The Enlightenment
And Early Conservative Behavior
Bryan Kelly
Rosamond, California
This is the second in the series titled: Losing Our Democracy.
The first, Our Fork in the Road, makes the point that we have taken a wrong fork in our path through history. We are on the wrong path for democracy, any type of democracy.
This second entry presents two major changes in the general path of humanity a few centuries ago, referred to as The Scientific Revolution and The Enlightenment. It was a time in history when not only did knowledge of how the world works began to increase dramatically, but also a time when the general public began to become aware of this knowledge and how it might affect their lives.
But not all were on board with those changes. They fought back against the changes. And even today there are many of the same basic persuasion who strive to destroy our democracy. The point of the essay is that the behaviors today are not new. They have been present for a long time.
After some research two conclusions are drawn. First, the definitions of conservative and liberal are not concise and even less agreed upon. There are significant differences of opinion among those who self-declare as conservative or liberal. The comparison, within and between, merits another essay. Probably several by people more knowledgeable than I.
Second, there are sufficient similarities of those within the two groups to proceed without that debate. The concepts of conservative will be used, hopefully, in a consistent context.
Please notice the word “is” rather than “was.” While those eras are considered to have ended some 200 years ago, the concepts of the Scientific Revolution and of The Enlightenment continue today and hopefully will continue throughout all of humanities’ existence.
Prior to the Scientific Revolution the Greek worldview was predominant. In short, the Greek worldview was the most long-lived in the history of scientific cosmology. Closely tied to the pseudo-science of astrology, it continued from ancient Greece through medieval Islamic civilization to seventeenth-century Europe.[1]
They thought of the world as a giant machine (like gears in a clock) that worked in uniform and predictable ways. Their worldview was based on observable phenomenon with a heavy dose of divine intervention. They were significantly hampered by obstacles such as a lack of accurate measuring instruments.
Needless to say, the inquiry of humans prior to the pre-Socratics was an imprecise attempt to make sense of lived experience.[2]
The Greek worldview led to a faulty foundation and the eventual collapse of Greek society.[3]
The Scientific Revolution was in the 16th and 17th centuries.[4] Some of the conceptual changes included:
1. the reeducation of common sense in favor of abstract reasoning
2. the substitution of a quantitative for a qualitative view of nature
3. the view of nature as a machine rather than as an organism
4. the development of an experimental, scientific method that sought definite answers to certain limited questions couched in the framework of specific theories
5. and the acceptance of new criteria for explanation, stressing the “how” rather than the “why” that had characterized the Aristotelian search for final causes.
The “why” included the concepts of because the gods said so, and maybe even why they said so. It included very little of how things worked.
A sampling of some of the new scientific understandings include:
Nicolaus Copernicus who developed the heliocentric view of the universe with the sun at the center.
Tycho Brahe who constructed new instruments providing much improved accuracy of measurements facilitating more accurate observations, resulting in deeper understandings of our solar system.
Johannes Kepler’s ideas placed the Copernican hypothesis on firm astronomical footing.
Galileo Galilei was the first to use the new concepts of glass lenses to make telescopes and made the first observations of Jupiter. He watched Jupiter and its moons definitively proving that not everything orbited the earth. He was persecuted by the church for this discovery. He derived the concepts of free fall which led to parabolic mathematics enabling calculations for planetary orbits.
René Descartes worked solutions to specific technical problems. His developments were known as mechanical philosophy and became the dominant theme of 17th-century science.
The work of Sir Isaac Newton represents the culmination of the Scientific Revolution at the end of the 17th century. His monumental writings dated 1687 and titled, in English: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, solved many major problems posed by the Scientific Revolution in mechanics and in cosmology.
Note that while the end of the 17th century is frequently considered the end of the Scientific Revolution, Newton’s works, for example, triggered much more examination, research, and understanding of how and why the world and the universe works as it does. As noted at the start, the Scientific Revolution continues to be work in progress.
Let’s begin with the fundamentals of what is now known as The Enlightenment.
