The Enlightenment Book

Current events have been bumming me out lately so I decided to read something old... I found this really ratty copy of The Enlightenment (1964) on my shelves - it had been snoozing there for years - I probably picked it up for 50 cents at a library sale. I did vaguely remember hearing very good things about Peter Gay and now I know why. I'm a decent amateur historian of the past two centuries, but remain unschooled regarding the details of the classics, the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. Gay is a magnificent scholar and in The Enlightenment, he weaves a stunning tapestry, linking the philosophes of the enlightenment back to the classics and the humanists of the Renaissance, who laid the groundwork for the mighty thinkers of the 1700s.

I read this book slowly, as I tend to do with very good books. I suppose I like to savor them - and put off coming to the end.

Peter Gay summarizes thusly, "While the variations among the philosophes are far from negligible, they only orchestrate a single passion that bound the little flock together, the passion to cure the spiritual malady that is religion, the germ of ignorance, barbarity, hypocrisy, filth and the basest self-hatred." As stated by Voltaire, "God, God! …once that name had been pronounced, men begin hate each other, and to cut one another's throats." Ah Voltaire, the humorless and devastating critic.

The philosophers of the 18th century were by no means the original freethinkers. Gay weaves the background of the philosophes of the 1700s to their roots in classical Rome and Greece and acknowledges the preparation of the intellectual ground by the scholars of the Middle Ages. The reader learns the generally powerless nature of the church of the 18th century, caused by the corruption of Catholics and the in-fighting of the Protestants. [The self-same sources of powerlessness in the 21st century churches, plus of course the generalized paganization of western societies.]

And I learned a definition of philosophy both simple and deeply satisfying, "Philosophy is criticism."

The philosophers despised Magical Thinking, a position I relate to closely. Here is one example where magical thinking can take you, when coupled with the brilliantly evolved human brain capacity for rationalization:

In the now-infamous 47-percent video that destroyed any hope Mitt Romney had of being president, candidate Romney tells his sympathetic audience of millionaires about visiting a Chinese sweat-shop, recently purchased by his company, Bain Capital. He acknowledged the abominable working and living conditions, but then went on to explain that the guards and barbed wire fence were not to keep the [slave] laborers inside, but to keep the trouble-makers outside from breaking in. His audience undoubtedly nodded in their herd-like understanding. And if Mitt Romney could believe this, how did he come to be in such a state of credulity? Here's how… if you believe your scriptures were delivered by God thru an angle on gold tables in New York State in the 19th century, then you can believe anything. If you believe the Kingdom of God will be fulfilled in Missouri, you can believe anything.

This is Magical Thinking. This is the world the philosophers called to do battle. Magical Thinking can lead you to ignore the science and believe vaccinations cause autism. Magical Thinking can make you ignore the science and believe genetically modified foods are killing us. Magical Thinking makes us believe tens of thousands of evolutionary biologists are simply agents of the devil…. and Magical Thinking will lead you to believe that 99% of the earth's climate scientists are colluding in a world-wide conspiracy, the largest in the history of the world. Magical Thinking allows you to believe the unbelievable. Religion compels you to believe the unbelievable. The Enlightenment philosophers of the 18th century were the first to go to open warfare with Magical Thinking. Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin and James Madison were part of that army. The founders of the United States were men of the Enlightenment - nowhere in the US Constitution will you find the words God or Jesus. They knew their history and they'd learned their lessons. They had seen Christian religious wars devastate Europe for a thousand years and they weren't about to repeat those mistakes here.

Peter Gay makes learning fun. "The Enlightenment" is a marvelous book and a must-read for anyone desiring to be educated. Gay's encyclopedic knowledge is in evidence in the entire work. His bibliographical essay alone runs to more than 120 pages.