Professor David Peimer
The End of the Past: Is the Enlightenment a Mirage?

Professor David Peimer - The End of the Past: Is the Enlightenment a Mirage?

- So, hi everybody, and welcome to January the new year. Hope everyone is well, wherever you are, all around and lets hope this is a better and healthier year for everybody. In the spirit of what Wendy was just mentioning, from conversations with Wendy and Trudy, and you know, Dennis and Patrick and everybody else. We hopefully will take a bit of a step forward this year with more debates, discussions relating to contemporary questions as well in with reference always to history and culture and art, music, law, politics, everything, et cetera, so that we can try and be sort of take that a good step forward in the spirit of respectful debate and in the spirit of respectful conversations to try and understand something about what we’re all going through right now. Obviously in the pandemic, but larger than that. So in that context, this talk today is trying to pose the fairly prerogative question is it the end of the past? Was the enlightenment a mirage? And what I want to propose is that your serious and quite profound questions, I think to be asked, which are, what is the zeitgeist of our times? How does it link to previous times? What actually was the enlightenment really? And what aspects of it remain? What aspects of it are worth fighting for? What aren’t, where were the naivety of it? And also a speculative suggestion as to where we could go in the future. And the reason this came out was, you know, thinking it’s 75 years since the end of the war. Which is quite a while. It’s obviously, it’s the tiniest blip in serious human history. But in our general times of modernity, it’s a while, 75 years.

And are we at certain turning points, aren’t we? Is this a momentary diversion? Is there something much more profound going on? Was the past the dreams and the ideals and the hopes? Were there a mirage? Is that too much of an extreme judgement on them? Or is it the end of the past or not. The values that war was fought for. Really to put it, but crudely, but in essence, good and evil democracy and extreme fascism, you know, right from wrong. The binary understanding of life was made pretty stark and clear through that war and those values. I’m talking overall, I’m not talking about the nuance complexity of those values, but the overall sustaining of those values could last quite a while. And what the question really refers to me. Is 75 years after the war, what values from that war remain? What are disturbingly being changed or questioned? What can be imagined to be not only salvaged, but enriched and taken further. It’s trying to get a grip of some sense of the zeitgeist today. And I hope today can give a little contribution to some of these questions that I’m posing for us, you know, democracy, human rights, all of these things that the war in a way encapsulated and made so starkly binary and clear what values remain, what values are worth fighting for still, and what may happen in the future. And I want to suggest that in Kramskoi’s great phrase Where in his word, in the interregnum. Where the past is going, but the future is still yet to be written.

And in that interregnum period, Kramskoi suggested that there are morbid symptoms that arise in his phrase. And morbid doesn’t only mean depressing and sad and et cetera, et cetera, but it can mean profound moments of change, symptoms of change can be observed, felt, and seen. And in the interregnum of morbid symptoms, anything can arise for the future because this past is not exactly as it was. So it’s a kind of swimming around in a bit of a small ocean to try and find where is the next, you know, where is the next shore to land on. And this is what I think where I love the arts and theatre and literature and music, et cetera. Because I think the artists intuit, not necessarily consciously understand, but they intuit and they instinctively find through imagination, they feel something and try to grapple with it in an artistic way, metaphorical. And I’m going to, you know, mention one or two of these as we go through today. The other idea with interregnum is that there is no longer a sense of a central unifying idea. You know the Second World War set up, as I said, those very clear binaries, not only democracy and fascism, but a whole lot of other values to be reborn in a way which relate directly to the liberal values and progressive values of the enlightenment era. But if there’s no central unifying force, which I’m going to link to Yates’s great poem, “The Second Coming,” Which he wrote in 1920 just after the First World War. So if it isn’t that central unifying idea before for good or bad, it was God or some religion and other things, then what fills that vacuum? What other ideas come in? Because human nature, human communities need some central unifying idea to at least believe in whether naively or literally or metaphorically, whatever.

And I want to suggest that for me, I want to propose that we are in an age of erosion, an erosion of the enlightenment. Not that it’s of the past, not that it was a mirage, but it’s an age of erosion to put it unpoetically to put it more poetically perhaps, an age of a gathering storm. That is important possibly for the future. I don’t want to give apocalyptic shudders, but is it an age of a gathering storm in the future? Or is it an age of erosion, which is not unsalvageable? So my approach is to think today that there are profoundly disturbing changes happening in this interregnum. But not to throw the baby out with the bath water. To see pretty clearly, yes, there are major changes, yes, there are major uncertainties, fragility in social orders, structures, democracies, beliefs that once is taken for granted for many decades post the war in particular. I’m talking a broad context of course. But that these are being eroded. And I want you to look at the enlightenment in that context today. So first of all, what exactly was the enlightenment? We used this word so much, and I’m sure many people here know a lot more than me. But if I may just mention some of the, a few of the key ideas to remind us of what actually is meant by that word. And how can we see some of these things going forward, even as they are being eroded. So I want to start with the cause of the enlightenment. It’s generally agreed that after the 30 years war, which is a pretty horrific war in Europe, and centuries of serious, to put it mildly mistreatment by the monarchies of Europe and the church, in addition to the outward looking, expanding exploration of the globe, going on at the same time.

Development of individualist capitalism, of mercantilism, merchants, sea ships, et cetera. New worlds being discovered. So a combination of an extraordinary looking outward and not just colonising, but going outward, going and discovering an obviously a entire shift of consciousness being needed to me on the level of the man that Neil Armstrong stepping on the moon, that it must have been something similar of that extraordinary outward leap, you know, other world, imagining other worlds suddenly realistically. But also centuries of massive mistreatment by the church, by the absolute monarchy, divine right of king, et cetera, et cetera, happening in Europe in the 30 years war. So the intellectual movement of Europe comes around in the 17th and 18th centuries called, it becomes known as the Age of Enlightenment or the age of reason. What is celebrated is this notion of reason over passion. Of individualism over, if you like, divine right of monarchs to rule the church and the incredibly strict hierarchical structures, you know, where people fit in and there’s only one place and they can’t really go up the ladder. It’s not even snakes and ladders. You just can’t really go up the ladder. So it’s an age of reason, individualism, scepticism. The idea is that reason is the primary source of authority. And ideas of liberty, history is seen as a progressive evolution in human affairs. The separation of church and state starts to become much clearer.

