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HIST 211 L1 France, 1763 Pt. 1 of 2 (Summer 2026) — Transcript

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0:07Okay. Hello everybody. My name is Dr.
0:09Joseph Pearson. I am recording the first
0:12lecture for our history 313 213 French
0:16Revolution class. If you have any
0:18problems with this, please let me know.
0:21Of course, check it before I post it.
0:22I'm going to try to share with YouTube.
0:25it told me that was the best way to um
0:28ensure high quality that everybody can
0:29get access to. All right, so I want to
0:31thank y'all for taking this class. I
0:33appreciate you. It's really exciting. Um
0:36haven't quite recorded a lecture this
0:38way before, so we'll see how it works
0:40out for us. It'll be posted. I'll have
0:43PDFs for you and anything you need to
0:45kind of know moving ahead.
0:48Um,
0:52okay. So, every history class should
0:55start with the basic question of why
0:57should anyone care, right?
1:01Who cares?
1:03Um, the American Revolution that comes
1:05before it, as I tell you here on the
1:07slide, absolutely creates the modern
1:10language of politics, culture, human
1:13rights. The basic way we understand the
1:17world right is a radical political
1:19expression really dating back to the
1:21Bible and um the biatitudes of
1:24individual dignity which gets
1:25supercharged right it begins in one
1:28sense with the American revolution but
1:30is supercharged with the French
1:31revolution.
1:33Okay. So we get a language of human
1:35rights and the idea that universal
1:38suffrage matters that everyone should
1:39have a say in their government right and
1:42that religion firmly falls under the
1:45purview right of
1:48the state really until the French
1:51Revolution it was French absolutism
1:52right the church was almost cerminous
1:56really until the end of Luther's
1:58reformation in terms of loyalty respect
2:00power in what we call the secular world.
2:03The French Revolution decisively placed
2:06the power of the state ideally governed
2:09by the people um
2:12supreme. So for instance, I'm recording
2:15this lecture right now from Kentucky. KY
2:18is a state in the United States of
2:20America. Every American citizen enjoys
2:22freedom of religion to go to church or
2:24not go to church. But how is that right
2:27guaranteed? It's guaranteed by the
2:30protection of the state.
2:32Now, not everything about the French
2:34Revolution is good in a sense. It's not
2:37all positive, happy, um, hurray tale.
2:41There is, it shows us lessons of
2:43extremism, lessons of what happens when
2:45populism goes badly and what happens
2:48when legitimate grievance bleeds over
2:50into um, violence.
2:55My water.
3:00So, let's begin.
3:04The French Revolution's fairly famous,
3:07right? You can see it here. There's the
3:10famous three estates, the clergy, the
3:12nobles, dumping taxes, the big boulder
3:15here, the rock in the middle of the
3:16screen. On the third estate, supposedly
3:18the peasants. A little more complicated
3:20than that. You have the trickular flag,
3:22thericolor flag, not just a Coldplay
3:25album, but the symbol of the revolution,
3:27right? um blending the white colors of
3:30royalty with the blue and the red for
3:32the other estates. Um and then the fall
3:35of the vestile down on the left famous
3:38kind of an interesting story there.
3:39We'll get to that. Um fall royalist
3:42prison. It kind of happened organically
3:45but it became a symbol for something
3:47else. And then over on the right of
3:49course the shadow of violence that is
3:51the guillotine supposedly rational way
3:54to end someone's life.
3:56Now, some reminders.
3:58You have some reading due. I assign
4:01William Doyle's The French Revolution. A
4:02very short introduction, right? You want
4:05to get that reading turned in by July
4:0612th. I don't have anything due over the
4:09Fourth of July weekend. This is the
4:10250th anniversary of the founding United
4:13States. So, I feel it'd be kind of
4:15ludicrous and a little
4:17um I don't know, a fairly patriotic guy
4:20with a few qualifiers
4:22in terms of how we got here. Anyway, we
4:25won't have anything to do over the 4th,
4:27but on the 12th, it is stacked a little
4:29bit. So, please read the French
4:31Revolution, uh, the assigned chapter
4:33there. It's fairly short and easy to
4:34understand as you see in the title. And
4:37then the assigned reading from Alexa
4:38Detoville's these regime and the
4:40revolution where he more or less argues
4:42the revolution was already happening.
