The extent Enlightenment was one of emancipation of humanity

To what extent was Enlightenment one of human emancipation? As Hampson (1968) describes the period “an embarrassment of wealth for the historian and the danger of being buried under his own treasure”. This essay in the explanation of the question is in danger of not only being buried by treasure but embarrassed by limitation. Initially, the essay will define the period and the concept of enlightenment, showing the challenges that European Enlightenment period thinkers were subject to, in particular to the limitations of a socially primitive state, and with innovative ideas that were contrary to the contemporary constructs of the age. Their purpose was to free humankind from the bonds of superstition, the monarchical state, and contradictions of Christian theology and hence re-aligning the good of humanity. The main body describes key thinkers and their efforts to emancipate man by way of science, critical reason, and political thought. The latter section of the essay will describe the weaknesses and limitations of the period and attempt to capture the socio-political mood of the era and how these limitations manifested in attitudes to gender, colonialism, and race. In summation, the essay will argue that the Enlightenment period was one of human emancipation.

Immanuel Kant defined enlightenment as man's release from his self-incurred immaturity using reason without the guidance of others (Outram, 2019). D. Alembert defined enlightenment as characterised by intellectual and scientific progress of the age, but also because of the expectation of the age that philosophy would dramatically improve human life. The Enlightenment period can therefore be defined as becoming increasingly independent in contemplation and process through the awakening of one’s intellectual powers (Bristow, 2017). Emancipation is synonymous with enlightenment, in that, it is defined as the enablement of people to free themselves of the structures that dominate and constrain them, to be empowered, and free from power, (Inglis, 1979) one frees one's mind to realize our intellectual powers.

The Enlightenment period was an era that brought with it concepts of secularism, universalism, and cosmopolitanism and can with confidence be described as one of energetic intellectual inquiry. The philosophes and men of letters as their mission statement meant to bring (Illumina)light and advancement to the world by the implementation of reason and reflection on the nature of man. Education was, therefore, a declaration of intent, and this intent was to bring their ideas, not only to the privileged class but in addition to the general reading public (Merriman, 1996). This concept was new, and the genesis of a tumultuous, exciting, and dangerous period in Western world history. Plato’s allegory of the cave and the description of one escapee from the darkness into the light of truth and knowledge can be brought to comparison, by exception, that this was a period of mass escape by many who returned and not only convinced the cave dwellers of the new knowledge but brought them to action.

Cave dwellers released from the chains of old imagined realities and orders

This action materialized in form by overcoming perceptions of imagined realities, the monarchical states, the church, and feudalism, and the extended imagined orders that developed from these constructs, for example, culture, religion, and tradition (Harari, 2014). Enlightenment facilitated the emancipation of humanity by way of challenging, dismantling, and re-orienting these imagined realities and orders that had for extended periods of our history been imagined and implemented to create cohesive, stable, and successful societies, however, they had also stunted humanities growth utilizing oppression and subjugation of physicality and free thought, while simultaneously creating inequality by class, race, and creed.

The manifestation of these actions can be recognized by at times obscene brutality in the English Civil War and American and French revolutions. Wars fought in opposition to the constructs of, the divine right of kings, the absolutist state, and Feudalism. Thomas Paign, witnessing the French Revolution and the fervor surrounding the abolition of feudal privileges, the institution of a constitutional monarchy, and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, excitedly wrote to George Washington, “A share in two revolutions is living with some purpose” (Monahan 2015, p.1). In polarity, the actions manifested in remarkable discoveries, conceptualism, and human understanding by Englishmen such as Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbs, and Rene Descartes of France. In addition, the primary natural philosophers of the scientific revolution Galileo Galilei-Earth revolves around the Sun, Johannes Kepler-works provided foundations for Newton's theory of universal gravitation, and Gottfried Willhelm Leibniz-refined binary number system. The publishing of Principia Mathematica 1686 by Isaac Newton and John Locke's essay concerning human understanding in 1689, both became central and instrumental to the scientific, philosophical, and mathematical advancement of the Enlightenment thinkers and the emancipation of humanity through science and political thought (History, 2021).

