The Enlightenment 17th - 18th Century

Annotations:

• Ignorance & Privilege does not equal a government. Ideas, science and reform

1. Absolute Monarch France Pre-1789

   Annotations:

   • Divine Right - Power taken from God
   1. Diderot
      1. 'Encyclopédie'

         Annotations:

         • - Organised all useful human knowledge - Direct challenge to all authority - printed against orders of Church *Enlightenment thinkers thought Church was the ‘guardian of supersistion’
      2. Wanted liberty of all people
   2. Rousseau

      Annotations:

      • - Protestant, Swiss, lower-class - Government & People Considered greatest influence on French Revolution
      1. 'Social Contract' - 1762
      2. Believed that the people were the Sovereign, the Government should take action of behalf of the people and it was the government's role to create society where the people have real liberty and equality (inalienable rights)

         Annotations:

         • ‘A law not ratified by the people is not law al all - All laws must serve man Government = implements general will. IF not, people with overthrow it and appoint a new government
      3. "Man is born free but everywhere he is in fetter [chains]"

         Annotations:

         • - Man cannot be happy in modern society - artificial, corrupt - Nothing natural about man-made institutions - Property - Social Equality - Man oppressed by laws of government - Man’s state under natural law is liberty and and equality - To protect this men going together under a ‘social contract’ and appoint a government to protect them
   3. Montesquieu

      Annotations:

      • Aristocracy
      1. Separation of Powers

         Annotations:

         • Executive (Monarch) - Legislative (Parliament) - Judicial (Magistrates) Checks & balances = Liberty ‘De l’spirit des lois’ - ‘The Spirit of the Laws’ 1748 (end to absolutism, not monarchy)
   4. Voltaire

      Annotations:

      • Bourgeois
      1. Separation of Church and State = Tolerance

         Annotations:

         • - Tolerance - an absolute right but also a duty - Religion for all - Decided by state e.g. Public holidays ‘civil laws’ - Church should be taxed *Society cannot tolerate those who are intolerant
         1. Religious Tolerance
         2. 'Deism'

            Annotations:

            • Natural religion and exercise of reason - ‘natural morality’
2. REVOLUTIONS

   Annotations:

   • All helped create a society where existing structures could be questioned.
   1. French Revolution

      Annotations:

      • Provided a vocabulary of dissent - A third of society literate (clergy, nobles and bourgeois) - Variety of reading matter available - Subscription room, literary societies, academy libraries - Salons of discussion, coffee houses, clubs - Dictionaries and encyclopedias were very popular
      1. Awareness

         Annotations:

         • People were aware of and conscious of the state of the nation, society and the distribution of justice, power etc.
         1. Soboul (Marxist Historian) "Enlightenment strengthened bourgeois consciousness of itself as a class"
      2. Scandal and Pornography

         Annotations:

         • Some suggest citizens preferred works of scandal and pornography and not enlightenment works
   2. American War of Independence
      1. Bill of Rights

         Annotations:

         • - “Inalienable rights” - If government failed, people could remove the government and replace it. - America is perceived as a land of liberty, equality and popular sovereignity.
         1. Declaration of Independence

            Annotations:

            • - Sold and discussed widely in Paris - 8,000 French soldiers served in the American War of Independence - return and advocate the new society, esp. Lafayette