Enlightenment

Seventy-five years before John Stuart Mill published 'On Liberty', Immanuel Kant published 'What is Enlightenment?' It's clear how some of the ideas in that text fed into Mill's treatise.

Kant's text is much shorter - but you'll perhaps be pleased to know that I'm not going to go through it all in the same way. However, the first few paragraphs are worth looking at in detail.

As before, my comments are in italics.

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Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-incurred immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's own understanding without the guidance of another. This immaturity is self-incurred if its cause is not lack of understanding, but lack of resolution and courage to use it without the guidance of another. The motto of enlightenment is therefore: Sapere aude! Have courage to use your own understanding!

You may recall that Susan Neiman uses the term 'growing up' to refer to our moral development. She is a Kantian and her book Moral Clarity is a development of his ideas. With reference to Mill, it is this process of active and reasoned thinking that he advocates. Kant recognised that there are limits to our knowledge and consequently had to rest on a level of 'practical hope' as a foundation to work from. This idea is extended in Neiman's work to the hope for a better, more just society.

Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why such a large proportion of men, even when nature has long emancipated them from alien guidance (naturaliter maiorennes), nevertheless gladly remain immature for life. For the same reasons, it is all too easy for others to set themselves up as their guardians. It is so convenient to be immature! If I have a book to have understanding in place of me, a spiritual adviser to have a conscience for me, a doctor to judge my diet for me, and so on, I need not make any efforts at all. I need not think, so long as I can pay; others will soon enough take the tiresome job over for me. The guardians who have kindly taken upon themselves the work of supervision will soon see to it that by far the largest part of mankind (including the entire fair sex) should consider the step forward to maturity not only as difficult but also as highly dangerous. Having first infatuated their domesticated animals, and carefully prevented the docile creatures from daring to take a single step without the leading-strings to which they are tied, they next show them the danger which threatens them if they try to walk unaided. Now this danger is not in fact so very great, for they would certainly learn to walk eventually after a few falls. But an example of this kind is intimidating, and usually frightens them off from further attempts.

Kant's perspective is somewhat different to Mill's in that Kant is stressing personal, societal and habitual reasons why people do not exercise their rationality and individuality, whereas for Mill the focus is on the freedom to be allowed to do so. It seems to me that Kant is here the more pragmatic as he sees that there are psychological and environmental pressures weighing against the individual's inner freedom. The image of the way in which external powers - religion, education, laws and policy - can encourage the citizen to feel powerless is, I think, insightful.

With respect to women, Mill wrote an essay 'The Subjection of Women' in 1869 (ten years after 'On Liberty') to address the rights of women - the essay was read, criticised and revised by Harriet Taylor, whom some scholars credit with much of its content. A few years before, Walt Whitman's poem 'Song of Myself' in Leaves of Grass has the lines: 'I am the poet of the woman the same as the man, // And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man'. Bear in mind, though, that Mary Wollstonecraft wrote 'A Vindication of the Rights of Women' in 1792. And Aaron Burr, he who shot Alexander Hamilton, tried to introduce a bill for women’s suffrage to the New York State legislature in the 1790s. He had a portrait of Wollstonecraft on his office wall and his daughter Theodosia was among the best educated women of her time.

Thus it is difficult for each separate individual to work his way out of the immaturity which has become almost second nature to him. He has even grown fond of it and is really incapable for the time being of using his own understanding, because he was never allowed to make the attempt. Dogmas and formulas, those mechanical instruments for rational use (or rather misuse) of his natural endowments, are the ball and chain of his permanent immaturity. And if anyone did throw them off, he would still be uncertain about jumping over even the narrowest of trenches, for he would be unaccustomed to free movement of this kind. Thus only a few, by cultivating their own minds, have succeeded in freeing themselves from immaturity and in continuing boldly on their way.

Kant is explaining why, despite the plethora of enlightened ideas, so few are really free. He sees the societal progress toward reason as inevitably gradual. Indeed, he seemed to have doubts about the capacities and qualities of his fellow men and women, wondering whether if we ask our hearts the question ‘Is the human race as a whole likeable or is it an object to be regarded with distaste?’ and answered that we just don’t know. He maintained practical hope, which is necessary to sustain committed action.

There is more chance of an entire public enlightening itself. This is indeed almost inevitable, if only the public concerned is left in freedom. For there will always be a few who think for themselves, even among those appointed as guardians of the common mass. Such guardians, once they have themselves thrown off the yoke of immaturity, will disseminate the spirit of rational respect for personal value and for the duty of all men to think for themselves. The remarkable thing about this is that if the public, which was previously put under this yoke by the guardians, is suitably stirred up by some of the latter who are incapable of enlightenment, it may subsequently compel the guardians themselves to remain under the yoke. For it is very harmful to propagate prejudices, because they finally avenge themselves on the very people who first encouraged them (or whose predecessors did so). Thus a public can only achieve enlightenment slowly. A revolution may well put an end to autocratic despotism and to rapacious or power-seeking oppression, but it will never produce a true reform in ways of thinking. Instead, new prejudices, like the ones they replaced, will serve as a leash to control the great unthinking mass.