The emancipation from religious tyranny and the fanaticism of Christian theology was a campaign set in motion by many Enlightenment period thinkers to not only free the people from the overbearing influence and meddling in the lives of humanity by the church but to free their minds from blind faith driven by fear of a vengeful God in the sky, exacerbated by naivety and lack of education as intimated by Boulanger and others (Porter, 2001). Enlightenment thinkers and their views and ideas of God and religion and the views of the Church- God and religion can be described as parallax, and indeed by Enlightenment intelligentsia as quixotic, although devoid, the characteristics of chivalry and romance.

Enlightenment men of letters

Voltaire was notable in his ferocious contempt of the church and the title of anti-Christ of the European Enlightenment era was nonetheless, well deserved, evidenced by his lifelong crusade against religion. He made use of ridicule in the form of humor directed at the clergy and the church religious zealots in his early battles for toleration. Additionally, his attacks were not only reserved for the lower ranks of the church but in addition, against the Pope and the military religious order of the Jesuits. One must assume his courage was fueled by a fixed moral compass directed at the evils perpetrated in the name of Christianity for example, religious wars, burning heretics, and execution of women accused of witchcraft (Porter, 2001).

Jean Jaque Rousseau was a Swiss-born philosopher, writer, political theorist, and author of the treatises The Origins of Inequality and the Social Contract, and was an Enlightenment figure whose work gave inspiration to the leaders of the French Revolution that put an end to the absolutist state and precipitated democracy, the social contract, civil liberties, and political rights in modern Europe. The key feature of the social contract is that the state derives its right to govern by the consent of the governed (Wiki Livre 2021). In publishing the social contract, “Man Was Born Free” he is everywhere in chains, Rousseau rejected the idea of man handing over his liberty to a sovereign in return for safety and security proposed by Hobbes and his dystopian model. Rousseau intimated that no man may forgo their liberty without losing their humanity thereby eroding morality. He suggested that power and authority could not be in the sole domain of a sovereign as this would transform humanity’s equality into political inequality. This idea he considered to be a form of hoax perpetrated on the poor. Later philosopher Karl Marx echoed a similar sentiment in his writings about the false consciousness instilled in the poor by the rich and the structural institutions that served their interests (Bertram, 2020). Hobbs, Locke, and Rousseau used social contract theory to present universal theories of the state and individual rights that dismissed traditional religious or national forms of identity to the interests of all humanity.

Enlightenment thinkers and their key aims of tolerance and equality were not immune to contradiction via ideas of a fair and egalitarian society. Concepts of rationalism and critical reasoning were at times subject to the same fate of contradiction, they were suspended in a socially primitive evolutionary state. There was little urgency for change in traditional gender roles during the early modern period. And despite the egalitarian principles of Enlightenment thinkers of universal suffrage for all men, this did not include women, slaves, or indeed all men, only the propertied class. For example, women were seen as not equal to men in intellect, and marriage were considered possessions, rather than equal partners. Division of labor in marriage was a distant speck on the horizon of gender equality. Slaves were seen as incapable of using reason, and beasts, and men who did not own property were not eligible to vote until the late 18th century (Porter, 2001).

