[extropy-chat] Enlightenment and the election

[Fred C. Moulton]

I saw this on a newsgroup and thought I would pass it on.  While I doubt
anyone would agree with it in its entirety I think it expresses some
ideas in a way that I have not seen in the discussion of the past few
days.

> From: XXXXXXXXXXXXX.com (XXX XXXXXX)
> Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.fandom
> Subject: NY Times: The Day the Enlightenment Died
> Date: 4 Nov 2004 07:41:41 -0800
>
> I read this in today's NY Times and found it depressing but worth
> sharing. I can't believe how depressed I am over this election.
>
>   The Day the Enlightenment Went Out
> By GARRY WILLS
>
>
>   Wills, Garry
>
> Evanston, Ill.
>
> This election confirms the brilliance of Karl Rove as a political
> strategist. He calculated that the religious conservatives, if they
> could be turned out, would be the deciding factor. The success of the
> plan was registered not only in the presidential results but also in
> all 11 of the state votes to ban same-sex marriage. Mr. Rove
> understands what surveys have shown, that many more Americans believe
> in the Virgin Birth than in Darwin's theory of evolution.
>
> This might be called Bryan's revenge for the Scopes trial of 1925, in
> which William Jennings Bryan's fundamentalist assault on the concept
> of evolution was discredited. Disillusionment with that decision led
> many evangelicals to withdraw from direct engagement in politics. But
> they came roaring back into the arena out of anger at other court
> decisions - on prayer in school, abortion, protection of the flag and,
> now, gay marriage. Mr. Rove felt that the appeal to this large bloc
> was worth getting President Bush to endorse a constitutional amendment
> banning gay marriage (though he had opposed it earlier).
>
> The results bring to mind a visit the Dalai Lama made to Chicago not
> long ago. I was one of the people deputized to ask him questions on
> the stage at the Field Museum. He met with the interrogators
> beforehand and asked us to give him challenging questions, since he is
> too often greeted with deference or flattery.
>
> The only one I could think of was: "If you could return to your
> country, what would you do to change it?" He said that he would
> disestablish his religion, since "America is the proper model." I
> later asked him if a pluralist society were possible without the
> Enlightenment. "Ah," he said. "That's the problem." He seemed to envy
> America its Enlightenment heritage.
>
> Which raises the question: Can a people that believes more fervently
> in the Virgin Birth than in evolution still be called an Enlightened
> nation?
>
> America, the first real democracy in history, was a product of
> Enlightenment values - critical intelligence, tolerance, respect for
> evidence, a regard for the secular sciences. Though the founders
> differed on many things, they shared these values of what was then
> modernity. They addressed "a candid world," as they wrote in the
> Declaration of Independence, out of "a decent respect for the opinions
> of mankind." Respect for evidence seems not to pertain any more, when
> a poll taken just before the elections showed that 75 percent of Mr.
> Bush's supporters believe Iraq either worked closely with Al Qaeda or
> was directly involved in the attacks of 9/11.
>
> The secular states of modern Europe do not understand the
> fundamentalism of the American electorate. It is not what they had
> experienced from this country in the past. In fact, we now resemble
> those nations less than we do our putative enemies.
>
> Where else do we find fundamentalist zeal, a rage at secularity,
> religious intolerance, fear of and hatred for modernity? Not in France
> or Britain or Germany or Italy or Spain. We find it in the Muslim
> world, in Al Qaeda, in Saddam Hussein's Sunni loyalists. Americans
> wonder that the rest of the world thinks us so dangerous, so
> single-minded, so impervious to international appeals. They fear
> jihad, no matter whose zeal is being expressed.
>
> It is often observed that enemies come to resemble each other. We
> torture the torturers, we call our God better than theirs - as one
> American general put it, in words that the president has not
> repudiated.
>
> President Bush promised in 2000 that he would lead a humble country,
> be a uniter not a divider, that he would make conservatism
> compassionate. He did not need to make such false promises this time.
> He was re-elected precisely by being a divider, pitting the reddest
> aspects of the red states against the blue nearly half of the nation.
> In this, he is very far from Ronald Reagan, who was amiably and
> ecumenically pious. He could address more secular audiences, here and
> abroad, with real respect.
>
> In his victory speech yesterday, President Bush indicated that he
> would "reach out to the whole nation," including those who voted for
> John Kerry. But even if he wanted to be more conciliatory now, the
> constituency to which he owes his victory is not a yielding one. He
> must give them what they want on things like judicial appointments.
> His helpers are also his keepers.
>
> The moral zealots will, I predict, give some cause for dismay even to
> nonfundamentalist Republicans. Jihads are scary things. It is not too
> early to start yearning back toward the Enlightenment.
>
>
> Garry Wills, an adjunct professor of history at Northwestern
> University, is the author of "St. Augustine's Conversion."