“Enlightenment”
The Enlightenment was a
philosophical movement that dominated Europe during the 18th century, was
centered around the idea that reason is the primary source of authority and
legitimacy and advocated such ideals as liberty, progress, tolerance,
fraternity, constitutional government, and separation of church and state. At
first, it emerged out of a European intellectual and scholarly movement
known as Renaissance Humanism but later, it took over British and America into
its shadow and today’s era, almost every country is influenced by the movement,
or some of the movement. It is somehow the opposite of romanticism because some aspects
of both philosophies are in contrast. The Enlightenment thinkers believed that human intelligence could be understood through nature and be enhanced by reasoning. They were
sure that men can improve themselves
through reasoning. That strongly denied the belief of puritans that
man is full of sin or a sinful failure. Founding fathers wanted to create a
happy society based on justice and freedom. One of them was deeply influenced
by the idea of the enlightenment, he believed that man did not have to depend on
God to improve the world, instead, they should use their own wisdom to do for
improving. As a typical Enlightenment thinker, Jefferson believed that all
humanity is naturally good: Nature has implanted several characteristics in our
breasts; love of others, a sense of duty to them, and a moral instinct. The movement
had lots of unique, easy-to-follow, and cool key characteristics which dominated
the great size of the population throughout the globe. In fact, modern sciences,
political freedom, the market economy-all of them, are the result of the
movement which is called Enlightenment.
The movement had three main concepts
behind it; Neoclassicism, increased reverence for logic, and disdain for
superstition. The neoclassical refers to the increased influence of classical literature
upon the 16th to 18th centuries. There are some major events
that were happened during the period that are The Industrial Revolution (1750),
The American Revolution (1776), and The French Revolution (1789). During 1750
in England, there were rural cottage industries where workers produce goods in
their homes starting to give away to urban factories that rely on machine-based manufacturing.
Then we have the American Revolution, rebellion in North America results from
unfair taxation, and George III's desire to keep the colonies as a producer of
raw material that was shipped to England for processing. And then there was a
French Revolution that ends with the age of reason or neoclassicism by
advancing democratic ideals that destroyed the social hierarchy of nobility
landed gentry merchants and professionals and the working poor. I think, a
certain extent, neoclassicism represented a reaction against the optimistic
exuberant, and enthusiastic renaissance view of men as being fundamentally good
and possessed of infinite potential for spiritual and intellectual growth.
Neoclassical theorists, by contrast, saw men as imperfect beings, inherently
simple whose potential is limited. But on the other side, the Renaissance emphasis
on imagination. The Enlightenment movement was also a reaction of the renaissance.
Thinkers believed that the natural world is based on reason, reason is the key
to truth. They had faith in nature, and belief in human progress through education.
This goes back to the Industrial Revolution as people were moving from rural
villages to urban settings to work in factories. They had to be educated, they
started going to schools.
If I talk about the characteristics of the Enlightenment then it comes
with a box, I mean there are many characteristics. First of all, Enlightenment
thinkers believed in rationalism. It is
the idea that the reason is the arbiter of all things. It is basically
explained that how things work. In short, there is a scientific reason being
every happening, not superstation or a religious factor, but through logical
thoughts of process. Methodologies can be medical analysis, experimenting, or
inductive reasoning to figure out the complexity. And Education is the only way
which teaches people rationalism and scientific methods. A large number of the
top-notch scientists, philosophers, mathematicians of the fifteenth century got
together and for discussing a shared purpose in the School of Athens and the
ideas were the core of Enlightenment. Secondly, the framers used to believe in Cosmology
or Cosmopolitanism. It is a new concept of
men, his existence on Earth, and where we are in terms of life, and we are at
the center of everything. It is just like the sun in the universe which is distributing
light and heat to everyone, and every planet is orbiting and revolving around
it, and dependent on it. It is like that
“We are all good people, doing well for the universe, except some of us who are
doing bad things”. This idea is quite opposite to the Romanticism movement in
which human is considered a sinful object. The third characteristic is Secularism or Liberalism. These terms are quite different. Secularism has to do
with the position of religion in government and society; liberalism is a
political or economic policy position. Secularism is the belief that government
should be separate from religion. However, these are the ideas of non-religious thoughts. So,
here we are applying those ideas of religion and philosophy of science
together. We are taking those scientific methods, for example, Isaac Newton,
and all these ideas getting applied to religion, philosophy, government, and
all those kinds of pieces where secularism rolls into the above-mentioned stuff. Then
we have Utilitarianism
as a character of the movement. It is like doing things for the greatest growth or greatest number. I
would think that how we are doing the best good for a large number of people
versus just good for me or just good for the government. Instead, the thing
which is good for everybody. In other words, the profit should be universal, not
for a small group of people. This term is contradicting with Romanticism because
Romantics preferred individualism over collectivism. Then, one of the most
important properties of the movement is Tolerance & Freedom. We have
freedom of speech, thoughts, expressions, and freedom of doing any things, any
person or the state has nothing to do with other’s matters. We have to tolerate
if someone says negatively. This is one of the characteristics of the Enlightenment
I like but I hate it as well. Freedom of speech would be fine if it had a
boundary. Nowadays, we have seen many incidents in Europe where people try to
use the freedom of speech wrongly and say some words that are intolerable or
unignorably. I’d say, especially, when it comes to religion, one should shop
saying wrong stuff about other’s religion. Last but not least, Legal Reforms
& Constitutionalism was an on-the-ground concept that could be applied
practically. It expresses that there
must be a legal system, justice, kindness, and charity, no torture or indiscriminate
incarceration. There must be a written constitution, the government and the
society must have a path to run and work on. The country must be secular in
terms of the legislation system. Although every religion has its own
constitution, like Bible or Quran, but the constitutions must be man-made.
