History: European -- The Two Wings of the Enlightenment
The two wings of the Enlightenment can best be summarized in terms of European geography: France and Scotland.
The French version offered a theory of top-down, centralized society. I call it the left-wing Enlightenment. The Scottish version offered a theory of bottom-up, decentralized society. I call it the right-wing Enlightenment.
If you want to identify the systems by their intellectual spokesmen, choose Jean Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith. Politically, they were Robespierre and George Washington.
WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?
Both systems proclaimed faith in human reason, but they had different theories regarding how reason should extend into society. The French version regarded elite central planners as reliable designers of a good society, and also reliable implementers -- by force. The Scottish version regarded reason as possessed by individuals, and therefore inherently decentralized, with ideas and plans proving their value in free-market competition without private force and with very little governmental force.
Both versions appealed to supposedly rational men. But when rational men refused to listen, left-wing Enlightenment thinkers went looking for politicians to impose force. Right-wing Enlightenment thinkers waited for self-interested, profit-seeking people to implement their ideas in the marketplace.
The French Revolution was the implementation of left-wing Enlightenment thought. The American Revolution was the implementation of right-wing Enlightenment thought. Both versions led to a violent revolution. This was a major problem with both versions.
We need a detailed study which shows that neither wing of the Enlightenment could persuade the other about the logically and morally mandatory implications of Enlightenment faith even though both appealed to the autonomous reason of man. Edmund Burke (Reflections on the Revolution in France) did not persuade Thomas Paine (The Rights of Man).
Neither wing could resolve the ancient political problem of the one and the many, unity and diversity, holism and individualism. The Enlightenment state, based on autonomous reason, was supposed to extend liberty. Instead, it has suppressed liberty.
The French Revolution produced Napoleon and massive French bureaucracy. It led to a series of bloody revolutions in Europe, including the Russian Revolution. It led to two world wars in the 20th century, high taxes, greater bureaucracy, and the European Union.
The American Revolution led to a conspiratorial coup in Philadelphia in 1787, which centralized the government, followed by the Civil War, the New Deal, and two world wars. After 1913, it led to massive bureaucracy and taxes at levels only marginally less than Europe's taxation: over 40% of production. It also produced an American military empire.
Both systems are financed by a monopolistic central bank, but the right-wing Enlightenment invented the original model: the Bank of England (1694).
Both systems invoked the sovereignty of autonomous man as a species. Neither turned to biblical religion as the definitive standard.Ever since 1700, Christian social thought has relied on one of the two Enlightenment versions for support. Christianity has been subsumed under the Enlightenment. This carried down to the 1980's, when Roman Catholic radicals proclaimed Marxist revolution: "liberation theology." In response, Christian conservatives proclaimed democratic capitalism. In both cases, Christians have been riding in the back of the Enlightenment's bus. They prefer one driver to the other, but they have paid for the bus and the gasoline. They do not get to select the map or take the steering wheel.
Friday, December 11, 2009
Gary North on the American and French Enlightenments
They Were Cousins related by "Reason"