Podcasts about french enlightenment

So what, exactly, was “The Enlightenment”? According to the Princeton historian David A. Bell, it was an intellectual movement roughly spanning the early 18th century through to the French Revolution. In his Spring 2025 Liberties Quarterly piece “The Enlightenment, Then and Now”, Bell charts the Enlightenment as a complex intellectual movement centered in Paris but with hubs across Europe and America. He highlights key figures like Montesquieu, Voltaire, Kant, and Franklin, discussing their contributions to concepts of religious tolerance, free speech, and rationality. In our conversation, Bell addresses criticisms of the Enlightenment, including its complicated relationship with colonialism and slavery, while arguing that its principles of freedom and reason remain relevant today. 5 Key Takeaways* The Enlightenment emerged in the early 18th century (around 1720s) and was characterized by intellectual inquiry, skepticism toward religion, and a growing sense among thinkers that they were living in an "enlightened century."* While Paris was the central hub, the Enlightenment had multiple centers including Scotland, Germany, and America, with thinkers like Voltaire, Rousseau, Kant, Hume, and Franklin contributing to its development.* The Enlightenment introduced the concept of "society" as a sphere of human existence separate from religion and politics, forming the basis of modern social sciences.* The movement had a complex relationship with colonialism and slavery - many Enlightenment thinkers criticized slavery, but some of their ideas about human progress were later used to justify imperialism.* According to Bell, rather than trying to "return to the Enlightenment," modern society should selectively adopt and adapt its valuable principles of free speech, religious tolerance, and education to create our "own Enlightenment."David Avrom Bell is a historian of early modern and modern Europe at Princeton University. His most recent book, published in 2020 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, is Men on Horseback: The Power of Charisma in the Age of Revolution. Described in the Journal of Modern History as an "instant classic," it is available in paperback from Picador, in French translation from Fayard, and in Italian translation from Viella. A study of how new forms of political charisma arose in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the book shows that charismatic authoritarianism is as modern a political form as liberal democracy, and shares many of the same origins. Based on exhaustive research in original sources, the book includes case studies of the careers of George Washington, Napoleon Bonaparte, Toussaint Louverture and Simon Bolivar. The book's Introduction can be read here. An online conversation about the book with Annette Gordon-Reed, hosted by the Cullman Center of the New York Public Library, can be viewed here. Links to material about the book, including reviews in The New York Review of Books, The Guardian, Harper's, The New Republic, The Nation, Le Monde, The Los Angeles Review of Books and other venues can be found here. Bell is also the author of six previous books. He has published academic articles in both English and French and contributes regularly to general interest publications on a variety of subjects, ranging from modern warfare, to contemporary French politics, to the impact of digital technology on learning and scholarship, and of course French history. A list of his publications from 2023 and 2024 can be found here. His Substack newsletter can be found here. His writings have been translated into French, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Hebrew, Swedish, Polish, Russian, German, Croatian, Italian, Turkish and Japanese. At the History Department at Princeton University, he holds the Sidney and Ruth Lapidus Chair in the Era of North Atlantic Revolutions, and offers courses on early modern Europe, on military history, and on the early modern French empire. Previously, he spent fourteen years at Johns Hopkins University, including three as Dean of Faculty in its School of Arts and Sciences. From 2020 to 2024 he served as Director of the Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies at Princeton. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a corresponding fellow of the British Academy. Bell's new project is a history of the Enlightenment. A preliminary article from the project was published in early 2022 by Modern Intellectual History. Another is now out in French History.Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting the daily KEEN ON show, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy interview series. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children. FULL TRANSCRIPTAndrew Keen: Hello everybody, in these supposedly dark times, the E word comes up a lot, the Enlightenment. Are we at the end of the Enlightenment or the beginning? Was there even an Enlightenment? My guest today, David Bell, a professor of history, very distinguished professor of history at Princeton University, has an interesting piece in the spring issue of It is One of our, our favorite quarterlies here on Keen on America, Bell's piece is The Enlightenment Then and Now, and David is joining us from the home of the Enlightenment, perhaps Paris in France, where he's on sabbatical hard life. David being an academic these days, isn't it?David Bell: Very difficult. I'm having to suffer the Parisian bread and croissant. It's terrible.Andrew Keen: Yeah. Well, I won't keep you too long. Is Paris then, or France? Is it the home of the Enlightenment? I know there are many Enlightenments, the French, the Scottish, maybe even the English, perhaps even the American.David Bell: It's certainly one of the homes of the Enlightenment, and it's probably the closest that the Enlightened had to a center, absolutely. But as you say, there were Edinburgh, Glasgow, plenty of places in Germany, Philadelphia, all those places have good claims to being centers of the enlightenment as well.Andrew Keen: All the same David, is it like one of those sports games in California where everyone gets a medal?David Bell: Well, they're different metals, right, but I think certainly Paris is where everybody went. I mean, if you look at the figures from the German Enlightenment, from the Scottish Enlightenment from the American Enlightenment they all tended to congregate in Paris and the Parisians didn't tend to go anywhere else unless they were forced to. So that gives you a pretty good sense of where the most important center was.Andrew Keen: So David, before we get to specifics, map out for us, because everyone is perhaps as familiar or comfortable with the history of the Enlightenment, and certainly as you are. When did it happen? What years? And who are the leaders of this thing called the Enlightenment?David Bell: Well, that's a big question. And I'm afraid, of course, that if you ask 10 historians, you'll get 10 different answers.Andrew Keen: Well, I'm only asking you, so I only want one answer.David Bell: So I would say that the Enlightenment really gets going around the first couple of decades of the 18th century. And that's when people really start to think that they are actually living in what they start to call an Enlightenment century. There are a lot of reasons for this. They are seeing what we now call the scientific revolution. They're looking at the progress that has been made with that. They are experiencing the changes in the religious sphere, including the end of religious wars, coming with a great deal of skepticism about religion. They are living in a relative period of peace where they're able to speculate much more broadly and daringly than before. But it's really in those first couple of decades that they start thinking of themselves as living in an enlightened century. They start defining themselves as something that would later be called the enlightenment. So I would say that it's, really, really there between maybe the end of the 17th century and 1720s that it really gets started.Andrew Keen: So let's have some names, David, of philosophers, I guess. I mean, if those are the right words. I know that there was a term in French. There is a term called philosoph. Were they the founders, the leaders of the Enlightenment?David Bell: Well, there is a... Again, I don't want to descend into academic quibbling here, but there were lots of leaders. Let me give an example, though. So the year 1721 is a remarkable year. So in the year, 1721, two amazing events happened within a couple of months of each other. So in May, Montesquieu, one of the great philosophers by any definition, publishes his novel called Persian Letters. And this is an incredible novel. Still, I think one of greatest novels ever written, and it's very daring. It is the account, it is supposedly a an account written by two Persian travelers to Europe who are writing back to people in Isfahan about what they're seeing. And it is very critical of French society. It is very of religion. It is, as I said, very daring philosophically. It is a product in part of the increasing contact between Europe and the rest of the world that is also very central to the Enlightenment. So that novel comes out. So it's immediately, you know, the police try to suppress it. But they don't have much success because it's incredibly popular and Montesquieu doesn't suffer any particular problems because...Andrew Keen: And the French police have never been the most efficient police force in the world, have they?David Bell: Oh, they could be, but not in this case. And then two months later, after Montesquieu published this novel, there's a German philosopher much less well-known than Montesqiu, than Christian Bolz, who is a professor at the Universität Haller in Prussia, and he gives an oration in Latin, a very typical university oration for the time, about Chinese philosophy, in which he says that the Chinese have sort of proved to the world, particularly through the writings of Confucius and others, that you can have a virtuous society without religion. Obviously very controversial. Statement for the time it actually gets him fired from his job, he has to leave the Kingdom of Prussia within 48 hours on penalty of death, starts an enormous controversy. But here are two events, both of which involving non-European people, involving the way in which Europeans are starting to look out at the rest of the world and starting to imagine Europe as just one part of a larger humanity, and at the same time they are starting to speculate very daringly about whether you can have. You know, what it means to have a society, do you need to have religion in order to have morality in society? Do you need the proper, what kind of government do you need to to have virtuous conduct and a proper society? So all of these things get, you know, really crystallize, I think, around these two incidents as much as anything. So if I had to pick a single date for when the enlightenment starts, I'd probably pick that 1721.Andrew Keen: And when was, David, I thought you were going to tell me about the earthquake in Lisbon, when was that earthquake?David Bell: That earthquake comes quite a bit later. That comes, and now historians should be better with dates than I am. It's in the 1750s, I think it's the late 1750's. Again, this historian is proving he's getting a very bad grade for forgetting the exact date, but it's in 1750. So that's a different kind of event, which sparks off a great deal of commentary, because it's a terrible earthquake. It destroys most of the city of Lisbon, it destroys other cities throughout Portugal, and it leads a lot of the philosophy to philosophers at the time to be speculating very daringly again on whether there is any kind of real purpose to the universe and whether there's any kind divine purpose. Why would such a terrible thing happen? Why would God do such a thing to his followers? And certainly VoltaireAndrew Keen: Yeah, Votav, of course, comes to mind of questioning.David Bell: And Condit, Voltaire's novel Condit gives a very good description of the earthquake in Lisbon and uses that as a centerpiece. Voltair also read other things about the earthquake, a poem about Lisbon earthquake. But in Condit he gives a lasting, very scathing portrait of the Catholic Church in general and then of what happens in Portugal. And so the Lisbon Earthquake is certainly another one of the events, but it happens considerably later. Really in the middle of the end of life.Andrew Keen: So, David, you believe in this idea of the Enlightenment. I take your point that there are more than one Enlightenment in more than one center, but in broad historical terms, the 18th century could be defined at least in Western and Northern Europe as the period of the Enlightenment, would that be a fair generalization?David Bell: I think it's perfectly fair generalization. Of course, there are historians who say that it never happened. There's a conservative British historian, J.C.D. Clark, who published a book last summer, saying that the Enlightenment is a kind of myth, that there was a lot of intellectual activity in Europe, obviously, but that the idea that it formed a coherent Enlightenment was really invented in the 20th century by a bunch of progressive reformers who wanted to claim a kind of venerable and august pedigree for their own reform, liberal reform plans. I think that's an exaggeration. People in the 18th century defined very clearly what was going on, both people who were in favor of it and people who are against it. And while you can, if you look very closely at it, of course it gets a bit fuzzy. Of course it's gets, there's no single, you can't define a single enlightenment project or a single enlightened ideology. But then, I think people would be hard pressed to define any intellectual movement. You know, in perfect, incoherent terms. So the enlightenment is, you know by compared with almost any other intellectual movement certainly existed.Andrew Keen: In terms of a philosophy of the Enlightenment, the German thinker, Immanuel Kant, seems to be often, and when you describe him as the conscience or the brain or a mixture of the conscience and brain of the enlightenment, why is Kant and Kantian thinking so important in the development of the Enlightenment.David Bell: Well, that's a really interesting question. And one reason is because most of the Enlightenment was not very rigorously philosophical. A lot of the major figures of the enlightenment before Kant tended to be writing for a general public. And they often were writing with a very specific agenda. We look at Voltaire, Diderot, Rousseau. Now you look at Adam Smith in Scotland. We look David Hume or Adam Ferguson. You look at Benjamin Franklin in the United States. These people wrote in all sorts of different genres. They wrote in, they wrote all sorts of different kinds of books. They have many different purposes and very few of them did a lot of what we would call rigorous academic philosophy. And Kant was different. Kant was very much an academic philosopher. Kant was nothing if not rigorous. He came at the end of the enlightenment by most people's measure. He wrote these very, very difficult, very rigorous, very brilliant works, such as The Creek of Pure Reason. And so, it's certainly been the case that people who wanted to describe the Enlightenment as a philosophy have tended to look to Kant. So for example, there's a great German philosopher and intellectual historian of the early 20th century named Ernst Kassirer, who had to leave Germany because of the Nazis. And he wrote a great book called The Philosophy of the Enlightened. And that leads directly to Immanuel Kant. And of course, Casir himself was a Kantian, identified with Kant. And so he wanted to make Kant, in a sense, the telos, the end point, the culmination, the fulfillment of the Enlightenment. But so I think that's why Kant has such a particularly important position. You're defining it both ways.Andrew Keen: I've always struggled to understand what Kant was trying to say. I'm certainly not alone there. Might it be fair to say that he was trying to transform the universe and certainly traditional Christian notions into the Enlightenment, so the entire universe, the world, God, whatever that means, that they were all somehow according to Kant enlightened.David Bell: Well, I think that I'm certainly no expert on Immanuel Kant. And I would say that he is trying to, I mean, his major philosophical works are trying to put together a system of philosophical thinking which will justify why people have to act morally, why people act rationally, without the need for Christian revelation to bolster them. That's a very, very crude and reductionist way of putting it, but that's essentially at the heart of it. At the same time, Kant was very much aware of his own place in history. So Kant didn't simply write these very difficult, thick, dense philosophical works. He also wrote things that were more like journalism or like tablets. He wrote a famous essay called What is Enlightenment? And in that, he said that the 18th century was the period in which humankind was simply beginning to. Reach a period of enlightenment. And he said, he starts the essay by saying, this is the period when humankind is being released from its self-imposed tutelage. And we are still, and he said we do not yet live in the midst of a completely enlightened century, but we are getting there. We are living in a century that is enlightening.Andrew Keen: So the seeds, the seeds of Hegel and maybe even Marx are incant in that German thinking, that historical thinking.David Bell: In some ways, in some ways of course Hegel very much reacts against Kant and so and then Marx reacts against Hegel. So it's not exactly.Andrew Keen: Well, that's the dialectic, isn't it, David?David Bell: A simple easy path from one to the other, no, but Hegel is unimaginable without Kant of course and Marx is unimagineable without Hegel.Andrew Keen: You note that Kant represents a shift in some ways into the university and the walls of the universities were going up, and that some of the other figures associated with the the Enlightenment and Scottish Enlightenment, human and Smith and the French Enlightenment Voltaire and the others, they were more generalist writers. Should we be nostalgic for the pre-university period in the Enlightenment, or? Did things start getting serious once the heavyweights, the academic heavyweighs like Emmanuel Kant got into this thing?David Bell: I think it depends on where we're talking about. I mean, Adam Smith was a professor at Glasgow in Edinburgh, so Smith, the Scottish Enlightenment was definitely at least partly in the universities. The German Enlightenment took place very heavily in universities. Christian Vodafoy I just mentioned was the most important German philosopher of the 18th century before Kant, and he had positions in university. Even the French university system, for a while, what's interesting about the French University system, particularly the Sorbonne, which was the theology faculty, It was that. Throughout the first half of the 18th century, there were very vigorous, very interesting philosophical debates going on there, in which the people there, particularly even Jesuits there, were very open to a lot of the ideas we now call enlightenment. They were reading John Locke, they were reading Mel Pench, they were read Dekalb. What happened though in the French universities was that as more daring stuff was getting published elsewhere. Church, the Catholic Church, started to say, all right, these philosophers, these philosophies, these are our enemies, these are people we have to get at. And so at that point, anybody who was in the university, who was still in dialog with these people was basically purged. And the universities became much less interesting after that. But to come back to your question, I do think that I am very nostalgic for that period. I think that the Enlightenment was an extraordinary period, because if you look between. In the 17th century, not all, but a great deal of the most interesting intellectual work is happening in the so-called Republic of Letters. It's happening in Latin language. It is happening on a very small circle of RUD, of scholars. By the 19th century following Kant and Hegel and then the birth of the research university in Germany, which is copied everywhere, philosophy and the most advanced thinking goes back into the university. And the 18th century, particularly in France, I will say, is a time when the most advanced thought is being written for a general public. It is being in the form of novels, of dialogs, of stories, of reference works, and it is very, very accessible. The most profound thought of the West has never been as accessible overall as in the 18 century.Andrew Keen: Again, excuse this question, it might seem a bit naive, but there's a lot of pre-Enlightenment work, books, thinking that we read now that's very accessible from Erasmus and Thomas More to Machiavelli. Why weren't characters like, or are characters like Erasmuus, More's Utopia, Machiavell's prints and discourses, why aren't they considered part of the Enlightenment? What's the difference between? Enlightened thinkers or the supposedly enlightened thinkers of the 18th century and thinkers and writers of the 16th and 17th centuries.David Bell: That's a good question, you know, I think you have to, you, you know, again, one has to draw a line somewhere. That's not a very good answer, of course. All these people that you just mentioned are, in one way or another, predecessors to the Enlightenment. And of course, there were lots of people. I don't mean to say that nobody wrote in an accessible way before 1700. Obviously, lots of the people you mentioned did. Although a lot of them originally wrote in Latin, Erasmus, also Thomas More. But I think what makes the Enlightened different is that you have, again, you have a sense. These people have have a sense that they are themselves engaged in a collective project, that it is a collective project of enlightenment, of enlightening the world. They believe that they live in a century of progress. And there are certain principles. They don't agree on everything by any means. The philosophy of enlightenment is like nothing more than ripping each other to shreds, like any decent group of intellectuals. But that said, they generally did believe That people needed to have freedom of speech. They believed that you needed to have toleration of different religions. They believed in education and the need for a broadly educated public that could be as broad as possible. They generally believed in keeping religion out of the public sphere as much as possible, so all those principles came together into a program that we can consider at least a kind of... You know, not that everybody read it at every moment by any means, but there is an identifiable enlightenment program there, and in this case an identifiable enlightenment mindset. One other thing, I think, which is crucial to the Enlightenment, is that it was the attention they started to pay to something that we now take almost entirely for granted, which is the idea of society. The word society is so entirely ubiquitous, we assume it's always been there, and in one sense it has, because the word societas is a Latin word. But until... The 18th century, the word society generally had a much narrower meaning. It referred to, you know, particular institution most often, like when we talk about the society of, you know, the American philosophical society or something like that. And the idea that there exists something called society, which is the general sphere of human existence that is