What is enlightenment?
DARE TO KNOW! WEAKEN THE GUARDIANS OF OUR TIME.
In answer to the question what is enlightenment?
The German philosopher Emanuel Kant said it was mans emergence from his self imposed knowledge.
Knowledge isn't a word we use much these days, it means immaturity, childishness, being dependant on others.
According to Kant, knowledge is an inability to use ones own understanding without an others guidence.
And enlightenment he said is about emerging from that sad, cushioned child like state and having the courage to use your own understanding.
That in a nut shell is enlightenment.
We hear a lot of talk these days about there having been many enlightenments in the 16 and 1700's and it's true there were…..
There was a Scottish enlightenment featuring Adam Smith and lots of talk regarding morality and economics, a French enlightenment featuring a lot of blood and cries for liberty and equality.
A Dutch enlightenment featuring arguments for freedom of speech that still sound radical today.
In the 1670's the Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza said "The liberty of saying what he thinks must be conceded to every man".
Many modern day politicians today should heed that dust gathering 350 year old demand.
But boil down to their essence these many enlightenments, all enlightenment was about mankind growing up.
Stepping out of his self imposed immaturity into the scary but far more interesting world of autonomous adulthood.
As Kant said " The motto of enlightenment was DARE TO KNOW". It was about encouraging individuals to use their reason in all matters.
Well if that is enlightenment we can be pretty certain that we now live in unenlightened times. Because today far from being encouraged to grow up and strike out!
We're being sent back to knowledge, back to that nursery of pre-enlightened existence. Where men and women were presumed to be juvenile, thoughtless creatures in need of constant guidance.
Reading Kant's essay on enlightenment today, more than 200 years after it was first published in 1784.
It's remarkable how much his era sounds like the Nannying, Nagging, Nudging states many of us live under today.
Kant bemoaned the fact that the educated echelons of society had set themselves up as "guardians of mankind".
He wrote "I have a book that thinks for me, a Pastor who acts as my conscience, a physician who prescribes my diet."
These guardians treat people as domestic cattle he said. "They carefully prevent the docile creatures from taking a single step without the strings to which they have fastened them".
These interferers have convinced the the overwhelming majority of mankind that it should consider the step to maturity not only as overwhelmingly hard but extremely dangerous. Kant angrily complained.
Doesn't this sound spookily familiar? He could have been writing about 21st century Australia, Britain or America.
Because today once again we are surrounded by armies of guardians.
Telling us that to go it alone, to leap head first into life without the support of life style guru's and experts is not only overwhelmingly hard but extremely dangerous.
It might not be pointy hatted men of god that now hector us but we still do have books or even Facebook posts that think for us on everything from what to eat, to how to raise our kids.
We have legions of therapist's who emote for us. Telling us which emotions are good, self revelations, self esteem.
And which ones are bad, anger, passion, stoicism.
And like poor Kant we have physicians who prescribe our diets.
You can't swing a super sized bar of chocolate these days without hitting ten experts itching to tell us how much fruit and veg we should eat if we don't want to die early and fat. Although the fruit and veg is the right answer.
Kant didn't like having Pastors acting as his conscience, well today we have nudgers who aspire to be our surrogate will power. The Nudge unit in Downing Street (UK) actually uses that phrase!
'SURROGATE WILLPOWER" to describe it's desire to make life style choices on the little peoples behalf and then nudge us towards it.
If anything today's guardians are worse than the moralistic busy bodies that infuriated Kant. Now standing on ones own two feet isn't just discouraged it's pathologized!
If you refuse to bow down to therapist dictats, your in denial, if you get angry your told you have intermittent explosive disorder.
If you say fuck you to the diet prescribers and choose to continue to scoff down butter and wine. You'll be told you have a food disorder.
Today's guardians have rebranded moral autonomy as a mental illness. Convincing their cattle that life on your own isn't just overwhelmingly hard….. it could kill you. It's far from somebody just offering advice for your well being.
The rise of new and even more patronising guardians explains why our societies are so anti freedom. When people aren't trusted to run their own lives. Think, feel and exist without guidance.
It's inevitable that more rules will emerge to nag us into doing and thinking what our guardians think we should be doing and thinking.
Whether it's hate speech laws, bans on smoking in public or petty rules on when adults should engage with children. Loads of new laws now govern the minutiae of our lives.
Kant said there was only one sure way to become enlightened, by being free. He wrote " The enlightenment requires nothing but freedom".
He said that it is only by being free that the human spirit can expand to the limit of its capacity. All the great thinkers of the enlightenment agreed on the importance of freedom.
From John Locke to John Stewart Mill all said that to become enlightened we needed to be free.
Free to speak and to think as we see fit and to determine our destinies for ourselves. Thats because they trusted in humankind. Unlike the pastors of their times or the guardians of ours.
They truly believed individuals were capable of governing their own lives. We need to recover that trust in people and that thirst for freedom.
REBEL against the guardians say NO to nudging and life style policing! and lets finally do what Kant suggested we should 250 years ago……..
"WALK FIRMLY AND CULTIVATE YOUR OWN MIND."