Birth Pangs and Bloody Delivery

Now this writing exercise begins to close its circle; what I began weeks ago with the post We've Done This Dance Before I can now begin to summarize. I had made comments on facebook about the romantic reaction against the Enlightenment, and a couple of friends (Anne Babb and Katy Schaff) commented with interest. That, I guess, got me going. That and the health care debate.

As Rousseau and Diderot pushed back against the established powers of the French Enlightenment they made enemies. What is popularly understood about Rousseau is, to a large extent, derived from Voltaire's criticism. But Rousseau was the advocate of a complete philosophical system - one which actively included the lower strata of French society in a way that genuinely provided for their liberty.

The problem was this: if men are free and brutal (rather than reasonable) how shall they govern themselves and still produce a prosperous, enlightened society? Absolute democracy is dangerously frail since the voters, subject as they are to animal passions, are inevitably manipulated by those with political skill. The strong arm of the governor might secure the good of the citizen, but domination by ecclesiastical or regal authority is often ham handed and pitiless; control by the scientific elite (Voltaire's bloodless thinkers) would be equally cruel and dehumanizing and ultimately lifeless.. Diderot's solution was an elected aristocracy,
in which the guardians of society were always selected by the people and, once elected, subordinate to the comprehensive moral requirements of leadership.

Something powerful and something dangerous was being born as Diderot and Rousseau defied the philosophe agenda. Here was a conflict which marks the beginning of a resistance which would, over the next hundred years, effectively oppose intrusive authority of every kind - civil, societal, religious and academic. Here was the birth of a company of fighters who would, in time, faithfully resist the emerging forces of idealistic folly, mindless fashion, nationalistic aggression and dehumanizing industrial excess. Here is the beginning of that tradition in which we stand up to the soulless manipulator who would grasp our lives to achieve our welfare. Here we begin to recognize that reactive force, the measured, well-crafted No, which we feebly name The Romantic.

And to the extent that we have not forgotten what it means to breathe the air of Liberty and lift one's neighbor with native human Strength, it is a large part of what it means to be heirs of Western Civilization.