8. One paradox is that contemporary right, by fetishizing mythical Enlightenment, cuts itself off from rich, still-pertinent conservative tradition of criticizing failures & limits of Enlightenment.
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9. Some of the earliest & sharpest observations on hypocrisy & limits of Enlightenment came from Tories & reactionaries. "How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?" Samuel Johnson owning Jefferson, 1776.
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10. In fact, a large part of what's valuable in conservatism comes from comes from reactionary critics of its false claims to universality (think of Burke contrasting abstract "rights of man" to concrete "rights of Englishmen")
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11. (This is tangential but the discovery of the value of cultural difference & contingent identity came from the reactionary right. It's not an accident that visiting Hindus in 18th century England found hospitality in the house of Edmund Burke).
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Jeet Heer Retweeted Michael Brendan Dougherty
12. Speaking of smart reactionaries, this is a good tweet by someone who knows what historical (as opposed to fetishized) Enlightenment was all about:https://twitter.com/michaelbd/status/967226685115502592 …
Jeet Heer added,
Michael Brendan DoughertyVerified account @michaelbd“He says he believes in 'Enlightenment principles.' Naturally I thought he meant political absolutism, and the duty of subjects to profess the religion of their political sovereign. But it turns out he just shares YouTube clips of atheists and anti-feminists."1 reply 29 retweets 117 likesShow this thread -
Jeet Heer Retweeted b-boy bouiebaisse
13. Completely agree here. The point is not to jettison Enlightenment (impossible in any case since it is too formative) but to improve by critique:https://twitter.com/jbouie/status/1003029377423032320 …
Jeet Heer added,
b-boy bouiebaisseVerified account @jbouieReplying to @DavidOttlinger @HeerJeetspeaking only for myself, the takeaway here should be interrogating the extent to which the ideas and ideologies that grow out of the enlightenment contain race thinking (or misogynist thinking or classist thinking) and work to decolonize the ideas we like of those elements4 replies 21 retweets 123 likesShow this thread -
14. * Footnote on Locke: this is the paper that is revising consensus on Locke & slavery. Linkage of slavery with monarchy is very interesting & suggestive:https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article-abstract/122/4/1038/4320238?redirectedFrom=fulltext …
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Jeet Heer Retweeted b-boy bouiebaisse
15. I want to say one last thing about the way this Enlightenment business played out on twitter. What seems to have sparked this off is this thread by
@jbouie which offended@bdomenechhttps://twitter.com/jbouie/status/984813256345780224 …Jeet Heer added,
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16.
@jbouie original thread was a response to a David Brooks column which claimed Locke (or, cagily "a story we tell about Locke") "paved the way for human equality, pluralism, democracy, capitalism" etc.pic.twitter.com/LZctq03F7k
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17. Now, Brooks claim might be defensible if it at least acknowledged all the ways Locke was not a champion of "human equality" etc. (he denied natives had land rights, was complicit in slavery, had very hedged view of Catholic civil rights, etc.)
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18. Brooks himself seems to know grand claim he's making is, in scholarly terms, bullshit. That's why he had hedge: "That belief, championed by John Locke, or a story we tell about Locke, paved the way for human equality": "a story we tell about Locke." LOL
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19. Now,
@jbouie is an extremely careful & conscientious writer with a much better grounding in scholarship than most journalists. The stuff he tweeted out was very mainstream intellectual history5 replies 11 retweets 118 likesShow this thread -
20. The guy who went after Bouie is Ben Domenech, a very dubious character, who was able to send chittering flying monkeys, almost all of who argued in bad faith or ignorance, to harass Bouie for a whole day. That's twitter for you.
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