The belief that science and logic can give people more knowledge and understanding of life than tradition, traditional authority and religion. There is a rejection of superstition, of magic, of miracle, witchcraft, by and large not going into detail. And the last point, which is obviously links to today. A profound belief in empirical knowledge or what we would call today, facts not fake. So these are some of the key ideas that arise in the enlightenment. The references today are obvious and modernity is absolutely founded on the roots. The tree of modernity is absolutely got the roots in the enlightenment. I want to go on with just a little bit more on, you know, what exactly was the enlightenment and what does it mean? And I want to suggest that there’s a debate. This is part of my discussion today. That there’s a profound debate which we can see between two of the great philosophical thinkers, Hobbes and John Locke. Very different in their approach, very different in their understanding. And I think that these two guys and their ideas haunt us today profoundly. I want to start with Locke, and Locke is on the bottom right, you can see he’s got the more anxious, worried look, John Locke at the bottom, 1632 to 1704. You know, the period of when these ideas are beginning to percolate in a European context, John Locke’s proposes, and these are the first to write in such clarity, Locke and Hobbes, that all individuals are born equal, “They’re born,” I’m quoting Locke, “with certain inalienable natural rights, rights that are God given, the right to life, liberty, property. And that governments do not have the right to violate these God given human rights.” Now that’s amazing. This guy is writing in the late 1600’s putting this down. At the core is at is what we would call liberalism of today based on the social contract that the authority of the government is limited and can only be changed with the consent of the governed and of course, Locke’s ideas.

I’m just giving you the essence here, obviously influenced the US Declaration of Independence, the French Declaration of the Rights of Man, of the French Revolution, the American Revolution, et cetera. So the enlightenment, Locke’s ideas are so important and Voltaire and many of the others later I’m going to mention infer always so often back to John Locke. The enlightenment helps to combat for them the primary thing was the excesses of the church, and the excess of the divine right of kings or the absolutism of monarchy. But then of course, what else do you do? What else do you propose once you critique those? And so they wanted to combat that and establish a science, what they call the science of knowledge, which is very different to faith or religious belief for them. it’s the beginning of what we would call human rights against tyranny. The beginning of what we would call modern schooling, medicine, scientific advancements, technology, industry, so many areas, the economy, technology, industry, everything. Trying to understand what are the real values, underpinning it. Locke called for a questioning, a ceaseless questioning of tradition and authority.

And that humanity could be improved through rational change. The rise of not only the Gutenberg press, obviously, but books, inventions, scientific discoveries, new thoughts about laws when you put the individual at the core of the law, not the divine ruler or the divinely given ruler. So the question becomes, is history seen as a progressive movement of society? Or fairly crude words, is history seen merely as the transfer of power from bunch to bunch? Or is it seen as a progressive shift towards something better all the time in human society and human affairs. Obviously it’s not just a simple progression if it is, it’s fought for and died for, and battled for referring back to the war again. And many, many other wars and many other battles on many streets, many places in the world. This is decisive in the making of modernity, John Locke and others. But Locke is the primary one and one of the great originators of the ideas of the enlightenment. We’ve go on to Thomas Hobbs, who lives, you know, 1588, 1679, Thomas Hobbs, the top figure in your picture. Now, he would give a counter position, and that’s why for me it’s a kind of Hobbs Locke debate. But they’re both part of the enlightenment, because the irony is that we can see it as part of a debate. The mere idea of debating ideas was resurrected during the enlightenment, you know, post the mediaeval period, post the dark ages, et cetera, going back to the ancient Greeks and the certain times in the Roman Empire anyway. You know the mere idea of having a civilised debate, like, you know, what we are exactly doing in Lockdown University and in many other places.

So Hobbs would be counter and it’s captured in his remarkable book, “The Leviathan,” which I’m sure many people know. Where in essence, Locke believes that human beings are at their core, selfish and self-centered. And not only does that mean that they are, you know, passionately selfish, but they will act in their self-interest rationally or irrationally they will always act in a self-interest. And often that’s irrational thing, not necessarily irrational. Which links to the idea of reason propagated by Locke and others for the enlightenment, any in his book of 1561, “The Leviathan,” there is no right or wrong. For him people could take for themselves all that they could, they will take for themselves all that they can. And human life in Hobbes’s phrase the great phrase, which I’m sure many people know was solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. Now, that’s a very powerful encapsulation of Mr. Hobbs’ ideas versus Mr. Locke But both emerge from the spirit of the enlightenment, which is an irony. The spirit of questioning, of challenging received ideas to articulate their own vision. And the mere fact that this discussions and debates start to happen is a sense of a renaissance of these ideas themselves. Hobbs rejected Aristotle. Aristotle in essence argued that human beings are, I’m quoting, “naturally suited to life in the palace.” The political state or the city, “That human beings are naturally suited to the life in the city or the nation. And they’re only achieved for their potential when they exercise the rights of their role as a citizen.” That’s Aristotle. And Hobbs rejects it and he says no. And Hobbs argues that war is far more natural to human nature than political order. For Aristotle, it’s humans realise their potential when they express their ideas as citizens in a nation state or in a city state in a some paradigm of political order.

So Hobbs is trying to get to the essence of human nature. And I’m going to link him to Mr. Freud and a couple of others later and their debates. And Mr. Einstein. Okay? But what I find fascinating is that we get in these two, we get some of the two key ideas of the enlightenment. And I’m purposely putting Hobbs in it because he has that rational questioning spirit. He argues all of this in a very rational way. Montesquieu, forgive my pronunciation, was one of the first to argue with such clarity for a distinction between the legislative, executive and judicial powers. This is going way back part of the enlightenment as well. Then how do you structure society? Because if you separate those three areas, the aim is not just separate them, but the aim of it is that each of those three will keep the other one in check legislative, the executive and judicial. Their job rarely is to keep each of the other two in check. Because if you blur the boundaries. If you have an erosion of the boundaries between legislative, executive, and judicial power, if you have an erosion of those boundaries, you will set up what Montesquieu argued, a uniting of powers, which can lead to despotism and dictatorship.

And of course for him, for the ultimate Louis the 14th, you know, who, as we all know, the great flays of Louis the 14th after me, the deluge. He understood that after such extreme absolute power Louis the 14th, after him would come, the revolutions, the revolts, the flood, the deluge of the peasants and the poor, whoever the middle class, the educated who didn’t have rights or votes or anything, would absolutely revolt against the leadership of aristocracy and divine right of kings in the church. These ideas are all part of the foundation of our modern western culture. These values and institutions, the modern liberal democracy. In a phrase in, you know, to use a contemporary phrase, the enlightenment obviously inspires the American revolution. Not only is it a revolution against English authority and the English king, but it’s a blueprint for the organisation of a democratic society because it’s away with the absolute right of kings. It’s separation of powers setting up a structure like this without, and everything is set in place to make a check between those three areas I mentioned to precisely stop the erosion. And I believe the originals of Thomas Jefferson, Madison Franklin, you know, all the others who were part of it, understood it completely. ‘Cause these were the ideas of the enlightenment. Percolating at the time had inspired these guys who wrote that American independence, they understood what they were thinking 'cause the ideas came from all these thinkers of the times. I’m just giving you a few here, you know, Locke, Hobbs, Montesquieu, and there’s many others, of course, Voltaire, and the others I’m going to come to, Rousseau, et cetera. So they understood it. They knew what they were trying to set up.

