VIII.

Legacies of Enlightenment Thought

The excesses of the French Revolution, especially Maximilien Robespierre and the Reign of Terror, led many observers associated with the conservative and romantic movements of the late 18th and early 19th centuries to condemn the Enlightenment as having too exalted a view of human reason. These observers argued that the Enlightenment neglected the roles played in human nature by feelings, imagination, spirit, and intuition. Similarly, the Enlightenment, with its zeal for political reform, was criticized as misunderstanding the useful roles that tradition, custom, and habit play in society.

Today, environmentalists criticize the Enlightenment’s worship of science and technology, citing the damage done by human-produced innovations such as pesticides and auto exhaust. Devout Christians find fault with the movement’s strictly secular vision of the state. Communitarians, who believe in a cooperative way of life, take issue with its rampant individualism. Still, Enlightenment social and political ideals live on today in the rhetoric of those who argue for reason, reform, and tolerance in the face of custom, tradition, and orthodoxy.

About the author: Isaac Kramnick is the Richard J. Schwartz Professor of Government at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. He is the author of several books, including The Godless Constitution: The Case Against Religious Correctness (1996).