==========
Reminder:
The basic structure of the present thread is:
X1. Scientific Revolution
X2. Ontology
X3. Ideology
X4. Social awareness
X5. Establishment
with X=F/S respectively for the first/second enlightenment. Indeed,
we start by the first as guidance to the formulation of the second
and warning of errors to be avoided.
=============
The present post is limited to the step F3- Ideology of the first
enlightenment.
Ideology is the best known domain of the First
Enlightenment, due to its impact on subsequent revolutionary
events and changes of social and political structures.
However, chronology did not respect the foundations order:
Kant came too late for Voltaire, Diderot, Montesqieu and
Rousseau. Lacking consistent foundations, the ideology
reflects uncritically current controversies: its apparently
rational form and declarations conceal noumenal utopianism.
It radically detached itself from the Scientific Revolution
and its phenomenal principles.
However brilliantly Voltaire ridiculed Dogmatism, his
criticism was negative, without suggesting any substitute.
Diderot and the Encyclopedia advocated rather arbitrarily
the social utility and attacked tradition without formulating
any positive remedy. Montesquieu believed dogmatically that
all consisted of perpetual rules or laws and argued, not less
dogmatically, that England's constitutional monarchy was an
ideal model of society, that women were inferior and that the
essential inequality of people justified slavery.
Noumenalistic Utopia of Rousseau had the greatest and most
direct influence on the French Revolution.
Oblivious of its rational roots, the ideology of
the First Enlightenment slipped almost entirely into dogmatic
irrationality.
===========
Reaction of dogmatism.
Failing to eradicate dogmatism, first enlightenment collapsed
under its reactionary assaults which went on uninterrupted
till 19th century dominated by dogmatic obscurantism.
French revolution triggered by enlightenment's ideology
radically denied its roots replacing Rousseaus with
Robespierres.
Dogmatic reaction reached its apogee in "Great German
Idealism" starting with Fichte's concept of Romanticism.
While enlightened rationality sees reflection as interplay of
imagination and inference, romanticism ablated the latter, leaving
Reason standing on one imaginary, emotional leg.
Romanticism is known mainly as esthetic current praising
spontaneous improvisation, but in that aspect it had no
noticeable practical impact. It's true that romanticist
artists followed innovated rules, but they applied them as
meticulously as their predecessors. Chopin did not learn
his music from Fichte. He applied partially new, but not
less strict rules than Mozart or Bach and deemed that
good improvisation presupposes skill gained by years of
rigorous training. The same holds for Liszt, Tchaikovsky,
Pushkin, Mickiewicz, Byron, Delacroix, Gainsborough and all
romanticist artists.
Romanticism impacted principally the Socio-Political. Fichte,
the father of Romanticism, preached Nationalism and became
the flagship of Nazism. His famous student, Hegel, became,
with a bit of Engels' assistance, the prophet of Gulag empires.
All in all, about 200 million were romantically and idealistically
slaughtered and the underlying dogmatic fanaticism gets every
day stronger.
Georges.
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