Pragmatic Wisdom and the American Enlightenment

1961 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 313 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adrienne Koch
Keyword(s):  
American Enlightenment

Anglo-Dutch-American Enlightenment

2020 ◽  
pp. 250-266
Author(s):  
Jonathan Scott
Keyword(s):  
Present State ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
North West ◽  
Natural Knowledge ◽  
Self Confidence ◽  
American Enlightenment ◽  
The North ◽  
European North ◽  
Cultural Movement ◽  
North Western

This chapter studies cultural invention in light of the North-Western European cultural movement called Enlightenment. Enlightenment refers, in the first place, to a description by European intellectuals of what they took to be an advanced present state of moral and natural knowledge by comparison to that of the ancients. With related self-confidence, in the heyday of their empires, some described their culture as possessed of a dynamic modernity to be distinguished from the ‘oriental' lethargy and backwardness existing elsewhere. Yet Enlightenment also originated as European self-criticism. One context for that was the comparative perspective acquired by discovery of non-European cultures. In this and in other ways the origin of Enlightenment, including its ‘conviction that progress had become unstoppable', lies in the period when Renaissance and Reformation combined with printing and natural philosophy to establish the culture of the European North-West.

From the American Enlightenment to Anti-Intellectualism

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mugambi Jouet
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Birth Certificate ◽  
Poor Quality ◽  
Political Debate ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Modern Democracy ◽  
Founding Fathers ◽  
American Enlightenment ◽  
Folk Wisdom ◽  
European Parties

Millions of Americans are extraordinarily uninformed. This problem is often blamed on the poor quality of public schools, yet it largely stems from a peculiar conception of education rooted in America’s exceptional history. The birth of modern democracy in America fostered a populist mindset equating education with elitism. Although the Founding Fathers were learned men of the American Enlightenment, many 18th and 19th century Americans became convinced that common sense and folk wisdom were sufficient to succeed. Anti-intellectualism became particularly influential in the South, the nation’s poorest region. Conversely, education has been less associated with elitism in France and other European countries. This helps explain why modern America is sharply polarized, as the U.S. political debate reached astonishing levels of demagogy, propaganda, and disinformation well before Trump’s rise. Spurred by the Tea Party, Republicans routinely made ludicrous claims about Obama’s fake birth certificate and Islamism, “socialized medicine,” “death panels,” the “hoax” of climate change, the federal government’s “tyranny,” and other conspiracy theories. Such political extremism thrives on the ignorance, irrationality, and gullibility promoted by anti-intellectualism. Extremism in contemporary Europe is far less mainstream and more focused on immigration, the main concern of nativist far-right European parties.

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