separate from religion and is separate from the political sphere, that's actually something which only really emerged at the end of the 1600s. And it became really the focus of you know, much, if not most, of enlightenment thinking. When you look at someone like Montesquieu and you look something, somebody like Rousseau or Voltaire or Adam Smith, probably above all, they were concerned with understanding how society works, not how government works only, but how society, what social interactions are like beginning of what we would now call social science. So that's yet another thing that distinguishes the enlightened from people like Machiavelli, often people like Thomas More, and people like bonuses.Andrew Keen: You noted earlier that the idea of progress is somehow baked in, in part, and certainly when it comes to Kant, certainly the French Enlightenment, although, of course, Rousseau challenged that. I'm not sure whether Rousseaut, as always, is both in and out of the Enlightenment and he seems to be in and out of everything. How did the Enlightement, though, make sense of itself in the context of antiquity, as it was, of Terms, it was the Renaissance that supposedly discovered or rediscovered antiquity. How did many of the leading Enlightenment thinkers, writers, how did they think of their own society in the context of not just antiquity, but even the idea of a European or Western society?David Bell: Well, there was a great book, one of the great histories of the Enlightenment was written about more than 50 years ago by the Yale professor named Peter Gay, and the first part of that book was called The Modern Paganism. So it was about the, you know, it was very much about the relationship between the Enlightenment and the ancient Greek synonyms. And certainly the writers of the enlightenment felt a great deal of kinship with the ancient Greek synonymous. They felt a common bond, particularly in the posing. Christianity and opposing what they believed the Christian Church had wrought on Europe in suppressing freedom and suppressing free thought and suppassing free inquiry. And so they felt that they were both recovering but also going beyond antiquity at the same time. And of course they were all, I mean everybody at the time, every single major figure of the Enlightenment, their education consisted in large part of what we would now call classics, right? I mean, there was an educational reformer in France in the 1760s who said, you know, our educational system is great if the purpose is to train Roman centurions, if it's to train modern people who are not doing both so well. And it's true. I mean they would spend, certainly, you know in Germany, in much of Europe, in the Netherlands, even in France, I mean people were trained not simply to read Latin, but to write in Latin. In Germany, university courses took part in the Latin language. So there's an enormous, you know, so they're certainly very, very conversant with the Greek and Roman classics, and they identify with them to a very great extent. Someone like Rousseau, I mean, and many others, and what's his first reading? How did he learn to read by reading Plutarch? In translation, but he learns to read reading Plutach. He sees from the beginning by this enormous admiration for the ancients that we get from Bhutan.Andrew Keen: Was Socrates relevant here? Was the Enlightenment somehow replacing Aristotle with Socrates and making him and his spirit of Enlightenment, of asking questions rather than answering questions, the symbol of a new way of thinking?David Bell: I would say to a certain extent, so I mean, much of the Enlightenment criticizes scholasticism, medieval scholastic, very, very sharply, and medieval scholasticism is founded philosophically very heavily upon Aristotle, so to that extent. And the spirit of skepticism that Socrates embodied, the idea of taking nothing for granted and asking questions about everything, including questions of oneself, yes, absolutely. That said, while the great figures of the Red Plato, you know, Socrates was generally I mean, it was not all that present as they come. But certainly have people with people with red play-doh in the entire virus.Andrew Keen: You mentioned Benjamin Franklin earlier, David. Most of the Enlightenment, of course, seems to be centered in France and Scotland, Germany, England. But America, many Europeans went to America then as a, what some people would call a settler colonial society, or certainly an offshoot of the European world. Was the settling of America and the American Revolution Was it the quintessential Enlightenment project?David Bell: Another very good question, and again, it depends a bit on who you talk to. I just mentioned this book by Peter Gay, and the last part of his book is called The Science of Freedom, and it's all about the American Revolution. So certainly a lot of interpreters of the Enlightenment have said that, yes, the American revolution represents in a sense the best possible outcome of the American Revolution, it was the best, possible outcome of the enlightened. Certainly there you look at the founding fathers of the United States and there's a great deal that they took from me like Certainly, they took a great great number of political ideas from Obviously Madison was very much inspired and drafting the edifice of the Constitution by Montesquieu to see himself Was happy to admit in addition most of the founding Fathers of the united states were you know had kind of you know We still had we were still definitely Christians, but we're also but we were also very much influenced by deism were very much against the idea of making the United States a kind of confessional country where Christianity was dominant. They wanted to believe in the enlightenment principles of free speech, religious toleration and so on and so forth. So in all those senses and very much the gun was probably more inspired than Franklin was somebody who was very conversant with the European Enlightenment. He spent a large part of his life in London. Where he was in contact with figures of the Enlightenment. He also, during the American Revolution, of course, he was mostly in France, where he is vetted by some of the surviving fellows and were very much in contact for them as well. So yes, I would say the American revolution is certainly... And then the American revolutionary scene, of course by the Europeans, very much as a kind of offshoot of the enlightenment. So one of the great books of the late Enlightenment is by Condor Say, which he wrote while he was hiding actually in the future evolution of the chariot. It's called a historical sketch of the progress of the human spirit, or the human mind, and you know he writes about the American Revolution as being, basically owing its existence to being like...Andrew Keen: Franklin is of course an example of your pre-academic enlightenment, a generalist, inventor, scientist, entrepreneur, political thinker. What about the role of science and indeed economics in the Enlightenment? David, we're going to talk of course about the Marxist interpretation, perhaps the Marxist interpretation which sees The Enlightenment is just a euphemism, perhaps, for exploitative capitalism. How central was the growth and development of the market, of economics, and innovation, and capitalism in your reading of The Enlightened?David Bell: Well, in my reading, it was very important, but not in the way that the Marxists used to say. So Friedrich Engels once said that the Enlightenment was basically the idealized kingdom of the bourgeoisie, and there was whole strain of Marxist thinking that followed the assumption that, and then Karl Marx himself argued that the documents like the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, which obviously were inspired by the Enlightment, were simply kind of the near, or kind of. Way that the bourgeoisie was able to advance itself ideologically, and I don't think that holds much water, which is very little indication that any particular economic class motivated the Enlightenment or was using the Enlightment in any way. That said, I think it's very difficult to imagine the Enlightement without the social and economic changes that come in with the 18th century. To begin with globalization. If you read the great works of the Enlightenment, it's remarkable just how open they are to talking about humanity in general. So one of Voltaire's largest works, one of his most important works, is something called Essay on Customs and the Spirit of Nations, which is actually History of the World, where he talks learnedly not simply about Europe, but about the Americas, about China, about Africa, about India. Montesquieu writes Persian letters. Christian Volpe writes about Chinese philosophy. You know, Rousseau writes about... You know, the earliest days of humankind talks about Africa. All the great figures of the Enlightenment are writing about the rest of the world, and this is a period in which contacts between Europe and the rest the world are exploding along with international trade. So by the end of the 18th century, there are 4,000 to 5,000 ships a year crossing the Atlantic. It's an enormous number. And that's one context in which the enlightenment takes place. Another is what we call the consumer revolution. So in the 18th century, certainly in the major cities of Western Europe, people of a wide range of social classes, including even artisans, sort of somewhat wealthy artisians, shopkeepers, are suddenly able to buy a much larger range of products than they were before. They're able to choose how to basically furnish their own lives, if you will, how they're gonna dress, what they're going to eat, what they gonna put on the walls of their apartments and so on and so forth. And so they become accustomed to exercising a great deal more personal choice than their ancestors have done. And the Enlightenment really develops in tandem with this. Most of the great works of the Enlightment, they're not really written to, they're treatises, they're like Kant, they're written to persuade you to think in a single way. Really written to make you ask questions yourself, to force you to ponder things. They're written in the form of puzzles and riddles. Voltaire had a great line there, he wrote that the best kind of books are the books that readers write half of themselves as they read, and that's sort of the quintessence of the Enlightenment as far as I'm concerned.Andrew Keen: Yeah, Voltaire might have been comfortable on YouTube or Facebook. David, you mentioned all those ships going from Europe across the Atlantic. Of course, many of those ships were filled with African slaves. You mentioned this in your piece. I mean, this is no secret, of course. You also mentioned a couple of times Montesquieu's Persian letters. To what extent is... The enlightenment then perhaps the birth of Western power, of Western colonialism, of going to Africa, seizing people, selling them in North America, the French, the English, Dutch colonization of the rest of the world. Of course, later more sophisticated Marxist thinkers from the Frankfurt School, you mentioned these in your essay, Odorno and Horkheimer in particular, See the Enlightenment as... A project, if you like, of Western domination. I remember reading many years ago when I was in graduate school, Edward Said, his analysis of books like The Persian Letters, which is a form of cultural Western power. How much of this is simply bound up in the profound, perhaps, injustice of the Western achievement? And of course, some of the justice as well. We haven't talked about Jefferson, but perhaps in Jefferson's life and his thinking and his enlightened principles and his... Life as a slave owner, these contradictions are most self-evident.David Bell: Well, there are certainly contradictions, and there's certainly... I think what's remarkable, if you think about it, is that if you read through works of the Enlightenment, you would be hard-pressed to find a justification for slavery. You do find a lot of critiques of slavery, and I think that's something very important to keep in mind. Obviously, the chattel slavery of Africans in the Americas began well before the Enlightment, it began in 1500. The Enlightenment doesn't have the credit for being the first movement to oppose slavery. That really goes back to various religious groups, especially the Fakers. But that said, you have in France, you had in Britain, in America even, you'd have a lot of figures associated with the Enlightenment who were pretty sure of becoming very forceful opponents of slavery very early. Now, when it comes to imperialism, that's a tricky issue. What I think you'd find in these light bulbs, you'd different sorts of tendencies and different sorts of writings. So there are certainly a lot of writers of the Enlightenment who are deeply opposed to European authorities. One of the most popular works of the late Enlightenment was a collective work edited by the man named the Abbe Rinal, which is called The History of the Two Indies. And that is a book which is deeply, deeply critical of European imperialism. At the same time, at the same of the enlightenment, a lot the works of history written during the Enlightment. Tended, such as Voltaire's essay on customs, which I just mentioned, tend to give a kind of very linear version of history. They suggest that all societies follow the same path, from sort of primitive savagery, hunter-gatherers, through early agriculture, feudal stages, and on into sort of modern commercial society and civilization. And so they're basically saying, okay, we, the Europeans, are the most advanced. People like the Africans and the Native Americans are the least advanced, and so perhaps we're justified in going and quote, bringing our civilization to them, what later generations would call the civilizing missions, or possibly just, you know, going over and exploiting them because we are stronger and we are more, and again, we are the best. And then there's another thing that the Enlightenment did. The Enlightenment tended to destroy an older Christian view of humankind, which in some ways militated against modern racism. Christians believed, of course, that everyone was the same from Adam and Eve, which meant that there was an essential similarity in the world. And the Enlightenment challenged this by challenging the biblical kind of creation. The Enlightenment challenges this. Voltaire, for instance, believed that there had actually been several different human species that had different origins, and that can very easily become a justification for racism. Buffon, one of the most Figures of the French Enlightenment, one of the early naturalists, was crucial for trying to show that in fact nature is not static, that nature is always changing, that species are changing, including human beings. And so again, that allowed people to think in terms of human beings at different stages of evolution, and perhaps this would be a justification for privileging the more advanced humans over the less advanced. In the 18th century itself, most of these things remain potential, rather than really being acted upon. But in the 19th century, figures of writers who would draw upon these things certainly went much further, and these became justifications for slavery, imperialism, and other things. So again, the Enlightenment is the source of a great deal of stuff here, and you can't simply put it into one box or more.Andrew Keen: You mentioned earlier, David, that Concorda wrote one of the later classics of the... Condorcet? Sorry, Condorcets, excuse my French. Condorcès wrote one the later Classics of the Enlightenment when he was hiding from the French Revolution. In your mind, was the revolution itself the natural conclusion, climax? Perhaps anti-climax of the Enlightenment. Certainly, it seems as if a lot of the critiques of the French Revolution, particularly the more conservative ones, Burke comes to mind, suggested that perhaps the principles of in the Enlightment inevitably led to the guillotine, or is that an unfair way of thinking of it?David Bell: Well, there are a lot of people who have thought like that. Edmund Burke already, writing in 1790, in his reflections on the revolution in France, he said that everything which was great in the old regime is being dissolved and, quoting, dissolved by this new conquering empire of light and reason. And then he said about the French that in the groves of their academy at the end of every vista, you see nothing but the gallows. Nothing but the Gallows. So there, in 1780, he already seemed to be predicting the reign of terror and blaming it. A certain extent from the Enlightenment. That said, I think, you know, again, the French Revolution is incredibly complicated event. I mean, you certainly have, you know, an explosion of what we could call Enlightenment thinking all over the place. In France, it happened in France. What happened there was that you had a, you know, the collapse of an extraordinarily inefficient government and a very, you know, in a very antiquated, paralyzed system of government kind of collapsed, created a kind of political vacuum. Into that vacuum stepped a lot of figures who were definitely readers of the Enlightenment. Oh so um but again the Enlightment had I said I don't think you can call the Enlightement a single thing so to say that the Enlightiment inspired the French Revolution rather than the There you go.Andrew Keen: Although your essay on liberties is the Enlightenment then and now you probably didn't write is always these lazy editors who come up with inaccurate and inaccurate titles. So for you, there is no such thing as the Enlighten.David Bell: No, there is. There is. But still, it's a complex thing. It contains multitudes.Andrew Keen: So it's the Enlightenment rather than the United States.David Bell: Conflicting tendencies, it has contradictions within it. There's enough unity to refer to it as a singular noun, but it doesn't mean that it all went in one single direction.Andrew Keen: But in historical terms, did the failure of the French Revolution, its descent into Robespierre and then Bonaparte, did it mark the end in historical terms a kind of bookend of history? You began in 1720 by 1820. Was the age of the Enlightenment pretty much over?David Bell: I would say yes. I think that, again, one of the things about the French Revolution is that people who are reading these books and they're reading these ideas and they are discussing things really start to act on them in a very different way from what it did before the French revolution. You have a lot of absolute monarchs who are trying to bring certain enlightenment principles to bear in their form of government, but they're not. But it's difficult to talk about a full-fledged attempt to enact a kind of enlightenment program. Certainly a lot of the people in the French Revolution saw themselves as doing that. But as they did it, they ran into reality, I would say. I mean, now Tocqueville, when he writes his old regime in the revolution, talks about how the French philosophes were full of these abstract ideas that were divorced from reality. And while that's an exaggeration, there was a certain truth to them. And as soon as you start having the age of revolutions, as soon you start people having to devise systems of government that will actually last, and as you have people, democratic representative systems that will last, and as they start revising these systems under the pressure of actual events, then you're not simply talking about an intellectual movement anymore, you're talking about something very different. And so I would say that, well, obviously the ideas of the Enlightenment continue to inspire people, the books continue to be read, debated. They lead on to figures like Kant, and as we talked about earlier, Kant leads to Hegel, Hegel leads to Marx in a certain sense. Nonetheless, by the time you're getting into the 19th century, what you have, you know, has connections to the Enlightenment, but can we really still call it the Enlightment? I would sayAndrew Keen: And Tocqueville, of course, found democracy in America. Is democracy itself? I know it's a big question. But is it? Bound up in the Enlightenment. You've written extensively, David, both for liberties and elsewhere on liberalism. Is the promise of democracy, democratic systems, the one born in the American Revolution, promised in the French Revolution, not realized? Are they products of the Enlightment, or is the 19th century and the democratic systems that in the 19th century, is that just a separate historical track?David Bell: Again, I would say there are certain things in the Enlightenment that do lead in that direction. Certainly, I think most figures in the enlightenment in one general sense or another accepted the idea of a kind of general notion of popular sovereignty. It didn't mean that they always felt that this was going to be something that could necessarily be acted upon or implemented in their own day. And they didn't necessarily associate generalized popular sovereignty with what we would now call democracy with people being able to actually govern themselves. Would be certain figures, certainly Diderot and some of his essays, what we saw very much in the social contract, you know, were sketching out, you knows, models for possible democratic system. Condorcet, who actually lived into the French Revolution, wrote one of the most draft constitutions for France, that's one of most democratic documents ever proposed. But of course there were lots of figures in the Enlightenment, Voltaire, and others who actually believed much more in absolute monarchy, who believed that you just, you know, you should have. Freedom of speech and freedom of discussion, out of which the best ideas would emerge, but then you had to give those ideas to the prince who imposed them by poor sicknesses.Andrew Keen: And of course, Rousseau himself, his social contract, some historians have seen that as the foundations of totalitarian, modern totalitarianism. Finally, David, your wonderful essay in Liberties in the spring quarterly 2025 is The Enlightenment, Then and Now. What about now? You work at Princeton, your president has very bravely stood up to the new presidential regime in the United States, in defense of academic intellectual freedom. Does the word and the movement, does it have any relevance in the 2020s, particularly in an age of neo-authoritarianism around the world?David Bell: I think it does. I think we have to be careful about it. I always get a little nervous when people say, well, we should simply go back to the Enlightenment, because the Enlightenments is history. We don't go back the 18th century. I think what we need to do is to recover certain principles, certain ideals from the 18 century, the ones that matter to us, the ones we think are right, and make our own Enlightenment better. I don't think we need be governed by the 18 century. Thomas Paine once said that no generation should necessarily rule over every generation to come, and I think that's probably right. Unfortunately in the United States, we have a constitution which is now essentially unamendable, so we're doomed to live by a constitution largely from the 18th century. But are there many things in the Enlightenment that we should look back to, absolutely?Andrew Keen: Well, David, I am going to free you for your own French Enlightenment. You can go and have some croissant now in your local cafe in Paris. Thank you so much for a very, I excuse the pun, enlightening conversation on the Enlightenment then and now, Essential Essay in Liberties. I'd love to get you back on the show. Talk more history. Thank you. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

