Movement in america. All right, welcome everyone like we were talking about last class. We are now shifting a little bit into a conversation and all, right welcome everyone. Like we were talking about last class, we are now shifting a little bit into a conversation and discussion about some of these, i would say, these essential themes of 18th century america. We spent the last, whats, couple months talking about these regions and how the colonies developed. How those colonies became integrated into the mercantile empire, the british empire, the cultural empire. Today, we want to start with our first major theme. We want to talk a little bit about intellectual History Today and this movement in 18th century america. Really, it begins in late 17th century america. But this movement known as the in light tournament. When you think about the enlightenment, what kind of things come to mind . Benjamin franklin. Why Benjamin Franklin . With the, kind of like, the freedom, liberty. When we talk about liberalism in that sense, john locke as well, the freedoms that come with it. So, certainly, well talk about this in the next couple class periods. Certainly, the enlightenment is about politics in some ways. Natural rights. We will get back to this. Good, what else comes to mind . The enlightenment. By the way, is in the class when you are in high school taking history, were talking about the enlightenment today . But i guess when your eyes glaze over. And theres nothing exciting here. Caleb . Reason . Reason, how many have heard the enlightenment referred to as the age of reason . Well come back to that. Anyone else . What kind of figures do you think about when you think about the enlightenment to the 18th century . We heard about franklin, we heard about locke. Any other names hit you . Jefferson. Good, Thomas Jefferson in america. Often known as a man of the enlightenment. Voltaire . Good, we have these frenchmen. Rousseau, walter. There is this guy diderot who wrote the encyclopedia. Anyone else . Those are the big ones. All of those names, we could add david hume to the list. Bunch of others we could add if we wanted to make a long list of the most important figures of the enlightenment. Most of those figures we learned about in school when we learned about the enlightenment are part of whats historians call behind enlightenment. What i mean by the high enlightenment is that these are kind of intellectuals that usually surround themselves around power, they have patronage. Their patrons are the kings and the queens, the monarchs. They tend to live very different lives from normal people. There intellectuals, their thinkers. And thats what they do, that is their calling, their vocation. To write, to think and so forth. Their hands arent dirty, in other words. These are the great thinkers of the age, so to speak, the high enlightenment. Usually, its associated with france. The philosophical as are called, philip in trans. Theres a scottish indictment usually understood in its european context. Would i want to suggest today and over the course of the next two classes is that the indictment in america, in the american colonies in the 18th century, looks very different from the high enlightenment of the 18th century in europe. We just have a bunch of people sitting around and coffee shops talking about ideas and reading. Did you hear the latest piece by rousseau today . Yes, passed me the decaf. Very different in america. So, lets think about the enlightenment in america this way. Some of you have had me for the u. S. Survey class, have been there where and ive done this. But not everybody had me for that class. Raise your hand, how many of you want to make a better life for yourself . How many of you want to improve your life . Yeah, every hand in the room goes up, right . Youre in college you know . Thats why youre sitting here. Im guessing most of you want to get a College Degree because you want to prove your life, you want self improvement, you want to better your life. Some of you, if you are a First Generation College student, you may want to pursue a life that your parents or your grandparents didnt have. College degree, kind of thing. In some ways, if you raise your hand, and all of you did, i would suggest that you then have been more influenced by that fundamentals of the american enlightenment then you realize. Now, usually when i bring this up to students, they will say or maybe some of you are assuming, Everyone Wants to improve themselves, right . From the beginning of time, right . If youre a human being, you want to improve your life, you want to strive and make something, you want to rise. You want to be ambitious and become something. Get a good job or make more money than your parents did or Something Like that. But what if i was to suggest to you that the idea of wanting to improve yourself is actually a relatively new thing in Human History . Right . This idea of wanting to improve your life or improve society suggests that, number one, its possible. In other words, think about new england puritans for a minute. You are not so stained and depraved from your skin nature that you cant rise above it and make something of yourself. You are not stuck in some type of a conservative caste system in which your blood line determines whether or not he will be successful or not. If you reject that idea, you have drunk deeply from the well, if you will, of the enlightenment. Imagine like a medieval peasant, okay, how does a medieval president , just take a guess, spend his or her day . If youve studied medieval history. Jack . Right or behind a working in the fields. Working in the fields, right dylan, you want to add to that . I was going to say the same thing. Usually on a plow or behind a horse. Plowing, sewing, reaping, agricultural stuff right . No medieval peasant, an 18 to 22yearold medieval peasant, is out there in the field saying i may be on the field now, but one day my kids are going to go to college. You know . Theyre going to become something. Theyre not going to be thinking that. Theyre probably thinking ive got to get