[PEN-L:1430] Re: Enlightenment insight

[Colin Danby <danbyc@xxxxxxx>]

Thanks to Jim D for a reasoned reply to my
provocations.  I think we can begin to narrow
differences.

> The thing is that if the Enlightenment folks are consistent -- and
they
> often are not, being better in theory than in practice -- they can see

> through that rhetoric. We should be able to see through the rhetoric,
too,
> noting that the "trappings" of science do not make something
scientific.

This does assume that the difference between
science and rhetoric is easily ascertainable.
I am not advocating the sort of dime-store
postmodernism that says it's all rhetoric.  But
neither do I buy the idea that the Enlightenment
project is self-correcting.  It may be that political
struggle plays the key role in exposing rhetoric
around questions like race, rather than the
internal processes of this intellectual project.

> . . .
>
> BTW, what other intellectual traditions are you referring to? those
that
> reject logic and empirical research?

The screening-out I had in mind was of non-western
intellectual traditions.

> Are you advocating a non- or anti-Enlightenment tradition?

No single tradition.  I'm not sure what you mean by
an anti-Enlightenment tradition.

> Your criticism
> of what I wrote seems very much in the Enlightenment tradition, since
> you're criticizing my logic and empirical references.

Look obviously I am trained in this tradition.  But
let me be very clear on this point.  The Enlightenment
has no monopoly on logic or use of evidence.  Plenty
of other traditions, including many "faith-based" ones,
use logic and evidence and are capable of close critical
readings of other people's arguments.  To put it the
other way, to make this argument actually trivializes
the Enlightenment, which never clamed to have invented
reason but which made very strong claims about the
existence of a natural order that was in every respect
intelligible to reason,and which argued for ineluctable
social progress with a sequence of stages from
barbaric/unreasoning to civilized/reasoning.

>> 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.<
>
> I respect those religious folks -- especially the Quakers -- who
opposed
> racism and other efforts to divide people into ontologially separate
> categories. But as far as I know it wasn't part of any religious
tradition
> to oppose racism and the like until the modern era. (It's true that in
many
> cases the Roman Catholics eschewed racial categories and tried to
convert
> the world to their faith. But they saw nonbelievers as in an
"ontologically
> separate category" -- one that required torture and death.)

I'm not suggesting that any tradition has a monopoly on
truth and/or virtue.

> I think that religious folks have been highly influenced by
Enlightenment
> ideas (along with the societal millieu). One thing that's happened is
that,
> outside the fundamentalist movements, the realm of life which is
totally
> faith-based and exempt from logical or empirical criticism has shrunk.

Again I wonder.  I think there is a bit of caricature in
supposing periods or places which were "totally faith-based
and exempt from logical or empirical criticism," but
you may not mean this.  Enlightenment propagandists do like
to make rather broad all-or-nothing claims.  Let us note that
religious belief  seems as widespread as ever.  And even
our most distant hunting-gathering ancestors, who had no
universities to go to,  clearly experimented in medicine,
agriculture etc.

>> Your argument also has to deal with the fact that the modern idea of
>> "race" is a creation of Enlightenment thought.<
>
> Yeah, but there was also a lot of premodern ideas about "race" which
were
> just as bad as the Enlightenment ideas about race. (Consider the
attitude
> of the Greeks toward the barbarians, that Barkley referred to.) So
it's
> hard to blame the Enlightenment on this score.

There is a distinction here I want to insist on.  Yes
you can find any number of groups which differentiated
between members of the group and outsiders, with
umpteen synonyms for barbarian.  This is not terribly
surprising.  But  race is something qualitatively
different.  It is  not only a division of humanity into
rather large categories, it is an effort to make a kind of
absolute distinction that excludes some people from
what is precisely the Enlightenment's promise
(especially in its more radical post-French-Revolution
phase), which is that people have a fundamental
humanity and capacity for reason which argues for
giving them rights.  The relation between race and
civil society is absolutely clear if you look at the
origin of the category of negro in North America
Robin Blackburn's recent book makes this point
-- the category emerges preceisely as those people
who can be denied rights.

The problem is not the notion of reason but the
othering that is used to delimit and indeed define
who has reason.

> Anyway, as an historical materialist, I wouldn't blame (or praise) the

> Enlightenment for anything (except when talking loosely). The
> Enlightenment is more of a symptom than a disease. "Modern racism" is
a
> product of European ethnic nationalism more than of the Enlightenment,

> though of course folks like Kant and Hegel and Marx and Diderot were
> influenced by both. Both the Enlightenment and European ethnic
nationalism
> reflect the rise of capitalism in Western Europe.

I think this argument has to be made not just stated.

> ?
>
> And of course, it's part of the Enlightenment tradition to say that we

> should balance someone's achievements against their faults, reading
their
> work critically.

For reasons already stated I just don't find this
an interesting argument -- it both overgeneralizes and
trivializes the Enlightenment.  I walk by putting one
foot in front of the other but I don't claim this as my
discovery.

> ?

>> The critique needs to go farther than just "dropping" the stereotype.
It
>> needs to ask why the stereotype is there.<
>
> That's where Marx and historical materialism come in.

So it's all in Marx then?

Best, Colin