In this rich intellectual history of the French-Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas's Talmudic lectures in Paris, Ethan Kleinberg addresses Levinas's Jewish life and its relation to his philosophical writings while making an argument for the role and importance of Levinas's Talmudic lessons. Pairing each chapter with a related Talmudic lecture, Kleinberg uses the distinction Levinas presents between "God on Our Side" and "God on God's Side" to provide two discrete and at times conflicting approaches to Levinas's Talmudic readings. One is historically situated and argued from "our side" while the other uses Levinas's Talmudic readings themselves to approach the issues as timeless and derived from "God on God's own side." In Emmanuel Levinas's Talmudic Turn: Philosophy and Jewish Thought (Stanford UP, 2021), Kleinberg asks whether the ethical message and moral urgency of Levinas's Talmudic lectures can be extended beyond the texts and beliefs of a chosen people, religion, or even the seemingly primary unit of the self. Touching on Western philosophy, French Enlightenment universalism, and the Lithuanian Talmudic tradition, Kleinberg provides readers with a boundary-pushing investigation into the origins, influences, and causes of Levinas's turn to and use of Talmud. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

In this rich intellectual history of the French-Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas's Talmudic lectures in Paris, Ethan Kleinberg addresses Levinas's Jewish life and its relation to his philosophical writings while making an argument for the role and importance of Levinas's Talmudic lessons. Pairing each chapter with a related Talmudic lecture, Kleinberg uses the distinction Levinas presents between "God on Our Side" and "God on God's Side" to provide two discrete and at times conflicting approaches to Levinas's Talmudic readings. One is historically situated and argued from "our side" while the other uses Levinas's Talmudic readings themselves to approach the issues as timeless and derived from "God on God's own side." In Emmanuel Levinas's Talmudic Turn: Philosophy and Jewish Thought (Stanford UP, 2021), Kleinberg asks whether the ethical message and moral urgency of Levinas's Talmudic lectures can be extended beyond the texts and beliefs of a chosen people, religion, or even the seemingly primary unit of the self. Touching on Western philosophy, French Enlightenment universalism, and the Lithuanian Talmudic tradition, Kleinberg provides readers with a boundary-pushing investigation into the origins, influences, and causes of Levinas's turn to and use of Talmud. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies

In this rich intellectual history of the French-Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas's Talmudic lectures in Paris, Ethan Kleinberg addresses Levinas's Jewish life and its relation to his philosophical writings while making an argument for the role and importance of Levinas's Talmudic lessons. Pairing each chapter with a related Talmudic lecture, Kleinberg uses the distinction Levinas presents between "God on Our Side" and "God on God's Side" to provide two discrete and at times conflicting approaches to Levinas's Talmudic readings. One is historically situated and argued from "our side" while the other uses Levinas's Talmudic readings themselves to approach the issues as timeless and derived from "God on God's own side." In Emmanuel Levinas's Talmudic Turn: Philosophy and Jewish Thought (Stanford UP, 2021), Kleinberg asks whether the ethical message and moral urgency of Levinas's Talmudic lectures can be extended beyond the texts and beliefs of a chosen people, religion, or even the seemingly primary unit of the self. Touching on Western philosophy, French Enlightenment universalism, and the Lithuanian Talmudic tradition, Kleinberg provides readers with a boundary-pushing investigation into the origins, influences, and causes of Levinas's turn to and use of Talmud. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history

In this rich intellectual history of the French-Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas's Talmudic lectures in Paris, Ethan Kleinberg addresses Levinas's Jewish life and its relation to his philosophical writings while making an argument for the role and importance of Levinas's Talmudic lessons. Pairing each chapter with a related Talmudic lecture, Kleinberg uses the distinction Levinas presents between "God on Our Side" and "God on God's Side" to provide two discrete and at times conflicting approaches to Levinas's Talmudic readings. One is historically situated and argued from "our side" while the other uses Levinas's Talmudic readings themselves to approach the issues as timeless and derived from "God on God's own side." In Emmanuel Levinas's Talmudic Turn: Philosophy and Jewish Thought (Stanford UP, 2021), Kleinberg asks whether the ethical message and moral urgency of Levinas's Talmudic lectures can be extended beyond the texts and beliefs of a chosen people, religion, or even the seemingly primary unit of the self. Touching on Western philosophy, French Enlightenment universalism, and the Lithuanian Talmudic tradition, Kleinberg provides readers with a boundary-pushing investigation into the origins, influences, and causes of Levinas's turn to and use of Talmud. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/european-studies

In this rich intellectual history of the French-Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas's Talmudic lectures in Paris, Ethan Kleinberg addresses Levinas's Jewish life and its relation to his philosophical writings while making an argument for the role and importance of Levinas's Talmudic lessons. Pairing each chapter with a related Talmudic lecture, Kleinberg uses the distinction Levinas presents between "God on Our Side" and "God on God's Side" to provide two discrete and at times conflicting approaches to Levinas's Talmudic readings. One is historically situated and argued from "our side" while the other uses Levinas's Talmudic readings themselves to approach the issues as timeless and derived from "God on God's own side." In Emmanuel Levinas's Talmudic Turn: Philosophy and Jewish Thought (Stanford UP, 2021), Kleinberg asks whether the ethical message and moral urgency of Levinas's Talmudic lectures can be extended beyond the texts and beliefs of a chosen people, religion, or even the seemingly primary unit of the self. Touching on Western philosophy, French Enlightenment universalism, and the Lithuanian Talmudic tradition, Kleinberg provides readers with a boundary-pushing investigation into the origins, influences, and causes of Levinas's turn to and use of Talmud. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

In this rich intellectual history of the French-Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas's Talmudic lectures in Paris, Ethan Kleinberg addresses Levinas's Jewish life and its relation to his philosophical writings while making an argument for the role and importance of Levinas's Talmudic lessons. Pairing each chapter with a related Talmudic lecture, Kleinberg uses the distinction Levinas presents between "God on Our Side" and "God on God's Side" to provide two discrete and at times conflicting approaches to Levinas's Talmudic readings. One is historically situated and argued from "our side" while the other uses Levinas's Talmudic readings themselves to approach the issues as timeless and derived from "God on God's own side." In Emmanuel Levinas's Talmudic Turn: Philosophy and Jewish Thought (Stanford UP, 2021), Kleinberg asks whether the ethical message and moral urgency of Levinas's Talmudic lectures can be extended beyond the texts and beliefs of a chosen people, religion, or even the seemingly primary unit of the self. Touching on Western philosophy, French Enlightenment universalism, and the Lithuanian Talmudic tradition, Kleinberg provides readers with a boundary-pushing investigation into the origins, influences, and causes of Levinas's turn to and use of Talmud. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/french-studies

In this episode of History 102, 'WhatIfAltHist' creator Rudyard Lynch and co-host Austin Padgett talk about the French Revolution and the fascinating parallels between 18th-century French social dynamics and today's political landscape. From bureaucratic upheaval to radical terror, journey through the chaos that transformed France and birthed modern political divisions. Learn how a centralized monarchy crumbled into revolutionary fervor, spawning new ideas of nationalism, secularism, and total war that would reshape Europe. --

Tours | New Scientist https://www.newscientist.com/tours/ (via ChatGPT) Scottish vs French Enlightenment https://chatgpt.com/share/66e699c9-e33c-8006-b609-1acb0b8a27c8 as fotos de londres https://flic.kr/s/aHsjyWEmEX as fotos da escócia https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjBJ1r1 canal do radinho no whatsapp!https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaDRCiu9xVJl8belu51Z meu perfil no Threads: https://www.threads.net/@renedepaulajr meu perfil no BlueSky https://bsky.app/profile/renedepaula.bsky.social meu perfil no t2: https://t2.social/renedepaula meu perfil no Post: https://post.news/renedepaula meu canal no Koo https://www.kooapp.com/profile/renedepaula meu mastodon: rené ... Read more The post um tour pelo Iluminismo Escocês e pela noção de progresso appeared first on radinho de pilha.

Episode #129 of the Last Call Trivia Podcast begins with a round of general knowledge questions. Then, we're getting on a first-name basis with a round of Mononyms Trivia!Round OneThe game kicks off with a Companies Trivia question about a Swiss food behemoth.Next, we have a History Trivia question about something that was around at the end of the Paleozoic Era.The first round concludes with a Geography Trivia question about Africa's largest lake.Bonus QuestionToday's Bonus Question is a follow-up to the Geography Trivia question from the first round.Round TwoThere's no introduction needed for our next round, but we'll give it one anyway. In Round Two of today's game, we're challenging the Team with some Mononyms Trivia.The second round begins with a Musicals Trivia question about the person who wrote the music for the rock musical, Spider-Man: Turn Of the Dark.Next, we have a People Trivia question that asks the Team to identify the French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher based on his birth name.Round Two concludes with an Art Trivia about a famous Renaissance artist.Final QuestionWe've reached the Final Question of the game, and today's category of choice is Literature. Get your timelines ready!The Trivia Team is asked to place four novels in order of when they are set, from earliest to most recent.To learn more about how Last Call Trivia can level up your events, visit lastcalltrivia.com/shop today!

Back in the days when I was dying a slow death of boredom by bureaucracy, I would find salvation in books. After a few days of falling down Wikipedia rabbit holes and practicing the hiragana and katakana alphabets over and over again, I had an idea, “Why don't I email PDFs of books to myself?” And so began my adventures to distant worlds, straight from the metal desk of the damp middle school staff room.One of the books that completely enveloped me, and remains on the top of my all-time list of favorites, is The Lessons of History by Will Durant. On the death of civilization, he wrote:But do civilizations die? Again, not quite. Greek civilization is not really dead; only its frame is gone and its habitat has changed and spread; it survives in the memory of the race, and in such abundance that no one life, however full and long, could absorb it all. Homer has more readers now than in his own day and land. The Greek poets and philosophers are in every library and college; at this moment Plato is being studied by a hundred thousand discoverers of the "dear delight" of philosophy overspreading life with understanding thought. This selective sur­vival of creative minds is the most real and beneficent of immortalities.These grand topics gripped my interest so intensely back then. I remember reading and loving A History of the American People, the Prophet, A Book of Five Rings, Another Kyoto, and many more just like these. My interest in these topics certainly originated from my (perhaps arrogant) refusal to accept my place in the bureaucracy like a cog in a machine. It also came from a need to feel productive; to be learning something. Most of all, I loved these books for helping me understand our collective heritage and where I came from — which in turned helped me understand who I am today. I am beginning to know where to direct my efforts for tomorrow.In the last chapter of the book, titled “Is Progress Real?”, Durant speaks on what the lessons of history have to teach us about that “tomorrow”: The heritage that we can now more fully transmit is richer than ever before. It is richer than that of Pericles, for it includes all the Greek flowering that followed him; richer than Leonardo's, for it includes him and the Italian Renaissance; richer than Voltaire's, for it embraces all the French Enlightenment and its ecumenical dissemi­nation. If progress is real despite our whining, it is not because we are born any healthier, better, or wiser than infants were in the past, but because we are born to a richer heritage, born on a higher level of that pedestal which the accumulation of knowledge and art raises as the ground and support of our being. The heritage rises, and man rises in proportion as he receives it.History is, above all else, the creation and recording of that heri­tage; progress is its increasing abundance, preservation, transmission, and use. To those of us who study history not merely as a warning reminder of man's follies and crimes, but also as an encouraging re­membrance of generative souls, the past ceases to be a depressing chamber of horrors; it becomes a celestial city, a spacious country of the mind, wherein a thousand saints, statesmen, inventors, scientists, poets, artists, musicians, lovers, and philosophers still live and speak, teach and carve and sing. The historian will not mourn because he can see no meaning in human existence except that which man puts into it; let it be our pride that we ourselves may put meaning into our lives, and sometimes a significance that transcends death. If a man is fortunate he will, before he dies, gather up as much as he can of his civilized heritage and transmit it to his children. And to his final breath he will be grateful for this inexhaustible legacy, knowing that it is our nourishing mother and our lasting life.Aside from Durant's matchless prose, I found this message encouraging to the verge of tears. I would never dare to assume that my humble house in the middle of small town Japan could ever exemplify Durant's vision. But if not for all of human heritage, I hope that I can raise this building out of the dust at least for myself. And if I am lucky, then perhaps for the extended nieces and nephews in my family and for my posterity.Local Japan Podcast is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Books Mentioned In This Episode:When you purchase a book with the links below, you support me and the podcast at no extra cost to you:* Another Kyoto by Alex Kerr* Learn to Timber Frame: Craftsmanship, Simplicity, Timeless Beauty* Lost Japan by Alex Kerr* Dogs and Demons by Alex KerrLinks to More Resources:* Alex Kerr* Ah Un* Mount Sumeru* Shin Gyo So* Kamiza and Shimoza* Kobe Noson Startup Program* Blood Ceilings* Hiragana and Katakana* Ichiriki-tei* Fusuma* The Underworld* Jizo* Sanjusangendo* Onin War* Enma-do This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit localjapan.substack.com/subscribe

Tonight, we'll read the second half to “The Princess of Babylon”, found in the The Strange Storybook by Mrs. Lang, published in 1913. The first half aired last week. This story first aired way back in 2020. The story is taken from a lesser known philosophical tale by Voltaire, written in 1768. Voltaire was a French Enlightenment writer, philosopher, satirist, and historian. Famous for his wit and social critiques, he was an advocate of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and separation of church and state. In the first episode, the king holds a competition of the world's rulers who were interested in marrying his daughter, the princess. The games would be impossibly difficult. A handsome and magical stranger appears out of seeming thin air to win the games, however he is suddenly called away to care to matters at home. — read by 'V' — Sign up for Snoozecast+ to get expanded, ad-free access by going to snoozecast.com/plus! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The greatest divide in the United States today is between those who understand freedom from the ideas of the American Revolution and those who understand it from the perspective of the French Revolution and its ideological heirs. We are at a crossroads between them. Will we return to the roots of freedom inspired by the book of Exodus, or will we follow the path of the French Enlightenment? Can our Republic be restored? If so, how? All of this and more on the Give Me Liberty podcast starting, NOW! Learn more at https://www.standingforfreedom.com Like, share, and subscribe for more! Stand up for TRUTH. Follow us! Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/110010433804... Twitter: https://twitter.com/freedomcenterlu Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/freedomcent... Gettr: https://gettr.com/user/freedomcenterlu Find us on Rumble! https://rumble.com/user/FreedomCenterLU Listen on the go! https://anchor.fm/freedom-center

