I appreciate Gray calling out the Soviets and others but I think the whole argument is wrong.
The link between Enlightenment values and imperialism/subjugation of Asia/Africa/Americans is far from clear. Enlightenment values aside, conquering people and taking their stuff was just normal at the time. And while imperialism enriched certain people and led to economic growth, it was probably worse from a economic-growth-first perspective (compared to free trade and sovereignty).
Along the same lines, American slavery was highly profitable for some but there is no good argument that it was essential to the US's economic development. Paying workers supports economic growth by increasing productivity and demand.
Over time, this project of attacking the enlightenment/liberalism has started to seem increasingly boring and wrong to me. For one, the vast majority of these critiques rely on Enlightenment values to critique the Enlightenment. So maybe we should be more enlightened! For another, right-wing populism makes liberal capitalism much more attractive.
I think the reason for it is actually pretty banal. Rationality won. But it didn't win over irrationality, but over superrationality, and we just suffer the horrors of its wrongness.
The "the Mortecene, the Age of Death and Killing" stuff is kind of phoney when most evidence seems to show higher rates of killing before the enlightenment than after.
Likewise other stuff - the industrial revolution can't be explained without slavery. I mean it was involved but the steam engine would have been invented anyway. And so on. Making up incorrect nonsense to fit a preconceived hypothesis.
4 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 16.7 ms ] threadThe link between Enlightenment values and imperialism/subjugation of Asia/Africa/Americans is far from clear. Enlightenment values aside, conquering people and taking their stuff was just normal at the time. And while imperialism enriched certain people and led to economic growth, it was probably worse from a economic-growth-first perspective (compared to free trade and sovereignty).
Along the same lines, American slavery was highly profitable for some but there is no good argument that it was essential to the US's economic development. Paying workers supports economic growth by increasing productivity and demand.
Over time, this project of attacking the enlightenment/liberalism has started to seem increasingly boring and wrong to me. For one, the vast majority of these critiques rely on Enlightenment values to critique the Enlightenment. So maybe we should be more enlightened! For another, right-wing populism makes liberal capitalism much more attractive.
Likewise other stuff - the industrial revolution can't be explained without slavery. I mean it was involved but the steam engine would have been invented anyway. And so on. Making up incorrect nonsense to fit a preconceived hypothesis.