In 2018 Steven Pinker published the title: Enlightenment Now, The Case For Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress. Its is a great book and a primary reference for this essay.
The period from about 1600 through about the end of the 1700s is now known as The Enlightenment. It is the period in which the concepts of science spread throughout much of the European world and the new world. It was the period when the average citizen began to realize they could understand the world and think for themselves.
No government or ogranization proclaimed a revolution in progress. But during this period the ideas of reason, science and humanism took root and grew to a much greater degree than at any previous time in history.
Indeed, The Constitution of these United States is considered an enlightened document. It was heavily influenced by the enlightenment concepts.
The main difference between Scientific Revolution and enlightenment is that Scientific Revolution is based on scientific discoveries in the fields of biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, and astronomy, whereas Enlightenment is an intellectual and philosophical movement built on the idea that reason is the main source of authority and legitimacy.[5]
The Enlightenment is when science became much “more” generally accepted. Pinker wrote that Immanuel Kant proclaimed the motto of the error to be: Dare to Understand. An essay written by Kant in 1784 ends the first paragraph with:
( Pronounced: saw peire’ ow day )
Sapere aude! "Have courage to use your own reason!"- that is the motto of enlightenment.
Let’s go with Pinker’s shorter version and think about that for a moment: Dare to Understand! Bear in mind that this was a new concept for most of humanity. The people, individuals, could look at the world and make their own decisions. They no longer had to do things “this way” or to believe “that” is true because people in authority said so.
It was a novel concept back then. Pinker devoted the first three chapters of his book to The Enlightenment. Several passages are quoted here.
If there is anything the Enlightenment thinkers had in common, it was an insistence that we energetically apply the standards of reason to understanding our world, and not fall back on generators of delusion like faith, dogma, revelation, authority, charisma, mysticism, divination, visions, gut feelings, or the hermeneutic parsing of sacred texts.
Pinker wrote: The thinkers of the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment saw an urgent need for a secular foundation for morality, because they were haunted by a historical memory of centuries of religious carnage: the Crusades, the Inquisition, witch hunts, the European wars of religion.
Pinker wrote: The Enlightenment is sometimes called the Humanitarian Revolution, because it led to the abolition of barbaric practices that had been commonplace across civilizations for millennia.
When writing of some effects of the Enlightenment Pinker wrote: As the most famous product of the Enlightenment, the Declaration of Independence, put it, in order to secure the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, governments are instituted among people, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
But there is a bad side to the Enlightenment. It is the purpose of this essay and continues to play a major role in today’s society.
This age of enlightenment was not accepted by all. There were two overlapping groups that resisted these advances, and often fought with all their might. Those two groups were, and still are, religion and conservatives.
Pinker wrote, page 39: It’s the idea of progress than rankles the chattering class[6]—the Enlightenment belief that by understanding the world we can improve the human condition.
It bears noting that resistance to concepts that help the masses has been around for a long time.
For example, in 399 BCE, Socrates was executed for impiety and corrupting the youth.[7] Both of those charges are vague and imprecise. From the Bowles essay about Socrates:
In brief, the overtly stated charges of impiety and corrupting the youth as expressed in the indictment against Socrates cannot be considered the cause of his execution. Instead, the true motivation behind the trial is a political one; Socrates comes to be seen as a symbol of civil defiance and must be silenced. … Consequently, Socrates happened to be in the wrong era to express his political thoughts.
At some risk of going overboard, let’s review some of the worse aspects of those who resisted, and continue to resist, the concepts of The Enlightenment.
A note to the reader: The behavior described in the next few paragraphs is rather gruesome. Some will find it objectionable. To omit the details, skip down to the next heading, Burned at the Stake. Yet, this was indeed the behavior of the Catholic Church. The organization that had both religious and political power. It fought the Scientific Revolution and The Enlightenment to the point of killing those who opposed the church. It is history best remembered.