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Nicolas de Condorcet (1743-94), known as the Last of the Philosophes, the intellectuals in the French Enlightenment who sought to apply their learning to solving the problems of their world. He became a passionate believer in the progress of society, an advocate for equal rights for women and the abolition of the slave trade and for representative government. The French Revolution gave him a chance to advance those ideas and, while the Terror brought his life to an end, his wife Sophie de Grouchy 91764-1822) ensured his influence into the next century and beyond. WithRachel Hammersley Professor of Intellectual History at Newcastle UniversityRichard Whatmore Professor of Modern History at the University of St Andrews and Co-Director of the St Andrews Institute of Intellectual HistoryAnd Tom Hopkins Senior Teaching Associate in the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Selwyn CollegeProducer: Simon TillotsonReading list: Keith Michael Baker, Condorcet: From Natural Philosophy to Social Mathematics (University of Chicago Press, 1974)Keith Michael Baker, ‘On Condorcet's Sketch' (Daedalus, summer 2004)Lorraine Daston, ‘Condorcet and the Meaning of Enlightenment' (Proceedings of the British Academy, 2009)Dan Edelstein, The Enlightenment: A Genealogy (Chicago University Press, 2010)Mark Goldie and Robert Wokler (eds), The Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century Political Thought (Cambridge University Press, 2006), especially ‘Ideology and the Origins of Social Science' by Robert WoklerGary Kates, The Cercle Social, the Girondins, and the French Revolution (Princeton University Press, 1985)Steven Lukes and Nadia Urbinati (eds.), Condorcet: Political Writings (Cambridge University Press, 2009)Kathleen McCrudden Illert, A Republic of Sympathy: Sophie de Grouchy's Politics and Philosophy, 1785-1815 (Cambridge University Press, 2024)Iain McLean and Fiona Hewitt (eds.), Condorcet: Foundations of Social Choice and Political Theory (Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd, 1994)Emma Rothschild, Economic Sentiments: Adam Smith, Condorcet and the Enlightenment, (Harvard University Press, 2001)Richard Whatmore, The End of Enlightenment (Allen Lane, 2023)David Williams, Condorcet and Modernity (Cambridge University Press, 2004)

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Nicolas de Condorcet (1743-94), known as the Last of the Philosophes, the intellectuals in the French Enlightenment who sought to apply their learning to solving the problems of their world. He became a passionate believer in the progress of society, an advocate for equal rights for women and the abolition of the slave trade and for representative government. The French Revolution gave him a chance to advance those ideas and, while the Terror brought his life to an end, his wife Sophie de Grouchy 91764-1822) ensured his influence into the next century and beyond. WithRachel Hammersley Professor of Intellectual History at Newcastle UniversityRichard Whatmore Professor of Modern History at the University of St Andrews and Co-Director of the St Andrews Institute of Intellectual HistoryAnd Tom Hopkins Senior Teaching Associate in the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Selwyn CollegeProducer: Simon TillotsonReading list: Keith Michael Baker, Condorcet: From Natural Philosophy to Social Mathematics (University of Chicago Press, 1974)Keith Michael Baker, ‘On Condorcet's Sketch' (Daedalus, summer 2004)Lorraine Daston, ‘Condorcet and the Meaning of Enlightenment' (Proceedings of the British Academy, 2009)Dan Edelstein, The Enlightenment: A Genealogy (Chicago University Press, 2010)Mark Goldie and Robert Wokler (eds), The Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century Political Thought (Cambridge University Press, 2006), especially ‘Ideology and the Origins of Social Science' by Robert WoklerGary Kates, The Cercle Social, the Girondins, and the French Revolution (Princeton University Press, 1985)Steven Lukes and Nadia Urbinati (eds.), Condorcet: Political Writings (Cambridge University Press, 2009)Kathleen McCrudden Illert, A Republic of Sympathy: Sophie de Grouchy's Politics and Philosophy, 1785-1815 (Cambridge University Press, 2024)Iain McLean and Fiona Hewitt (eds.), Condorcet: Foundations of Social Choice and Political Theory (Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd, 1994)Emma Rothschild, Economic Sentiments: Adam Smith, Condorcet and the Enlightenment, (Harvard University Press, 2001)Richard Whatmore, The End of Enlightenment (Allen Lane, 2023)David Williams, Condorcet and Modernity (Cambridge University Press, 2004)

In this episode, we culminate our series looking at French Enlightenment philosophers by presenting a message that is relevant to us today.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.comDavid is a long-time columnist for the New York Times. He's also a commentator on “PBS NewsHour,” NPR's “All Things Considered” and NBC's “Meet the Press.” Plus he teaches at Yale. His new book is How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen.You can listen to the episode right away in the audio player above (or on the right side of the player, click “Listen On” to add the Dishcast feed to your favorite podcast app). For two clips of our convo — on how to be a better friend to suffering loved ones, and how loneliness leads to authoritarianism — pop over to our YouTube page.Other topics: his upbringing in Greenwich Village among intellectuals and gays; his beatnik Jewish parents; his father the NYU professor and his mother with a PhD from Columbia; “not the most emotionally intimate” family; how people shouldn't separate thinking from emotions; the French Enlightenment; Jungian/Burkean conservatism; Hume; nationalism and King Charles III; Orwell's “The Lion and the Unicorn”; Disraeli; conservatism and the current GOP as a nihilist cult; Isaiah Berlin; how you're an “illuminator” or “diminisher” when meeting new people; how most don't ask questions and instead broadcast themselves; Trump; how Trump supporters are “hard to hate up close”; Hamas and Israel; Hannah Arendt; how to encounter a super woke person; arguments as a form of respect; suppressing your ego for better conversations; Taylor Swift on narcissism; suicidal friends; the distortion of reality when depressed; the AIDS crisis and losing friends; marriage equality; one changing in midlife; Oakeshott; overprotective parents; the value of play; Gen Z's low social trust; boys growing up with poor flirting skills; casual dating and ghosting; the historical amnesia and unhappiness of young gays; the tension between individualism and belonging; extroverts vs. introverts; how Jesus disarmed people; and the loving kindness of Buddhism.Browse the Dishcast archive for another convo you might enjoy (the first 102 episodes are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: David Leonhardt on his new book about the American Dream, NYT columnist Pamela Paul, and the authors of Where Have All the Democrats Gone? — John Judis and Ruy Teixeira. Later on: Cat Bohannon and McKay Coppins. Please send any guest recs, pod dissent and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com.

In this enlightening episode, we explore the profound quote by Voltaire, the influential French Enlightenment writer, philosopher, and historian: "God is a circle whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere." Join us as we delve into the depths of this quote and unravel its meaning in relation to our connection with the divine. Throughout the episode, we embark on a journey of understanding how to establish a deep and meaningful connection with God, Spirit, Source, the Universe, or whatever name resonates with you for the Infinite. We believe that this connection can serve as a catalyst for solving problems and unearthing innovative ideas in our lives. Firstly, we explore the power of the breath as a gateway to the Infinite. Breathing is an innate and constant rhythm within us, and by consciously focusing on our breath, we can enter a state of mindfulness and presence. Through simple yet intentional breathing techniques, we can quiet our minds, expand our awareness, and establish a profound connection with the boundless energy that surrounds us. Next, we delve into the notion of challenging our thoughts and feelings of disconnection. Often, we find ourselves trapped in limiting beliefs or negative emotions that hinder our connection with the Infinite. By questioning these thoughts and emotions, we create space for new perspectives and open ourselves up to the infinite possibilities that lie beyond our perceived limitations. Lastly, we explore the transformative power of asking empowering and expansive questions. By consciously framing our inquiries in a way that invites wisdom, inspiration, and guidance from the Infinite, we can tap into a vast reservoir of knowledge and creativity. These questions serve as catalysts for transformation, propelling us towards fresh insights and breakthrough solutions. Join us on this captivating episode as we dive deep into these three powerful techniques for connecting with the Infinite. We provide practical tips, share personal experiences, and offer guidance on integrating these practices into your daily life. Prepare to unlock a wellspring of inspiration, clarity, and divine connection that can revolutionize the way you navigate challenges and manifest your dreams. Additional episode referenced: 84 | Simple Practices to Access Higher Consciousness --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/science-spirituality/support

The unbelievably wild and weird life story of the Chevalier d'Éon: transgender spy, soldier, and sleuth of the French Enlightenment. Assigned male at birth, Charles eventually transitioned to become Charlotte, before discovering the humiliating constraints of life as an 18th century woman. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From Atatürk to Erdoğan. From Secularism to Islamism. From a parliamentary system to absolute presidential power. Türkiye is set to hold a runoff election next week, on May 28th, between President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the opposition leader, Mr. Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu. And the general consensus is that Erdoğan is in the lead. This has come as a surprise and a disappointment to many, particularly since there is much discontent against Mr. Erdoğan. But as you well know, we are not here to cover the news. So let's uncover the history behind this news. Atatürk is writ large in modern Turkish history. Many businesses and government offices (at least up to the recent past), hung his portrait on the wall. He disliked religion and "despised" Islam in particular. Accordingly, he set out to sever Türkiye from its Ottoman past - practically in every way. For example, Atatürk changed the Turkish alphabet from its Arabic base to a Latinized European alphabet. He forbade the hijab in many government institutions and essentially relegated religion to the private realm. Additionally, he pivoted Türkiye toward the West, especially the ideals of the French Enlightenment. Whether or not the Turks liked it, Atatürk drastically changed Türkiye and its direction into the 20th century. Dr. Sinan Ciddi, my guest in this episode, explains that Atatürk acted like a benevolent dictator. He is the "Father of the Turks", a title bestowed upon him by the Turkish parliament in 1934. Well, if all of this is true about Atatürk, then who is Erdoğan? How did Erdoğan rise to power in a country that was modeled after Atatürk's visions of secularism and Westernization? And how did Türkiye lose its parliamentary form of government that was founded on strong institutions, and replace it with an all-powerful presidential system of personalized government in which Erdoğan essentially rules by decree - like an Ottoman Sultan?  Per Dr. Ciddi, Erdoğan is essentially the anthesis of Atatürk, at least in several major areas that matter most to Türkiye and the world. And the danger that Türkiye faces now is that Erdoğan has imperiled its democracy, its secularism, and its international alliances and commitments. Dr. Ciddi is an Associate Professor of National Security Studies at Command and Staff College in Marine Corps University. He is also an Adjunct Associate Professor at the School of Foreign Service in Georgetown University. In addition, he is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Dr. Ciddi is the author of Kemalism in Turkish Politics: The Republican People's Party, Secularism and Nationalism, a book that we discuss in this episode. To learn more about Dr. Ciddi, you can visit his academic ⁠homepage⁠. Also, the shift from secularism to Islamism seems to be a trend in the Middle East since Iran's 1979 Revolution. In an earlier episode, Dr. Ghamari-Tabrizi of Princeton University spoke with me about Iran's dichotomy of an Islamic state pretending to be a Republic! How would one even write an Islamic constitution for a republic? Here is a Hint: Iran's Ayatollahs had no clue! Click ⁠here and listen⁠ to this fascinating episode. I hope you enjoy these episodes. Adel Host of the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠History Behind News⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ podcast ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠SUPPORT⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Click here⁠ and join⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ our other supporters in the news peeler community. Thank you.

The British Enlightenment was slightly different in character from the French Enlightenment.  Britain had already accomplished many of the goals the French Enlightenment was seeking.We start off with academic economic ideas of institutions and access costs.  Moving on to how the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution interpenetrated in real terms."The communication between intelligent educated literate people who knew things and the working people in the fields and workshops had been weal or nonexistent.  Separated by social class or political power, and often language and legal status, it rarely occurred to either that they could learn a great deal from one another.” In Britain this was solved.  Not only by formal institutions and social practices, but by markets in scientific and technical expertise.  It was so common we can see it in the account books.Then we go into some of the bigger ways the French Revolution drove talent to Britain.

Ormond by Maria Edgeworth audiobook. Maria Edgeworth was one of the most popular writers of her time, a sharp and witty observer of society manners, and a favorite author for Jane Austen. “Ormond,” published in 1817, is a “coming-of-age” novel, tracing a young man's development as he approaches the age of majority. When we meet him, Harry Ormond has his “heart in the right place,” but is unsettled of character, naïve and impulsive. The central issue is: “What kind of man will he become?” In part, Harry is influenced by the books he reads: Fielding's “Tom Jones,” Richardson's “Sir Charles Grandison,” and works of the French Enlightenment. More important, however, are influences from the company he keeps, much as Prince Hal in Shakespeare's “Henry IV” takes shape as a reflection of the people around him. As an orphan, Harry had been adopted by Sir Ulick O'Shane, a man of society, full of subtlety and strategies, who exploits his public trust for private advantage (a practice known at that time as “jobbing”). Harry also spends time with Sir Ulick's cousin Cornelius, a Falstaffian figure of hearty good cheer and eccentric rural lifestyle. (He enthrones himself on a tiny island in an Irish lake, calls himself the “King of the Black Islands” and nicknames Ormond “Prince Harry.”) Later, Harry follows Cornelius's daughter to Paris, where he witnesses the glamorous dissipation of French society in the years before the Revolution. This novel explores the challenges of bringing together apparent oppositions: reconciling promised loyalty with assertion of self, Anglo-Irish landlords with their Irish tenants, Catholics with Protestants, and the impulsive heart with the rational head. “Ormond” is named in the reference list “1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die.”

In today's installment of The Weekly, Ryan invokes a peculiar theory from the French Enlightenment philosopher Rousseau in order to discuss the path to fulfillment and the way of contentment."Rousseau believed that this simple and humble way of life, this life without unnecessary ambitions, without exorbitant desires, without an inflated sense of what one really needs, was a life of tranquility and satisfaction—a life of fulfillment and happiness. I suppose one could sum this up by saying that, for Rousseau, happiness—at least in part—is a matter of perspective."About Ryan, Host of Thinker Sensitive:Ryan Ragozine is the host of Thinker Sensitive. He is passionate about ecumenical dialogue, inter-religious dialogue, and worldview engagement. He is a major proponent of civil discourse, free thinking, free speech, and ethical communication. Ryan has always been preoccupied with big ideas and big questions. He holds a B.A. in Theology and an M.A. in Philosophy. While in seminary, Ryan had the privilege of studying under Michael Peterson, editor and author of several philosophy of religion texts published by Cambridge, Oxford, and the University of Notre Dame—most notably in the subcategories of religion and science, the problem of evil, and C.S. Lewis scholarship. Ryan and his wife are huge advocates of Christian hospitality, running a house church that welcomed people from all different backgrounds and belief systems for about five years before eventually taking over at Thinker Sensitive.Links: Website: https://www.thinkersensitive.com YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@thinkersensitive1752 Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/thinkersensitive Instagram Account: https://www.instagram.com/thinkersensitive/ Twitter Handle: https://twitter.com/ThinkerSen

Trust in government, media, organized religion, businesses and even democracy is at historic lows. But what if the answer to declining faith in institutions isn't more hope, but more cynicism? Guests Sharon Stanley, Professor of Political Science at the University of Memphis and the author of The French Enlightenment and the Emergence of Modern Cynicism. David Mazella, Professor of English at the University of Houston and the author of The Making of Modern Cynicism Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Trust in government, media, organized religion, businesses and even democracy is at historic lows. But what if the answer to declining faith in institutions isn't more hope, but more cynicism? Guests Sharon Stanley, Professor of Political Science at the University of Memphis and the author of The French Enlightenment and the Emergence of Modern Cynicism. David Mazella, Professor of English at the University of Houston and the author of The Making of Modern Cynicism Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

Trust in government, media, organized religion, businesses and even democracy is at historic lows. But what if the answer to declining faith in institutions isn't more hope, but more cynicism? Guests Sharon Stanley, Professor of Political Science at the University of Memphis and the author of The French Enlightenment and the Emergence of Modern Cynicism. David Mazella, Professor of English at the University of Houston and the author of The Making of Modern Cynicism Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history

Trust in government, media, organized religion, businesses and even democracy is at historic lows. But what if the answer to declining faith in institutions isn't more hope, but more cynicism? Guests Sharon Stanley, Professor of Political Science at the University of Memphis and the author of The French Enlightenment and the Emergence of Modern Cynicism. David Mazella, Professor of English at the University of Houston and the author of The Making of Modern Cynicism Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics

Trust in government, media, organized religion, businesses and even democracy is at historic lows. But what if the answer to declining faith in institutions isn't more hope, but more cynicism? Guests Sharon Stanley, Professor of Political Science at the University of Memphis and the author of The French Enlightenment and the Emergence of Modern Cynicism. David Mazella, Professor of English at the University of Houston and the author of The Making of Modern Cynicism Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Even among the very elite people throughout history, few people have fame that lasts more than a few decades. So, what's the story about Adam Smith, whose name is well-known to millions even now—about 250 years after he lived? Just what did Smith do or say about economics?  Is he as worthy as some say? And how might what he said correlate with Kingdom truth? Join Kevin as we explore the story of Adam Smith and why he is relevant to this very day, especially from a Christian perspective! // Download this episode's Application & Action questions and PDF transcript at whitestone.org.