This is a dense passage. First he is making the claim that Mill expansively considers in 'On Liberty' - the fundamental requirement for freedom to think and reason and express ideas. Then he draws upon a concern - in the sentence beginning 'The remarkable...'. This seems to ally in my mind with Nietzsche's critique of resentment (look, I know he didn't use the fox story, but head to that post anyway) - that when values are just 'turned upside down' they are not necessarily more rational. Kant fears that the oppressed multitude may rise up and impose upon their former oppressors a like limit to freedom as they currently suffer. Indeed, that often seems to be the problem with revolutions - one authoritarian regime replaced with another. Interestingly, the French Revolution began just three years after this essay was published.

Note the section beginning 'For it is very harmful to propagate prejudices...' Kant's concern could be seen to be a fear of powerful emotional forces instead of reason having political sway. In my investigation of emotions, this is an important area of discussion. In the rise of populism, as we have seen, emotions are a strong factor. I would argue that emotions as cognitive evaluative feelings are dependent on the belief systems of the subject. I don't think that one can alter the emotional reactivity without first having addressed the causes for their appearance. The strengths (in terms of getting followers) of populist parties is that they utilise emotions arising from certain beliefs - fear of other, sense of scarcity, tribalism, convictions about a mythical golden age, selfishness, inequality - which have limited prosocial benefits. What liberals seek to do is change these beliefs with cold rationalism, and thus appear to be distant, chilly, out-of-touch. Thus, changing the face of institutions - to be seen as - and indeed to prove themselves to be - compassionate, trustworthy, honest and transparent, just and fair - has to be the first course of action.

For enlightenment of this kind, all that is needed is freedom. And the freedom in question is the most innocuous form of all--freedom to make public use of one's reason in all matters.

So, here is the launch-pad for 'On Liberty'. Kant goes on to express some limitations - for example, if one is subject to a tax, one must pay the tax, but one can still write a piece for publication stating that one believes that tax to be unjust - he is, after all, a fan of rules. Here he seems to rely on a contextual view. And, indeed, this whole thesis, to me, sits rather uneasily with his idea of Categorical Imperatives. Though he, being one of those exceptional characters who has applied the free use of his reason to ethics, believes that they are entirely rational and that it shows irrationality not to act by them. They are universal and are laws in the same way that e=mc2 is a law. But let's leave that quibble there.

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Now, why did I want to address this? Ah, yes. Individualism. The mantra of the Western World. I can be what I want and have what I want and do what I want. But that interpretation is hardly what was intended. Mill and Kant were concerned about people's right to make up their own minds on what to believe through the use of rational and reasoned arguments, supported by the latest scientific research and political and philosophical thought. Mill does expand his thesis to embrace the right to live according to one's wishes and to be able to buy products without legal restrictions, but in neither writer - at all - is this a case for selfishness. Both, in different ways, stress the duties and obligations the individual has to society and to other people. Individual freedom is sustained in a society where people do consider the greater good and the well-being of others. It is a balancing in favour of the individual, but sufficient weight remains on the other side of the see-saw. A rational, dutiful and prosocial frame of mind will also lead to the individual placing their own constraints on their behaviour – not just to avoid social or legal sanction. This assumes, with practical hope, the benevolence and fellow-feeling of citizens.

Another interesting aspect to this is that often when Westerners talk about East Asia, they talk of collectivism and conformity. But in fact, according to Julian Baggini's fascinating How the World Thinks, which I am listening to for the third time, this is just plain wrong.

He says that in Japan, for example, people do have a strong sense of responsibility to others. They will, for example, make sure they make space for other passengers on a packed train; they will not want to irritate fellow passengers by playing loud music through earbuds; they will be willing to wear facemasks. It's prosocial and relational, rather than collectivistic. In addition, people demonstrate as much, if not more, individuality. Instead of feeling the need to state stridently, 'Look at me! I am different!' they seem to feel free to be themselves while also recognising the needs of others. There is, perhaps, greater harmony - interdependence and interconnectivity as well as individuality.

It is interesting here to consider the inner freedom made explicit in Stoicism and existentialism – one always has a choice how one interprets a situation. A mountain may be an obstacle or an aesthetic delight, habitat for wildlife or a brooding threat. That inner freedom, to think for oneself, is perhaps, ironically, seen more in the cultures that have not so dogmatically embraced the external trappings of individualism.

When I think about the people I know, I struggle to find a truly individual soul - while I do know that all of them feel rather protective of their status as individuals. I wonder in part if what keeps us so similar in values and beliefs is that we have embraced the idea that a good life is a ‘successful’ life and that demands single focus, ambition, achievement, espousing values (and success) that are regarded highly by our society. To think and wonder and experience are rather a waste of time. It’s all about the laser beam rather than the scattergun.

I wonder too if status anxiety and scarcity have added to our fear of admitting any area of dependency and need. We have to ‘stand alone’, be independent. Not of mind, but as social beings. The pressure of that is exhausting. A sad shame. For it is the recognition of one's own vulnerability which allows for genuine compassion for the frail, mortal fallibility that is the true state of every single human on this planet.

You cannot love fully without an interdependency that is aligned with an awareness of individuality and particuliarity. It is the willingness to 'make space' for the other, with all their flaws, which generates love - and, after all, don't we all wish to be loved for our whole, imperfect selves, not just for the aspects of which we are proud? Do we not seek to be able to depend on others at times? For that, we need to allow them too to be dependent on us. Which means admitting where we are weak and not shaming others for their failings. While also, one would hope, in our individual journeys, seeking to shore up those areas of weakness, without beginning to condemn others for flaws we too need to grow out of. Such a project should expand our circles of compassion, not shrink them.

Thus the flame of enlightenment could glow more brightly.