Although many Enlightenment thinkers professed ideas of equality and tolerance, they were set within defined parameters. For instance, the ever-equivocal writings of Rousseau on politics and democracy are ambiguous due in part to his theoretical
political model and the application of a practical model, (Bertram, 2020) side by side were equally ambiguous in his views of gender equality. Rousseau viewed women as equal in a state of nature, however, this view was made with the Adjunct, via civilization and nature, making subjection and privatisation of women his ideal form of political order. Therefore, the nature and development of women then fall to what is useful to man and contradicts his views on the equality of the sexes. Mary Wolstencroft challenged his ideas on gender differences, maintaining these differences are a product of socialisation and lack of education (Moira 1986). In John Locke, we find similar contradictions in his views on gender equality, although he held high regard for women as written in the treatises, with words of encouragement to women for example preacher Rebecca Collier and both Queens Mary and Elizabeth referring to them respectfully. Ultimately, though his views affected the change and status of women's role within the family, authority in Locke's view was, with the husband, referring to where wills meet, the man being the stronger and abler holding strict authority. Locke may be viewed as an early progressive, nevertheless, hardly a champion of equality between the sexes (Hirschman and McClure, 2007). Wolstencroft dismissed the subjective ideas of male writers in this era and their sole criteria of strength in the justification of the superiority of man. Instead, she insisted reason be applied and that women be judged on the merits of their intellect and virtues on the same terms as men (Maoulidi 2007).

Scotland, Slavery, and intelligentsia attitudinal lenience

 The issue of slavery in a Scots Enlightenment context is perplexing in that there were no laws in Scotland that allowed ownership of a slave and yet at any one time, there were between 70-80 slaves in Scotland during the 18th century. Moreover, when any slave entered Scotland, they were baptized, meaning they were recognized as a man of the living flesh and blood with a soul, by the very definition the natural rights of man, are apparent. An indicator of the limitations of the church, the law, and while historians noted the enthusiastic participation in the abolition of the slave trade in the public sphere, documented by the hundreds of thousands of petition signatories. The limited and strange quiet from Scotland's philosophical elite with no literal or vocal support was deafening in the historical sense. With confined and restrained parameters there were exceptions, notably by the national bard, Robbie Burns pointing to the authoring of his poem, “A Slave’s Lament”. Adam Ferguson and Adam Smith criticized the slave trade but not the morality of the trade, merely the economic conditions of the enterprise or the Roman law aspect (Academia 2021). Considering Enlightenment thinker’s opposition to church authority and their ideas of equality and tolerance, in Scotland the clergy were in large part responsible for the abolitionist movement in motivating the Calvinist Presbyterian Scots to action and facilitating Joseph Knight in his court bid for freedom (The National 2020). Owning a slave was made illegal in Scotland in 1778. A slave, Joseph Knight, became the catalyst for a court judgment that brought about the end of slave ownership in Scotland. In the aftermath of the trial, Lord Auchinleck declared, “It may be custom in Jamaica to make slaves of poor blacks, but I do not believe it agreeable to humanity or the Christian religion. He is our brother, and he is a man” (Devine 2011, p. 56). Where religion could foster the worst of man's nature and place it to the fore, equally, it could present and encourage the best of humanity’s nature to the fore. Hobbs and Rousseau describe equally opposing paradigms as central to their political, historical, and anthropological influences through the human condition influencing and directing their conceptualisation of socio-political thought and their juxtaposed positions.

Conclusion

Enlightenment and emancipation of humanity are shown throughout the essay as characteristics of the era. The end of the absolutist state, feudalism, and the hegemony of the church afforded more freedom to humanity in the genesis of fundamental human rights, civil liberties, political rights, and freedom of the mind from the limitations of these constructs. Science was emancipated from the chains of theology, allowing Enlightenment figures to describe knowledge in terms of human experience and not biblical tenets and placed the prominence for change on humanity and not biblical Gods. The Enlightenment period was transitional and the incremental evolution between two worlds, moving from the old order to the new, where reason, logic, and empiricism were placed on the new altar, where religion once stood.

Evaluating the era and the implementation of the new concepts of Social contract theory, Democratic governance, civil liberties, political and fundamental human rights in the socio-political realm, and the scientific application of empiricism to discoveries, inventions, and concepts. It can then be argued in full confidence this was a unique period in our history that had profound and long-lasting effects. By Enlightenment, mankind envisioned and realised the emancipation of the mind, the spirit, and the body of humanity.

The contemporary period is in danger of fostering by tacit agreement a new form of feudalism, by an elite that is distanced from the populace and a re-imagined absolutist monarchy as has been witnessed by the Davos clique at the G20, with a dress code that conjures up images of a Dune Royal family.