Yes, it’s an experiment, but they got it clear. That’s why I called it an erosion today. And I’m not just talking about Trump or Johnson or Brexit or whatever here or wherever, you know, these are just, you know, entertainers for the moment. Dangerous entertainers, but entertainers for the moment. I’m talking much more about the broadest sweep and movements of history as I understand it for myself and Locke influenced Voltaire, Rousseau, the American revolutionaries, et cetera. Okay, moving on from that, we go to Mr. Kant. without going into his extraordinary way of understanding philosophy and the world I just want to be brief in relation to the enlightenment ideas. He gave the enlightenment its motto, and the phrase was, dare to know!, exclamation mark, dare to know! Have the courage to quote him. Have the courage to use your mind to understand. “Dare to know!, Dare to know!” I’m quoting from him. That gave the enlightenment what became known as a kind of a motto, if you want. It’s it’s catch PR phrase for us for today. For Kant, it’s about thinking on one’s own authority. And that reason would lead to freedom and progress. The slow movement of freedom and progress in human affairs. It’s this idea of a progression in history.

Not a history of repeated cycles, of repeated circles, or a history of a transfer power from bunch to bunch. It’s a sense of a progression, you know, a movement forward that is so profoundly embedded in the idea of enlightenment. For Kant, individual freedom was at the core as it was for Locke and others. Spinoza come onto even more later. That the political authority and the individual were constantly in a state of tension, goes way back to the ancient Greeks. The play “Antigone,” I’ve referred to often. You know, she wants the right to bury her dead brother, but Creon, her uncle refuses because he’s committed a small crime in the city state, and therefore the body has to be thrown outside the walls of the state and is not allowed to be buried. And Antigone goes, she sneaks out at night, and buries her brother outside the walls of the city state in the play “Antigone.” And because of that, Creon has to uphold the law that he’s created and he has to have his own niece executed. And it’s a remarkable play, which captures everything around individual freedom and the power or right of the state. And in this case of an absolute ruler, a king, not a parliament, judiciary, et cetera, no separation of powers and so on. But that play and the metaphor of it captures it all for me. When you act on individual conscience, when you act on individual freedom, when you act on individual desire, whatever the ridiculous or absurd law of the state may or may not be, and will you pay the consequences? And are you prepared to or not? That’s the dramatic conflict in the play.

So for Kant this is so important. And the other one of main ideas I want to mention from Kant today as well, is his idea of the public sphere. He was the first to come up with it. He understood going back to the ancient Greeks, the whoever, the others. But that debate and discussion needed to happen not only in in academia, universities or rarefied places, but in the public sphere. Whether it could be in a market town, it could be in a, when it became later the coffee house, the salon, which I’ll talk about later. But new arenas of debate needed to happen where people could discuss ideas exactly what we are doing right now. With the whole of Lockdown University, you know, through the brilliance and of idea that Wendy and Trudy and others had right at the beginning. You know, to set this all up for us, it actually is recapturing a lot of the spirit of the enlightenment. This is a public sphere. What we are doing here. New arenas of debate, which Kant you know, talks about in great detail. He’s the first to come up with it. Open accessible forms of urban public spaces, you know, in our time would be cyber as well. And sociability going with it together with the explosion of course, in his time of the culture of print and reading and the access to books and literacy. Later the mass radio would become the area of public debate of today it’s the internet, social media, us today, here we are. There’s always going to be what I’m going to call the Gerbal’s shadow. Because together with the idea of the country and idea of celebrating the public sphere of debate and intelligent, educated discussion and conversation is the Gerbal shadow.

Because it can be manipulated so easily so that the dark forces of human nature can come out and it can to be manipulated the masses utterly control them and ideologically obsess them. Kant called for, and that Gerbal shadow runs through everything of the internet, what’s known as the dark web and so on. What Adorno later called Freud understood the dark side of the enlightenment, which I’ll come to. So for Kant, his great phrase was, “A call for the emancipation of consciousness from the immature state of ignorance.” It’s a beautiful way of writing, “Call for the emancipation of consciousness from the immature state of ignorance.” immature state of ignorance, which is prejudiced, discrimination, intolerance, hate all the things, you know, I’m superior, you inferior, all those kind of things. Classic idea of the enlightenment. Idea certainly worth fighting for going back to the ideas of the war. Not that these are necessarily conscious, but these are the key sort of liberal democratic ideas, which that war was fought about. Obviously many other things it was fought about as war as well. Okay, moving on from Mr. Kant. I want to go briefly onto Mr. Voltaire, two pictures here. The one a much more confident, Mr. Voltaire, and the other one, a much more anxious, neurotic, profoundly disturbed. Many phases, this remarkable brain, this remarkable mind of a guy went through, you know, we don’t want to go into his life right now, et cetera, but look in these people are all living around this period, these names that resonate today. Voltaire, Kant, Locke, Hobbs, so many of the others they were writing hundreds of years ago. The birth, they gave birth to the enlightenment ideas or rather they at least articulated ideas going around at the time. They are so profoundly studied, understood, and so profoundly important for us I think today.

Was it all a mirage? Voltaire said in a hundred years the Bible will be a forgotten and unknown book. Voltaire said this in the mid 1700’s. Well, a hundred years after his death in the mid 1800s, his own house had become the Geneva Bible Society headquarters. I leave that for you too. I want to leave that as a dramatic moment for you to imagine. So Frederick the Great is living around this time, you know, of Prussia. And he says, in my kingdom, everyone can go to heaven in his own fashion. What does it mean? He means that whoever you are, believe whatever you want, whatever religion you want cause of course remember so much of this is a reaction against, you know, the extreme dogmatism of the church. So what does he mean? He means I want to have some religious tolerance, some enlightened reform as they became known. Of course their censorship as well, restricting books and articles, papers, et cetera, et cetera. Imprisoning writers banning the burning of books takes over big time as a reaction by the church and a reaction by despots. That’s the beginnings of the burning of books time as well happening because you know, with every blessing there’s a curse, which I’m going to say, you know, with the enlightenment part of its blessing, part of its curse, which is built into its own idea. So for him, Voltaire. and he invites Voltaire to stay in his palace because Voltaire was imprisoned by the French government for a while at the time. And he goes off to stay with, you know, Mr. Frederick the Great in Prussia.

Who is the enlightened reformer to a degree. And, you know, some of the other ideas of Voltaire I’m going to come to in a moment as well, okay? Descarte, all of these guys are so, look at the dates they’re living. They’re all more or less within a century or two around these ideas, which are all going around in Europe at the time, which are so profoundly important for us today and have a complete shift in human society. But Descarte everybody knows, is regarded in a way as being one of the founding thinkers together with Locke of The Enlightenment. And everybody knows his phrase from 1637, “I think therefore I am.” But what he really means is a profound argument for the rationalist approach to life. 'Cause once you’re a rationalist, you have to challenge the authority of the church and the divine right of kings, traditional forms of authority, ruling, belief and faith. And how of the hierarchical structure of society, the peasant, the surf, the Lord, the manner, the aristocrats you know, all of that feudal stuff has to be challenged. He argued a brilliant approach around what doubt meant. A rational understanding of doubt. And the dualistic doctrine, of course, mind and matter. So all of these things come in with Descarte, all these, these ideas. The main thing I guess is just the ideas themselves, but the times are giving rise to a flood of remarkable ideas from remarkable characters.

