Even this weekend I brought up the argument that certainly the Netherlands are in a desperate need of re-learning the lessons of Erasmus, Voltaire and even Alexis de Tockqueville. (I dubbed it "Ontlichting" in Dutch, which would become Unlightenment in English...)
I can't grasp exactly by what you mean with the "Enlightenment project" but I've an inkling there's a lot of common ground here. This is a subject for a different diary, of course, but you did pick my interest.
..and maye one day everybody would see enlightenment as anthropologists do.. as a wonderful spark in our cultural history...a brilliant generation of myths and narratives that transformed our humanity for ever...as only the myths can do...as only the genius can do...for a brief period of time....for a brief period of time.. west culture was worthy...
If only....if only...but we are a minority now, Nomad.. a minority
A pleasure I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude
I can't help but wonder: in his own days, Voltaire and those who read and agreed with him were similarly a minority compared to the rest of the population. Set in the aristocratic power structure, the well-read and thinkers formed the elite that also had the largest leverage on power.
Today, the difference is that education is relatively accessible for more people and the decision making is in the hands of a significant larger amount of people. Yet those capable to learn about Voltaire (and others) don't do so in detail, except those who do so voluntarily or the (real) minority who study him.
People who learn about Voltaire - and I sound perfectly snobbish saying this - and those capable to understand Voltaire will remain a minority for a long, long time, if not always. The trouble of today is that Voltaire and other free-thinkers no longer reaches that minority where it seems to really matter.