the feel done. If i think about anything other than their work, theyre probably thinking about where am i going to go when i die. How do i get right with god . Its a completely different world view. But the idea that now improvement as possible, that one can actually change the world and its gets to your point, caleb by exercising reason, its a new thing. Its not something that has been a defining marker of Human History for tens of thousands and thousands of years. It emerges right in this moment. And again, its a transatlantic idea. So, it emerges from the highlight meant in france and so forth. But in the colonies, this idea of the enlightenment is always connected with this idea of improvement. I want to talk about that here in a second. What i want to do today is i want to introduce some of the central tenants of the enlightenment in america. Then, over the course of the next couple days, will dig even deeper into that. So, out today, i really want to wrestle with this at more of a 30,000 foot level. What is the enlightenment . And what does the indictment look like in america . In the colonies . The british, american colonies. Everybody clear where were headed today . I want to leave you with for essential ideas. Today, about the indictment. The first one weve already kind of covered, but i want to refine it a little bit more. First, the enlightenment is about self improvement. Progress. If you believe and progress, if you believe that you, individually, can improve yourself or that society can progress, youre in the enlightenment camp. Again, think about this in the context of the 18th century, the idea that you can overcome the limits of the world. What are some limits that are placed on peoples lives in the 18th century . Or even in the 17th century . Whats limits people . Well. How does wealth limit you . I would think wealth would allow you to do things other people cant do. Lack of wealth. Lack of wealth, okay. Poverty or not having money, right, could place a limit on you. Certainly, there were many that we call and colonial america the lower sort. Who are limited by lack of money and lack of opportunity as a result of not having money. But other limits are placed on your life . Jackson . The religion that you practice. How does religion serve as a limit . If youre living, say, in puritan new england and you are, say, a catholic, you would have no chance to do anything. Yeah, good luck, yeah. Or Messiah University is a question university, many of you if not all of you are christians. Does your Christian Faith place any limits on your life . If youre going to say im a christian, is that going to place any limits on you . Of course it will, right . Now, you might want to go committed all terry, right . And you can do it youre free to do it but hopefully, as a christian, you might say i dont think thats a good idea because of the scripture, Church Tradition or whatever, it says that thats wrong. What do you mean i cant commit adultery, im free right . Yeah, technically you are going to go to jail for it. But Christiane Eddy has placed a limit on you if you are serious about your faith. Religion becomes a limit. The very notion of the puritan idea of total depravity, the calvinist 80, a is a limit. Because that such here so to pray that you cant rise above that. For calvinists, whats the only way you can improve your life and rise above the limits . [inaudible] yes, but, while youre living. Youre right, nick, dying is but while youre living . Go ahead, andrew. Rescue you from yourself. Saved, if youre christian god to lift you above the second. But only god can do that. You dont have the Human Potential to do that in puritan calvinism, right . Because your whale is broken and sinful that theres nothing you can do apart from god helping you, thats with a puritans believe. The enlightenment will challenge that notion and say that you are sinful nature has not broken you to such an extent that you cant rise above it through exercise of reason, through hard work, through individual effort. Right . This is a new thing. In the history of the world. That we havent seen before, progress. So, an enlightenment must always be understood, when we talk about it in terms of self improvement, must always be understood in the context of what it is challenging. And its challenging and older, christian, protestant and catholic, worldview. Of what its possible for human beings. Now, let me illustrate this one more way. In a christian worldview, say, the middle ages. With the puritans. Where is history moving . Wheres history ultimately going to end, what direction is it going . Where is the ultimate, we use this word t loss, where is the end of christian . Rapture . Lets be more specific, what is it . The return of jesus, the return of god will come and ended all. Thats kind of the christian, what we call, teleology. Thats why its moving. Eastern orthodox, catholic, protestant, they all believe that history is ultimately moving towards god wrapping it up. We call this, theologically, we call it eschatology. The end of times, when god will bring an end to his creation. Right . The indictment has a completely different understanding of Human History and the way history is moving, right . Because if progress is the ultimate goal of Human History, history is ultimately moving towards the overcoming of all limits. Right . If we just apply reason, if we just apply our minds, educate ourselves, learn new things, knowledge, gain new knowledge. In the enlightenment, knowledge is not fixed. See what i mean by fixed olives . If you live in the middle ages, where do you find a knowledge . Bible. The bible, or the church. So, there is only a certain amount of knowledge thats contained in a book or official church teachings. But the indictment suggests that knowledge is progressive, you can always apply reason and come up with new knowledge through experimentation. Through more thinking. Right . So, ultimately, history in an enlightenment perspective is moving towards the overcoming of all limits through the application of reason. This is what we mean by