4:45Um, you have problems with either one of
4:47those, let me know. We'll try to move
4:49ahead and help you out as best we can.
4:53Also, and I posted a screenshot of the
4:58um Amazon Prime portal. You can rent the
5:01French Revolution for about three bucks.
5:04I as of it's I'm recording this on June
5:073rd. So, I'll go back and check it out
5:09before I post this for y'all to check
5:11out our class. Obviously, this summer,
5:13too. Um I haven't watched this yet, but
5:15I probably will next week. So, I always
5:17will give you take my notes on that. The
5:19thing I did circle is it is long. It is
5:21like Avengers level long and maybe not
5:24quite as gripping, although it's fairly
5:26interesting in terms of how it goes.
5:28There are several of these films and
5:30documentaries peppered across the um the
5:33semester, right? The 8week term. So, you
5:36want to understand that. But what the
5:38reason I'm posting that is I ask
5:40students to take notes on these things.
5:42It's not something you can do late at
5:44night on Sunday. Everything's usually
5:46due on Sunday night at 11:59. So you
5:49want to leave yourself some time to
5:50watch that. It's 2 hours and 45 minutes
5:53long.
5:55Clear everybody good? If not, remember
5:57it's a video. One good thing about that.
5:59It's a little bit better than a class.
6:02So the downside of the digital class,
6:04you can't really raise your hand, but
6:06you can pause this and write down any
6:07questions you have. And feel free to
6:08email me. I try to write students back
6:11within a few hours. Although I have to
6:12go to bed around 900, 9:30, watch shows
6:15with my wife, but I will write you if
6:16you don't hear back from me within 24
6:18hours. I didn't see it. Write me again.
6:20So, if I'm talking too fast, if any of
6:23this doesn't seem clear, um, pause the
6:26video, write it down. I'm asking you to
6:28take notes on what I'm saying so you
6:29have that and you'll be given credit for
6:32your notes.
6:34Okay. The French Revolution.
6:37Now I argue to understand the French
6:39revolution you have to go back further
6:40in time because it makes sense to
6:42understand the French situation and
6:45compare it with the English where
6:46becomes the Anglo-American tradition. Um
6:49there is a reason the English or the and
6:52the Americans or even the American
6:53Revolution did not go the same kind of
6:55way um and context as part of that right
6:58as the French Revolution, right? America
7:01grew out of English roots. France of
7:04course did not. Um
7:08the French Revolution we know was
7:10explosive but it was the result of an
7:12old society trying to survive in a new
7:14intellectual, social and political
7:16world. A world created in one sense by
7:18the possibilities of the American
7:20Revolution. Now the roots were not only
7:23economic hardship nor stupid or bad
7:25incompetent kings. They do matter. But
7:28underneath them were deeper questions
7:29about who has the right to rule. Who
7:31gets to define truth? Are people born
7:34into fixed ranks? Are they just
7:35naturally equal? Should society be
7:38organized around tradition, around God,
7:41around monarchy, around ranks or
7:43hierarchy? Or should it be organized
7:46around rights and reason, representation
7:50and some kind of shared citizenship
7:51which nobody in the 1780s knew how to
7:53define. We still struggle with that.
7:56That is what are rights reason. What
7:57does that all mean? What ambitions or
8:00what happens when a rising educated
8:02middle class the bushi has money,
8:05talent, time and ambition but not
8:08political power? That's going to be a
8:11pretty
8:13formidable
8:15um
8:16kind of political alchemy, right? Which
8:19will play itself out as we move ahead.