Together with all this comes the rise of scientific academies, the huge development in universities, places of study, and the thing that every body loves today. I certainly love it, we all do, the coffee house. The birth of the coffee house happens at the same time. Printed books, journals, interestingly Jonathan Israel, did a fascinating book. The “Failure of the Enlightenment,” is a wonderful scholar who I really, really appreciate. In his book, if anybody’s Interested, the “Failure of Enlightenment,” is fascinatingly provocative. Anyway, he talks about journals as being amongst the most important contribution from the enlightenment. Because there articles could be written by many people, and it wasn’t the stratification of knowledge like today, you could have a philosopher, a chemist, a scientist, an engineer, a biologist, a playwright, a poet, a musician. You could have all different people writing in the journals. So you had a far more fascinating flow and cross current of ideas happening and it all starts with these guys. And Jonathan Israel talks about the role of the journal, you know, which is totally innovative in human development. And of course the ideas are going to undermine the monarchy and the church. And all of this is beginning with Descarte and around this era. And of course, without Gutenberg, none if it’s possible, as we know. Going on to Mr. Dennis Diderot, incredible character. Who obviously from France, and he comes up with the idea of the first encyclopaedia, as we all know. It’s 35 volumes, takes 50 years to write. And he employs like 10 football teams. He employs 150 intellectuals who write it with him, the encyclopaedia. But it’s so crucial, this idea, which we don’t even think about twice today.

But the encyclopaedia, it crystallises, it pulls together all the ideas of known knowledge. It spreads the ideas because now it’s all in one volume, couple of volumes. Anybody anywhere can read it with a printing press, literacy, reading, expansion of knowledge, exponentially massive extraordinary across Europe and way, way beyond. And I want to show you here, this is the very first one, encyclopaedia, very, very first printing of the encyclopaedia of Diderot and his massive team. Now what’s interesting is that they also split it into different areas. They had science and imagination and reason. So they had different categories from today. And why not, why do we when have to have the categories today of, you know, this is only biology, this is only religion, this is only literatures, only poetry, art, et cetera. You know, we don’t have to have such an extreme sort of silo effect of knowledge. Why not have these crossovers exactly what we are doing every week on lockdown here. And you can see these are the three areas. This is the structure on the left hand side. This is the structure of the book where it’s outlined in the beginning of the encyclopaedia of Diderot. So Jonathan Israel suggests that there are two main lines in the enlightenment.

There’s the moderate approach, followed by Decarte and Locke to reform the reformists traditional symptoms of power and faith. And then Spinoza, who I love, I’m going to come to shortly. who advocates a far more radical approach of democracy, individual liberty, freedom of expression, eradication of religious authority. Spinoza, the great Dutch Jewish philosopher. And his remarkable book on ethics but that’s it. Together with this encyclopaedia comes the popularisation of the increasingly literate people of Europe, you know, who are able to get access to this. Obviously it starts only with a very educated elite, but others can slowly get access. Okay, just going back for a moment to Mr. Voltaire. Voltaire believed in reason as well, coming from this line that I’ve mentioned from and that social progress could be achieved through reason. And no authority, religious or political should ever be immune to the challenge of reason. See, these guys are trying to understand how reason can be the weapon to undermine everything of the received way of structuring society and change it. On religious tolerance Voltaire wrotes, “It does not require great art or magnificently trained eloquence to prove that Christians should tolerate each other. I however am going further, I say that we should regard all men as our brothers. What you may say, the Turk, my brother, the Chinaman, my brother, the Jew, my brother, yes are we not all children of the same father and creatures of the same God.” This is Voltaire writing all those years ago. Because these guys also understood how to use rhetoric and words and then language of course.

They could write in a way which becomes seared into the imagination of anybody who reads it. He also declared Mr. Voltaire, that in a hundred years the Bible will be a forgotten and unknown book, as I mentioned before. Well he got that wrong, like many other things. Is it all a mirage or not? Voltaire was not fully a Democrat. He believed more, I think in the, let’s put it this way, what became known as the enlightened despot with the enlightened monarchy, the kind of philosopher king came back to Plato’s time. Who were the enlightened despots? Frederick the Great, Catherine the Great to some degree anyway of Prussia and some of the others dudes of the time. Frederick, Frederick, Mr. Frederick of the ruler. He wrote, “My aim is to combat ignorance and prejudice in my empire. I will enlighten minds and I will make people happy.” I’ll leave that for you, whether you agree or disagree. But some of it, the effects of some of it, the reformist approach at least is better than doing nothing. It’s less radical than Spinoza, but at least it’s better than nothing, that’s for sure. you know? And in this massive fight of what they were taking on, really, if you think about it, what they were really taking on, any approach, any strategy or tactics is worthwhile to go for what they were, the legacy of the power of the church, the monarchies, et cetera, the way societies were. Okay, I want to go on to here afterwards. This is just to give you an idea. This is the Great journals. This is the first journal ever published in Paris in 1675. The first journal, which combined science and literature and art and medicine, and da, da, da, all the rest of it. First journal ever printed, fascinating to look at.

This year to give you another example, in 1733. In England, of course the “Gentleman’s Magazine,” or “Monthly Intelligencer.” I love these phrases, you know, no, it’s kind of quaint in a way, way, but much more than that. It shows how valued the intellect and the mind the ideas were that it was linked to the gentleman. Therefore it was linked to the, you know, nobility and rulers and or emerging rulers and ideas. They were not just shunned, couldn’t be kept under the carpet, you know? So the ideas were coming through the journals, through magazines, wherever they were called, and coming from all quarters of life and intellectual endeavour and autistic endeavour. Okay? I want to go on to Mr. Spinoza. Look how early he lived and how short he lived. Remarkable mind and remarkable human being for me. Einstein said, I believe in the God of Spinoza, Einstein read Spinoza fully. Of course, by the way, I just do have to mention that going on the whole time of the enlightenment is slavery and plantations and money and wealth and everything that’s associated with slavery. So we can never forget that the dark side of the enlightenment, of course, is not only a fight for certain rights and liberty, every blessing has its curse. There’s the other side of it, which is slavery. Don’t have time to go into it now, but we cannot forget it. Scotland is going through, the universities are set up, libraries are being set up in Scotland. Museums, reading societies are being set up. Voltaire, we look to Scotland for our ideas of civilization to be. The German states interestingly, just before I come on to Spinoza. in the German states, now this is very interesting to me. Is that Prussia takes the lead. But what happens is that the ideas of the enlightenment link with the ideas of German nationalism, because music, philosophy, science, literature become central. Gerta, Schiller and others.

