The Enlightenment - roll it back or forward?

[Okeefenokee]

I've been staying away from this thread.

Calling your movement the enlightenment is like calling your magazine reason.

Did anyone lay out what the enlightenment ideas were and address the actual ideas?

Tabula rasa is the first one you can smack down as being complete bullshit.

How bout the idea of universal reason? Anyone gonna try to defend that?

There's two main pillars of the enlightenment totally gone right there.

[DrYouth]

I've been staying away from this thread.

Calling your movement the enlightenment is like calling your magazine reason.

Did anyone lay out what the enlightenment ideas were and address the actual ideas?

Tabula rasa is the first one you can smack down as being complete bullshit.

How bout the idea of universal reason? Anyone gonna try to defend that?

There's two main pillars of the enlightenment totally gone right there.

It's certainly not my movement.

Tabula rasa is bullshit... we are full of preprogrammed instincts... although we are more malleable and capable of not being dominated by these, than any other earthly creature.

And universal reason?

The idea of a Universal reason implies an underpinning system of perception and conception of all forms of complexity. Many philosophers over the years have dealt with or relate to this idea in their writings. In recent years, the idea of a universal reason has been brought up in discussions of artificial intelligence and other topics regarding consciousness for it provides a stage of universality for a mechanistic description of thought.

Not too sure about that one... care to elaborate... which philosopher and what usage of the term are you referring to?

[Okeefenokee]

I've been staying away from this thread.

Calling your movement the enlightenment is like calling your magazine reason.

Did anyone lay out what the enlightenment ideas were and address the actual ideas?

Tabula rasa is the first one you can smack down as being complete bullshit.

How bout the idea of universal reason? Anyone gonna try to defend that?

There's two main pillars of the enlightenment totally gone right there.

It's certainly not my movement.

Tabula rasa is bullshit... we are full of preprogrammed instincts... although we are more malleable and capable of not being dominated by these, than any other earthly creature.

And universal reason?

The idea of a Universal reason implies an underpinning system of perception and conception of all forms of complexity. Many philosophers over the years have dealt with or relate to this idea in their writings. In recent years, the idea of a universal reason has been brought up in discussions of artificial intelligence and other topics regarding consciousness for it provides a stage of universality for a mechanistic description of thought.

Not too sure about that one... care to elaborate... which philosopher and what usage of the term are you referring to?

I meant specifically regarding Locke and his belief that everyone possesses the necessary reason to derive the truth, hence, there is a universal reason that all men possess that will lead us all to the same truth.

[DrYouth]

Did anyone lay out what the enlightenment ideas were and address the actual ideas?

Enlightenment ideas:
Individual liberty
Religious tolerance
Progress through scientific and technological advances
Science as the path to knowledge
Reason and knowledge being elevated above other domains... i.e. morality and wisdom/experience

[DrYouth]

I meant specifically regarding Locke and his belief that everyone possesses the necessary reason to derive the truth, hence, there is a universal reason that all men possess that will lead us all to the same truth.

This may be an example of the egalitarian fallacy at the heart of modernity/postmodernity...
Perhaps we all have the potential to derive truth.... but few reach that potential... and certainly not everyone does.

[Speaker to Animals]

Did anyone lay out what the enlightenment ideas were and address the actual ideas?

Enlightenment ideas:
Individual liberty
Religious tolerance
Progress through scientific and technological advances
Science as the path to knowledge
Reason and knowledge being elevated above other domains... i.e. morality and wisdom/experience

LMFAO

That's why they murdered all the priests in France, then? Religious tolerance.

We already adopted science as the method to obtain knowledge of the physical world. Don't take credit for shit neo-liberalism did not do. The French literally murdered the greatest chemist of the 18th century. The revolutionary judge quiped the revolution has no need of science. Fuck off.

Please.

Okee was spot on with the tabula rasa farce. I would add the two principal falsehoods:

1. Equality of men.

2. Inherent goodness of democracy.

[Speaker to Animals]

"La République n'a pas besoin de savants ni de chimistes; le cours de la justice ne peut être suspendu." ("The Republic has no need of scientists or chemists; the course of justice cannot be delayed.")


And.. then they executed the greatest chemist of their era.

Enlightenment, everybody.

[Fife]

Jacobins gonna Jacobin, I reckon.

We came within a chance meeting here or there, or the right person showing up for a single vote, of avoiding the American coup of 1787, before these poofters burnt down Europe, and the rest of us with it.

[Speaker to Animals]

The funniest shit is when they try to claim science as their invention and gift to humanity. Dude, science endured despite neo-liberalism. Most of the shit everybody thinks they know about the history of science is Enlightenment mythology as it is.

The reality is that science has always been an inherently aristocratic endeavor in the sense that it is exceedingly elitist. Every field in the physical sciences is dominated by about fifty minds. They so outperform everybody else, they are like giants. Their very existence is a repudiation of Enlightenment ideology, since we can't possibly all be equal. The truth of that is manifest quite clearly in the sciences. Most scientists until the post-war period came from wealthy families or an aristocracy as well.

You see it in industry as well. The average IQ of a CEO of large cap corporations is something like 130 last I checked. The most successful CEOs tend to have mliitary backgrounds.

The groundwork for an new aristocracy based on merit is already in place. This is the shit the left is at war with. They don't like the fact that the brightest and most gifted people can succeed to become very wealthy. It's not just the inherent greediness of the left that they want to steal what the brightest minds were able to build for themselves, but that they operate out of a belief that we are all equal. Thus, if we are all equal, those high-IQ and highly-motivated CEOs must have stolen that wealth somehow. It's the only explanation if you refuse to question one of the principle axioms of the so-called Enlightenment.

At some point, when we all have to face this reality, we tend to break up into two camps. Some of us are happy that the most gifted can ascend to leadership positions and make fortunes, because we know it also elevates all of society and us with it. We prefer to be led by the most able and intelligent leaders possible. But others of us just feel immense jealousy and animosity for people who are smarter than us, better than us at something, etc. The Enlightenment ideology reinforces their dysfunction by telling them we really are all equal, and some social or institutional injustice made those peoples' rise possible. Conversely, when one of them actually has a gift at something and succeeds, they are compelled to attribute their success to the collective. This is why pozzed journalists ask successful women what those women owe feminism for their success.

[DrYouth]

Atheism, Nihilism and Scientism are definitely the shadow side of the enlightenment... Intolerance for religion in general.
A disavowal of the spirit... a surrender to meaninglessness...

The disavowal of hierarchy is the other... the claim of equality condemns everything to mediocrity... nothing can be better than anything else... all truth is relative.

Wilber's claim is that postmodernity has run afoul... the intellectuals have failed to lead.... the project has derailed...
We need to change course...

Reclaim soul and spirit, reclaim positive hierarchy...

This is the way forward.