ENLIGHTENMENT
Intellectual Conquest against Invincible Conquerors
This is a great story of our collective pasts that hatched a generation of visionary leaders, fearless cultures, successful industrialists, and a guild of philosophical economists whose literature jostled into people’s minds like never before. This glorification of our past conveniently concealed the inhuman acts of our humanity. This story is not meant to be heard by either those who lived through or those who ruled. Nevertheless, this story is the heritage of humanity, which is meant to be passed to the coming generations most objectively. This is my attempt to give the objective description of this story illustrating the important epochs/facts that shaped the thoughts of humanity.
This story begins with the enlightenment of Europe, then the story is dominated by mother of all revolutions “American war of Independence” and we also look at the American civil war. We will see how these thoughts of enlightenment engulfed France that contend with the timid and fragile monarchy in France leading to the most famous French revolution. We then are set out to understand the consequences of the rise of greatest military leader Napoleon Bonaparte who changed the political contours of Europe like never before.
This nationalism is now inevitable in the minds of enlightened men and in no time, we will see, turn into radical nationalism, causing the unification of Italy and Germany under the great leadership of Cavour and Bismarck respectively. What we see next are the infamous “total” wars which plunged the whole world into the bloodiest confrontation. A brief discussion on leaders like Adolf Hitler of Germany, Joseph Stalin of Russia, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, Kaiser William II of Germany is inevitable, these military dictators responsible for this long persisted manslaughter, undeniably had the least regard for the humanity.
Enlightenment
Enlightenment is defined as the cultural and ideological movement witnessed in Europe in the 18th century. First emerged in Holland and Britain, later spread across the whole of Europe like a wild torch. These ideas caught the imagination of the educated middle class of Europe. These ideals will be no longer restricted to just Europe, the cloud of enlightenment engulfs the colonial lands and thus causing disillusion that lead to decolonization.
The main reason for the emergence of this radical movement is the need for countering catholic domination in the social, economical, and even political lives of people in the empire. The wide consensus that church is a sole authority in interpreting religion render it the status of a dominant institution. Pope is kept above the king and religious toleration is still not a reality. The riches of the church manufactured a class of degenerated elite and thus fueling the voices of dissent against the perpetual paramountcy of church.
This catholic domination in their life is questioned by the protestant movement. Greatest French philosophers like Voltaire demanded separation of church and state. The questioning of catholic’s dominance involves questioning their fundamentals, the spiritualism they argue from which the church draws its power. This incessant questioning forms the bedrock for enlightenment. Famous “95 thesis” is such articulated questions written by famous German priest Martin Luther .
In this quest of questioning, many scholars promulgated the ideals like liberty, the supremacy of nature, efficacy of reason, and logic. Notions like individualism which argue that social institutions exist for individuals, not vice verse became more clearer to the people. John Locke, father of liberalism argues that individuals must have complete freedom from church, society, and state. These ideas which were never sensed by the middle class, now becoming visible, soon they realize that their marginalization and oppression are because of totalitarian governments.
Ideals of democracy, god-given rights, liberty, and humanism which was long denied to the majority of the populace by the far right-ruling elite, now couldn’t stop them from spreading. Equality of the man was now the guiding principle of those who reject absolute rule. Scholars vehemently condemned discrimination based on birth and material processions through their writings. The voices demanding the constitutional monarchy in place of absolute monarchy became louder and hostile. Intellectual maturity is the direct consequence of Enlightenment, scientific innovations sprung in European society like never before. Apart from Empiricism, rational thought, cultural consciousness is the clear manifestation of this intellectual movement.
Newspapers, books, and debate in saloons worked as the vehicles of thought. Merchants and military expeditions also contributed to the spreading of these thoughts across the world. A new guild of philosophers was born whose ideas and contributions are felt till date. Immanuel Kant is one of most famous Germany philosophers belonging to the age of enlightenment. He introduced the idea for the universal moral law, he claims that moral law is the highest law, and states must derive authority from it. No law of the state should contradict with this universal law, these kinds of ideas promulgated by Kant will open stir the nationalist feelings amongst Germans.
Another most important philosopher whose writings form the bedrock for french revolutions is Rousseau. His famous ideas on artificial and natural inequalities are eloquently depicted in his book “ The Social Contract “. Unlike many contemporary philosophers who argue with logic and reason, Rousseau’s appeal to the people reaches their hearts. Rousseau’s believed in the power of community and not in favor of individualism i.e, the interest of individuals can be surrendered for the sake of the community.
Though these ideals are appealing to the middle class, it is still limited to a very small percentage of people. There is no mass action against the regime that vehemently oppose the ideas of the enlightenment. These ideals are still sensed as radical to the countryside of the states, this thwarted the likeliness of mass action.
Summary
Movement of enlightenment not only introduced the ideas of liberty, democracy, rights to the people, but also led to decolonisation and mass actions against totalitarian regimes. Enlightenment is just the beginning of an end, a defiance against the British colonial masters is ready to explode in the American colonies. In the next blog, we will discuss the mother of all revolutions: THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
