RE: Is it too early or late to judge the enlightenment?
November 24, 2013 at 3:17 pm
(This post was last modified: November 24, 2013 at 3:20 pm by MindForgedManacle.)
There's no 'right' answer to this. We don't reason in a vacuum, so ho this is answered will necessarily depend on your preferences and values.
Now, I think some of the responses ("Science." and "Democracy has been a failure in every aspect") are way too simplistic. In terms of tolerance, to say we haven't improved is self-evidently absurd. That's not to say that it has been eliminated, but to question if we've improved it at all sounds like postmodern-ish bullshit.
The philosopher Adorno once wrote a book on this very topic (Dialectic of Enlightenment), and while I didn't agree with his take (at least not entirely), I do think it was an interesting investigation. For somone like Immanuel Kant, the Enlightenment was the means by which man could break free from the shackles of mystery-inducing authority by means of illuminating the world with the light of reason in a way that all can come to understand.
What Adorno wants to do is question that narrative and delve into the history of it, and how (among other things) this apparent beacon of light to the world led to the continually increasing acts of violence, especially those in his lifetime like the Holocause and World War II. In addition, he wants to gauge whether or not what was promised to us throughout the Enlightenment and by essentially all its main contributors was just a delusion, given the nightmares it allowed and - at times - promulgated.
If you want an interesting look into this, I'd recommend checking out Adorno's book "Dialectic of Enlightenment".
Now, I think some of the responses ("Science." and "Democracy has been a failure in every aspect") are way too simplistic. In terms of tolerance, to say we haven't improved is self-evidently absurd. That's not to say that it has been eliminated, but to question if we've improved it at all sounds like postmodern-ish bullshit.
The philosopher Adorno once wrote a book on this very topic (Dialectic of Enlightenment), and while I didn't agree with his take (at least not entirely), I do think it was an interesting investigation. For somone like Immanuel Kant, the Enlightenment was the means by which man could break free from the shackles of mystery-inducing authority by means of illuminating the world with the light of reason in a way that all can come to understand.
What Adorno wants to do is question that narrative and delve into the history of it, and how (among other things) this apparent beacon of light to the world led to the continually increasing acts of violence, especially those in his lifetime like the Holocause and World War II. In addition, he wants to gauge whether or not what was promised to us throughout the Enlightenment and by essentially all its main contributors was just a delusion, given the nightmares it allowed and - at times - promulgated.
If you want an interesting look into this, I'd recommend checking out Adorno's book "Dialectic of Enlightenment".
"The reason things will never get better is because people keep electing these rich cocksuckers who don't give a shit about you."
-George Carlin
-George Carlin