This term overwhelmed most of the world because there are just a few
countries that have a pure religious constitution. I just know about Saudi
Arabia laws and a legitimate system that is a clear shadow of Shariya.
If we look for the religion factor in Enlightenment,
it seems that the movement was anti-religious through its philosophies and
thoughts but there was. The thinkers used to believe in Deism. Deism is a bit
similar to Judaism but not at all. Deism is the belief in the existence of God
on the evidence of reason and in nature only, with the rejection of supernatural revelation
or it is a belief in a God who created a world that since remained indifferent to
it. In simple words, they could believe that “God, yeah, he created the earth and
we have evidence of that in nature and in reasoning but he does not really stay
connected to us today”. To add more, God does not interfere in the matters of
humans, he is a watcher, not a doer. To my mind, this is what enlightenment framers used to believe about God in that periods. Deism has a strong foundation and
logic-based analysis and that is what Deism was part of those broader enlightenment
theories. From 1725 to 1800, just like the Enlightenment, Deism became a very
popular movement which is swirling around as the framers were having letters,
they were writing the philosophers, and they were engaging with literature. One
of the beliefs Deism holds is that, there is no deity, there is not a messiah.
Deism allows for a broad creator God, probably the God who is not a Jesus or a
messiah figure person. That is why Deism is apart from Christianity that holds
that Christ is the Messiah. All the thinkers were not the believer of Deism,
for example, John Adams, he was an exemplary representative of the
American Enlightenment, was a Christian through
and through.
The
Enlightenment vision can be understood through the picture mentioned below;
A couple of components can be seen under
the umbrella of Enlightenment because enlightenment thoughts mean
more than a thing but at its core, it is a different school of thoughts that are
driven by reason and that is why reason is the base and far left side there
because everything that comes out of enlightenment thought finds its origins in
reason and this is very important because my critical analysis is bent on
that. We can see the Individualism goes
up to the top and then Science comes down to the bottom. These are not wholly
separate but they are separate concepts, so it is useful to see how they
diverge. First, if we talk about Individualism that is giving a rise to our
sense of unalienable human rights and we know that when we talk about the
Declaration and Constitution, the framers thought that there were certain
natural rights that every single person was born with. Individualism means that
every individual has value, in addition, certain rights should not be
taken from them because of that value. This is also the idea that allows people to move from being subjects which is what they are under a monarchy to citizens
which is what they are in a republic when the will of people rolls. That is why we see Individualism at the very core and it gave rise to America and also
we can see John Locke’s name is underneath there because he did a lot of work
in this era. Then Individualism gave birth to Liberalism and Capitalism.
