197. Back to Enlightenment values?
In the
West, Muslim religious terrorism has triggered a rush to defend ‘our
Enlightenment values’. What does that mean? Is it wise?
The
Enlightenment produced absolutes of rationality (Descartes, Spinoza), morality
(Kant), justice, and democracy.[i]
Absolutes
claim to apply forever and everywhere, universally. Mathematics provided the
model (Spinoza’s Ethics
was presented as ‘in the
manner of geometry’). If our own values are absolute, then different values of
others must be not just wrong but deviant. This is counterproductive, branding alternative
views into heresies. It is fundamentalist, by which we practise what we condemn
the religious fundamentalists for.
Thought
has not stood still since the Enlightenment. Romanticism arose partly in
opposition to it. However, Romantic thought bred its own form of fundamentalism,
as in Rousseau. I discussed problems with the Enlightenment, and tensions with
Romanticism, earlier in this blog (items 21, 77, 116).
Charles
Taylor (2011) noted that in contemporary society there is an uneasy mix of
ideas from Enlightenment and Romanticism. From the Enlightenment we have ideas
of rationality (rational design, rational choice, efficiency, rigorous
analysis, …) and of individual autonomy. From Romanticism we have diversity,
feelings and emotions, realization of the authentic self, self-expression, a
sense of adventure, return to nature, and an urge to belong to a larger,
coherent whole (such as the nation, blood and soil) …
The
Enlightenment is found in science, economics, management, and increasingly also
in rational design in public administration (e.g. in health care, education,
…). Romanticism is found in the private sphere of self, family, friends, clubs,
… This yields a tense combination of opposites.
Existentialist
and post-modern thought, in opposition to the ‘grand narratives’, arose in
large part in recoil from the horrors produced by absolutist Enlightenment as
well as Romantic thought, in wars and totalitarian ideologies.
The
realization grew that absolutes not only of God, but also of the True, the
Good, and the Beautiful are illusions. That bred nihilism: despair of achieving
them or even of their value. And that has indeed weakened Western moral vigour.
But, as
discussed earlier in his blog (items 143-148), beyond nihilism, following
Nietzsche, one can accept, even rejoice in the demise of absolutes, in what I
have called ‘imperfection on the move’.
In the
light of this, what does it mean to ‘defend Enlightenment values’, and what is
the purpose?
It could
mean an even further intensified pursuit of rational design, efficiency, and
control, and neo-liberal market ideology, at the expense of what Habermas
called ‘the life world’. Is that what we want? Isn’t this one of the very
reasons, or excuses perhaps, why Muslim terrorists turn away from Western
culture?
In this
blog, and elsewhere, I argued that the most viable notion of rationality, in
view of problems with notions of knowledge and truth, consistent with the
notion of imperfection on the move’, is that of ‘being reasonable’, engaging in
dialogue with people who think differently, to learn from differences in
perspective. That form of rationality makes the best, I propose, from the
heritage of the Enlightenment, modified with subsequent thought.
None of
this entails toleration of terrorism, but it does imply an effort to understand
what motivates it, and to face the imperfections of our own ideologies. It is
an old military wisdom: understand your enemy. In order to better fight him.
But also to see what weaknesses on our own side prod and nourish him. In order
to quell his growth while improving ourselves.
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