[PEN-L:1365] Re: Enlightenment insight

[Colin Danby <danbyc@xxxxxxx>]

Thanks to Louis for posting this amazing stuff.  A few
notes on  Jim's reply:

> But, Louis, isn't it very much in the Enlightenment tradition that
stuff
> like Diderot's racist rant should never be exempt from rational
criticism
> (i.e., reasoned argument, reference to objective fact, etc.)

You're missing the point if you call it a rant.  The
quoted material has all the trappings of reason and
science, down to the hypotheses and tests.

> The Enlightenment was clearly culture-bound (just like the
> pre-Enlightenment and the anti-Enlightenment). It was Eurocentric,
> imperialist, etc., etc. What makes the Enlightenment different is that
it
> claims that application of the scientific method (logic, reference to
fact,
> etc.) will allow _progress_ beyond culture-bound nonsense.

"Claims" is the right word.  The key move is precisely
the false claim that Enlightenment thought contains or
potentially contains all truth about everything.  But
this claim is important because it lets people screen
out any other intellectual tradition.

> And we see that
> Diderot-type nonsense has indeed faded away, so that today it would
> "embarrass a Ku Klux Klansman" (or woman).

No, it has not faded away.  All that has happened is
that one particular scientific vocabulary has been
exchanged for another.  "Culture" has become the
substitute for biology, and highly-educated people will
solemnly discourse, with all of Diderot's apparent
judicious use of evidence and theory and the weighing
of argument, about how culture makes people
ontologically different and divides them into rational
and non-rational.

> Of course, against the positivist view (one version of the
Enlightenment
> tradition) and along the lines of Marx, the dropping of racist
language
> from the mainstream resulted mostly because people fought against
racism.
> It wasn't the application of the scientific method that did it.
However, I
> would bet that scientifically-minded thinkers were less likely to
accept
> racist stereotypes than were those who rejected scientific thinking in

> favor of faith-based thinking.

I wonder.  This accepts the caricature of faith-based
thinking as utterly rigid and without imagination.
It's a big subject, but surely you could argue that
religious thought has also been a powerful opponent of
efforts to divide people into ontologically separate
categories.  Your argument also has to deal with the
fact that the modern idea of "race" is a creation of
Enlightenment thought.

> Much of the Enlightenment tradition has been sucked up into the
ideology of
> capitalism and the dominant power structure (including racism and
sexism).
> But we should remember that Karl Marx was in the broad Enlightenment
> tradition, learning from the Enlightenment at the same time he
criticized
> it. I would say that he _extended_ that tradition, by arguing that
> "objective, scientific ideas" can be biased and rendered ideological
by the
> societal structure in which they are constructed, when that structure
is
> taken for granted. He also suggested that the realization of
Enlightenment
> ideals could only be achieved via struggle by the working class and
other
> oppressed groups.

To critique the Enlightenment is not to minimize the
achievements of Enlightenment thinkers least of all Marx.
It is to urge that they be read critically.

> Marx himself suffered from various ethnic biases, including against
Jews,
> his own ethnic group. This doesn't mean that we should reject his
views,
> ripping them out by the roots and tossing them in the trash can of
history.
> I've always argued that his system of thought is made more coherent
and
> thus stronger if one drops such ethnic stereotypes. I think that can
also
> be said about the Enlightenment tradition. This dropping is strictly
> speaking very much within the Enlightenment tradition.

The critique needs to go farther than just "dropping" the
stereotype.  It needs to ask why the stereotype is there.

Best, Colin