And together without the German language over Latin or French, which was regarded as the intellectual, you know, the most civilised advanced language of the time or because of the ideas. Herder and Shiller argue and Gerta that every falk has its own particularity to express in language and culture. Promotion of German language and culture helps to start shape a particular kind of German nationalism, which reaches deep into a German nationalistic spirit with language culture, everything it’s all linked to that which is against the universalist idea of the others that I’ve mentioned before. Where they talk about more universalism of these ideas. Locke, Voltaire, and many of the others. So interestingly the literacy rates in France in the 18th century goes, it radically shoots up. And books about science and art are published. It doubles almost by decade. If you look at the number of publishing figures in the 1700’s and the number of books about religion drops by 90%. If you look at books taken out from libraries and libraries are emerging now is a big thing. A drop radically the number of books taken out about religion and radically shoot up about science, art, literature, business, economics, et cetera, chemistry. And of course libraries start become more and more open to the public.

All comes from here. Okay, so I want to go onto. And then the coffee house is another part spread of ideas, but not any spread of ideas, but it’s where people of different classes, people of different religions and races can get together in the coffee house and debate and discuss ideas. The first one in England was in Oxford in 1650. and it was called the, it became known as the Penny University, you know, in other words, cost a penny, have a cup of coffee or whatever. And they were seen as elite and they were seen as different from the traditional universities you know, almost in reaction. In France, in Paris of course there were the cafes, Voltaire, Russo and many of the others used to frequent. This is all beginning at this time, which is so still popular today. Debating societies start to arise. So many of these ideas of powerful for us today. And like Hobbs, before I come back onto Spinoza. Freud, which I want to mention here, and jumping a bit into the future. Freud did not believe that human conflict could be eliminated just by an increase in a kind of pushing for reason or even an increase in human knowledge. Freud only saw the rational part of the human being as one part, you know, and of course many, many other parts.

That’s why there’s great debate between Freud and Einstein. You know, he called America, I’m paraphrasing, I’ll not get the exact phrase, but an experiment that you know, that would ultimately fail. For Freud the power of reason. Yes, reasoning occurs in the conscious mind the ego that’s only a small part of the whole. And Adorno’s knows great phrase that Freud was a thinker of the dark enlightenment. He saw the darkened inside of the enlightenment, the blessing and the curse. Einstein, there’s neither evolution nor destiny nor enlightenment only there is just being. Hmm, okay, I still haven’t come yet onto Mr. Spinoza. I’m sorry about that, but I do have to do one other thing first. This goes into, in the early 1700s. the reasons for naturalising the Jews. We want to look at briefly, what is the effect of the Jews which are linked to Spinoza. This is published here in the early 1700’s. Reasons for naturalising, the Jews in Great Britain and Ireland on the same foot with all other nations. It’s a universalist approach. Fascinatingly interesting. “A defence of the Jews,” written by John Toland, his book where the basic idea here is that the occupation of Jews focused on trade, money lending is the fault of the society, which has imposed all these extreme restrictions on Jews. Therefore society must change and free up the Jews. That’s what’s the main idea inside this book. Thanks very much Mr. Toland, very kind to help 1714. Nevertheless, it’s part of the entire spirit of thinking of the enlightenment. So look at all these achievements.

To go back onto, I wont to have time for Mendelssohn at the moment. But I will certainly have time for Spinoza, for me Spinoza’s amongst the most interesting. Because for him it was the Jewish enlightenment, which I’m sure many people know called the Haskalah. But Spinoza the religion, it was for the unenlightened. You know, who needed the consolation of faith. For Spinoza, it was about, he was against this idea of one transcendental God. He saw God as nature and everything in the world. Everything in nature was God. Very different Christian lineage. Some of the key ideas of Spinoza God is the sum of the natural and physical laws of the universe. And certainly not an individual entity or creator. Very much against the traditional received idea of one transcendental God. Einstein, “I believe in the God of Spinoza.” Spinoza, “I do not have to teach philosophy without becoming a disturber of the established religion.” “Do not weep, do not wax in indignant. Understand.” Reason, rational, understand what is going on. If you want the present to be different from the past, study the past. I’m sure all the historians that we know will love that. And I do, I call him free, who is led solely by reason. Desire is the essence of man. Some of the main phrases from Spinoza, which give you the idea and the way he writes is completely rational, carefully, calmly, thought through, very little emotion. I love this on the other side of him, 'cause this shows his understanding of what I would call Jewish irony and wit, together with understanding everything has its own paradox.

Everything has its opposite built in. One thing can at the same time be good and bad and indifferent. Example, music is good to the melancholy, bad to those who mourn and neither good or bad to the death. You have to laugh is the wit is the understanding of reason, is the use of reason and logic, the flipping of paradox, irony and so on. This is how the guy is thinking and writing. What he’s doing in the spirit of the enlightenment is calling for a renaissance of the mind of ideas, of thinking to replace pure dogmatic belief in faith and divine right of kings, mono, et cetera, et cetera. The rise of the individual human rights democracy. He goes for individual rights, human rights, freedom or liberty all the things we take for granted from Locke that I mentioned, Spinoza is fully in that line as well. But even more radical because he calls less for reform. He equals for the change. So there’s a bit of a debate between Spinoza and Locke, in all of this. He was branded a heretic by the Rabbis of Amsterdam of his time. And he risked serious, you know, harm, Spinoza. What this gives rise to for me about the Jews, which I want to bring to as we come to the end. Is in particular the assimilationist debate. I don’t have time to go into Mendelssohn, but Mendelssohn I think and Spinoza captured to some degree the catch 22 of the assimilationist debate of the enlightenment in the Jews.

Because if you take the universalist approach, that reason and democratic values and humanity, respect for all tolerance, rigids, everything, all of that is okay. You know, you separate powers of church, of legislative, judiciary, et cetera. All of that’s, you know, set up and freedom and et cetera, et cetera. Then you say, right, come everybody, you know, like Napoleon eventually did with the Saint Hadron. Come as long as you’re French, it’s okay, but come be part integrating into society. You can be Jewish, you can be this, you can be that anything, we have a universalist sense of ideas. Wonderful, assimilate, which ignores well, what’s the price if you assimilate? And is it naive? If you go all the way to assimilate as Jew or whoever. Is there going to be a backlash? Is there going to be a reaction? Is there going to be the bringing back of the other? So you have these universal ideas set up by all these characters and believed in the liberal democracy of the west. But built in is part of its own erosion and demise. Because it means everybody assimilate. You know, in an Napoleonic idea, you are French and you can be Jewish, you can French and anything else, et cetera. He liberated and emancipated the Jews, no question, brilliant, but built in or it’s so alluring. Why not Jews, you know, fought for so long to be part of anything, be integrated, be part of everything, amazing, celebrate, brilliant, fantastic and why the hell not, human beings a human being.