Day 215 Today's Reading: Hebrews 11 Hebrews 11 is known as the faith chapter. We don't get but a few verses into this chapter when we are faced with creation. Which means that faith and creation go together. The writer of Hebrews says this in verse 3: “Faith empowers us to see that the universe was created and beautifully coordinated by the power of God's words! He spoke and the invisible realm gave birth to all that is seen” (TPT). The writer jumps right into a twenty-first-century science classroom firestorm. The writer just says it like the first verse of the Bible does in Genesis 1. Let me give you four false “facts” that homiletics students of West Coast Baptist College put together: 1. Books write themselves without the need of an author. 2. Cars build themselves without the need of a manufacturer. 3. Music composes itself into beautiful harmonies without the need of a composer. Now, any kindergarten student could testify that the above three statements have as much truth to them as the flat-earth theory. However, countless university lecturers and professors are paid big dollars to promote the “reality” of this last false fact: 4. The whole universe came into being through a process of random chance and beneficial mutations, without any need of a Designer. The true fact of the matter is that evolution is just a big fairytale for grownups! The French Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire states it most simply: “If a watch proves the existence of a watchmaker but the existence of the universe does not prove the existence of a great Architect, then I consent to be called a fool.” The evolutionist's argument is so illogical, it really lends toward deception. There is a Designer of this wonderful universe: “In the beginning God.” Australian pastor J. Sidlow Baxter gives this powerful breakdown of the first verse of the Bible: ““In the beginning God”—that denies Atheism with its doctrine of no God. “In the beginning God”—that denies Polytheism with its doctrine of many gods. “In the beginning God created”—that denies Fatalism with its doctrine of chance. “In the beginning God created”—that denies Evolution with its doctrine of infinite becoming. “God created heaven and earth”—that denies Pantheism which makes God and the universe identical. “God created heaven and earth”—that denies Materialism which asserts the eternity of matter. Thus, this first “testimony” of Jehovah is not only a declaration of Divine truth, but a repudiation of human error.” No one can get by the first verse of the Bible without having to submit to the authority of the Bible. Couldn't God have used evolution? That is a silly and intrusive question. God told us He didn't use evolution. He did everything in six days. Evolution needs more than six days. People reject the creation account because they don't want to deal with the God of Scripture. Evolution is hostile to the Word of God. Ask people if they believe in a literal six days. If they conjugate that part of the Scripture, what will stop them from conjugating other parts of Scripture? If the culture can overturn the clear teaching of the Genesis account, the culture can overturn any scriptural mandate. The Bible repeats the six days of creation from different parts of Scripture. It states it again in Exodus 20:11: “In six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day.” Proverbs 30:1 (MSG) says, “The skeptic swore, ‘There is no God! No God!—I can do anything I want!” But if you believe in Creation, then you have to face these maxims: If I believe in creation, then I have a Creator. If I have a Creator, then I have an Owner. If I have an Owner, then I have accountability. Evolution simply doesn't make sense. As G. K. Chesterton said, “It is absurd for the Evolutionist to complain that it is unthinkable for an admittedly unthinkable God to make everything out of nothing, and then pretend that it is more thinkable that nothing should turn itself into everything.” In 2018, the famed physicist and atheist, Stephen Hawking, died at seventy-six years old. In his final book, Brief Answers to the Big Questions, he wrote: “When people ask me if a God created the universe, I tell them that the question itself makes no sense. Time didn't exist before the Big Bang, so there is no time for God to make the universe in. It's like asking directions to the edge of the Earth—the Earth is a sphere that doesn't have an edge, so looking for it is a futile exercise. Do I have faith? We are each free to believe what we want, and it's my view that the simplest explanation is that there is no God. No one created the universe and no one directs our fate. This leads me to a profound realization: there is probably no heaven and afterlife either. . . . We have this one life to appreciate the grand design of the universe, and for that I am extremely grateful.” Listen closely to what I am about to say. Stephen Hawking just became a believer one second after his death on March 14, 2018. Hawking died and saw the greatest mind ever: God. When will you become a believer? Will you be a too-late believer like Hawking? Ravi Zacharias said, “To sustain the belief that there is no God, atheism has to demonstrate infinite knowledge, which is tantamount to saying, ‘I have infinite knowledge that there is no being in existence with infinite knowledge.'” We think that since the bottom of every rock and tree does not have “made by God” that it's not. But that's why we have faith. Faith and creation go together.

In this special episode, we travel outside of France, to Prussia, guided by Alec Avdakov from the podcast "The Life and Times of Frederick the Great". Make sure to check out his podcast.Voltaire was in Berlin, at the court of Prussia from 1750 to 1753, invited by the Prussian King Frederic II, known as Frederic the Great. This is a perfect example of the global effect of the French Enlightenment and how various monarchs reacted differently to the movement.I've had the chance to conduct an interview with Alec regarding's Voltaire's Prussian experience. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!Correction: I called Voltaire an atheist although he was in fact a deist. Sorry about that.Timecodes:Introduction03:10 - What is Prussia? 08:40 - Voltaire and Frederick, the French Connection15:35 - Arrival at the Prussian Court27:08 - Voltaire's Prussian Experience33:15 - The Consequences of Voltaire's Stay in Prussia40:02 - ConclusionThe Life and Times of Frederick the Great Podcast by Alec Avdakov: https://anchor.fm/frederick-the-greatMusic: Marche pour la cérémonie des Turcs, composed by Jean-Baptiste Lully, arranged and performed by Jérôme Arfouche.Art: Frederick II of Prussia and Voltaire, by Pierre Charles Baquoy, circa 1800Support the showReach out, support the show and give me feedback! Follow the podcast on social media Leave a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify Become a patron on Patreon to support the show Buy me a Coffee Get beautiful “La Fayette, We are Here!” merchandise from TeePublic

We live in an enlightened world. We owe a lot to the men and women of the XVIIIth century and what they gave us. During this period, all over Europe, but especially in France, sciences, politics, literature, art, philosophy and many other aspect of society were being dissected, studied and written on.You know their names: Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, Montesquieu, du Châtelet, Lavoisier, de Gouges and others. They are the ones who laid the foundation for the very States we live in, at least in the democratic parts of the world. Modern governments and societies derive directly from the work of these people that we consider part of the Lumières era.Let me give you an idea of how they managed to do that, why they did it, as well as the dramatic consequences that ensued.Timecodes:Introduction05:45 - Turning the lights on 09:32 - Various aspects of the Enlightenment 14:25 - The Encyclopédie and the sciences23:52 - Laws, societies and the consequences of the Enlightenment30:14 - ConclusionMusic: Marche pour la cérémonie des Turcs, composed by Jean-Baptiste Lully, arranged and performed by Jérôme Arfouche.Painting: Première lecture chez Mme Geoffrin de la tragédie de Voltaire "L'Orphelin de la Chine" , 1755. By Anicet Charles LemonnierSupport the showReach out, support the show and give me feedback! Follow the podcast on social media Leave a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify Become a patron on Patreon to support the show Buy me a Coffee Get beautiful “La Fayette, We are Here!” merchandise from TeePublic

The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars profoundly affected all of Europe and became watersheds in the history of strategy. Until then, French thinking on war had dominated European discourse for a good two centuries, even though the word ‘strategy' had not yet been imported into European languages from the Greek. Crucial among the French thinkers of this period was Comte de Guibert (1743–1790), who has been called the prophet of the wars of the French Revolution, foreseeing the transformation of war into the people's cause, rather than merely that of their monarchs. In a republican spirit, Guibert dedicated his first work, the General Essay on Tactics, ‘to my fatherland' – reason enough to publish it anonymously, even though he noted that the king was part of his fatherland! Guibert – like Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz – changed some of his fundamental views during his lifetime. In his youth, Guibert wrote what would become a bestseller throughout the Western world, in which he made the case for an army of citizen-soldiers who would be unbeatable. However, after fighting in the French conquest of Corsica and then serving in the French War Ministry, he decided that overseas campaigns required a professional army. The arguments he put forward still stand up to scrutiny today. To discuss Guibert and his works, we are joined by Dr Jonathan Abel, Assistant Professor of Military History, US Army Command and General Staff College, the author of Guibert: Father of Napoleon's Grande Armée (2016) and translator of Guibert's General Essay on Tactics (2021).

As our country grew, the places that we were able to gather and speak freely were many, and changed over time--all while preserving the ability to speak freely. That is no longer true. Declaring support for free speech means nothing if all that means is support for speech you can tolerate. Supporting free speech means something only when you support speech you personally find intolerable. “I Disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death Your right to say it.” Voltaire, French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher. Understanding issues like this is part of our overall Revolution 2.0™ goal of creating better lives for ourselves, our communities and for America. =========================== CONNECT WITH ME: ===========================‍ ‍ YOUTUBE: Subscribe here - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCw5CDliD-PRQE_8bO4Eg98Q?sub_confirmation=1‍ ‍ WEBSITE: https://revolution2-0.org‍ ‍ E-MAIL: Will@Revolution2-0.org‍ ‍ SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/6rr6fi3AMW0GoAfYQ64lf9‍ APPLE PODCAST: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/revolution-2-0/id1353135552‍ GOOGLE PODCAST: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9yZXZvbHV0aW9uMi0wLm9yZy9mZWVkL3BvZGNhc3Qv‍ FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/revolution2pod‍ TWITTER: https://twitter.com/WillLuden‍ LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/company/revolution-2-0/‍ ‍ -----‍ ‍ Revolution 2.0's mission is to deliver on the promissory note and continue the founding direction that, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”‍ ‍ The core, driving principles at Revolution 2.0, are:‍ ‍ 1. Personal Responsibility - Take it, teach it.‍ 2. "Be Your Brother's Keeper" - Taking care of one another.‍ ‍ I'm Will Luden, the creator and host of Revolution 2.0. We do not advocate for people or parties here—we advocate for principles and policies. Those that include having a moral compass, searching for, and implementing common goals, and using a combination of facts and unbiased, agenda-free reasoning.‍ ‍ Today, you and I have an equally unique and exceptional role to play in continuing to move America forward.‍ That is the subject of today's 10-minute episode. Please listen or watch on YouTube, like, subscribe, and comment.

In her recent book on the Jewish community of Modena in Italy, Federica Francesconi tells a tale of contradictions. Segregated to the city's ghetto in the 17th century, the Jewish merchants of the city nonetheless possessed an enormous presence in its economic, governmental and cultural milieu. By the start of the 19th century, these merchants even took center stage in Modena's political scene following Napoleon's conquest of Italy and the subsequent abolition of the ghettos themselves. How did this transformation occur? In what ways had life in the Modena – and in the Modenese ghetto – prepared these Jewish merchants to perform such leadership roles and to advocate fluently for the values of the French Enlightenment? To answer these questions, Francesconi tracks the development of the Modenese Jewish community since the arrival of her protagonists in the city in the middle of the 16th century, describing the techniques that merchant family members employed to stay abreast of – and innovate on – Modenese, Italian and European intellectual trends. The reader is not only privy to the economic activities of these figures, but also sees how they acted – for centuries – as cultural intermediaries for the rulers of the Este Duchy, who sought their advice on purchases of art, books and pieces of material culture. The book thus features Jews that do not fit neatly on the dichotomy between assimilation/conversion and communal isolation, but instead embodied aspects of both the ghetto society they dominated and the broader city setting with which they continually engaged. As the narrative progresses, the archival material that Francesconi has uncovered also gives readers glimpses into the rich social life of an Early Modern Jewish community in the midst of gradual change. The merchants' personal worship sites became synagogues for the whole ghetto. Their personal libraries – stocked with Kabbalistic masterpieces – were the sites of communal activity. Excluded from official leadership, Modenese Jewish women nonetheless found avenues to participate in shaping their own religious practices and the moral priorities of the community at large. Itself a series of cordoned off houses and living spaces, the ghetto was both “domestic” and a venue that fostered a nascent “civil society”; a “laboratory” that gave the Jewish merchants of Modena their first experiences with governmental practices.  At once an intellectual, socio-economic, religious and cultural history, Invisible Enlighteners: The Jewish Merchants of Modena, from the Renaissance to the Emancipation (U Pennsylvania Press, 2021) is not only a microhistory of Jewish life over the course of three centuries. It is, moreover, a model for understanding how Jews navigated, interpreted and even co-opted the policies of state institutions that emerged for the first time in the Early Modern period. James Benjamin Nadel is a Ph.D. student in the Department of History at Columbia University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/italian-studies

In her recent book on the Jewish community of Modena in Italy, Federica Francesconi tells a tale of contradictions. Segregated to the city's ghetto in the 17th century, the Jewish merchants of the city nonetheless possessed an enormous presence in its economic, governmental and cultural milieu. By the start of the 19th century, these merchants even took center stage in Modena's political scene following Napoleon's conquest of Italy and the subsequent abolition of the ghettos themselves. How did this transformation occur? In what ways had life in the Modena – and in the Modenese ghetto – prepared these Jewish merchants to perform such leadership roles and to advocate fluently for the values of the French Enlightenment? To answer these questions, Francesconi tracks the development of the Modenese Jewish community since the arrival of her protagonists in the city in the middle of the 16th century, describing the techniques that merchant family members employed to stay abreast of – and innovate on – Modenese, Italian and European intellectual trends. The reader is not only privy to the economic activities of these figures, but also sees how they acted – for centuries – as cultural intermediaries for the rulers of the Este Duchy, who sought their advice on purchases of art, books and pieces of material culture. The book thus features Jews that do not fit neatly on the dichotomy between assimilation/conversion and communal isolation, but instead embodied aspects of both the ghetto society they dominated and the broader city setting with which they continually engaged. As the narrative progresses, the archival material that Francesconi has uncovered also gives readers glimpses into the rich social life of an Early Modern Jewish community in the midst of gradual change. The merchants' personal worship sites became synagogues for the whole ghetto. Their personal libraries – stocked with Kabbalistic masterpieces – were the sites of communal activity. Excluded from official leadership, Modenese Jewish women nonetheless found avenues to participate in shaping their own religious practices and the moral priorities of the community at large. Itself a series of cordoned off houses and living spaces, the ghetto was both “domestic” and a venue that fostered a nascent “civil society”; a “laboratory” that gave the Jewish merchants of Modena their first experiences with governmental practices.  At once an intellectual, socio-economic, religious and cultural history, Invisible Enlighteners: The Jewish Merchants of Modena, from the Renaissance to the Emancipation (U Pennsylvania Press, 2021) is not only a microhistory of Jewish life over the course of three centuries. It is, moreover, a model for understanding how Jews navigated, interpreted and even co-opted the policies of state institutions that emerged for the first time in the Early Modern period. James Benjamin Nadel is a Ph.D. student in the Department of History at Columbia University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In her recent book on the Jewish community of Modena in Italy, Federica Francesconi tells a tale of contradictions. Segregated to the city's ghetto in the 17th century, the Jewish merchants of the city nonetheless possessed an enormous presence in its economic, governmental and cultural milieu. By the start of the 19th century, these merchants even took center stage in Modena's political scene following Napoleon's conquest of Italy and the subsequent abolition of the ghettos themselves. How did this transformation occur? In what ways had life in the Modena – and in the Modenese ghetto – prepared these Jewish merchants to perform such leadership roles and to advocate fluently for the values of the French Enlightenment? To answer these questions, Francesconi tracks the development of the Modenese Jewish community since the arrival of her protagonists in the city in the middle of the 16th century, describing the techniques that merchant family members employed to stay abreast of – and innovate on – Modenese, Italian and European intellectual trends. The reader is not only privy to the economic activities of these figures, but also sees how they acted – for centuries – as cultural intermediaries for the rulers of the Este Duchy, who sought their advice on purchases of art, books and pieces of material culture. The book thus features Jews that do not fit neatly on the dichotomy between assimilation/conversion and communal isolation, but instead embodied aspects of both the ghetto society they dominated and the broader city setting with which they continually engaged. As the narrative progresses, the archival material that Francesconi has uncovered also gives readers glimpses into the rich social life of an Early Modern Jewish community in the midst of gradual change. The merchants' personal worship sites became synagogues for the whole ghetto. Their personal libraries – stocked with Kabbalistic masterpieces – were the sites of communal activity. Excluded from official leadership, Modenese Jewish women nonetheless found avenues to participate in shaping their own religious practices and the moral priorities of the community at large. Itself a series of cordoned off houses and living spaces, the ghetto was both “domestic” and a venue that fostered a nascent “civil society”; a “laboratory” that gave the Jewish merchants of Modena their first experiences with governmental practices.  At once an intellectual, socio-economic, religious and cultural history, Invisible Enlighteners: The Jewish Merchants of Modena, from the Renaissance to the Emancipation (U Pennsylvania Press, 2021) is not only a microhistory of Jewish life over the course of three centuries. It is, moreover, a model for understanding how Jews navigated, interpreted and even co-opted the policies of state institutions that emerged for the first time in the Early Modern period. James Benjamin Nadel is a Ph.D. student in the Department of History at Columbia University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

