the printing press- has revolutionise our access to information, and continues to do so. That perhaps may be a source of a "new enlightenment" to challange the crisis of the old one.
What I am interested in, is whether people agree that the enlightenment is in "crisis" and that reason and science are now on the defensive and that "something" (even if its nebulous) should be done. All responses- long and short- are welcome.
[p.s. I Voted "Yes" in the Poll.]
Trump's election victory is symbolic in that the United States is now governed by a person who has regularly rejected scientific evidence (such as on Climate Change), advanced conspiracy theories (such as the Birther Controversy) as well as adopting a range of policy positions that are at best incoherent, assuming he can or does go through with them at all. You could perhaps say the same of George W. Bush junior, but with Trump its more even acute. Taken in isolation this is pretty shocking, but seen in terms of a bigger picture it represents a symptom of the intellectual decay of western societies as we have increasingly attacked the concept of objective truth and using science and reason to attain it.
Depending how you look at it the "symptoms" of crisis could be dated as far back as the early 20th century and the adoption of theories in physics, such as Qauntum Mechanics, Choas Theory or Big Bang Cosmology, that undermined our belief in science's ability to gain knowledge of the physical world. Whether it is the unpredictability of quantum particles, the belief in "unobservable" phenemeona such as "dark matter", or questioning the existence of matter itself- all of this fundamentally weakened materialism as a philosophy by which we could claim to know the world around us through science. [Some may put it earlier or later, but for the sake of argument I'll say it started here.]
The rise of Fascism and Communism in the 1920's and 30's both represented challanges to our understanding of Science, Reason and many of the liberal political ideals that arose from it. This was particuarly true in the 1930's when it looked likely liberalism might go extinct as an economic and political system during the Great Depression. There ultimate failure however, came at the cost of a retreat in science away from "scientific" explanations of man and society as threats to personal liberty such as Marxism or Social Darwinism, as well as making the accusation that these are unproven dogmas opposed to free thought and are pseudo-science.
By the 60's, many ideas of the "New Left" and what eventually evolved into "political correctness" restricted the scope of legitimate free thought in society, Post-Modern views which attacked the objectivity of truth and science as a social construct essentially "equal" to religion in it's subject value, along with many "New Age" religious beliefs as western and eastern religions began to meet and converge on a large scale.
By the 70's, we saw the rise of Islamic Fundamentalism in the Middle East and a resurgence of Christian fundamentalism in the USA. each of these have made significant inroads in challanging belief in natural science such as advocacy of young-earth creationism, intelligent design, literal readings of the Quran and the bible, and deriving political authority from revelation rather than reason.
By the 1980's, the rise of "neoliberalism" was driven heavily by the power of Cold War propaganda that treated liberty as a natural and unalterable condition, based using economic theories which focus on individual transactions and ignoring much larger historical changes as capitalist economies evolved towards "corporate capitalism" with a high degree of planning within corporations, the exercise of corporate power in the state and through mass media over public opinion by advertising and manufactured realities like "reality TV".
Whilst these are tenous threads drawn together and could be debated in turn, each of them represents a significant retreat in the Enlightenment in so far as reason has been replaced by sources of authority other than the individual and the de-valuation of science as a means to attain knowledge. Where this gets serious, is how these forces have then gone from being intellectual challanges to political ones that endangers democratic and liberal institutions, particuarly by undermining public confidence in these institutions by propaganda, and systematic mis-information to manipulate people to vote, think, buy and ultimately "life" in a way that suits a small minority who gains either wealth and power by denying the people the knowledge that means they could govern themselves.
I realise pointing at Trump is not going to be popular with his supporters who- rightly- point to many of the failings and injustices of the status quo as a source of discontent that needs to be addressed. However, many of the criticisms of the current system are the same on both the right and the left in attacking unrestricted government and corporate power, as well the influence of religion on government and societ, as a threat both to reason, science and personal liberty. Both the "right" anf the "left", however you define them, originate from principles shared from the Enlightenment so this is an area where common ground can and arguably should be found. The positive side of this is that the internet- like the printing press- has revolutionise our access to information, and continues to do so. That perhaps may be a source of a "new enlightenment" to challange the crisis of the old one.
What I am interested in, is whether people agree that the enlightenment is in "crisis" and that reason and science are now on the defensive and that "something" (even if its nebulous) should be done. All responses- long and short- are welcome.
[p.s. I Voted "Yes" in the Poll.]
