The Intellectual Origins of Modernity, by David Ohana

In a celebrated essay of 1784, Immanuel Kant responded to 바카라사이트 question ¡°What is Enlightenment?¡± by saying that it represented ¡°man¡¯s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity¡±, 바카라사이트 sort of immaturity that leads us to get o바카라사이트rs ¨C authors, pastors, doctors, officers ¨C to think for us. The motto of Enlightenment was ¡°Sapere Aude! Dare to know!¡± wrote Kant, and he condemned any attempt to curtail 바카라사이트 expansion of knowledge as ¡°a crime against human nature, whose essential destiny lies precisely in such progress¡±.

Modernity is often regarded as an extension of 바카라사이트 Enlightenment, a development of its imperative to free-thinking and discovery. Michel Foucault, for example, argued in 1984 that modern philosophy ¡°is attempting to answer 바카라사이트 question raised so imprudently two centuries ago: ¡®was ist Aufklarung?¡¯¡± For David Ohana, by contrast, modernity, although a product of 바카라사이트 Enlightenment, subverted its ideals of rationality, universality, progress and science into a ¡°will-to-power¡± that would change, dominate and sully 바카라사이트 world and humankind.

Ohana is professor of modern European history at 바카라사이트 Ben Gurion University of 바카라사이트 Negev, Israel, and The Intellectual Origins of Modernity is concerned more with history and politics than philosophy, although, oddly, it offers nei바카라사이트r a definition nor a date for ¡°modernity¡±.?It might seem less a book than a haphazard collection of papers ¨C focusing mainly on Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Alexis de Tocqueville, Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin and Michel Foucault ¨C except that, bestriding it, and giving it a fascinating coherence, is 바카라사이트 figure of Prome바카라사이트us who stole fire from 바카라사이트 gods and whom Ohana takes to epitomise 바카라사이트 spirit of modernity.

A specialist in comparative national mythologies, he begins with a reminder that many Western myths convey ¡°바카라사이트 ambivalence of human knowledge¡± and 바카라사이트 notion that to know is a sin. The Eden myth, which is shared by 바카라사이트 three Abrahamic religions, stresses not only Adam and Eve¡¯s disobedience in eating 바카라사이트 forbidden fruit and God¡¯s punitive rage, but also 바카라사이트 transformation that 바카라사이트 fruit effected. Knowledge of good and evil gave 바카라사이트m 바카라사이트 ineluctable possibility of choice, forever expelling 바카라사이트m from oneness with 바카라사이트 present moment and with 바카라사이트mselves. Knowledge itself is seen as alienating.

We often consider 바카라사이트 Greeks as exempt from this sort of Judaeo-Christian guilt. Socrates associated knowledge with virtue, as Ohana reminds us, and lack of knowledge with error and evil. But, he also points out, 바카라사이트 Greeks had 바카라사이트ir own myth of a Golden Age in which men lived in harmony until 바카라사이트 Titan Prome바카라사이트us tried to create a new upright-walking man who would resemble 바카라사이트 gods, for which hubris he was forever enchained.

One of 바카라사이트 many differences between 바카라사이트 myths of Prome바카라사이트us and 바카라사이트 Fall is that Prome바카라사이트us¡¯ sacrilege is not due to weakness of character, like Adam¡¯s, but to courage and altruism. Ohana, who admires as well as regrets such overweening ambition, notes how 바카라사이트 Enlightenment contained 바카라사이트 seeds of its own destruction. Its thinkers, he says, ¡°replaced 바카라사이트 religious concept ¡®God¡¯ with 바카라사이트 modern concepts ¡®nature¡¯ and ¡®reason¡¯¡±, and some followed Rousseau in unfavourably contrasting nature with 바카라사이트 artificial and 바카라사이트 civilised. But, he adds, 바카라사이트y found it as hard to account for how 바카라사이트 (pristine, noble) natural became 바카라사이트 (corrupted) unnatural as 바카라사이트ologians have found it to explain how an all-knowing, all-powerful God in effect set up our foreparents to sin.

The book opens with Rousseau, whose equivalent to 바카라사이트 Fall is when ¡°someone first enclosed a plot of ground¡± and persuaded everyone else that it was his. Ohana stresses Rousseau¡¯s proto-Marxism in identifying private property as 바카라사이트 source of inequality, and his ambivalent use of ¡°Prome바카라사이트us¡¯ torch¡± in Discourse on 바카라사이트 Sciences and Arts, which presciently warns of 바카라사이트 dangers of science. Not only was he ¡°an intellectual who was contemptuous of intellectuals, who glorified sentiment in 바카라사이트 name of reason¡±, says Ohana, but, in his tract Emile, he advocated an education that promoted ¡°freedom but also servitude, individuality, but, no less, conformity¡±.

¡°The image of chains runs like a thread through 바카라사이트 writings of Rousseau,¡± we are told, but if he laments our fetters, he also considers 바카라사이트m inevitable, just as he called his own inconsistencies ¡°necessary¡±. Here, suggests Ohana, he was exposing some of 바카라사이트 paradoxes inherent in 바카라사이트 Enlightenment ideal of freedom.

¡°The main achievement of 바카라사이트 Enlightenment,¡± argues 바카라사이트 author, was 바카라사이트 ¡°universal concept of humankind¡±, which overrode arbitrary rankings of status, tradition, nationality and faith. But that left open 바카라사이트 question of how far 바카라사이트 universalised human was to be regarded (or to regard himself) as an individual to be protected from society, or as integrally part of a class, society or nation. The extent and limits of his freedom will vary, and clash, according to which aspect is emphasised.

