Why the “American Enlightenment” Succeeded, and How it Might Fail

American Greatness ^ | 25 Mar, 2022 | Joanne Mandel

[MtnClimber]

We are equipped with common sense and moral sense just as we are equipped with the senses of taste, smell, sight, hearing, and touch. We are simply made that way.

Who hasn’t noticed that current trends have been leading us away from human happiness? We will be better prepared to make the desperately needed corrections if we recapture the forgotten power of the American idea offered in Robert Curry’s Common Sense Nation. Curry introduces us to the English, French, Scottish, and American Enlightenment. That will equip us to distinguish between the path that leads to ordered liberty and the other path that is now leading us toward chaos.

The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Federalist Papers are American Enlightenment documents. The founders are not only the architects of our system of government, they are the authors of a grand philosophical enterprise: the American experiment. We will be looking at four philosophical currents that helped shape events in the 17th and 18th century and continue to bedevil public policy today: the English, French, Scottish, and American Enlightenments.

John Locke’s contribution to the English Enlightenment marked an historic break with the past. In 1683 he sealed his fate, to be hunted as an enemy of the monarch when he dared to write, “The supreme power in every commonwealth [is] but the joint power of every member of the society.” We may ask, why the outrage? Because, his declaration would transfer the king’s authority to the king’s subjects. His teachings also endorsed the consent of the governed, and granted subjects the right to rebel. Locke’s political theory set Western society’s sights on individual liberty.

[MtnClimber]

[Empire_of_Liberty]

I was just thinking, the other day, that a sense of justice is as real as the sense of sight. Aristotle, apparently, arrived at what he thought were the five senses because he could determine the organs detecting them. Apparently, his sense of balance escaped him.

I believe that we all have a sense of justice, too. People simply lie or make excuses for the outcome they want, at times. Black muggers see little old white ladies “oppressing” them.

[joethedrummer]

All of life is like this..

Whenever something good comes along, there are rats who smell opportunity.

They smile, make nice, tell a few lies, worm their way in.. and then proceed to use the system, whatever it is, against itself - for their own fun and profit.

It’s the way of the world.

Our most perfect form of government is no exception.

[HighSierra5]

Coolidge was Cool.

[coldcash]

Joanne Mandel understands what few politicians understand;
and that includes both Democrats and Republicans.

[Bob434]

[[We are equipped with common sense and moral sense]]

Fake news! Democrats have neither sense

[Bob434]

The problem though with people’s sense of,justice is that it is largely subjective in order to,get the results they want in any given situation in which they seek to justify some action, and people’s sense of,subjective justice is at war with God’s universal moral code written on everyone’s heart

To show,that this universal moral code is written on everyone’s heart, people,who,got,saved out,of,primitive cultures that “allowed anything” confessed,that even though their tribe claimed that they allowed anything, infsct that did not happen as their subjective sense of,justice would,kick,in, andmthey would,lord it over the others for the benefit of,the one doing the loading

Also, those who got,saved stated that while their tribe claimed that th3y “allowed anything”, that they always had a sense that they were violating some outside code (they didn’t realize at the time that it was this universal moral code given by God), and they always felt guilty but didn’t know why. (This,was the holy spirit,leading them to seek Christ even though at the time they didnt know who it was that they didn’t know,,, or what even that they knew they should,seek an answer to the nagging conscience.