Summary
Title: Enemies of the Enlightenment: The French Counter-Enlightenment and the Making of Modernity, 1778-1830
Author: Darrin M. McMahon
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195136853
Pro:
• Shows how modern ‘Right’ started with modern Enlightenment
• Parallels between modern Right and early right-wing of France
Con:
• Academic book and not always an easy read
Description:
• Explains history and goals of European Enlightenment, especially in France
• Explores methods and goals of opponents to Enlightenment
• Demonstrates the modern ‘Culture Wars’ have been around a long time
Book Review
What was the Enlightenment? In brief, it was a philosophical movement during the 18th century which emphasized the use of reason to evaluate previously accepted doctrines and traditions. In this manner, “common sense” assumptions about religion, politics, and social relationships were questioned and often abandoned.
So why does McMahon focus on France? Well, the case of France is archetypical for the experiences in other countries, not just at the time but continuing on into the present.
The Enlightenment largely started there and reached one of its highest points, politically, with the French Revolution. Throughout the rest of Europe, wherever Enlightenment ideas spread, it was common for opponents to rely upon the writings of French authors.
Wherever one is studying the “Right” and its reactions against liberalism, revolution, or modernity, it is useful to take some time to look at the experiences of France during the Revolution. Indeed, it was in fact this time period that the very terms “Right” and “Left” first started to be used, signifying the seating arrangements in the Constituent Assembly.
What sorts of critiques did these “enemies” use against the Enlightenment? It is a list which should be very familiar to anyone even marginally familiar with the modern day “culture wars” in the United States. It was claimed that the Enlightenment was designed to promote atheism, destroy religion, destroy the family, destroy all social authority, and undermine the general social order. As McMahon writes:
- What were the elements of this emergent right-wing vision? The fundamental importance of religion in maintaining political order, a preoccupation with the perils of intellectual and social license, the valorization of the family and history, the critique of abstract rights, the dangers of dividing sovereignty, and the need for a strategic alliance between throne and altar — these all featured centrally in this new ideology. Even more fundamental was a Manichean readiness to divide the world in two: between good and evil, right and wrong, Right and Left.
In some ways, those critiques were not entirely inaccurate. Some people did want to promote atheism and even destroy religion, no matter that they tried to preach tolerance for all beliefs. Some people were anarchists, seeking to destroy all social order and authority. But by and large, such people were in the minority. What opponents did was grab juicy quotations from divergent books or pamphlets and then act as if they had discovered ideas characteristic of the entire movement.
Enemies of the Enlightenment: French Counter-Enlightenment and the Making of Modernity
But it is particularly interesting to note just how similar the ideology of opponents to the French Revolution is to the ideology of the Right even today. The world has moved on, largely adopting many of the changes made by those eighteenth-century revolutions, but the Right has changed very little in its critiques.
It is not true that the Right at this time was really “conservative,” in the sense of attempting to “conserve” something old. It was not traditional and it was not “romantically medieval.” Even at this early stage, the Right was attempting to create a radical new vision. Instead of recapturing an old world, they were seeking to develop a new one.
McMahon’s book is not a light and easy read, and will be of most interest to those who want to learn more about the French Revolution and the philosophies which became the driving force behind it. The parallels between the right-wing opposition to the Revolution and right-wing movements today are not his main theme; nevertheless, anyone willing to invest a bit of time with this book will discover a great many interesting and provocative parallels.
