Skip to main content

Time for another Enlightenment


Europe was labouring under the weight of a socio-political system when Enlightenment dawned on it in the 17th and 18th centuries.  Most European countries had a hierarchical system with the King or the Queen occupying the top position claiming to have derived his/her power directly from none other than God.  Then there were the priests of the Church who not only brought God’s power to the King or the Queen but also enjoyed a lot of benefits of that power in their own royal ways.  Below the clergy reclined the aristocrats.  All these three together sucked the blood of the common people who did all the work and paid all the taxes.

The philosophers who questioned this system usually belonged to the aristocratic classes.  But they possessed the sensitivity to feel the inhumanity of the system.  Thus Rousseau (1712-1778) lamented the chains that shackled man everywhere.  The encyclopaedists redefined ‘political authority’ and ‘natural liberty’.  The coeditor of the Encyclopaedia, Denis Diderot, is assumed to have said that salvation would arrive when “the last King was strangled with the entrails of the last priest.” Locke, Montesquieu and others asserted that the ultimate object of government was to promote the happiness and dignity of the individual. 

These philosophers inspired the French Revolution with its motto of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.  The Revolution changed Europe radically.  Eventually, after much violence and bloodshed, democracy replaced the monarchies in Europe.  Every individual became important.

Two centuries after the Enlightenment, today we stand in need of another Enlightenment.  Democracy stands in need of some Saviour.  Democracy today has become the handmaiden of the politician and the trader.  The politician of today is the equivalent of the monarch of the old regime in Europe and the trader is the equivalent of the clergy. 

When Adam Smith argued for capitalism, he thought that self-interest would work for the common good.  “By giving free rein to individual greed and the private accumulation of wealth, the ‘invisible hand’ of the market would benefit society in the end, a formula sometimes characterized by the seemingly paradoxical aphorism ‘private vice yields public virtue’” [David S. Mason wrote about Smith, A Concise History of Modern Europe].  Now we are left with private vices without public virtue. 

And there are no philosophers left to inspire another revolution, it seems.  Or, maybe, philosophers have joined the traders.



Labels:

Comments

  1. HemendraJuly 5, 2014 at 10:58 PM

    I think we are on the verge of such process. I remember, once our lecturer told us, there is a kind of relationship between capitalism and human development. Humans only came to know the worth of anything, once they are being deprived of that.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJuly 6, 2014 at 10:25 AM

      A century back Emile Zola predicted that the next revolution would be against capitalism. Revolutions take time to mature. Moreover, capitalism per se may not be the culprit; the way it is being practised is the problem. So a revolution may not be needed; some reforms will do, I believe.

      Delete
  2. AnonymousJuly 7, 2014 at 2:23 AM

    Great read. Indeed we need people to rise and stand against politicians, bureaucracy, etc whenever there is anything wrong. Revolution or no revolution,the only difference that could come now is when people make their voices heard and not fear anything.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJuly 7, 2014 at 9:43 PM

      There's one section of the Indian population which has "nothing but chains to lose" (to use a Marxian phrase). It is only they who will bother to raise the voice against the socio-political evils. And unfortunately they lack the power and resources for doing it.

      Delete
  3. Donna BurmanJuly 7, 2014 at 11:09 AM

    Thus post reminds me of a documentary I watched. Inside Job. Though got more to do with the economic crisis facing the 21st century, yet similar sentiments were expressed by the director when he tried to portray the ways of the corrupt and the institutions they have corrupted.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJuly 7, 2014 at 9:45 PM

      Thanks for the mention of the documentary, Anu. Perhaps, capitalism as it is practised today has become so vile that it will require some Mahatma or Messiah to cleanse it.

      Delete
  4. UnknownJuly 9, 2014 at 10:19 AM

    I'm not sure if it's my pessimism or awareness toward reality, savior to our private greed will take a long time to come, if he/she will.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJuly 9, 2014 at 7:39 PM

      No Saviour will come from the heavens, Pankti :) I'm not at all hoping for that. The only saviour possible is a human one, a good leader with the right vision...

      Delete
    2. UnknownJuly 10, 2014 at 10:54 AM

      I mean human savior only.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
47 comments
Read more

Shooting an Elephant

George Orwell [1903-1950] We had an anthology of classical essays as part of our undergrad English course. Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell was one of the essays. The horror of political hegemony is the core theme of the essay. Orwell was a subdivisional police officer of the British Empire in Burma (today Myanmar) when he was forced to shoot an elephant. The elephant had gone musth (an Urdu term for the temporary insanity of male elephants when they are in need of a female) and Orwell was asked to control the commotion created by the giant creature. By the time Orwell reached with his gun, the elephant had become normal. Yet Orwell shot it. The first bullet stunned the animal, the second made him waver, and Orwell had to empty the entire magazine into the elephant’s body in order to put an end to its mammoth suffering. “He was dying,” writes Orwell, “very slowly and in great agony, but in some world remote from me where not even a bullet could damage him further…. It seeme...
11 comments
Read more

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...
19 comments
Read more

Urban Naxal

Fiction “We have to guard against the urban Naxals who are the biggest threat to the nation’s unity today,” the Prime Minister was saying on the TV. He was addressing an audience that stood a hundred metres away for security reasons. It was the birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel which the Prime Minister had sanctified as National Unity Day. “In order to usurp the Sardar from the Congress,” Mathew said. The clarification was meant for Alice, his niece who had landed from London a couple of days back.    Mathew had retired a few months back as a lecturer in sociology from the University of Kerala. He was known for his radical leftist views. He would be what the PM calls an urban Naxal. Alice knew that. Her mother, Mathew’s sister, had told her all about her learned uncle’s “leftist perversions.” “Your uncle thinks that he is a Messiah of the masses,” Alice’s mother had warned her before she left for India on a short holiday. “Don’t let him infiltrate your brai...
14 comments
Read more

Egregious

·       Donald Trump terminated all trade negotiations with Canada “based on their egregious behaviour.” ·       Pakistan has an egregious record of assassinations among its leaders. ·       Benjamin Netanyahu’s egregious disregard for civilian suffering has drawn widespread international condemnation. Now, look at the following sentences. ·       Archias is an egregious and most excellent man. [Cicero’s speech in 62 BCE] ·       “An egregious captain and most valiant soldier.” [Roger Ascham in 1545] U p to about 16 th century, the word egregious had a positive meaning: excellent or outstanding . Cicero was defending Greek poet Aulus Licinius Archias’s request for Roman citizenship. Archias had left his country out of disgust for the corruption of its Seleucid rulers. Ascham was speaking about the qualities of valiant soldiers when he used the ...
6 comments
Read more