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Old 04.04.2006, 03:54 PM   #9
truncated
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truncated kicks all y'all's assestruncated kicks all y'all's assestruncated kicks all y'all's assestruncated kicks all y'all's assestruncated kicks all y'all's assestruncated kicks all y'all's assestruncated kicks all y'all's assestruncated kicks all y'all's assestruncated kicks all y'all's assestruncated kicks all y'all's assestruncated kicks all y'all's asses
I think the Enlightenment is definitely subject to that plague of critical hindsight. As !@#$%! pointed out, of course it had its drawbacks, but those are inherent in any widespread societal movement. If you simply look at the prominent spearheads of the movement, their ideologies differed from one another, in ways that, contrary to colliding, merged to produce a universality that made the movement so effective.

You have Voltaire and Rousseau, for example - one hailing the aristocracy, one rebelling against it; one emphasizing intellect, the other emotion; one maintaining a grasp on traditional norms, the other advocating progress and innovation - and these ideals came together to form the basis for the Enlightenment, which I personally think did quite the opposite of hindering rational moral discourse. It simply attempted to stir logic and reason into a melting pot of stagnating societies built on custom, superstition, and the intangible, without destroying (and in fact enriching) their humanitarian foundations.
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