Fundamentally in the idea of the enlightenment, but it ignores superstition, spirituality, religion at its peril, it ignores nationalism at its peril. It ignores economic hardship at times at its peril. It ignores the particularity of culture and a particular society’s specific history, nationalism, others that have mentioned. It ignores all of those which are nuanced, but highly important contextually. And when you ignore that, I think you do so at your peril. You cannot ignore nationalism cannot ignore. However, however ridiculous a belief it is. You cannot ignore religion, spirituality, these things are powerful in the life of human nature. And it’s a catch 22 ultimately. And I think Mendelssohn lives the life, Spinoza to a degree. It’s a catch 22 forever. Because the desire is to integrate. But is that, and the universalist idea of the enlightenment is that, you know, because these ideas common to all liberal democracies in the west that we’ve inherited of humanity, freedom, justice, tolerance, et cetera. But built in is the dark shadow, is the Gobel shadow that anything can then be manipulated and turned against because you cannot ignore the specifics of culture, of nationalism, religion, faith, spirit, and the ultimate idea of Freud, you know, that reason is only one part of the human psyche and the human being.

There’s the dark human heart and we can never forget it. Everything has a blessing and a curse. So if I may bring it to a conclusion, which I wanted to say was that, you know, in addition we cannot ignore with enlightenment, the remarkable rise of technology and science, but the dark side of that, and Adorno puts it beautifully, that the celebration of reason in the enlightenment, he’s writing in 1947. “The celebration of reason from the enlightenment ignored that science could lead to such technological sophistication to give rise to inhumane forms of society where individuals will become automaton to be manipulated by any of the which is exemplified in the 20th century of fascism.” So you can push it so far that, you can ignore what’s happening today. The internet, the public space can ignore artificial intelligence where people are data, people are becoming algorithms to feed a data system, to feed an algorithm driven system of structuring society, which has no interest in the ideas of the enlightenment. It’s the guise, perhaps of freedom and it’s a public debating sphere as Kant would say. Which is brilliant and it is part of that. But there’s always the dark shadow of the enlightenment that Adorno talks about, which is that inside the internet, not only the dark web, but you can have the spread of other ideas. And we all know that only too well.

So in all of this, what I really want to get at. Is to go to finally hear a little bit from WB Yeats poem, if I may, remarkable poem. I don’t want to read the whole thing but, “Turning and turning in the widening gyre. the falcon cannot hear the falconer.” Not only is this, you know, the falconer’s garden, the falcon, you know, it’s the split and division. The enlightenment has its own inbuilt demise. “Things fall apart. The centre cannot hold;” 1920 is writing this, “Anarchy is loosed upon the world” The blood dim tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.“ This has been used in around Africa. The fight against colonialism. It’s been used against the Vietnam War. So many different areas. And I don’t want to just do another apocalyptic shuttering, if you like, but in quoting this poem, but I do believe this is part of the interregnum. This is part of that that phase that we are in where things are falling apart. Obviously they’re all falling apart. But these great ideas, these remarkable developments from the enlightenment are for me, in the age of erosion, in the age of profound, you know, blurring and undermining and it’s necessary to fight.

And if I may say, if Kant’s idea was "Dare to know!” Was the motto of the enlightenment. Perhaps for today, ours is, whether we say it’s in the age of erosion or it’s something else, or it’s just in or it’s a blip, whatever it is. I don’t want to throw out the baby with the bath water. So many ideas from the enlightenment are remarkable. if it’s, there’s a dare to know, to challenge, to question, to fight, to understand things, whatever the opposition may be, not only faith or religion or extreme, you know of that may be nationalism. it may be so many forms like it is today, then I think it’s the need to dare to fight to keep some of these ideas going forward because we pay heavy price if we don’t, massive. Okay, thank you very much everybody. And this is some of the key ideas, I hope in the spirit of having, you know, in the educational context of Lockdown University. We begin some of these debates.

• David, thank you for that outstanding presentation. I think the enlightenment is such a huge topic. I’m sorry that we have time to deal with Mendelssohn I hope that you will take this forward. Just to your point, you know, when a comment was made about Bishop Tutu.

• Yeah.

• By Helen Fry. And it was interesting to see the responses and it was interesting, even my response actually. And I had I thought about it. And that is why I decided it’s so important to have a discussion, you know, and many comments came in and there were many people saying, don’t go there, don’t go there. you’re going to open up a hornet’s nest. So when I did decide, okay, we are not going to go there with the South African, so I’m going to find somebody who’s not a South African to deal with this topic because it’s very important to have the discussion to actually get into the space. Because when we turn our back on issues, as you say, we create space, you know, for the other. And it’s very important of the discussion with the other and to hear the other. So just to take a baton from you and just thank you very much I’m going to just hand back to you so don’t take up any more air time.

• No, Wendy, thank you so much. It’s a brilliant picture making because this is what Kant would call a public sphere. This is what lockdown university is, and we are not, you know, hooked into, you know, many other university’s ideological perspective or ideological

• Coffee house.

• No, we have a coffee house David.

• This is a coffee house public space, exactly

• So to make your own coffee,

• what’s going on.

• Everybody’s making their own coffee .

• I hope everybody’s having coffee at the same time. So, you know, where we can discuss any idea that’s what these guys were precisely about. The enlightenment, Spinoza is absolutely at the epitome of it, to take any idea and throw it up for debate, for reason, question, challenge, understanding. Spinoza absolutely pushing it, at the risk of being called a heretic, which he was, you know, in his own time in Amsterdam in the 1600’s. So, you know, we can take a solace maybe that this has been done before, you know, these guys set it up and what you, Wendy and Trudy and others have done. Have created a public arena in the Kantian idea, brilliant. And if we can’t do it here, whether it’s Bishop Tutu or somebody else, you know, where can anybody, because it’s in the context of education, of respectful discussion and debate, surely.

• And what’s a plea and what’s a plea for everybody to open up their minds and to step into the arena, to be there, to listen, to participate, to share ideas. Because we definitely all learn from each other. You know, we are a product of our belief systems, of our culture, you know, of our environment.

• Exactly. Wendy, thank you. And that’s why I wanted to spend time on just going into well what exactly was the enlightenment in essence. You know and why is it important? Yes, most of it’s faded and a lot of it, et cetera, et cetera, but, you know, exactly that, 'cause it’s that spirit, you know, that comes down through the ages, exactly what you just said.

• David, just to share one other story. You know, you are I were at university with Leslee Udwin who became, you know, who was a very well known actor and director. And I’ve re recently been repainted with her. And she had a very traumatic experience when she was 20 and she’s actually turned this around and I’m going to get her to talk about it. She talks about it openly. She was raped when she was 20 and how she used this experience to go down a different track. She will talk on challenging conversations.

• Fantastic.

• And she was going to talk about her organisation, which is about compassion, learning compassion. She, you know, she wrote a doc. She produced a documentary on the Birmingham Six, and then again on that, you know, on the Indian rapists in India. So this track will take place on the Tuesday, just so everybody should know. And it’ll probably be seven o'clock South African time. Five o'clock London time. Sorry, that’s the last that you’re going to hear from me. Thanks. = No, that’s fantastic, fantastic. Thanks so much. Okay. Okay. I can go through some of the questions. Thank you for your questions.

