1. This @jbouie piece on the whitewashing of the Enlightenment is, as expected, excellent:https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/06/taking-the-enlightenment-seriously-requires-talking-about-race.html …
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7. Which is all to say that the current enthusiasts of the Enlightenment are (like the rest of us!) not really 18th century thinkers but engaged in a complex dialogue with past. The problem is they want to claim full ownership of a what is in fact public domain thought
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8. Why claim the Enlightenment when you are really in complex argument with it? Because you see the Enlightenment not as a complex historical phenomenon but rather as a brand. "We're Team Enlightenment," the argument goes. "You are Team Tribalist."
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9. Team Enlightenment is interesting as a branding exercise. But let's not confuse it with intellectual history.
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10. Why does the racism of long dead thinkers like Locke & Kant cause a scandal? Because it hurts the brand of Team Enlightenment. But if you're interested in history, not branding, you can handle fact of checkered history.
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What do you think the Enlightenment is?
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welcome to the conversation that has been going on for several days now.
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