The Inquisitions, which ran from 1198 through as late as 1826 when Cayetano Ripoll, a Spanish schoolmaster was hanged for heresy.[8]
An example is that of Giordano Bruno, an Italian Philosopher. He proclaimed that there were other worlds with life on them. He held additional opinions contrary to the Catholic faith. The Inquisition declared him to be a heretic, and on 17th February 1600,[9] his tongue put in a vice and burned at the stake.
That was not uncommon for the age. I was unaware of the significance of putting the tongue in a vice until finding this description of the same thing happening to Hans Bret:
Early in the morning of the day set for the burning, Saturday, 4 January, the executioner came to Hans’ cell. The executioner ordered him to put out his tongue. Over it he placed an iron clamp, then screwed it tight with a vice-screw over the tongue. This done, he burned the end of Hans’ tongue with a hot iron so that the tongue would swell and could not be withdrawn from the clamp. This tongue screw was to prevent Hans from speaking to the people when he was taken to the stake.[10]
In summary, the Catholic Church did not hesitate to murder[11] those who disagreed. It was often done by burning at the stake. Being burned to death might be the most painful way to die there is. That choice seems to be deliberate and chosen to send a message to whomever opposed them. Differences of opinion were not allowed.
Many people were accused of heresy and prosecuted. A search for heresy returns:
belief or opinion contrary to orthodox religious (especially Christian) doctrine.
The point is that those in power, then the Catholics, were not fond of anyone who presented a differing position. Those dislikes were sufficiently strong to use imprisonment, extreme torture, and murder. This resistance to change is one of the hallmarks for conservatives.[12]
Being enlightened, and living, or attempting to live an enlightened life was forbidden and sometimes outright dangerous to your life.
This is but an example of the concept that those in power will go to great lengths to suppress opposition. Even, and maybe especially, if that opposition is merely words and contrary ideas.
Why was that? Because those two groups, conservatives and religion, had the power. They were in control. They had the power to tell ( to dictate ) to the larger public what was true and how the public were required to live their lives. Yes, the key words are “required to live their lives.” You must live according to our rules, because we said so.
Science disrupted their cherished plans. From the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment, the public began to learn that the ruling society did not always know the facts. The truth about this world. And if so, they were not uniquely entitled to rule everyone else. Those religious leaders and those conservatives saw they would tend to lose their grip on society, and fought science at every step.
Those who are in power, and who see their power slipping away, will strive mightily to retain that power. When they have been in power for a while, they see that power as their rights in life. To the point that their privileges are their god given rights. They will not give up their power without a struggle. Often and a life and death struggle.
What is this science that conservatives and the church detest?
Said very succinctly and simply, Science is observing the facts, sometimes performing experiments and observing the results, and drawing conclusions from the facts.
Let’s presume your child, or even yourself, puts water in the freezer, maybe with a thermometer. Then she checks the temperature frequently as the water chills, then freezes. And she writes down the times and temperature readings, and after all is done, she looks at the data she recorded and makes conclusions about what happened. Maybe she repeats the experiment with small changes, records the new measurements, and draws more conclusions.
She is doing science. It matters not how many times this has been done before. SHE is observing parts of the world that she inhabits. She is taking notes, analyzing, learning facts, inferring conclusions. She is learning what is real. That is science.
Yet this is what Republicans sneer at. A new sneer word has been coined, scientism. It is used to look down upon those who are so dreary as to bring facts, and even facts backed up by science, into the discussion.
These people who sneer at science ride in automobiles every day, one of the most engineered devices humans have created. Engineering is a partner with science. Engineering is putting the knowledge gained through science into the things we create. Republicans work in buildings whose design depends upon the results of science. They use electricity, a product of science. They use their cellphones, a result of continuing scientific studies.
Gosh, they even want anesthesia with their surgery.
The list does go on and on. As does the obvious hypocrisy.
Yet they continue to sneer at science. It diminishes what they perceive as their authority.
There will be more on this disdain of science in another essay. An entire essay. Back to the main point, some history of conservatives resisting the advancement of society.