In her recent book on the Jewish community of Modena in Italy, Federica Francesconi tells a tale of contradictions. Segregated to the city's ghetto in the 17th century, the Jewish merchants of the city nonetheless possessed an enormous presence in its economic, governmental and cultural milieu. By the start of the 19th century, these merchants even took center stage in Modena's political scene following Napoleon's conquest of Italy and the subsequent abolition of the ghettos themselves. How did this transformation occur? In what ways had life in the Modena – and in the Modenese ghetto – prepared these Jewish merchants to perform such leadership roles and to advocate fluently for the values of the French Enlightenment? To answer these questions, Francesconi tracks the development of the Modenese Jewish community since the arrival of her protagonists in the city in the middle of the 16th century, describing the techniques that merchant family members employed to stay abreast of – and innovate on – Modenese, Italian and European intellectual trends. The reader is not only privy to the economic activities of these figures, but also sees how they acted – for centuries – as cultural intermediaries for the rulers of the Este Duchy, who sought their advice on purchases of art, books and pieces of material culture. The book thus features Jews that do not fit neatly on the dichotomy between assimilation/conversion and communal isolation, but instead embodied aspects of both the ghetto society they dominated and the broader city setting with which they continually engaged. As the narrative progresses, the archival material that Francesconi has uncovered also gives readers glimpses into the rich social life of an Early Modern Jewish community in the midst of gradual change. The merchants' personal worship sites became synagogues for the whole ghetto. Their personal libraries – stocked with Kabbalistic masterpieces – were the sites of communal activity. Excluded from official leadership, Modenese Jewish women nonetheless found avenues to participate in shaping their own religious practices and the moral priorities of the community at large. Itself a series of cordoned off houses and living spaces, the ghetto was both “domestic” and a venue that fostered a nascent “civil society”; a “laboratory” that gave the Jewish merchants of Modena their first experiences with governmental practices.  At once an intellectual, socio-economic, religious and cultural history, Invisible Enlighteners: The Jewish Merchants of Modena, from the Renaissance to the Emancipation (U Pennsylvania Press, 2021) is not only a microhistory of Jewish life over the course of three centuries. It is, moreover, a model for understanding how Jews navigated, interpreted and even co-opted the policies of state institutions that emerged for the first time in the Early Modern period. James Benjamin Nadel is a Ph.D. student in the Department of History at Columbia University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history

In her recent book on the Jewish community of Modena in Italy, Federica Francesconi tells a tale of contradictions. Segregated to the city's ghetto in the 17th century, the Jewish merchants of the city nonetheless possessed an enormous presence in its economic, governmental and cultural milieu. By the start of the 19th century, these merchants even took center stage in Modena's political scene following Napoleon's conquest of Italy and the subsequent abolition of the ghettos themselves. How did this transformation occur? In what ways had life in the Modena – and in the Modenese ghetto – prepared these Jewish merchants to perform such leadership roles and to advocate fluently for the values of the French Enlightenment? To answer these questions, Francesconi tracks the development of the Modenese Jewish community since the arrival of her protagonists in the city in the middle of the 16th century, describing the techniques that merchant family members employed to stay abreast of – and innovate on – Modenese, Italian and European intellectual trends. The reader is not only privy to the economic activities of these figures, but also sees how they acted – for centuries – as cultural intermediaries for the rulers of the Este Duchy, who sought their advice on purchases of art, books and pieces of material culture. The book thus features Jews that do not fit neatly on the dichotomy between assimilation/conversion and communal isolation, but instead embodied aspects of both the ghetto society they dominated and the broader city setting with which they continually engaged. As the narrative progresses, the archival material that Francesconi has uncovered also gives readers glimpses into the rich social life of an Early Modern Jewish community in the midst of gradual change. The merchants' personal worship sites became synagogues for the whole ghetto. Their personal libraries – stocked with Kabbalistic masterpieces – were the sites of communal activity. Excluded from official leadership, Modenese Jewish women nonetheless found avenues to participate in shaping their own religious practices and the moral priorities of the community at large. Itself a series of cordoned off houses and living spaces, the ghetto was both “domestic” and a venue that fostered a nascent “civil society”; a “laboratory” that gave the Jewish merchants of Modena their first experiences with governmental practices.  At once an intellectual, socio-economic, religious and cultural history, Invisible Enlighteners: The Jewish Merchants of Modena, from the Renaissance to the Emancipation (U Pennsylvania Press, 2021) is not only a microhistory of Jewish life over the course of three centuries. It is, moreover, a model for understanding how Jews navigated, interpreted and even co-opted the policies of state institutions that emerged for the first time in the Early Modern period. James Benjamin Nadel is a Ph.D. student in the Department of History at Columbia University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies

In her recent book on the Jewish community of Modena in Italy, Federica Francesconi tells a tale of contradictions. Segregated to the city's ghetto in the 17th century, the Jewish merchants of the city nonetheless possessed an enormous presence in its economic, governmental and cultural milieu. By the start of the 19th century, these merchants even took center stage in Modena's political scene following Napoleon's conquest of Italy and the subsequent abolition of the ghettos themselves. How did this transformation occur? In what ways had life in the Modena – and in the Modenese ghetto – prepared these Jewish merchants to perform such leadership roles and to advocate fluently for the values of the French Enlightenment? To answer these questions, Francesconi tracks the development of the Modenese Jewish community since the arrival of her protagonists in the city in the middle of the 16th century, describing the techniques that merchant family members employed to stay abreast of – and innovate on – Modenese, Italian and European intellectual trends. The reader is not only privy to the economic activities of these figures, but also sees how they acted – for centuries – as cultural intermediaries for the rulers of the Este Duchy, who sought their advice on purchases of art, books and pieces of material culture. The book thus features Jews that do not fit neatly on the dichotomy between assimilation/conversion and communal isolation, but instead embodied aspects of both the ghetto society they dominated and the broader city setting with which they continually engaged. As the narrative progresses, the archival material that Francesconi has uncovered also gives readers glimpses into the rich social life of an Early Modern Jewish community in the midst of gradual change. The merchants' personal worship sites became synagogues for the whole ghetto. Their personal libraries – stocked with Kabbalistic masterpieces – were the sites of communal activity. Excluded from official leadership, Modenese Jewish women nonetheless found avenues to participate in shaping their own religious practices and the moral priorities of the community at large. Itself a series of cordoned off houses and living spaces, the ghetto was both “domestic” and a venue that fostered a nascent “civil society”; a “laboratory” that gave the Jewish merchants of Modena their first experiences with governmental practices.  At once an intellectual, socio-economic, religious and cultural history, Invisible Enlighteners: The Jewish Merchants of Modena, from the Renaissance to the Emancipation (U Pennsylvania Press, 2021) is not only a microhistory of Jewish life over the course of three centuries. It is, moreover, a model for understanding how Jews navigated, interpreted and even co-opted the policies of state institutions that emerged for the first time in the Early Modern period. James Benjamin Nadel is a Ph.D. student in the Department of History at Columbia University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

An unwavering spirit maybe isn't such a great thing after all.'Candide' by Voltaire is a funny satire on the philosophical idea/theory of Optimism, which was popular during the French Enlightenment. It is a roving adventure of the ever hopeful Candide as he learns about the harshness of the world while chasing his love Cunégonde and spreading the philosophy of Dr Pangloss. His travels take him across Europe, South America & the Middle East with numerous mishaps and encounters with embittered souls along the way.I summarised the book as follows. "It's an absolutely biting attack on the idea that 'all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds'. The humour is fantastic and it can be read lightly as an engaging story containing memorable characters. It can also make you think deeply about ethics and philosophy if you choose to do so. Quite similar in style to Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift."I hope you have a fantastic day wherever you are in the world. Kyrin out!If you would like to support the channel, you can grab yourself a copy of the book here! https://amzn.to/2UMfxd9Timeline:(0:00) - Intro(0:25) - Synopsis(2:53) - Optimism: Insisting all is good when it really isn't(6:05) - Pessimism: Joy in the worst of all possible worlds(8:20) - Personal Observations/Takeaways(12:05) - SummaryConnect with Mere Mortals:Website: https://www.meremortalspodcast.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/meremortalspodcast/Support the show

In this episode, Todd and Nathan talk with Dr. Charles Devellennes about atheism in the French Enlightenment, the recent gilets jaunes (yellow vests) protests in France, next year's French presidential election, and France's model of secularism. Charles is a Senior Lecturer in Political and Social Thought at the School of Politics and International Relations, University of Kent, and the author of the recent books: Positive Atheism: Bayle, Meslier, d'Holbach, Diderot (Edinburgh University Press) and The Gilets Jaunes and the New Social Contract (Bristol University Press).Positive Atheism: Bayle, Meslier, d'Holbach, Diderot: https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-positive-atheism.htmlThe Gilets Jaunes and the New Social Contract: https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/the-gilets-jaunes-and-the-new-social-contractFollow Charles on Twitter: https://twitter.com/CDevellennesFor Todd's post-episode reflections, check out: https://todd-tavares.medium.com/Follow Nathan on Twitter: https://twitter.com/NathGAlexanderNathan's website: https://www.nathangalexander.com/

