Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress

The Romantic movement pushed back particularly hard against Enlightenment ideals. Rousseau, Johann Herder, Friedrich Schelling, and others denied that reason could be separated from emotion, that individuals could be considered apart from their culture, that people should provide reasons for their acts, that values applied across times and places, and that peace and prosperity were desirable ends. A human is a part of an organic whole—a culture, race, nation, religion, spirit, or historical force—and people should creatively channel the transcendent unity of which they are a part. Heroic struggle, not the solving of problems, is the greatest good, and violence is inherent to nature and cannot be stifled without draining life of its vitality. “There are but three groups worthy of respect,” wrote Charles Baudelaire, “the priest, the warrior, and the poet. To know, to kill, and to create.”

It sounds mad, but in the 21st century those counter-Enlightenment ideals continue to be found across a surprising range of elite cultural and intellectual movements. The notion that we should apply our collective reason to enhance flourishing and reduce suffering is considered crass, naïve, wimpy, square. Let me introduce some of the popular alternatives to reason, science, humanism, and progress; they will reappear in other chapters, and in part III of the book I will confront them head on.

The most obvious is religious faith. To take something on faith means to believe it without good reason, so by definition a faith in the existence of supernatural entities clashes with reason. Religions also commonly clash with humanism whenever they elevate some moral good above the well-being of humans, such as accepting a divine savior, ratifying a sacred narrative, enforcing rituals and taboos, proselytizing other people to do the same, and punishing or demonizing those who don’t. Religions can also clash with humanism by valuing souls above lives, which is not as uplifting as it sounds. Belief in an afterlife implies that health and happiness are not such a big deal, because life on earth is an infinitesimal portion of one’s existence; that coercing people into accepting salvation is doing them a favor; and that martyrdom may be the best thing that can ever happen to you. As for incompatibilities with science, these are the stuff of legend and current events, from Galileo and the Scopes Monkey Trial to stem-cell research and climate change.

A second counter-Enlightenment idea is that people are the expendable cells of a superorganism—a clan, tribe, ethnic group, religion, race, class, or nation—and that the supreme good is the glory of this collectivity rather than the well-being of the people who make it up. An obvious example is nationalism, in which the superorganism is the nation-state, namely an ethnic group with a government. We see the clash between nationalism and humanism in morbid patriotic slogans like “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori” (Sweet and right it is to die for your country) and “Happy those who with a glowing faith in one embrace clasped death and victory.”⁴ Even John F. Kennedy’s less gruesome “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country” makes the tension clear.

Nationalism should not be confused with civic values, public spirit, social responsibility, or cultural pride. Humans are a social species, and the well-being of every individual depends on patterns of cooperation and harmony that span a community. When a “nation” is conceived as a tacit social contract among people sharing a territory, like a condominium association, it is an essential means for advancing its members’ flourishing. And of course it is genuinely admirable for one individual to sacrifice his or her interests for those of many individuals. It’s quite another thing when a person is forced to make the supreme sacrifice for the benefit of a charismatic leader, a square of cloth, or colors on a map. Nor is it sweet and right to clasp death in order to prevent a province from seceding, expand a sphere of influence, or carry out an irredentist crusade.

Religion and nationalism are signature causes of political conservatism, and continue to affect the fate of billions of people in the countries under their influence. Many left-wing colleagues who learned that I was writing a book on reason and humanism egged me on, relishing the prospect of an arsenal of talking points against the right. But not so long ago the left was sympathetic to nationalism when it was fused with Marxist liberation movements. And many on the left encourage identity politicians and social justice warriors who downplay individual rights in favor of equalizing the standing of races, classes, and genders, which they see as being pitted in zero-sum competition.