(Grade 11)

Introduction

The Enlightenment is a period that many new and rapid ideas emerged, influencing many countries and people profoundly. It is a kind of ideological emancipation after the Renaissance. A bunch of great figures came to this stage and spread their views and ideas all over the world at this time. Besides, after the Enlightenment, the ideas raised during that time began to be applied and examined by other leaders of their country. In a way, the idea and discussions of the politics at that time had become the underpinnings of a vast change of world order later.

This article is going to talk about new ideas from some great philosophers and evaluate the importance of them. In the following parts, you will also read about the forms of government before and after the Enlightenment.

Before the Enlightenment

In the Pre-Enlightenment, European countries were under the control of kings. At the same time, there was also a special authority power that came from the church. The religion took an important role and would affect the law and rules of a country. This is called the unification of the state and the church. That is, the authority splits into two parts. One is the majesty power comes from the sovereignty, the other is the spiritual power owned by the Church.

In this case, the power of the Catholic Church was dominant in Europe at that moment. However, the conflict between those two powers happened frequently. Sometimes, without spiritual power, the king’s words would become negligible and meaningless. For instance, Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV was excommunicated by the pope. And the pope even instigated a rebellion against Henry. But sometimes the majesty power was so strong that it could control the Church. The game of those two powers was one of the main clues in the history of Europe.

As for majesty power, because of the influence of the Church, absolute monarchy was formed to charge everything. Although the Middle Age had already come to the end since people during the Renaissance broke its social hierarchy and steps piled up by knights through utilizing new technologies and ideas, the kings still had much power from the royalty and religion to declare their divinity transferred by God and orthodoxy to rule the country (i.e. Louis XIV from France). People suffered a lot from the increasing absolute power from the king and feudalism. The stifle of the thought brought from the Church killed many liberal men’s ambitions and dreams. Justifying by the Church, the king’s absolute power became more and more tremendous and unavoidable. Under heavy pressures, people needed emancipation.

During the Enlightenment

Many political achievements were identified during this era. People regard three main revolutions as the climax of the Enlightenment. They were the French Revolution, the American Revolution, and the English Revolution. These revolutions brought people and political philosophy into a new era, a cradle of constitutional democracy. All of this has started from a great philosopher, Thomas Hobbes.

Thomas Hobbes proposed a creative idea, which was opposite the idea of utopianism, to describe the human’s greedy desires and evil human nature for defending the absolute authority from sovereignty. It was called the state of nature. Hobbes wrote, “all men are permitted to have and to do all things in the state of nature.” (Hobbes) This suggests that people’s illegal actions under the law of the country are not illegal any more when there is no law constrain. In his thinking, all the common surroundings, something people take in mind recurrently in the daily life and actions they are accustomed to will be affected, and the life of humans will finally become “solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short.” (Gottlieb) To avoid this happens, he indicated that there must be an absolute authority whom people most admired and bowed to it, controlling the chaotic state of nature and dragging people’s primitive essence back to a world ruled by the law. It is worth mentioning that Hobbes emphasized the absolute power of the sovereignty because any division of the authority will “weaken it, and the monarch would be unable to stave off chaos.” (Gottlieb)

His idea of the state of nature has affected the view of the government profoundly. Although he was defending the rightness of absolute sovereignty, he first identified that the power was based on human’s will without any religious intention. At the same time, dramatically, his idea somehow has inspired more philosophers to come to their own ideas of politics (which will be further discussed later). One scholar once demonstrated that in Hobbes’s idea, “political authority is grounded not in conquest, natural or divinely instituted hierarchy, or in obscure myths and traditions, but rather in the rational consent of the governed.” (Bristow) This is the rudiment of social contract, using a naturalistic approach to answer “how political society ought to be organized” (Bristow) and pushing people’s minds a large step to a new ground.

