The skeptical mode is the source of modernism’s contempt for the human intellect. Or maybe it’s better to say modernism’s contempt for the human’s ability to know anything. Harold Kaplan1 says we have come to believe this mode is the strongest trait of an enlightened modern consciousness. Metaphysics might seem to be the focus of this skepticism, but its focus is primarily the ordinary human consciousness.
(more…)Tag: enlightenment
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Bourgeoisie Manipulation
This article proposes that we live under the influence of bourgeois (middle class) manipulation, examining how the bourgeoisie might manipulate society to serve their interests.
In a previous article I questioned whether we, the voters, owe anything to the Enlightenment or to the Enlightenment’s champions, the Freemasons. Since Enlightenment ideals helped pave the way to modern democracy, this led me to wonder what it means for our republic if we question these things. What does democracy owe to the Enlightenment and Freemasonry?
The Bourgeoisie Takes Power
It was evident that Enlightenment democracy was not for all of the people as soon as the bourgeoisie achieved independence from the English aristocracy. They immediately began to oppress the less privileged. They began by taking over the commons and literally fencing out people who had depended on the commons for their livelihood. Anyone found in these enclosures was suddenly considered ‘poachers’ and given severe punishments, including hanging.
The Commons This supports the premise that bourgeois manipulation replaced monarchy. My question is, what does that mean for the people’s ability to imagine a new type of society? One might conclude that any cultural attributes we have were manufactured by the privileged classes, many of whom mistrusted the masses and feared an ‘excess’ of democracy. We are defined by ‘them’.
But Don’t Workers Imagine a New Type of Society?
Some might argue that they identify as workers and they imagine a time when they will own the companies. However, that implies continued dependence on those companies, not to mention a similar worldview. The category is too restrictive because it doesn’t take in all of life. For one thing, it doesn’t consider the type of work or how it fits into a larger worldview. Or even what that larger worldview might be. This vision might even be said to replace or suppress other manifestations of human culture. However, the most important fact may be that the category itself is not stable.
The Very Category of Worker is Considered Expendable
The plan to win back worker’s rights is premised on the fabled post-war boom. But the post-war workers’ boom took place during a time of industrial strength, which no longer exists. Without industry there are no jobs. If there are no jobs, there are no workers.
The category of workers only exists in relationship to industries. Unfortunately, workers have never resisted the general trends in industrial activity. They have always fought for working conditions and monetary compensation within the system. The flaw in that approach becomes evident with the rise of automation and artificial intelligence.
The tendency of technology to replace workers is a contemporary version of the enclosure system in that it ignores the plight of the humans who are affected. The working class has not risen to the challenge of criticizing this in a meaningful way, which has a lot to do with the failure to develop a larger worldview. Real meaning must be based on a livable future for all the creatures on the planet.
The Bourgeois Class Thinks the New Age Will Belong to Them.
Will the bourgeois class maintain its safe position in the new age? Probably not in the way they imagine. If a recent video is any indication, they believe they will morph into the leaders of the new age. This video, Changing of the Gods, seems based on an assumption of the establishment’s continuing control. Under this assumption, recent history becomes a series of signposts on the way to an identical worldview. Consider, for example, their treatment of the rise of feminism. It includes a clip of feminist CFR member, Gloria Steinem.
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Is the King James Translation of the Bible the Cause of Christian Error?
Meanwhile, back at the Patriarchy article an editor has been arguing that Sarah Grimke did not question the divine origin of the scriptures; she only doubted the King James translation. In my opinion this distinction doesn’t change things much, although it makes an interesting discussion. (The claim that Grimke questioned the divine origin of the scriptures was taken from Ginette Castro’s book, “American Feminism.”)
It seems to me that Grimke’s challenge to the Christian scriptures makes sense; the feminist objections to the Judeo-Christian tradition arose only after centuries of defamation of the female sex. But I suppose the point in question is the same whether we are talking about religion or politics. Is loyalty to a creed an all-or-nothing proposition? Should criticism of a tradition be forbidden, regardless of its history?
A similar question came up in an essay by American Protestant Scholar Franklin H. Littell, “The Other Crimes of Adolf Hitler.” In the Holocaust, “six million Jews were targeted and systematically murdered in the heart of Christendom by baptized Roman Catholics, Protestants, and Eastern Orthodox who were never rebuked, let alone excommunicated.” Of course, there were many other individuals and groups of people who were targeted and murdered, but Littell argues the uniqueness of the Jewish Holocaust is found in the identity of the Hebrews, the people of the Book. The Holocaust is unique to the history of the west in its betrayal of Biblical morality. The failure to face this fact has resulted in a credibility crisis for Christianity, as well as for the institutions of democracy and academia. But that little problem is studiously avoided in current discourse.
Littell also stresses the role of Enlightenment thinking, which serves to block effective analyses of this “terrifying, mysterious, and demonic chaos for which we have no adequate words.” We, in our “reasonable universe” think of it “in terms of the exigencies of modern war, or the inexorable logic of dictatorships, or the disposal of surplus populations…” But these are merely attempts to explain it in a way that people “long-out-of-touch-with-the Bible worldview, can understand.”
He concludes that the world’s most powerful nations are ”idolatrous nations, peoples who have turned aside, a civilization that sorely needs to have its feet set on the high road of righteousness and justice and peace.”
In this light, the attempt to distinguish between the King James translation as the cause of Christian error, as opposed to some hypothetical, accurate translation, misses the point. What difference does it make after all? One version is as easy to ignore as the next.
Sources:
Littell, Franklin H. “The Other Crimes of Adolf Hitler”. The Holocaust and History: the known, the unknown, the disputed, and the reexamined. ed. Michael Berenbaum and Abraham J. Peck. Indiana University Press. Bloomington and Indianapolis. 1998.