Q&A and Comments:

And from Dawn, thank you. Mitzi, I still believe in the old cliche of Jews being the canary in the coal mine, when anti-Semitism arises, something is very wrong with zeitgeist.

Yep, Mitzi, it’s usually the Jews and some others first.

Peter, you cannot understand the issues by framing them as left versus right wing issues are upper level of abstraction problem. Enlightenment primarily the transition from idealism to empiricism. Yeah, that’s part of it. Societies used to be based on shared ideologies can no longer based their identity on religious or political ideology, absolutely.

It’s a mistake to consider Rousseau and Voltaire as part of the enlightenment. They were oblivious and still identified with ideologies, people who identified with empiricism, Diderot, Bach, et cetera. That’s very true. But I would like to say that from our perspective of the 21st century, I think we can see them as in the overall river of that spirit of the enlightenment. I don’t think it’s only in empiricism versus faith. I think that there are other ideas that perhaps, you know, that can be brought in here.

Q: Okay, Eileen, how is it that today people refute science, the denying vaccines or refusing to allow the theory of evolution to be brought? Exactly, when will we be truly enlightened?

A: Well, Eileen, if I had that answer, I’d have millions of bucks and I’d be living in a beach in Hawaii, I think, I don’t know, it could be human nature, it could be society. But the thing is that these ideas are certainly worth fighting for, thank you.

Ruthie, is there a way to get a hard copy, a copy of today’s lecture.

Thanks so much Ruthie. I think that Judy or Carly or Lauren or Shauna, I think if you email Lockdown University, all of our lectures are kept online and I think can be sent out. Judy, thanks Yolande, could have a session on Antigone.

Yeah. Okay, great. And I can send you, that’s a great idea 'cause it is one of the founding plays it captures so many of these thoughts. Thank you. Semi, woke equals erosion of the enlightenment. Yep. Part of it.

Shoket, I want to suggest that two of the great American presidents, FDR and Lincoln tried but fail to attack individual liberties.

Okay. That’s for another whole discussion. Whoa. On American history, I guess, interesting. Karen, the regression to superstition and the rejection of enlightenment ideas. The subject of Carl Sagan’s book. Yep, “The Demon-Haunted World,” absolutely Karen.

Q: Esther, is the media the culprit for the erosion today?

A: I don’t think it’s only the media. I think that they are what was the radio in the time of, you know in the '30s which Goebbels used and manipulated. I don’t think it’s only the media because the media’s also about freedom of thought, freedom of expression, which the radio was and far more people have access cause it’s cheap, you can certain you can discuss ideas, et cetera through the radio and the same with the media today, social media. But that’s always a blessing and a curse with everything. There’s always the dark side, what Adorno called, you know, Freud’s understood the dark side of the enlightenment.

Peter, Decarte didn’t challenge the power of the church. No, not as much. But he called for, I think, you know, when you do take on the idea, the rationality is at the core of society, you have to challenge faith. You have to question rationally or at least begin biblical criticism, which is what Spinoza does. And I think Decarte would lead to.

Q: Are we able to dialogue with an extremist mindset?

A: It’s a great question. Maybe on stage in theatre I’m not sure. James, enlightenment ideals, reason, progress, liberty, freedom tolerance seemed to be in the retreat. Yes. But haven’t they also led to an extreme form of individualism whereby many people become fixated with their right to challenge everything like wokeism and so on, yeah, yeah.

Q: Are schools university doing enough to encourage?

A: No. I think there is a group thing that you mentioned here James and tribalism. I think there’s something of the spirit of the Kantian idea of the public space the coffee house, you know, where any idea is up for grab to discuss, debate, argue, question. I think it is being partly mentally policed. Whether from wokeism or wherever.

Harvey, Stephen Pinker’s book, Yep “Enlighten Now.” Yep. Lovely book.

Peter, Decarte didn’t challenge the power of the church. Yes, which is where his dualism came from. I agree. You’re right. The church had a useful function. Yeah. But what I’m saying, when you do have the dualism and you do privilege the mind, you have to question faith again. And certain religious tenants.

Q: Susan, who funded Diderot to employ so many people?

A: Great question. I don’t know. Karen, Beethoven’s ninth reflects Voltaire’s idea. Yep. Of universal brotherhood, absolutely. And that’s where I’m trying to link Voltaire with the universalism of these humanistic ideas.

Q: Judy, can you comment on the underlying influence of Copernicus’s Galileo? Darwin?

A: Absolutely. They’re a hugely important crucial. That would be an amazing topic for another talk Judy, thanks for the suggestion. Mitzi, when I see Christians cursing Jews, we thinks I see children beating their fathers Voltaire. Absolutely. Yolande, Voltaire was able to reach the common person with his book, “Candide.” Yeah, very, very good point that, thank you.

Q: Merna, does it seem that as far as Jews, Voltaire didn’t believe his own words?

A: Well he did have a bit of an ambivalent belief in the Jews. But he understood ultimately that if he had this universalist humanist approach, he couldn’t, you know, exclude Jews. Rationally again coming back to reason , rationally you can’t.

Susan, the lecture epitomises the old on how history repeats itself, maybe. Marian, my mother was history teacher, Susan she would agree.

Marian, I have felt for a while American American Americans have completely lost their sense of history. The founding principles. That’s fascinating topic for a future discussion. And hopefully some of the ideas from today can, you know, feed into that and these ideas of challenging conversations that Wendy’s mentioning.

Q: Eli, how did women fit into the pure enlightenment?

A: That is fantastic. And I have had a whole lot of separate points about that Mary Wollstonecraft and many, many others who did contribute in, you know, in very profound ways. And linked to areas of work that women were beginning to take on. Not just from the, you know, from the war, First World War.

Marion, I think said in other countries are following this trend, yep. Rose, Spinoza was a genius who so narrow mindedly thrown out about tribe. He’s buried in a courtyard at a church, yep. Spinoza is remarkable. And what fascinated me when you read Einstein’s understanding of Spinoza. You get a very contemporary perspective through to Mr. Einstein. Thanks Rose.

Q: Would you say Freud was a Hobbesian?

A: I would say that he, yeah. I think a large part of him would agree with Hobbs. You know, ironically, I think the rational side of Freud, the reason side of Freud would agree with a huge amount of Hobbs, not everything. 'Cause I think Freud understands from a very contemporary perspective, you can look back on the Hobbs Locke debate.

Q: Roberta, can we continue this next week?

A: We can do more anytime. Thank you.

Adrian, its a pity Spinoza is still not forgiven by some rabbis, yeah, exactly.

Q: Jack, what is your favourite book?

A: Oh, okay, that we can speak about with Spinoza.

Steven, thank you for your comment that the separation of powers is mentioned in the Torah. Oh, fascinating thank for you that, Steven. Sarah, thank you for your comment.

Q: Herbert, could you start next week with Moses Mendelssohn?

