Re: Enlightenment

The counterposing of Enlightenment and "tradition" misses the point.  In
places where the cultural and spiritual ground were not completely 
plowed over by absolutist claims, science, democracy and socialism found
fruitful accomodation that allowed both tradition and modernity to
prosper.  In places where the two confronted each other as opposites, the
results were generally disasterous.  Not coincidentally, the former
generally obtained in the core, while the latter predominated in the
(semi) peripheries, where traditions proved more vulnerable; this is also
why we generally don't speak of an English Enlightenment.  The same is
true, incidentally, of earlier cultural movements like Christianity and
Buddhism - they worked best where they did not aim to eliminate earlier
cultures.

This is why task at hand is to produce order of out chaos, and not to
engage in single-minded iconoclasm in the name of Enlightenment
rationality.  And sorry, to read _Hold the Tiller Firm_ as a manifesto of
unapologetic rationalism is to seriously misinterpret what it's trying to
say.



-- 
Boris Stremlin
bc70219@binghamton.edu