The goal of this essay is not that of a research paper. Rather it is a general collection to be considered and hopefully the starting point of one part of a journey through life. With that in mind, here are a few reference points.
The story of Galileo is fraught with myth and falsehoods. Galileo disagreed with the church on multiple fronts. The claims about how the sun and earth worked is the most known controversy. Hopefully, we all know how that worked out for the Church. Galileo was not tortured or thrown in a dungeon, but he was forced to recant under severe threat.
The interpretation of the bible was certainly one of the principle contributing factors to the controversy. At the council of Trent, at the height of the protestant reformation just about twenty years before the birth of Galileo, the Catholic Church had solemnly declared that only the church could authentically interpret the bible and that private interpretation was forbidden.[13]
Imagine that, those in power, the Catholic Church, made a formal declaration that no person outside the church was allowed to make interpretations of the bible. This was more than a simple book ban. It was a ban on personal thoughts and expressions.
The point is not that the Catholic Church was wrong. The point is that they self-declared themselves to be in charge of everything. They had sufficient resources and took control of essentially everything. They declared themselves to be infallible. Those who disagreed and were public about it were given a fake trial, were often tortured, and often murdered. We know that the Church did not willingly give up power. The lost power despite its best efforts.
The point is that the Catholic Church resisted, with all of their resources, the betterment of humanity. This was and is a major role of conservatism. Even today.
Lets skip around in a tiny bit of history and review a few items along these concepts.
1789 – 1799
The French Revolution was a revolt against those in power, those who did all they could to keep the peasants, well peasants. To enforce the system of royalty who, literally, own everything, including the peasants.
http://www.fsmitha.com/h3/h36-pol.html
Congress of Vienna, 1814-15
At the Congress the British succeeded in getting a declaration against the slave trade. But the more conservative powers were interested mainly in squashing the Enlightenment and nationalism. They viewed the Enlightenment as having inspired the French Revolution and they viewed the French Revolution as having encouraged an attack on their religion. Conservatives wanted a return to respect for the wisdom of traditional authorities, and they wanted to shore up obedience.
…
Leading the Congress of Vienna was the foreign minister for Austria's monarch, Klemens von Metternich. According to Metternich the people of Europe wanted peace rather than liberty. And peace was what Metternich wished to provide them, within a context of what he saw as legitimate rule. Legitimate rule for Metternich was that of an authoritarian monarchy. Metternich wanted to restore to the continent the old aristocratic and monarchical order and empire.
…
In 1815, people across Europe were sick of war and longing for peace. Disdain for social upheaval increased conservatism's appeal, and that appeal was served by a revival of religious devotions. Conservatives were blaming the French Revolution's excesses not only on the weaknesses in character and mind of revolutionaries but also the intellectual heritage of the Enlightenment, including the revolution's expressed ideals, "liberty, equality, fraternity."
…
Another opponent of the French Revolution was Pius VII, pope from 1800 to 1823. Steven Hause and William Maltby in Western Civilization describe the Vatican as "a leader of the new conservatism." Pius VII, they write, "reestablished the Inquisition, and reconstituted the Index of prohibited books. Catholics were forbidden to believe that the Earth rotated around the Sun or to read Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. In the papal states, Pius annulled Napoleonic laws of religious toleration and reintroduced persecution of the Jews."
…
Fear of free-thinking among the masses led to suppression of newspapers. Austria's Prince Metternich believed that repression was necessary to hold the enemies of his new order in check. He viewed editors, newspapermen and university teachers with suspicion and students with hostility. He described "Liberty of the press" as a scourge. The Karlsbad Decrees of 1819, which Metternich helped create, put universities under state control and resulted in the firing of liberal professors and the closing of student clubs.
…
https://www.aei.org/articles/enlightened-conservatism/
The enlightened conservative is willing to accept some measure of reform, though only when his refusal to accept it would endanger the order and stability that he holds so dear.
