The Enlightenment presented new and incredible ways of thinking about society and the people within it. An interesting point brought forth, and one of the most radical and novel, treated the change in view of the hierarchy, particularly in France. An interesting point, however, is that the people meeting in the salons and so forth seemed interestingly focused on themselves looking from their position up towards those above them, pondering their own particular inferiority to them, not wanting to ponder how their ideas would apply to those yet below themselves and their own tyranny over them. This thought goes hand in hand with the point about fear of the mob.
People like the Philosophes, while speaking of social reform, do not seem to have had the intention of engaging the majority of the population: the middle and lower classes. I understand that this would have proven difficult, considering the main means of spreading their ideas was the press and the majority of the population was illiterate; by the same token, though, it is interesting that they would have thought the king would entertain the thought of intentionally removing power from himself for the abstract ideas offered by men like Voltaire, of the social contract and things of that nature. Though the situation is much different from Europe, the American elites of the Revolution, according to scholars like Gary Nash, attempted to engage the people in the back-country of the United States, the poor farmers and the lower-class artisans, because they understood that the ideas of “liberty” and the “rights of man” needed to spread, that the Revolution would become possible only through a the participation of a majority of the population. It seems the contrary in Europe, that they preferred to keep these ideas confined within the middle and upper classes, rather than allowing the ideas so spread. .
Reforms such as these are radical and indeed quite revolutionary. I do not mean to suggest that the reform-minded individuals of the Enlightenment were short-sighted, but it is interesting that they, in all of their understanding of practicality and reason, did not understand that their ideas, by being so drastically revolutionary, would not inherently spark revolution as they would do in 1776 with the American Revolution and in 1789 with the French Revolution. Perhaps I am wrong in this suggestion, that they saw the potential of these thoughts, but they did not have the power themselves at the time to enact a Revolution or were not prepared for that radical of a change. But to suppose that their government would reform itself on its own, and reform itself in such a way that would reduce its own power, seems quite idealistic and, contrary to what they claimed to be, rather unreasonable. Changes like those, drastic changes in government, in society, and in an entire way of life, are things that come out of revolutions, true revolutions, not the idealistic hope of “reform.”
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Very interesting thought, though I would say that the one thing that even the most perfect of philosophies cannot fully account for is human nature. The nature for self preservation seems to always trump reason and other ideals promoted by the philosophes. I will say, however, that not all of the philosophes hoped for a government to change from within. Locke wrote extensively of sovereignty being derived from the people, and that a necessary by-product of that is the right to change government (through force if necessary) if it no longer represents the interests of the people. I would say that some philosophes ventures so far into the theoretical that they lost much practicality, but that other, like Locke, still understood the need for a catalyst to effect change.
ReplyDeleteI think that in some ways the philosophes did see the revolutionary potential of their ideas and that helps to explain why many of them did not advocate for the rise of the common man but instead looked to rulers to make changes. By making small changes to reform society, one could prevent the grounds for revolution. For example, while I am not familiar with Gary Nash's argument for American history, I would wonder how sincere the leaders were in trying to spread the ideas of liberty to common people. Did they want those people to agitate for liberty, to believe in it as an ideal or did they actually want to share power with them?
ReplyDeleteI also appreciated your first point about the hypocrisy of many of the philosophes who sought to clear the paths to power and social advancement for men such as themselves while looking fearfully over their shoulders at the vulgar, uneducated masses.