However, as the need of people, someone began to oppose Hobbes’s idea about the absolute authority. John Locke was one of them. In his famous book The Second Treatise of Government, he wrote “If you think that absolute power purifies men’s blood and corrects the baseness of human nature, read history—of this or any other age—and you’ll be convinced of the contrary.” (Locke) He also argued his point began with the state of nature. From his perspective, people in the situation of the state of nature were equal. No one had more than anyone else. In this case, people could deal with their possession and other stuff personally as long as they did not disobey the natural law, which was an eternal and moral standard under people’s minds. However, it is not confirmed by any authority and had a lack of executive. This enabled the state of nature to become a horror imagination. The harmony of liberty and equality was always ideal. Hence Locke raised a similar idea with Hobbes that there must be an authority to rule the people under the natural law and at the same time, people were satisfied with the one who governed them. Not as Hobbes suggested an absolute authority. Locke was arguing that the authority to rule the people was given by the people. He also indicated that the country could lose some of the authority to have a legislative, creating new laws considering people’s benefits.

Later, another great philosopher, Rousseau, built upon Locke and Hobbes theories about the social contract. He did not agree with what Locke had said. He demonstrated that the country ought not to gain the legislative because he thought the law should be made by the people, not the country itself, “for the sovereign is simply the general will of everyone, in which the state should obey and enforce.” (Bartleby) If the sovereignty could not achieve this, people were reasonable to fling the government and then organize a new one.

From then on, the ideas of equality and power are given by the people were spread widely all over the world. They directly incited many clusters of people. The center of the Enlightenment was in France. But it was the Americans that first applied those political ideas later during the American Revolution.

In the Declaration of independence, Thomas Jefferson, another philosopher, and politician wrote “That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.” (Jefferson) Because of the tough tariffs set by King George, such as the Stamp Act, the Tea Act, and the Sugar Act, people were extremely angry about them. They began to take actions to show their anger and dissatisfaction. There was a group of people called “Sons of Liberty” who did the Boston Tea Party, directly rioting against the British government. At that time, “no taxation without representation” was widely known. People in America had their desire and need for the British government. However, the British government ignored their appeal. Later, an accidental shot in Lexington lit up the American Revolution rapidly. The British government could not balance the will of people and its rule in America. Finally, Americans decided to abolish it. And the US did not use absolute authority. In fact, ten founding fathers made the power of the government into three parts, forming a triangle structure. They are legislative, judicial, and executive.

The American Revolution set a good precedent for French people. Then the French Revolution took place. French people put their king to the guillotine, using a brutal way to end his life.

After the Enlightenment

People from all over the world saw those revolutions happened. The idea of social contract and freedom kept spreading. After the Enlightenment, people from other countries also tried the new concept of politics raised in the Enlightenment. For instance, the Decembrist from Russia. They accepted liberal education in France, considering the problems that Russia had and would like to change them. Although they failed at last because of negligence, the new era after Enlightenment was coming quickly, Communism vs. Capitalism.

Conclusion

The idea of politics during Enlightenment rapidly reformed the government and the concept of politics. The proposal of the social contract enabled people to whether withhold or give the power to the authority which will serve their will. Hobbes, Locke, and Roussel played an important role at that moment on building the whole theory of social contract and later inspired more people from different countries to apply the new idea. The English Revolution, the American Revolution and the French Revolution were marked as the iconic events, releasing people’s locked mind and persuading freedom and liberty. the Enlightenment is the emancipation of people’s mind, also, it is the emancipation of politics under the general people’s will.

Works Cited

Bristow, William. “Enlightenment.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stanford University, 29 Aug. 2017, plato.stanford.edu/entries/enlightenment/#PolThe.

Gottlieb, Anthony. The Dream of Enlightenment: the Rise of Modern Philosophy. Penguin Random House, 2017.

Garvey, James, and Jeremy Stangroom. The Story of Philosophy. Quercus, 2012.

HOBBES, THOMAS. LEVIATHAN. ANCIENT WISDOM PUBLICATIO, 2019.

Locke, John, and Thomas Preston Peardon. The Second Treatise of Government. Prentice Hall, 1997.

“John Locke vs Jean-Jacques Rousseau.” Bartleby, www.bartleby.com/essay/John-Locke-vs-Jean-Jacques-Rousseau-PKS5GNLK6YZA.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Text of the Declaration of Independence.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 21 Mar. 2020, www.britannica.com/topic/Declaration-of-Independence/Text-of-the-Declaration-of-Independence.