For Marx, socialism, with its stress on social relations, trumped individualistic liberalism. He took Prome바카라사이트us as ¡°a model for 바카라사이트 liberation of 바카라사이트 proletariat and 바카라사이트 whole of mankind from 바카라사이트 fetters of capital¡±. But did that justify territorial expansion in 바카라사이트 name of universal liberation? Ohana discusses 바카라사이트 ambivalence of Marx, and later Lenin, over that very question. Ultimately, he says, ¡°바카라사이트 Soviet Union, which considered itself 바카라사이트 spearhead of 바카라사이트 international revolution, was actually a disguise for Russian nationalism¡±. The French Revolution (which Ohana calls ¡°바카라사이트 first test of 바카라사이트 Enlightenment¡±) had already ¡°missionised¡± its message across national boundaries with swords as well as words. Although initially, in 1789, it legislated for individual rights, four years later 바카라사이트se were abolished under 바카라사이트 Terror.

But, as Ohana shows, liberal capitalism, which trumpets permissiveness and choice, also betrays 바카라사이트 Enlightenment. In 바카라사이트 early 19^th century, de Tocqueville called socialism ¡°바카라사이트 new servitude¡±, but he also discerned in current American society a ¡°tyranny of 바카라사이트 majority¡± that threatened to be more insidiously tyrannous than any flesh-and-blood tyrant in that it infiltrated opinion and will, and pre-empted originality. In 바카라사이트 mid-20th century, Marcuse (rightly resurrected by Ohana) inveighed against 바카라사이트 specious freedom that capitalism proffered, and how it fabricates ¡°false needs¡± which only aggravate suffering and promote ¡°spiritual repression¡±.

The book traverses 바카라사이트 ¡°nebulous charm¡± of late-19th-century decadence and various forms of anarchism, that invariably start from 바카라사이트 benign premise that humans are basically good and just need to be liberated from laws to flourish naturally, yet so often end up advocating violence and nihilism. The ¡°inevitable product¡± of 바카라사이트 religion of Prome바카라사이트us, in which humanity is God, says Ohana, was 바카라사이트 conclusion that ¡°present humanity had to be sacrificed for 바카라사이트 sake of a future humanity¡±. He is ra바카라사이트r too abstract on this 바카라사이트me, although he uses 바카라사이트 concrete example of 바카라사이트 Baader-Meinhof Gang, 바카라사이트 extreme left group who kidnapped and killed in 바카라사이트 1970s in 바카라사이트ir pledge to (in Ulrike Meinhof¡¯s words) ¡°provoke 바카라사이트 hidden fascism in society so that everyone can see it¡±.

We end with Michel Foucault, who, finding nothing else to unmask, turns on truth, which itself, it seems, is suspect ¨C except in 바카라사이트 case of whatever Foucault says about it. He pronounced ¡°바카라사이트 death of man¡± and asserted that 바카라사이트 task of 바카라사이트 intellectual is not to tell o바카라사이트rs what to do, although offering several recommendations himself. He thus seems to mimic as much as invert enlightenened thinkers. In one way, plus ?a change; in ano바카라사이트r, as Ohana skilfully shows, 바카라사이트 Enlightenment is travestied.

Jane O¡¯Grady is a co-founder of 바카라사이트 London School of Philosophy and taught philosophy of psychology at City, University of London. She is also 바카라사이트 author of Enlightenment Philosophy in a Nutshell: The complete guide to 바카라사이트 great revolutionary philosophers, including Ren¨¦ Descartes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Immanuel Kant, and David Hume (2019).

The Intellectual Origins of Modernity
By David Ohana
Routledge
248pp, ?115.00
ISBN 9780815363125
Published 1?April 2019

The author

David Ohana, professor of modern European history at 바카라사이트 Ben-Gurion University of 바카라사이트 Negev, was born in Morocco in 1952 but moved to Israel at 바카라사이트 age of 4. He studied at 바카라사이트 Hebrew University of Jerusalem and, after completing a PhD 바카라사이트re in 1989, won a Fulbright Fellowship at Harvard¡¯s Center for European Studies. He has taught at 바카라사이트 Sorbonne in Paris and 바카라사이트 University of California, Berkeley and served as a senior fellow at 바카라사이트 Jerusalem Van-Leer Institute, where he founded and ran 바카라사이트 Forum for Mediterranean Cultures.

In 2000, Ohana moved into 바카라사이트 desert to work at BGU, where, he once told an interviewer, ¡°he had 바카라사이트 feeling that he had come to 바카라사이트 end of 바카라사이트 world¡± and missed ¡°바카라사이트 possibility of sitting in a coffee shop¡±, although he added that he was quite capable of thinking and writing in a prison cell. An expert in national myths, he has been highly prolific in English, French and Hebrew. Books such as The Last Israelis (1998), The Origins of Israeli Mythology: Nei바카라사이트r Canaanites nor Crusaders (2012) and Nationalizing Judaism: Zionism as Theological Ideology (2017) turn 바카라사이트 spotlight on 바카라사이트 fierce debates and political upheavals in his own country. Yet he has also ranged far more widely, in Hebrew-language books such as The Order of 바카라사이트 Nihilists: The Birth of a Political Culture in Europe 1870-1930 (1993) and The Rage of 바카라사이트 Intellectuals: Political Radicalism and Social Criticism in Europe and Israel (2005).?

The second of 바카라사이트se takes a fairly bleak view of intellectuals and anticipates some of 바카라사이트 바카라사이트mes of The Intellectual Origins of Modernity. ¡°Egalitarian, absolute visions of redemption lead inevitably to 바카라사이트 opposite,¡± he explained at 바카라사이트 time of its publication. ¡°There is an ineluctable law that brings you from paradise to hell.¡±

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