Yet despite his willingness to accept some reforms, the enlightened conservative will — and should — remain deeply suspicious of all causes. As he sees it, a cause is to politics what fanaticism is to religion — a plague to be avoided at all costs.
The Tea Party movement, as in Republican behavior beginning about 2009, for example, is a passionate cause, and it embodies the same kind of revivalist frenzy that the enlightened conservative has always feared and distrusted. Far from being victims of the status quo bias, Tea Party conservatives want to shake up the system and overturn the establishment. Fond of invoking the revolutionary ideals of our distant past, these strange new conservatives seek drastic change and sweeping reforms, and this alone is enough to arouse the misgivings of the old-fashioned enlightened conservative, assuming that there are still any around.
…
For the enlightened conservative, whatever else he may be, is no reactionary, dedicated to the cause of turning back the clock, and society along with it, to an earlier time. The cause of returning to an impossible past is no more alluring to him than the cause of advancing to an improbable future.
Let’s take a bit from here:
SCASD = State College Area School District, located in Pennsylvania
Liberal and Conservative ideas in the 1800s.
After the Congress of Vienna, European leaders wanted to return Europe to the way it had been before the French Revolution. These leaders were part of a group called conservatives. They included monarchs, noble landowners, and church leaders. Conservative ideas also appealed to peasants who wanted to preserve traditional ways.
Liberals disagreed with the ideas of the conservatives. They were the Middle Class and their ideas came from the Enlightenment. They wanted governments based on written constitutions. They believed in Natural Rights.
Disagreements between conservatives and liberals led to 30 years of turmoil in Europe.
And a bit from here:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/conservatism
Conservatism remains a perennial challenge to liberalism, being a tendency to favor legal constraints on liberty, either for the sake of preserving some form of public morality that conservatives regard as called for, or for the sake of preserving established ways of life and institutions to which they attach intrinsic value.
From: Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics (Second Edition), 2012
The point being made is that those in power make proclamations as to things they hold to be true and control how things are done. When there are some who oppose those in power, those in power will exert great error to resist and retain or enhance their power. And when the opposition has the unmitigated audacity to present facts and evidence, all the more reason to suppress. They will jail and even murder anyone that opposes them.
This behavior continues today. Witness the presidential campaigns of 2016 and the chants of “Lock her Up” regarding the opponents. A first in United States politics. That’s bad enough, but as they say, it gets worse.
In a statement on February 12, 2022, Trump proclaimed, falsely, that Hillary Clinton spied upon Trump. To quote him:
In a stronger period of time in our country, this crime would have been punishable by death. In addition, reparations should be paid to those in our country who have been damaged by this.
Not only does he want her and her associates locked up in jail, he wants to extract financial penalties and to murder her. This is a dramatic expansion on his chants of “Lock her up.”
So the point, again, is that through the ages, the conservatives have often been in power. And when so, they have, and continue, to go to almost any length to stay in power. Including to persecute and kill those the oppose them. And proclaim themselves righteous in doing so. These are not new behaviors.
As we look back in history, and indeed through the present age, these are some of the tactics and behaviors used by Conservatives to acquire and to stay in power.
[6] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/chattering%20class
disparaging
: people who talk and write a lot about current political and social matters regarded collectively especially as constituting an elitist class whose comments deserve to be dismissed or ignored
[7] This essay was written by David Bowles
https://www.mcgill.ca/classics/files/classics/2006-7-03.pdf
The title is: Wrongfully Accused: The Political Motivations behind Socrates’ Execution, by David Bowles
[9] https://www.wm.edu/offices/auxiliary/osher/course-info/classnotes/derisetrialofgalileorevisited.pdf
[11] The word murder is deliberately chosen over execution. Execution implies that there was justification, as in a crime, and the person has/had been given due process. The Church was a self-declared authority, not authorized by the public. The church would murder just about anyone that opposed their beliefs. It was an extreme in the concepts of authoritarianism.
[12] A Bing search for “definition conservative” returns the first definition as an adjective with the text:
1. averse to change or innovation and holding traditional values.