The Legacy of Enlightenment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

The Legacy of Enlightenment - Essay Example The opposing strand was counter enlightenment which constituted of royal antagonists of the old order and conservative clerical thinkers of both catholic and protestant denominations. Despite reaction, western religious traditions have been deeply enriched by the enlightenment. The mainstream religions have adapted to the enlightenment ethical values of free inquiry, democracy, equality and universality. Religious battles have tended to cease where enlightenment values were most cherished (Zafirovski, 2010). The concept of enlightenment is both a philosophical concept and an historical process. The critical social theory uses enlightenment in the wide sense as advance of thought which has always aimed at liberating human beings from fear and installing them as masters. The essence of enlightenment is understood as the choice between alternatives. The concept of enlightenment describes a fundamental structure of reason and characterises the historical practices that in modernity have led to rationalization and reification. The modern enlightenment is an embodiment of self cancelling ideas of bourgeois, democratic culture. Following the early critical theory, politics of emancipation is by necessity a politics of enlightenment, a form of enlightenment that transcends the parameters of modernity as the product of the eighteenth century enlightenment and thus beyond the latter itself. The modern enlightenment epitomizes and completes a process of enlightenment that began several millennia ago. This differentiates pre-modern and post modern enlightenment including persuasion and education, as non coercive means of moral regulation in contrast to coercive forms of social control (Jacob, 2001). The age of enlightenment or age of reason was aimed at reforming the society and advance knowledge. It also saw the promotion of science and intellectual exchange and opposed superstition, intolerance and profanity in churches and the government. A distinction occurs between oc cidental and oriental enlightenment whereas the former is associated with rationalism and liberalism and the latter constitutes mysticism and conservatism or traditionalism. Enlightened thinking is said to begin during the renaissance period, with the reformation or even the Greeks (Jonathan, 2001). The Children of Enlightenment According to Todorov, there are three ideas that form the basis of enlightenment project. These are universality, autonomy and human end which he believes is the purpose of our acts. What we require today is the realignment of enlightenment thinking in a way that preserves our culture while subjecting it to a critical evaluation, assessing it in light of wanted and unwanted consequences. The traditional antagonists of enlightenment are equated with Hydras that keep on growing even after they are cut. These traditional antagonists will never succeed because societies are becoming more liberal in the quest for autonomy and dialogue. He continues to assert that he is sceptical about the use of human rights since they are used as instrument for justifying our western superiority. There is a distinction between religions which appeal to human beings or to tribe only. Human beings have two obligations only; to love God and to love their neighbour. One characteristic about enlightenment is the celebration of plurality and difference. Decolonisation as such was channelled by ideas of autonomy,