improvement. If you apply yourself and apply your education, your rational ability, you can rise above whatever weakness you have because your poor or because you are born a certain way or so forth. So, in the enlightenment idea, the history kind of has no and ultimately. In its purest form, i should say. Ultimately, were going to reach some sort of utopia where all limits will be overcome. All disease, all unethical things. We will even cheat death. As long as we apply, reason we will find out a way to cheat death. That is a teleology of the enlightenment, that is a way history is moving. When you hear people say you are on the right or wrong side of history, usually what theyre saying is if you dont believe in progress will be on the wrong side of history. Right . We can get into that today, but i dont want to delve we get into that another time, i do want to delve into that. So, the enlightenment is about self improvement. One more point i want to make about this before i go to the next slide. The enlightenment is often described as a very individualistic effort. If you apply reason, you will improve. Right . If you get educated, if you get a degree or study something for a particular time, you will improve your life. You will Gain Knowledge and so forth, and thats true. But one of the things thats really interesting about the enlightenment, we see some of this in europe to, but in america is the enlightenment in america is often cultivated in communities. So, you have, later on well talk about, it next class, well talk about Benjamin Franklins junto. Some of you were at my convocation address that i gave months ago, i talked about the junto, right . This group of ordinary tradesmen. What was Ben Franklins trade . He was a printer, right . You think of Benjamin Franklins seated in Continental Congress but when Benjamin Franklin came home from work every day he had ink all over his hands. Right . He had to clean up. He was a tradesmen, he was a worker. He would gather with a bunch of other artisans like blacksmiths and carpenters and so forth, they met once a week in this club called the junto and it would be described as a club for moral mutual improvement. There is no better enlightenment definitions of that, a clever mutual improvement. They get together and i read a text together and someone would present a paper that they wrote and they debate it and so forth. But you see this over and over again, that the enlightenment is both an individual effort but the enlightenment, improvement, self improvement always comes within some kind of community as well. , so, there is my first premise of the enlightenment. The enlightenment is about self improvement. The second, this ones a little more complex. Enlightened people, people who are enlightened, wee able to employ reason as a necessary check to the individual passions. When you think about check, what do you think about, that word, check . Checks and balances yeah, good, checks and balances. Why do you need checks and balances . Because, if one branch of government, if their passions run wild, they need to be controlled and checked by another branch of government. Right . So, here, were suggesting that reason needs to be checked, or reason needs to check the passions. If you were in college in the 18th century, if you are a student at one of the 18th century colleges, and there werent many, yale or harvard, Kings College which later becomes columbia, the college of philadelphia which later becomes the university of pennsylvania, william mary was around then. And probably missing one or two here, can not remember. In your senior year, you would take a class with the College President , usually a minister. And the class would be titled moral philosophy, which essentially would be ethics. Moral philosophy. And there would be a unit in that class on the discipline of faculty psychology. Faculty psychology. Basically, in that unit, you would study that human faculties. Now, one of the things you would learn about in that class if you are taking it, youre a senior at a college and youre getting educated, so youd be in a very small minority of the population. You would learn that there are two dominant passions, two dominant faculties. Anyone know what they are . Take a guess from looking at the screen. Whatever the two dominant faculties that all humans possess according to this 18th century faculty psychology, dylan . Reason. Reason and passion. You are born with one of these faculties and you have to cultivate the other one. Which one are you born with . Passion think about a baby. A baby doesnt, if a baby has to go to the bathroom or diaper changed or needs food, the baby is not making any rational choice. Like moms busy, now ill come back to her later or something. There is no reason involved, the baby starts to cry because its reasonable faculty has not been cultivated yet. So, what you would learn in this class is that the point of being an educated person its to make sure that you train your rational faculty so that it is Strong Enough to put down, usually theyre described as, the unruly passions. So, in some ways, your reason, your rational faculty, its like a muscle. Think about lifting weights, right . You want to build that muscle and make it stronger and stronger so when passions arise that are going to get you into trouble, unruly passions, you can rationally think this through and temper them. Control them. I often use this illustration, you ever talk to someone that is dating someone or something that they know its just a bad relationship. And theyre like, but i love them, im in love. What do you mean . This is just a terrible relationship for you. If you are thinking clearly, you would know this is a bad, abusive, whatever relationship. But its so, weve been together so long. One is the passions. Your friend is exercising reason and hes telling you to exercise reason, right . That this is bad. If you are an educated person, your rational capacity, your rational faculty, its going to be Strong Enough to suppress as urges. Thats why we need educated people, the Founding Fathers i