Posted on 11/14/2004 9:44:12 AM PST by OESY
...Her book is thus animated by dismay and perplexity over the way the French Enlightenment is seen as the main intellectual event of the 18th century, whereas a parallel and in many respects more successful movement in Britain is routinely relegated to an inferior status. Her heroes, therefore, are not Voltaire, Diderot and Rousseau as much as Adam Smith, David Hume and Edmund Burke.
In a similar spirit, she invokes and concurs with Hannah Arendt's notion that the American revolution, rather than the revolution in France, was the great political watershed of modern times.
For Himmelfarb, the contrast between the Enlightment in the two countries is one between reason — taken, at times, even to the point of irrationality — in France, and moral philosophy in England....
...And though she clearly favors the British over the French, she is too conscientious an historian to whitewash the former or unreservedly to revile the latter. What results is an examination of ideas through the prism of those imperfect human specimens who first conceived them.
As for her general thesis, that England should be seen as the true fountain of the Enlightenment, it really comes down to a question of personal preference. And Himmelfarb's preferences, as she makes little effort to conceal, are closely related to those of contemporary American conservatism and especially neo-conservatism. This comes through not only in her Anglocentrism, but in the intellectual respect that she pays to our founding fathers, especially the authors of the Federalist papers....
[O]ne can assimilate her argument to that coolness toward the French that has taken hold in much of America over the past 18 months. What cannot be questioned, however, is that this sentiment has never been expressed with as much nuance or finesse as you will find in this book.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
It sounds fascinating. I just added it to my Christmas list.
ping for later
The latter, like the American Revolution, advocated true religious liberty. The French philosophes and the French Revolution believed in state regulation of religion and denial of religious freedom to Catholics.
Gertrude Himmelfarb was on the board of First Things, although she unfortunately left during the controversy over judicial tyranny in the Supreme Court. She is a splendid conservative writer and I am sure this book is worth reading.
The basic argument certainly makes sense. The American revolution got it right; the French revolution was a bloody failure, ending with Napoleon and what amounted to the first of Europe's self-destructive modern civil wars.
As the French revolution demonstrated, reason, unless it is anchored in religious belief and traditional morality, is indistinguishable from madness.
Nay, t'was the Scots. Edinburgh was known as the "Paris of the North" in the 18th Century. Thomas Jefferson recommended to his son-in-law, Thomas Mann Randolph, that his time would be better spent in Edinburgh than Paris. History would seem to agree.
If I'm not mistaken, Gertrude Himmelfarb is Bill Kristol's mother.
I agree. I think this notion is what led the Founders to use the expression; "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God..". It was the recognition that where reason and religion intersected the greatest good was to be found. It was the light that shown the way for the Founders to discover that men are equal and rights emanate from the Spirit and not the King. It was the human social equivalent to E=MC2.
It's the foundation of the "Moral Values" that voted last November 2nd.
I thought I had heard the name before, but I couldn't remember where. Thanks for the info.
A fascinating collection of Kristol essays was published several years ago, Neoconservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea.
"As the French revolution demonstrated, reason, unless it is anchored in religious belief and traditional morality, is indistinguishable from madness."
Bingo! Well said Cicero. Just got the book and when I read it I will keep this thought in mind
Excellent!
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