Liberalism is a political system, a government system that allows the will of
the people to rule and we can see many countries with a Liberal system whereas Capitalism is the economic system in western countries and America too,
because America is steeped in the enlightenment by governance and economics. In
Liberalism, I already mentioned about The Industrial Revolution in England, The
American Revolution, and The French Revolution. Adam Smith is a well-known
economist, who gave a new and logical concept about the wealth and market
economy. Smith argued that by giving everyone freedom to produce
and exchange goods as they pleased (free trade) and opening the markets up to
domestic and foreign competition, people's natural self-interest would promote
greater prosperity than with stringent government regulations. The next in the
graph is Freedom that arose by Liberalism and Capitalism give rise to Wealth
respectively. All of those result in progress and the pursuit of happiness. At
the same time, the Science track comes down below in the picture. The process
allows work to be completed easily and the reasons behind the curtains of all
the happenings can be observed by one’s own eyes. This track had a big role in
helping people open their minds to the values of enlightenment. I’d say that
Science is the father of Engineering, Physics, Maths, Biology and Medicine, Chemistry,
and other certain fields of life. There are some famous people who are
associated with this track like Isaac Newton who invented calculus and gravity,
James Watt invented industrial technologies in the 18th century,
especially the steam engine, Janner who created the vaccine for smallpox,
Lavoisier is considered the father of modern chemistry. Next, an engineering
process leads to the production materials that we are using in our everyday
life, and the reason behind our good health is also the works done on
Medicines. These are things that result in progress and the pursuit of happiness.
The Enlightenment has a direct relation with English literature. If we
divide the enlightenment era into two parts, then form 1700 to 1750, it is
called either the Augustan Age, or the Neoclassical Age, or the Age of Pope.
The English writers of this age used to imitate the classical Roman writers who
were writing during the reign of King Augustus. Whereas Alexander Pope was a
major writer of this age, there is the reason the era was given such a name. The
second half, from 1750 to 1789, was called the Age of Transition, or the
Pre-Romantic Age. This period was influenced by the French Revolution, American
Revolution, and the Industrial Revolution. In 1737, a Licencing Act was passed to
censor and control theatre. As a result, people started writing novels. The
writers started switching from drama to novel. In outcomes, are were many
novelists during this period, some of the top-notch is Francis Bacon, and
Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The scientific revolutions also began in this age with
the main figures like Newton, Galileo, Kepler, Copernicus, John Locke, etc. Despite
it, the age was famous for its literary features. Prose flourished in that
period. It was the age of Prose and Reason because people were more concerned
about rational thoughts and logical thinking. Thirdly, political writing became
very popular because all the writers used to express their political opinions.
New clubs and coffee houses were opened and writers started meeting there which
also led to the development of magazines. Periodical writing was also made by
writers. These writers wrote satires to attack human vices and follies, for
example, Dunciad by Alexander Pope and A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift.
During the Enlightenment age, Samuel Johnson published The Dictionary of
English in 1755. Some major writers of the era are Alexander Pope who worked on
heroic couplets, Jonathan Swift who was a writer and satirist, Daniel Defoe who
wrote fiction and political pamphlets, and Samuel Johnson we published the dictionary.
Others are Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, who are the philosophers of the
age.
We came to know that the Enlightenment thoughts are quite impressive but
the question is that, how do we be recognized as enlightened beings? Well, in
a way enlightenment means you are an unblemished life. There is something called
daybreak. If we go deeper into the word, it is actually the night-broke. Night
means darkness in our perceptions, but in the case of owl, it would be
different. It means enlightenment means differently from people to people. Our
visual apparatus are not comfortable in darkness. That is why we invented all
these lights because we don’t know what is what in dark. In light, we see
things clearly. So, if night broke, that
means clarity appeared-this is all sunrise is doing for us. We could not see, we
were struggling, the sun came up – we know where to go, what to step into, what not
to step into. This is all enlightenment is. Meanwhile, clarity came when you
see and observe everything clearly. As there is a technology to create external
well-being, there is a whole dimension of science and technology to create inner
well-being. Enlightenment is not an achievement, it is a homecoming. You come
back to the original nature. Right now, we have identified ourselves with many
things that are not we. Our body, our mind, is accumulation, everything around
the world is accumulation because it came into existence with a process. It
means we are deeply identified with the things that we are not. A piece of the earth God picked up and made a body out of it, but that piece of earth, we are
so identified, we believe it is us. Till we fall dead, we go on believing this.
So right now, we gave gotten distorted vision. If you stop your distortions and go back to your original nature, this is Enlightenment.
To conclude, I reckon say that the Enlightenment was a really good idea that overshadowed Europe, America, and England between the 17th to 18th centuries. It is a process of progress that starts from reasoning. The movement was powered by many top-notch writers, philosophers, and scientists during the era. The movement was backed by many unique properties and specification the urged people to think about it and to adopt the movement. As a result of the movements, many major inventions took place, and these inventions have a great role in our daily lives. Because of its uniqueness, it has been permeated/spread deeply in our daily thoughts and lives as well. “Be always enlightened, or awakened, or well-informed!!!!”
Ahmad Sheraz
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