On the podcast this week, Enlightenment's Wake: Politics and Culture at the Close of the Modern Age by John Gray. Next time: Postjournalism and the death of newspapers. The media after Trump: manufacturing anger and polarization by Andrey Mir. Normally Jerry writes an ideological Turing test summary for the book we discuss, but it's impossible with this one as you'll hear us say. So here are some of Jerry's highlights from the book itself: If the Enlightenment myth of progress in ethics and politics continues to have a powerful hold, it is more from fear of the consequences of giving it up than from genuine conviction. the collapse of communism was a world-historic defeat for the Enlightenment project. Communism was not a type of oriental despotism, as generations of Western scholars maintained. It was an authentic continuation of a Western revolutionary tradition, and its downfall – after tens of millions of deaths were inflicted in the pursuit of its utopian goals – signalled the start of a process of de-Westernization. It is an inquiry into the right whose agenda is justice and whose content is given, not by any investigation of human beings as we find them in the world, with their diverse histories and communities, but by an abstract conception of the person that has been voided of any definite cultural identity or specific historical inheritance. Consider, in this regard, the central category of the intellectual tradition spawned by Rawls's work – the category of the person. In Rawls's work, as in that of his followers, this is a cipher, without history or ethnicity, denuded of the special attachments that in the real human world give us the particular identities we have. Emptied of the contingencies that in truth are essential to our identities, this cipher has in the Rawlsian schema only one concern – a concern for its own good, which is not the good of any actual human being, but the good we are all supposed to have in common, which it pursues subject to constraints of justice that are conceived to be those of impartiality. In this conception, the principles of justice are bound to be the same for all. The appearance of a plurality of ciphers in the Rawlsian original position must be delusive, since, having all of them the same beliefs and motives, they are indistinguishable. The subject matter of justice cannot, except indirectly, be found in the histories of peoples, and their often tragically conflicting claims; it must be always a matter of individual rights. It is obvious that this liberal position cannot address, save as an inconvenient datum of human psychology, the sense of injustice arising from belonging to an oppressed community that, in the shape of nationalism, is the strongest political force of our century. The task of political philosophy is conceived as one of deriving the ideal constitution – assumed, at least in principle, to be everywhere the same. This is so, whether its upshot be Rawls's basic liberties, Nozick's side-constraints, or Dworkin's rights-as-trumps. The presupposition is always that the bottom line in political morality is the claims of individuals, and that these are to be spelt out in terms of the demands of justice or rights. The consequence is that the diverse claims of historic communities, if they are ever admitted, are always overwhelmed by the supposed rights of individuals. The notion that different communities might legitimately have different legal regimes for abortion or pornography, for example, is hardly considered. If the theoretical goal of the new liberalism is the supplanting of politics by law, its practical result – especially in the United States, where rights discourse is already the only public discourse that retains any legitimacy – has been the emptying of political life of substantive argument and the political corruption of law. Issues, such as abortion, that in many other countries have been resolved by a legislative settlement that involves compromises and which is known to be politically renegotiable, are in the legalist culture of the United States matters of fundamental rights that are intractably contested and which threaten to become enemies of civil peace. Communitarian thought still harbours the aspiration expressed in those forms of the Enlightenment project, such as Marxism, that are most critical of liberalism – that of creating a form of communal life from which are absent the practices of exclusion and subordination that are constitutive of every community human beings have ever lived in. Old-fashioned toleration – the toleration defended by Milton, and by the older liberals, such as Locke – sprang from an acceptance of the imperfectibility of human beings, and from a belief in the importance of freedom in the constitution of the good life. Since we cannot be perfect, and since virtue cannot be forced on people but is rather a habit of life they must themselves strive to acquire, we were enjoined to tolerate the shortcomings of others, even as we struggled with our own. On this older view, toleration is a precondition of any stable modus vivendi among incorrigibly imperfect beings. If it has become unfashionable in our time, the reason is in part to be found in the resistance of a post-Christian age to the thought that we are flawed creatures whose lives will always contain evils. This is a thought subversive of the shallow optimistic creeds of our age, humanist or Pelagian, for which human evils are problems to be solved rather than sorrows to be coped with or endured. Toleration is unfashionable for another, more topical reason. It is unavoidably and inherently judgemental. The objects of toleration are what we judge to be evils. When we tolerate a practice, a belief or a character trait, we let something be that we judge to be undesirable, false or at least inferior; our toleration expresses the conviction that, despite its badness, the object of toleration should be left alone. we tolerate ersatz religions, such as Scientology, not because we think they may after all contain a grain of truth, but because the great good of freedom of belief necessarily encompasses the freedom to believe absurdities. Toleration is not, then, an expression of scepticism, of doubt about our ability to tell the good from the bad; it is evidence of our confidence that we have that ability. The idea of toleration goes against the grain of the age because the practice of toleration is grounded in strong moral convictions. Such judgements are alien to the dominant conventional wisdom according to which standards of belief and conduct are entirely subjective or relative in character, and one view of things is as good as any other. Indeed, when a society is tolerant, its tolerance expresses the conception of the good life that it has in common. In so far as a society comes to lack any such common conception – as is at least partly the case in Britain today – it ceases to be capable of toleration as it was traditionally understood. What the neutrality of radical equality mandates is nothing less than the legal disestablishment of morality. As a result, morality becomes in theory a private habit of behaviour rather than a common way of life. What a policy of toleration would not mandate is the wholesale reconstruction of institutional arrangements in Britain such that homosexuals acquire collective rights or are in every context treated precisely as heterosexuals. This is not to say that the current law of marriage is fixed for all time, any more than the rest of family law, such as the law on adoption, is so fixed. Further, it is to say that such extension of legal recognition would not be to homosexuals as a group but to individuals regardless of their sexual orientation. To make a political issue that is deeply morally contested a matter of basic rights is to make it non-negotiable, since rights – at least as they are understood in the dominant contemporary schools of Anglo-American jurisprudence – are unconditional entitlements, not susceptible to moderation In modern Western pluralist societies, policies which result in the creation of group rights are inevitably infected with arbitrariness and consequent inequity, since the groups selected for privileging are arbitrary, as is the determination of who belongs to which group. a stable liberal civil society cannot be radically multicultural but depends for its successful renewal across the generations on an undergirding culture that is held in common. This common culture need not encompass a shared religion and it certainly need not presuppose ethnic homogeneity, but it does demand widespread acceptance of certain norms and conventions of behaviour and, in our times, it typically expresses a shared sense of nationality. The example of the United States, which at least since the mid-1960s has been founded on the Enlightenment conviction that a common culture is not a necessary precondition of a liberal civil society, shows that the view that civil peace can be secured solely by adherence to abstract rules is merely an illusion. In so far as policy has been animated by it, the result has been further social division, including what amounts to low-intensity civil war between the races. As things stand, the likelihood in the United States is of a slow slide into ungovernability, as the remaining patrimony of a common cultural inheritance is frittered away by the fragmenting forces of multiculturalism. The kind of diversity that is incompatible with civil society in Britain is that which rejects the constitutive practices that give it its identity. Central among these are freedom of expression and its precondition, the rule of law. Cultural traditions that repudiate these practices cannot be objects of toleration for liberal civil society in Britain or anywhere else. The radical tolerance of indifference has application wherever there are conceptions of the good that are incommensurable. the claim that there may be, and are present among us, conceptions of the good that are rationally incommensurable is not one that supports any of the fashionable varieties of relativism and subjectivism, since it allows, and indeed presupposes, that some conceptions of the good are defective, and some forms of life simply bad. the radical tolerance of indifference is virtually the opposite of old-fashioned toleration in that its objects are not judged to be evils and may indeed be incommensurable goods. Woodrow Wilson's project of imposing a rationalist order conceived in the New World on the intractably quarrelsome nations of Europe. Like Marxism, this rationalist conception had its origins in the French Enlightenment's vision of a universal human civilization in which the claims of ethnicity and religion came long after those of common humanity. In the wake of Soviet communism, we find, not Homo Sovieticus or any other rationalist abstraction, but men and women whose identities are constituted by particular attachments and histories – Balts, Ukrainians, Uzbeks, Russians and so on. Western opinion-formers and policy-makers are virtually unanimous in modelling the transition process of the post-communist states in terms which imply their reconstruction on Western models and their integration into a coherent international order based on Western power and institutions. Underlying this virtually universal model are assumptions that are anachronistic and radically flawed. It assumes that the system of Western-led institutions which assured global peace and world trade in the post-war period can survive, substantially unchanged or even strengthened, the world-wide reverberations of the Soviet collapse; the only issue is how the fledgling post-communist states are to gain admission into these institutions. This assumption neglects the dependency of these institutions on the strategic environment of the Cold War and their unravelling, before our eyes, as the post-war settlement disintegrates. The strategic consequence of the end of the Cold War has been the return to a pre-1914 world – with this difference, that the pre-1914 world was dominated by a single hegemonic power, Great Britain, whereas the return to nineteenth-century policies and modes of thinking in the United States leaves the world without any hegemonic power. the Soviet collapse has triggered a meltdown in the post-war world order, and in the domestic institutions of the major Western powers, which has yet to run its course. the crisis of Western transnational institutions is complemented by an ongoing meltdown of the various Western models of the nature and limits of market institutions in advanced industrial societies. The alienation of democratic electorates from established political elites is pervasive in Western societies, including the United States. Contrary to Hayek, who generalizes from the English experience to put forward a grandiose theory of the spontaneous emergence of market institutions that is reminiscent in its unhistorical generality of Herbert Spencer and Karl Marx at their most incautious, the English example is a singularity, not an exemplar of any long-run historical trend. The English experience is sui generis, not a paradigm for the development of market institutions, because the unique combination of circumstances which permitted it to occur as it did – immemorial individualism and parliamentary absolutism, for example – were replicated nowhere else. Where market institutions did develop elsewhere on English lines, as in North America and Australasia, it was in virtue of the fact that English cultural traditions and legal practice had been exported there more or less wholesale. Market institutions of the English variety failed to take root where, as in India, their legal and cultural matrix was not successfully transplanted. It is noteworthy that, until its collapse in 1991, the Swedish model performed well in respect of what was, perhaps, its principal achievement, an active labour policy that kept long-term unemployment very low, and so effectively prevented the growth of an estranged underclass of the multi-generationally unemployed. The German or Rhine model of market institutions, as it developed in the post-war period up to reunification, was not the result of the application of any consistent theory, but rather of a contingent political compromise between a diversity of theoretical frameworks, of which the most important were the Ordoliberalismus of the Eucken or Frankfurt School and Catholic social theology. It represented a political settlement, also, between the principal interest groups in post-war Germany, including the newly constituted trade unions. It would be false to imagine that China lacks ethnic conflict, or separatist movements. As a portent for the future, there appears to be an Islamic separatist movement in the far-western ‘autonomous region' of Xinjiang, which has borders with the new republics of Kyrgystan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan, and with Afghanistan and Pakistan; and there are undoubtedly strong separatist movements in neighbouring Tibet and Mongolia. it would not be entirely surprising, but would in fact rather accord with long-term patterns in Chinese history, if the Chinese state were to fragment in the coming years, perhaps after the death of Deng Xiaoping; market institutions have as their matrices particular cultural traditions, without whose undergirding support the frameworks of law by which they are defined are powerless or empty. Scottish thinkers, such as Adam Smith and Adam Ferguson, who not unreasonably generalized from their own historical experience to such a connection, this result of their inquiries evoked anxiety as to the eventual fate of market institutions, since – like later thinkers such as Joseph Schumpeter – they feared that individualism would consume the cultural capital on which market institutions relied for their renewal across the generations. Our experience suggests that such fears as to the ultimately self-defeating effects of market institutions that are animated by individualist cultural traditions are far from groundless. The growth of lawlessness in Russia, the threat posed to social and business life by organized criminality, and the apparent powerlessness thus far of the Yeltsin government in the face of this threat, suggest that an authoritarian turn in Russian political life, whether by the Yeltsin government or by a successor, and whether or not the army has a decisive role in any subsequent authoritarian regime, would be in accord both with the exigencies of current circumstances and with Russian historical precedent. Authoritarian government is likely to emerge in Russia both in response to the dangers of fragmentation of the state and ensuing civil strife and as a response to growing criminal violence in everyday and business life. The Soviet collapse, far from enhancing the stability of Western institutions, has destabilized them by knocking away the strategic props on which they stood. The prospect of the orderly integration of the post-communist states into the economic and security arrangements of the Western world is a mirage, not only because of the unprecedentedly formidable difficulties each of them confronts in its domestic development, but also because the major Western transnational institutions and organizations are themselves in a flux, amounting sometimes to dissolution. The world-historical failure of the Enlightenment project – in political terms, the collapse and ruin, in the late twentieth century, of the secular, rationalist and universalist political movements, liberal as well as Marxist, that that project spawned, and the dominance in political life of ethnic, nationalist and fundamentalist forces – suggests the falsity of the philosophical anthropology upon which the Enlightenment project rested. On the alternative view that I shall develop, the propensity to cultural difference is a primordial attribute of the human species; human identities are plural and diverse in their very natures, as natural languages are plural and diverse, and they are always variations on particular forms of common life, never exemplars of universal humanity. The task for liberal theory, as I see it, is not vainly to resist the historical falsification of the universalist anthropology that sustained the Enlightenment philosophy of history, but to attempt to reconcile the demands of a liberal form of life with the particularistic character of human identities and allegiances – to retheorize liberalism as itself a particular form of common life. Agonistic liberalism is that species of liberalism that is grounded, not in rational choice, but in the limits of rational choice – limits imposed by the radical choices we are often constrained to make among goods that are both inherently rivalrous, and often constitutively uncombinable, and sometimes incommensurable, or rationally incomparable. Agonistic liberalism is an application in political philosophy of the moral theory of value-pluralism – the theory that there is an irreducible diversity of ultimate values (goods, excellences, options, reasons for action and so forth) and that when these values come into conflict or competition with one another there is no overarching standard or principle, no common currency or measure, whereby such conflicts can be arbitrated or resolved. Value-pluralism imposes limits on rational choice that are subversive of most standard moral theories, not merely of utilitarianism, and it has deeply subversive implications for all the traditional varieties of liberal theory. The thesis of the incommensurability of values is then not a version of relativism, of subjectivism or of moral scepticism, though it will infallibly be confused with one or other of these doctrines: it is a species of moral realism, which we shall call objective pluralism. Its distinguishing features are that it limits the scope of rational choice among goods, affirming that they are often constitutively uncombinable and sometimes rationally incommensurable. It is a fundamental contribution of Raz's political philosophy to have shown that a rights-based political morality is an impossibility. rights claims are never primordial or foundational but always conclusionary, provisional results of long chains of reasoning which unavoidably invoke contested judgements about human interests and well-being. If the truth of value-pluralism is assumed, such that there are no right answers in hard cases about the restraint of liberty, then it seems natural to treat questions of the restraint of liberty as political, and not as theoretical or jurisprudential questions. Despite its self-description as political liberalism, then, Rawls's is a liberalism that has been politically emasculated, in which nothing of importance is left to political decision, and in which political life itself has been substantially evacuated of content. The hollowing out of the political realm in Rawlsian liberalism is fatal to its self-description as a form of political liberalism and discloses its true character as a species of liberal legalism. The liberal legalism of Rawls and his followers is, perhaps, only an especially unambiguous example of the older liberal project, or illusion, of abolishing politics, or of so constraining it by legal and constitutional formulae that it no longer matters what are the outcomes of political deliberation. In Rawlsian liberal legalism, the anti-political nature of at least one of the dominant traditions of liberalism is fully realized. In historical practice, the effect of attempting to abolish or to marginalize political life has been – especially in the United States, where legalism is strongest – the politicization of law, as judicial institutions have become arenas of political struggle. The end-result of this process is not, however, the simple transposition of political life into legal contexts, but rather the corrosion of political life itself. The treatment of all important issues of restraint of liberty as questions of constitutional rights has the consequence that they cease to be issues that are politically negotiable and that can be resolved provisionally in a political settlement that encompasses a compromise among conflicting interests and ideals. In conflicts about basic constitutional rights, there can be no compromise solutions, only judgements which yield unconditional victory for one side and complete defeat for the other. Allegiance to a liberal state is, on this view, never primarily to principles which it may be thought to embody, and which are supposed to be compelling for all human beings; it is always to specific institutions, having a specific history, and to the common culture that animates them, which itself is a creature of historical contingency. On the view being developed here, allegiance to a liberal state is always allegiance to the common culture it embodies or expresses, and, in the late modern context in which we live, such a common culture is typically a national culture. the only things, on the account here defended, that can command allegiance. In our world they are nations, or the common forms of life which national cultures encompass and shelter. The point may be put in another, and perhaps a simpler way: there can be no form of allegiance that is purely political; political allegiance – at least when it is comparatively stable – presupposes a common cultural identity, which is reflected in the polity to which allegiance is given; political order, including that of a liberal state, rests upon a pre-political order of common culture. As Berlin has put his position: The fact that the values of one culture may be incompatible with those of another, or that they are in conflict within one culture or group or in a single human being at different times – or, for that matter, at one and the same time – does not entail relativism of values, only the notion of a plurality of values not structured hierarchically; which, of course, entails the permanent possibility of inescapable conflict between values, as well as incompatibility between the outlooks of different civilisations or of stages of the same civilisation. He sums up his view: ‘Relativism is not the only alternative to universalism … nor does incommensurability entail relativism'. Berlin's point, which is surely correct, is that there may be a specifiable minimum universal content to morality, and some forms of life may be condemned by it; but the items which make up the minimum content may, and sometimes do, come into conflict with one another, there being no rational procedure for resolving such conflicts. because the universal minimum in all of its variations underdetermines any liberal form of life, many of the regimes that meet the test of the universal minimum – probably the vast majority of such regimes to be found in human history – will not be liberal regimes. The likely prospect, on all current trends, is not only of the East Asian societies overtaking Western liberal individualist societies in the economic terms of growth, investment, savings and living standards; it is also of their doing so while preserving and enhancing common cultural forms which assure to their subjects personal security in their everyday lives and a public environment that is rich in choiceworthy options. By contrast, the prospect for the Western individualist societies is one of economic development that is weak and feeble in a context of cultural impoverishment in which the remnants of a common culture are hollowed out by individualism and legalism. The prospect for the Western liberal societies, and particularly for those in which individualism and legalism have by now virtually delegitimized the very idea of a common culture, is that of a steep and rapid decline in which civil peace is fractured and the remnants of a common culture on which liberal forms of life themselves depend are finally dissipated. The self-undermining of liberal individualism, which Joseph Schumpeter anticipated in the mid-1940s, is likely to proceed apace, now that the Soviet collapse has removed the legitimacy borrowed by Western institutions from the enmity of a ruinous alternative, and the East Asian societies are released from the constraints of the post-war settlement to pursue paths of development that owe ever less to the West. When our institutional inheritance – that precious and irreplaceable patrimony of mediating structures and autonomous professions – is thrown away in the pursuit of a managerialist Cultural Revolution seeking to refashion the entire national life on the impoverished model of contract and market exchange, it is clear that the task of conserving and renewing a culture is no longer understood by contemporary conservatives. In the context of such a Maoism of the Right, it is the permanent revolution of unfettered market processes, not the conservation of traditional institutions and professions, having each of them a distinctive ethos, that has become the ruling project of contemporary conservatism. At the same time, neo-liberalism itself can now be seen as a self-undermining political project. Its political success depended upon cultural traditions, and constellations of interests, that neo-liberal policy was bound to dissipate. liberal civilization itself may be imperilled, in so far as its legitimacy has been linked with the utopia of perpetual growth powered by unregulated market processes, and the inevitable failure of this utopia spawns illiberal political movements. Indeed, unconstrained market institutions are bound to undermine social and political stability, particularly as they impose on the population unprecedented levels of economic insecurity with all the resultant dislocations of life in families and communities. A central test of the readiness to think fresh thoughts is the way we think about market institutions. On the view defended here they are not ends in themselves but means or tools whose end is human well-being. Indeed, among us, market liberalism is in its workings ineluctably subversive of tradition and community. This may not have been the case in Edmund Burke's day, in which the maintenance of the traditions of whig England could coexist with a policy of economic individualism, but in our age a belief in any such harmony is a snare and a delusion. Among us, unlike the men and women of Burke's day, markets are global, and also, in the case of capital markets, nearly instantaneous; free trade, if it too is global, operates among communities that are vastly more uneven in development than any that traded with one another in Burke's time; and our lives are pervaded by mass media that transform tastes, and revolutionize daily habits, in ways that could be only dimly glimpsed by the Scottish political economists whom Burke so revered. The social and cultural effects of market liberalism are, virtually without exception, inimical to the values that traditional conservatives hold dear. Communities are scattered to the winds by the gale of creative destruction. Endless ‘downsizing' and ‘flattening' of enterprises fosters ubiquitous insecurity and makes loyalty to the company a cruel joke. The celebration of consumer choice, as the only undisputed value in market societies, devalues commitment and stability in personal relationships and encourages the view of marriage and the family as vehicles of self-realization. The dynamism of market processes dissolves social hierarchies and overturns established expectations. Status is ephemeral, trust frail and contract sovereign. The dissolution of communities promoted by market-driven labour mobility weakens, where it does not entirely destroy, the informal social monitoring of behaviour which is the most effective preventive measure against crime. Classical liberalism, or what I have termed market fundamentalism, is, like Marxism, a variation on the Enlightenment project, which is the project of transcending the contingencies of history and cultural difference and founding a universal civilization that is qualitatively different from any that has ever before existed. In this paleo-liberal or libertarian view, the erosion of distinctive cultures by market processes is, if anything, to be welcomed as a sign of progress toward a universal rational civilization. Here paleo-liberalism shows its affinities not with European conservatism but with the Old Left project of doing away with, or marginalizing politically, the human inheritance of cultural difference. That this perspective is a hallucinatory and utopian one is clear if we consider its neglect of the sources not only of political allegiance but also of social order in common cultural forms. Market liberalism, like other Enlightenment ideologies, treats cultural difference as a politically marginal phenomenon whose appropriate sphere is in private life. It does not comprehend, or repudiates as irrationality, the role of a common culture in sustaining political order and in legitimizing market institutions. Market liberalism is at its most utopian, however, in its conception of a global market society, in which goods, and perhaps people, move freely between economies having radically different stages of development and harbouring very different cultures. Human beings need, more than they need the freedom of consumer choice, a cultural and economic environment that offers them an acceptable level of security and in which they feel at home. The conservative idea of the primacy of cultural forms is meant to displace not only standard liberal conceptions of the autonomous human subject but also ideas of the autonomy of market institutions that liberal thought has been applied – or misapplied – to support. It is not meant to support nostalgist and reactionary conceptions of organic or integral community which have no application in our historical circumstances and which, if they were implemented politically, could end only in tragedy or – more likely in Britain – black comedy. The idea of a seamless community – the noumenal community, as we may call it, of communitarianism – is as much of a fiction as the autonomous subject of liberal theory. We all of us belong to many communities, we mostly inherit diverse ethnicities, and our world-views are fractured and provisional whether or not we know it or admit it. We harbour a deep diversity of views and values as to sexuality and the worth of human life, our relations with the natural environment and the special place, if any, of the human species in the scheme of things. The reactionary project of rolling back this diversity of values and world-views in the pursuit of a lost cultural unity overlooks the character of our cultural inheritance as a palimpsest, having ever deeper layers of complexity. It is clear only that, for us at any rate, a common culture cannot mean a common world-view, religious or secular. It is an implication of all that I have said, however, that we have no option but to struggle to make our inheritance of liberal traditions work. At present, the principal obstacle we face in the struggle to renew our inheritance of liberal practice is the burden on thought and policy of market liberal dogma. The central difficulty is that the enlargement of leisure that Mill, by contrast with the gloomier classical economists, expected to come from stability in population and output against a background of improvement in the industrial arts is occurring in the form of ever higher levels of involuntary unemployment. It may be that proposals for a basic or citizen's income, where that is to be distinguished from the neo-liberal idea of a negative income tax, and for a better distribution of capital among the citizenry, need reconsideration – despite all their difficulties – as elements in a policy aiming to reconcile the human need for economic security with the destabilizing dynamism of market institutions. Almost as significant in disclosing the Americocentric character of the new liberalism was its anaemic and impoverished conception of pluralism and cultural diversity. The incommensurability of values affirmed in doctrines of objective ethical pluralism was understood as arising in the formulation of personal plans of life rather than in conflicts among whole ways of life. And cultural diversity was conceived in the denatured form of a cornucopia of chosen lifestyles, each with its elective identity, rather than in the form in which it is found in the longer and larger experience of humankind – as the exfoliation of exclusionary forms of life, spanning the generations, membership of which is typically unchosen, and which tend to individuate themselves by their conflicts and by their historical memories of enmity. The core project of the Enlightenment was the displacement of local, customary or traditional moralities, and of all forms of transcendental faith, by a critical or rational morality, which was projected as the basis of a universal civilization. This is the project that animated Marxism and liberalism in all their varieties, which underpins both the new liberalism and neo-conservatism, and to which every significant body of opinion in the United States continues to subscribe. That liberal individuality is, in practice, invariably a prescription for abject conformity to prevailing bien-pensant opinion is, on the view being presented here, not the chief objection to it. The most disabling feature of these and other constitutive elements of the new liberalism is what they all betoken – namely, a rejection of the political enterprise itself, and of its animating value of peace. For the pluralist, the practice of politics is a noble engagement, precisely on account of the almost desperate humility of its purposes – which are to moderate the enmity of agonistic identities, and to generate conventions of peace among warring communities. The pluralist embrace of politics is, for these reasons, merely a recognition of the reality of political life, itself conceived as an abatement of war. from the truth of a plurality of incommensurable values the priority of one of them – liberty, autonomy or choice-making, say – cannot follow. Value-pluralism cannot entail, or ground, liberalism in any general, still less universal way. Pluralists reject this Old Right project for the same reason that they reject the Enlightenment project. Both seek to roll back the reality of cultural diversity for the sake of an imaginary condition of cultural unity – whether that be found in a lost past or in a supposed future condition of the species in which cultural difference has been marginalized in a universal civilization. Both perspectives are alien to that of the pluralist, which takes the reality of cultural difference as a datum of political order. A pluralist political order may nevertheless deviate from the central institutions of a liberal civil society at crucial points. It need not, and often will not possess an individualist legal order in which persons are the primary rights-bearers. The principal bearers of rights (and duties) in a pluralist political order will be communities, or ways of life, not individuals. The pluralist standard of assessment of any regime is whether it enables its subjects to coexist in a Hobbesian peace while renewing their distinctive forms of common life. … By this standard, the current regime in China might well be criticized for its policies in Tibet; but such a criticism would invoke the intrinsic value of the communities and cultural forms now being destroyed in Tibet, not universalist conceptions of human rights or democracy. Here I think Raz has grasped a point of fundamental importance, perceived by Mill but not by Rawls – that a liberal state cannot be neutral with regard to illiberal forms of life coming within its jurisdiction. Or, to put the matter still more shortly, Raz is entirely correct in seeing liberalism itself as a whole way of life, and not merely a set of political principles or institutions. The trouble is that, if value-pluralism is true at the level of whole ways of life, then the liberal form of life can have no special or universal claim on reason. In the late modern period in which we live, the Enlightenment project is affirmed chiefly for fear of the consequences of abandoning it. (The United States is, as ever, an exception in this regard, since in it both fundamentalist religion and fundamentalist affirmations of the Enlightenment project remain strong. The collapse of these fundamentalisms in the United States, however, were it to occur, would likely be accompanied by an outbreak of nihilism of a violence and intensity unknown in other Western countries; such an outcome is prefigured in much contemporary North American art, literature and popular entertainment.) There can, in my view, be no rolling back the central project of modernity, which is the Enlightenment project, with all its consequences in terms of disenchantment and ultimate groundlessness. … the thought of Nietzsche, especially but not exclusively his thinking about morality, is unavoidably and rightly the starting-point of serious reflection for us, at the close of the modern age which the Enlightenment project, in all its diversity, inaugurated. the political forms which may arise in truly post-Enlightenment cultures will be those that shelter and express diversity – that enable different cultures, some but by no means all or even most of which are dominated by liberal forms of life, different world-views and ways of life, to coexist in peace and harmony. For this development to be a real historical possibility, however, certain conceptions and commitments that have been constitutive, not merely of the Enlightenment and so of modernity, but also, and more fundamentally, of the central traditions of Western civilization, must be amended, or abandoned. Certain conceptions, not only of morality but also of science, that are central elements in Enlightenment cultures must be given up. Certain understandings of religion, long established in Western traditions, not as a vessel for a particular way of life but rather as the bearer of truths possessing universal authority, must be relinquished. The most fundamental Western commitment, the humanist conception of humankind as a privileged site of truth, which is expressed in Socratic inquiry and in Christian revelation, and which re-emerges in secular and naturalistic form in the Enlightenment project of human self-emancipation through the growth of knowledge, must be given up. Further, and perhaps decisively, once liberal practice is released from the hallucinatory perspective of liberal theory, it will be seen for what it always was – not a seamless garment, but a patchwork quilt, stitched together and restitched in response to the flux of circumstance. … If, as I believe, liberal practice is best conceived as a miscellany of ad-hoc improvisations, made over the generations in the pursuit of a modus vivendi, then no part of it can be regarded as sacrosanct; it can, and should, be rewoven, or unravelled, as circumstances and changing human needs dictate. The conception of the natural world as an object of human exploitation, and of humankind as the master of nature, which informs Bacon's writings, is one of the most vital and enduring elements of the modern world-view, and the one which Westernization has most lastingly and destructively transmitted to non-Western cultures. In this last period of modernity, Western instrumental reason becomes globalized at just the historic moment when its groundlessness is manifest. The embodiment of instrumental reason in modern technology acquires a planetary reach precisely when the animating humanist project which guided it is overthrown. Nothing remains of this project but the expansion of human productive powers through the technological domination of the earth. It is this conjunction of the global spread of the Western humanist project with the self-undermining of its most powerful modern embodiment in the Enlightenment that warrants the claim that we find ourselves now at the close of the modern age. In truth, the likelihood is that, now that the imperatives of the Cold War period are over, the European countries and the United States will increasingly decouple, not only strategically and economically, but also culturally, so that their cultural and political differences will become more, not less, decisive. It is difficult to believe that the forms of liberal culture will not diverge greatly, as a result of this likely decoupling, between the United States and the various European nations. Indeed, even as things stand now, Rorty's post-modern liberalism is an expression of American hopes, which are far from being shared by other liberal cultures, such as those in Europe. For liberalism to become merely one form of life among others would involve as profound a cultural metamorphosis as Christianity's ceasing to make any claim to unique and universal truth. The surrender of the will to power has its most important application in our relations with other forms of life, and with the earth. The project of subjecting the earth and its other life-forms to human will through technological domination is Western humanism in its final form.