A: We can see how it goes, but yeah, thank you. Monique, promise you of reason emerging from enlightened was a product of a long struggle against emotions and primal instinct, et cetera, which are making a comeback. Yep, that’s exactly what Hobbs and then Freud and many of the others would would argue and Adorno afterwards after the war in the Holocaust. Joan, an assimilation sound like an approach Quebec, I don’t know about the details of Quebec, but that’s interesting.

Joan, thank you. Adrian thanks. Marcia, happy hope you will up in Canada. Thanks for your comment. Sharon. Thank you Judith. Thank you.

James, greater assimilation, integration should lead to a healthier society. It does not abandon, require the abandonment of culture. That’s exactly it James, That integration, which is part of the universalist humanistic idea of tolerance, freedom, et cetera, should lead to that. But what I’m trying to say is what it denies or ignored culture, nationalism, religion, spirituality, beliefs which are not subject to rationality necessarily cultural identity. So we are always in that dramatic tension. You know, it’s part of the antiquity you know, sort of human condition if you like. Reba, thank you. Idea needs not to intimidation. Like the very idea of universalism at the heart of the Torah. Giving pride to your identity while respecting the other.

Yeah, but the question is great Riva and I agree. But how do you live with that in society, which does demonise the other, whether it’s the Jew or you know, whoever. Which I think these guys were trying to grapple with. Gitta, Haskalah was a separate movement. Yes, it was a separate movement. But it was influenced, as you say, Gitta by the ideas of enlightenment, absolutely. Monty, do not over intellectualise enlightenment. The man in the street has no idea what it’s about . Monty. That’s a great phrase. Okay. We put that.

Barbara, thank you. Karen, thanks. Ruthie. Thank you again. Okay. Thought you’re back in university. Okay, Mavis, thank you.

Q: Ron, is the surveillance state the outcome of the advance of science?

A: Well, the irony, and again, it’s the flip side. The blessing and the curse is that the surveillance state is remarkable technology, which enables so much, with aviation and cameras, you know, it’s remarkable development in terms of technology. But like everything, it can have the Gerbal shadow, it can turn into a surveillance state. You know, it can be there to help society as well. Artificial intelligence, similar, it can be there to help climate change. It can be there to help, you know, nuclear proliferation, et cetera, medicine, artificial intelligence. But it can also be there to make people into pieces of data in an algorithm open to the Gerbal shadow manipulation. Okay, thank you Riva. Thank you unto Bishop Tutu.

Okay. Alison. Okay is there a synonym, Georgie, synonym for darkness. Huh. great, lovely point. I know I’m using a more poetic word. This is a strictly academic word. True.

Q: Ruth, are you sure mirage is the word you want?

A: The definition of something appears real or possible, but not so in fact, enlightenment was real. It is indeed under erosion. Yeah, I mean I’m using these words because I’m part of literature and theatre, so I’m using slightly poetic words as well. But I think for me erosion is less. But I do believe that these things are being eroded to a degree. And you know, there’s a call to be pretty vigilant.

Roberta, Spinoza is terrific, but the mission of him and others in the enlightenment centrality of feeling. Yeah. okay, great.

David, debate sessions. Yeah. That’s what we’re moving towards. The coffee house, you know, is the Kantian an idea and the rise through the was during the enlightenment, the coffee house. It’s great. Thank you, Ruthie. Peter, who is the author of the book, “Advocating Tolerance of All including Jews.” I’m not sure which one you mean Peter, but if you email we can, you know, talk a bit more detail.

Merna, is it because we’re Jewish? That lockdown is so successful. Our search for knowledge. Well that’s part of the debate.

• There many non-Jews on, there are many non-Jew on as well. There are many non-Jews on as well.

• Well then absolutely, you know,

• It’s a quality of the presenter.

• I think it’s also what you and Trudy have opened up. You know, you’ve created the coffee house, the cyber coffee house, okay.

• I think it’s also a sense of community and also that it’s quite casual and informal.

• Yeah.

• But also do think its the quality.

• It’s the ideas. But when you know, it’s also the ideas that you and Trudy and others haves which have brought all so many people together and created this community. 'Cause without you there’d be nothing, okay.

• Wow.

• So I’m going to.

• There’d be somebody else.

• In the Spirit of the public debate in our cyber coffee house say that.

Okay, I don’t think it’s only Jewish lockdown successful as Wendy say. Yeah, no, I think it’s anybody who wants to have a free mind in the coffee house tradition. Question, discuss, argue, debate, anything. No sacred cows.

Diane, suggesting we have a small group facilitate discussions, lockdowns, so many ideas, yep. Lots of little coffee houses.

Marilyn, freedom when technical media. I think I’ve spoken to that. Phil, thank you again for your comments.

Marion, thank you for your kind comments Peter. Yeah.

Q: Barry, do we consider the haready today as anti enlightenment?

A: My wife and I have lived on a kibbutz in 1973. There was no religion. We were taken on a trip to Jerusalem. The young Kibbutznik screamed at the haready. Wendy, can we discuss this topic? That’s a powerful, interesting topic. Barry. Okay.

Joy, sorry I missed yours here. Jung was focused on the dark side. Well I don’t only think the dark side I think, but that’s a whole separate discussion. I think archetypes of many kinds and collective unconscious. Barbara, but I think he understood it, Sams Freud.

Q: Human tendency to, what about human tendency to tribalism?

A: Well that’s exactly the link I was trying to make, as you say to the rise of nationalism. 'Cause when you do bring in language and culture, you know all of these things, there is an element of tribalism and that’s absolutely part of the human condition. You know, and that’s, you know, to counter the universalist humanist approach of liberal democracy going all the way through the enlightenment. Isaac Newton I wanted to talk about, but I left science out the scientists, Newton and others 'cause that’s a whole separate discussion probably, but great point Natalie.

Peter, surely the kind of enlightenment in China, India, Iran. Absolutely, I mean this is only looking at Europe and the West, but definitely in many parts of the world, it’d be fantastic to go into Peter. Hazel, thank you for your comment. Monique. Thanks Susan.

Okay, dialogue today. Linda, thank you. And Wendy for your comment and your thought.

Peter, the publishers sold subscriptions and intended to make a profit. Ah, maybe this is to the encyclopaedia. I don’t know who employed the 150. Great question.

Q: Riva, did Spinoza give up his Jewish identity?

A: No.

• David, I’m going to jump in now quickly just to say I wanted to say thanks a million for a fabulous presentation. You’ve been on for an hour and a half and I’m, you know, I’m cognizant of Shawna being off and a time two, yours and hers. So just a million thanks. I think this should be continued. We will talk about it offline. So thanks to everyone.

• Lovely, Thank you so much.

• Thank you for a brilliant presentation. Take care.

• Thank you Wendy. Thank you Shawna.

• All right, thanks a million. Everybody. Enjoy coffee right now.

• Thanks everybody for joining us.

• Okay thanks.

• Thanks off to the coffee house. Good, bye-bye.

• Okay cheers bye.