New imagined realities to replace the current order are being constructed with science transformed to scientism, the new religion is reduced by neo-liberalism to a commodity not based on reason, empiricism and ethics but marketized as a product of profit and control. Universality is steadily becoming a quaint concept, and cosmopolitanism is conscripted as a device of division and polarization.

The contemporary period is stained by the insidious embedding of corporatocracy by an unhinged, pseudo-intellectual elite that resembles the old, imagined orders with ambitions of world Empire. The Enlightenment spirit must once again be unleashed. Plato’s cave dwellers have been quieted and must be woken abruptly and stirred to action if we are to realize conditions that serve all humanity.

The populaces of nation-states must be made aware of a tiny deviant faction of anywhere’s, (agents detached from national consciousness by financial flexibility-economic capital-social capital) depraved individuals that have acquired inordinate wealth via neo-liberalism and a global economy and have gifted themselves a de facto power over sovereign nation-states, undermining democracy and diluting national sovereignty. The de-jure voter franchise is king in democratic governance, it relates to the sovereignty of the people/electorate, and is not a cornerstone of democracy, but a core tenet, are we to give up this understanding of democracy and disappear by de facto power of wealth, this universal principle of democracy to unelected, detached, and unmoored individuals from our societies, in their aim to subjugate and oppress us for their personal satisfaction?

Enlightenment and Emancipation demand your duty to resist

Bibliography

Academia (2021) Adam Ferguson, Slavery and the Scottish Enlightenment's Argument for Opposing Abolition, (PDF) Adam Ferguson, Slavery and the Scottish Enlightenment's Argument for Opposing Abolition | Glen Doris - Academia.edu [Accessed 30th November 2021]

Bertram, C.  "Jean Jacques Rousseau", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2020 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2020/entries/rousseau/>.

Bristow, W. "Enlightenment", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2017 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2017/entries/enlightenment/>[Accessed 9th of November 2021]

Devine, T. (2011). To the Ends of the Earth – Scotland’s Global Diaspora, 1750-2010. 2nd ed. Lon

Hampson, N. (1968). The Enlightenment. London : Penguin. Chapter 8 The Revolutionary Climacteric.

Harari, Y.N., (2014). Sapiens: A brief history of humankind. Random House.

H. History (2021) Enlightenment period thinkers and ideas, Enlightenment Period: Thinkers & Ideas - HISTORY [ [Accessed 13th November 2021]

Inglis, T., (1997). Empowerment and emancipation. Adult education quarterly, 48(1), pp.3-17.

Lowith, K., (2002). Max Weber and karl marx (Vol. 12). Routledge.

Maoulidi, S. (2007) Mary Wollstonecraft: Challenges of Race and Class in Feminist Discourse, S. Women's Studies Quarterly Vol. 35, No. 3/4, Activisms (Fall - Winter, 2007), pp. 280-286

Moira Gatens (1986) ROUSSEAU AND WOLLSTONECRAFT: NATURE vs. REASON, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 64:sup1, 1-15

Monahan, S. (2015) Jacobin, Reading Paign from the left Reading Paine From the Left (jacobinmag.com) [Accessed 29th November 2021]

Nancy J. Hirschmann and Kirstie M. McClure (eds.), (2007) Feminist Interpretations of John Locke, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2007, 336pp., $ 35.00 (pbk), ISBN 0271029536.

Outram, D., (2019). The enlightenment. Cambridge University Press.

Porter, R. (2001). The Enlightenment. Basingstoke: Palgrave. ‘Ch 4: Reforming Religion by Reason.’ pp.29-37.

The National (2020), Joseph Knight the slave who won his freedom,Joseph Knight: The slave who won his freedom and a decree that the practise is illegal | The National [Accessed 30th November 2021]

Wiki Livre (2021) purpose of the social contract, What was the purpose of the social contract by Rousseau? (wikilivre.org) [Accessed 15 November 2021]