REFLECTION QUOTES “Those in whom anger or desire or any other passion, or again any insidious vice holds sway, are entirely enslaved, while all those whose life is regulated by law are free.” ~Philo (c. 20 BC- c. AD 50) Jewish philosopher of ancient Alexandria “The teaching of the law, let it no longer lead you to bondage, but, on the contrary, bring you to liberty; let it no longer be only a schoolmaster, but bring you to perfection: it ought to be received by you with sincere affection, so that you may lead a godly and holy life.” ~John Calvin (1509-1564), French-born theologian “We need to emphasize more strongly the connection that exists between freedom and truth. On the one hand, freedom exists for the sake of truth; on the other hand, without truth, freedom cannot achieve its own perfection.” ~Karol Wojtyla, future Pope John Paul II, at the Second Vatican Council “It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.” ~Voltaire (1694-1778), French Enlightenment philosopher “Craving human affirmation is a no-win proposition. Those who don't receive it are miserable. Those who do receive it only want more.” ~Shai Linne, pastor and rap artist “Such is the grasping tendency of the human heart, that it must have a something to lay hold of and which, if wrested away without the substitution of another something in its place, would leave a void and a vacancy as painful to the mind, as hunger is to the natural system.” ~Thomas Chalmers (1780-1847), The Expulsive Power of a New Affection “To see the Law by Christ fulfilled, And hear his pard'ning voice; Changes a slave into a child, And duty into choice.” ~William Cowper (1731-1800), English poet, one of the most popular poets of his time SERMON PASSAGE James 2 and selected passages (ESV) James 2 8 If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well. 9 But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. 10 For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it. 11 For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. 12 So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. 13 For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment. Galatians 5 13 For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. 14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” James 1 18 Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures…. 21 Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. 22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. 23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. 24 For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. 25 But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing. Jeremiah 31 31 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. 33 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,' for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” Romans 8 1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and [as an offering] for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

About the Lecture: In current political conversations and reporting, the word “ideology” seems to have a plethora of meanings, often not clearly related to one another and sometimes clearly inconsistent with each other. The word is commonly used to mean a kind of voting behavior (an “ideological vote” versus a “party vote”), a kind of political thought characterized by a call to revolutionary action, or a political (or non-political) “belief system” held by a group of people or perhaps by just one individual. And this shortlist does not include its common usage as a synonym for “philosophy,” “theory,” “doctrine,” “policy,” and other forms of thought. Several of these usages of the word “ideology” are so well established that they can no longer be criticized as mistaken; but using the term in light of this jumble of definitions leads to misunderstanding and confusion. This lecture attempts to pick apart the threads in this tangle and to identify the main strands of meaning that the term has acquired in its relatively short history. Two main lines of contemporary meaning stand out: ideology as a type of social consciousness, a notion particularly favored by Western Marxists and Marxist-influenced theorists, and ideology as a form of radical political doctrine often characterized as apocalyptic, millenarian, and nihilistic. We will briefly trace the former tradition from its French Enlightenment roots to its contemporary political usage and then will outline some of the conceptual approaches to radical ideology that exemplify the latter tradition. About the Speaker: Bill Miller is a Professor of Politics at Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia. He received his J.D. and Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame. As an attorney, he has been in private practice in Pennsylvania, has taught law at Widener University's School of Law, served on the legal staff of the Judiciary Committee of the United States Senate, and most recently has worked on litigation teams at several Washington, D.C. law firms. He is the author of A Primer on American Courts. Since 1986, Professor Miller has been on the faculty of Marymount University after teaching political theory and other politics courses at several colleges and universities. Though teaching a wide variety of politics and law-related courses at Marymount, his primary focus has been on political theory and political ideology, which he approaches from a classical perspective influenced by Gerhart Niemeyer, Eric Voegelin, and Leo Strauss.

Denis Diderot has long been regarded as one of the leading figures of the French Enlightenment, thanks to his editorship of the influential multi-volume Encyclopédie. As Andrew S. Curran explains in his biography Diderot and the Art of Thinking Freely (Other Press, 2019) however, this was just one product of his wide-ranging literary efforts. The son of a cutler, Diderot underwent training for a life in the church, only to abandon it for an uncertain literary career. Initially finding success as a translator, his early works gained Diderot both acclaim and led to his imprisonment for several months. It was soon after his release that Diderot began work on the Encyclopédie, a years-long project that proved an important vehicle for spreading many of the ideas of the Enlightenment. Curran demonstrates that editing the Encyclopédie served as a way for Diderot to advance his views while avoiding the brunt of the controversy they engendered, with many of his later, often radical works not published until many years after his death in 1784. Andrew S. Curran (Ph.D., New York University, 1996) is the William Armstrong Professor of the Humanities and a member of Wesleyan University's Romance Languages and Literatures department. In addition to Diderot and the Art of Thinking Freely, his major publications include an edited volume (Faces of Monstrosity in Eighteenth-Century Thought in Eighteenth-Century Life) and two books: Sublime Disorder: Physical Monstrosity in Diderot's Universe (Voltaire Foundation, Oxford, 2001) and, more recently, The Anatomy of Blackness: Science and Slavery in an Age of Enlightenment (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2011 / paper 2013). The Anatomy of Blackness recently appeared in French translation (Anatomie de la noirceur) at Classiques Garnier. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Paola Bertucci's Artisanal Enlightenment: Science and the Mechanical Arts in Old Regime France (Yale University Press, 2018) is an innovative new look at the role of artisans in the French Enlightenment. As savants attempted to appropriate leadership of the mechanical arts while deriding artisans as mere laborers, some of these refashioned themselves as artistes, capable of blending craft knowledge with intellectual esprit. Through the little studied and understood Société des Arts, these advertised their service and utility to the state and French economic and imperia expansion. As they fought for official appointments and academic recognition, they help solidify key the Enlightenment concept of technological progress. Through the eyes and experiences of artistes, the Enlightenment appears much less the product of intellectual breakthroughs, and instead, a reflection of the political economic strategies of artisans as they defined their role within the French empire. Lance C. Thurner recently completed a PhD in History at Rutgers University with a dissertation addressing the production of medical knowledge, political subjectivities, and racial and national identities in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Mexico. He is broadly interested in the methods and politics of applying a global perspective to the history of science and medicine and the role of the humanities in the age of the Anthropocene. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Paola Bertucci's Artisanal Enlightenment: Science and the Mechanical Arts in Old Regime France (Yale University Press, 2018) is an innovative new look at the role of artisans in the French Enlightenment. As savants attempted to appropriate leadership of the mechanical arts while deriding artisans as mere laborers, some of these refashioned themselves as artistes, capable of blending craft knowledge with intellectual esprit. Through the little studied and understood Société des Arts, these advertised their service and utility to the state and French economic and imperia expansion. As they fought for official appointments and academic recognition, they help solidify key the Enlightenment concept of technological progress. Through the eyes and experiences of artistes, the Enlightenment appears much less the product of intellectual breakthroughs, and instead, a reflection of the political economic strategies of artisans as they defined their role within the French empire. Lance C. Thurner recently completed a PhD in History at Rutgers University with a dissertation addressing the production of medical knowledge, political subjectivities, and racial and national identities in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Mexico. He is broadly interested in the methods and politics of applying a global perspective to the history of science and medicine and the role of the humanities in the age of the Anthropocene. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

REFLECTION QUOTES “The world will ask you who you are, and if you don't know, the world will tell you.” ~Carl Jung (1875-1961), Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst “It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.” ~Voltaire (1694-1778), French Enlightenment philosopher “…the heart [cannot be] left without an object. Its desire for one particular object may be conquered; but…its desire for having some one object or other, this is unconquerable…. Such is the grasping tendency of the human heart, that it must have a something to lay hold of and which, if wrested away without the substitution of another something in its place, would leave a void and a vacancy as painful to the mind, as hunger is to the natural system.” ~Thomas Chalmers (1780-1847), Scottish minister, professor and social reformer “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in you.” ~St. Augustine (354-430), North African bishop “Look around and you will see systems and processes of justification everywhere in human affairs…. Other animals communicate, struggle for dominance, and form alliances. But they don't justify why they do what they do. We are the justifying animal.” ~Dr. Gregg Henriques, professor of psychology at James Madison University “Religion says earn your life. Secular society says create your life. Jesus says, ‘My life for your life.'” ~Dr. Tim Keller, pastor in Manhattan (NYC) “To see the law by Christ fulfilled And hear His pard'ning voice, Transforms a slave into a child, And duty into choice.” ~John Newton (1725-1807), writer of “Amazing Grace” SERMON PASSAGE Mark 7 5 And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” 6 And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, “‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; 7 in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.'” 17 And when he had entered the house and left the people, his disciples asked him about the parable. 18 And he said to them, “Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, 19 since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.) 20 And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. 21 For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22 coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. 23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” Mark 8 31 And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32 And he said this plainly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33 But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” 34 And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it. 36 For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? 37 For what can a man give in return for his soul?”

REFLECTION QUOTES “It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.” ~Voltaire (1694-1778), aka François-Marie Arouet, French Enlightenment philosopher “Man is condemned to be free.” ~Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980), French philosopher and novelist “You can destroy freedom as much by abusing it as you can be taking it away.” ~Attributed to Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh “God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever.” ~Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), inscribed in the Jefferson Memorial “Men are largely interdependent, and no man's activity is so completely private as never to obstruct the lives of others in any way. ‘Freedom for the pike is death for the minnows'; the liberty of some must depend on the restraint of others.” ~Isaiah Berlin (1909-1997) in Two Concepts of Liberty (1958 “And freedom, oh freedom, well that's just some people talkin'. Your prison is walking through this world all alone.” ~“Desperado” written by Glen Frey and Don Henley of The Eagles “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.” ~St. Paul in 2 Corinthians 3:17-18 SERMON PASSAGE Selected Passages from the Gospel of Mark (ESV) Mark 1 14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, 15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” Mark 8 31 And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32 And he said this plainly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33 But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” 34 And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it. 36 For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? 37 For what can a man give in return for his soul?” Mark 10 42 And Jesus called them to him and said to them, “You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. 43 But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. 45 For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”