8:23Okay,
8:25so we're going back in time. I like the
8:27hot tub time machine. You may not. Oh,
8:29spoiler war. My dad, so I'll drop all
8:31sorts of dad jokes probably. No, I'm not
8:33here to happen to my dad. Um so today
8:35we're going to look at Right. There we
8:36are in our hot tub time machine. Um,
8:39back to Magna Carta. Don't worry about
8:41the Wars of the Roses. It's an old
8:42slide, but we will talk about Magna
8:44Carta, the Reformation era, and the
8:46American Revolution in brief to give you
8:48context to understand where the French
8:50Revolution comes from. So, we're going
8:52back to Magna Carta here. Right.
8:58We have There we go.
9:00Put Magna Carta on the slides. Let me go
9:02back. Okay. Magna Carta. Why do we care?
9:05Magna Carta is the great charter. That's
9:06what it means in Latin. It does not
9:09create democracy, right? But what it
9:11does is establish a um a key principle.
9:14Now, England matters for us because it
9:16offers a powerful alternative, a
9:17historical cont contextual example to
9:20what the French absolutist became,
9:22right? The sun king, I am the state. The
9:26French kind of went that way and the
9:28English went a different way and
9:29eventually their children, political
9:31children, the Americans um kind of
9:33echoed that. While France becomes a
9:35model of centralized royal power under
9:36Louis the 14th um England gradually
9:39develops the idea that monarchy should
9:41be limited by law. So if you're Magna
9:44Carta right in your notes what what is
9:46the key thing we want to understand
9:47there monarchy should be limited by law.
9:53Magna Carta does not create democracy.
9:55Nobody in 1215 would have they would
9:57have thought that idea is insane. What
9:58it does however do is establish the key
10:01principle that kings are subject to
10:03their own law. That there's one thing
10:05above a king is law. At first this idea
10:08is about some baronss, right? It
10:10protects nobles from royal abuse. Not
10:12ordinary people. Nobody cared about them
10:14in 1215. But over time it became part of
10:17the broader English legal tradition to
10:19put limits on monarchy. Right? It also
10:22established the principle of parliament
10:24that parliament matters. The
10:25representative assembly and again
10:26initially it's just a collection of
10:28nobles.
10:32Parliament develops as an institution
10:34through which when the king wants money,
10:36he likes to go to war. War is expensive.
10:38Wars is how kings will earn glory and
10:40land. You need money to do it. To get
10:42money, you have to tax people. And the
10:45English tradition to tax people require
10:46their consent. Um so the basic idea is
10:50this. If the king wants money, he's
10:52going to have to bargain,
10:54right? Who's he going to bargain with?
10:56His nobles or parliament? Eventually,
10:58the bajgeoa, the merchants. Um, this is
11:01very different from France when the
11:03kings tried to tax through centralized
11:05royal authority. They just imposed
11:07almost like a tribute, which will
11:10basically blow up by the 1770s.
11:14Are you tracking? All right. So, here we
11:17go. There's a magna card on the slide,
11:20right? It's checking the power of the
11:22king. This has a long history in
11:23Anglo-American tradition, right? English
11:25American tradition versus in England
11:27than in the United States and right the
11:29French Revolution inspired certainly by
11:31the philosophes
11:33of the American Revolution
11:36um in the wars of the roses right and
11:39later in the English civil war of the
11:41164 the wars of the roses are a battle
11:43between two rival branches of untaginate
11:45family power the throne only reason we
11:48care about that is it lowers the degree
11:50of monarchy how respected it is in the
11:52English mind elevates parliament
11:56Now the English civil war in the 1640s
11:59right was a battle between the stewards
12:01led by of course King Charles I and
12:03Parliament. Why we care is that it
12:05raised central political questions of
12:07the modern age which is what does
12:10sovereignty belong to the king and the
12:13king alone? Or is the king accountable
12:16to his people and to their
12:18representatives? That's going to be
12:20something the French work out in a quite
12:21bloody fashion. Right. Charles I
12:24believed strongly in royal power.
12:26Parliament disagreed. So the civil war
12:28ended with Charles being beheaded and ex
12:30executed in by beheading in 1649.
12:34This of course shocked Europe. The idea
12:35that a king could be executed. Why do we
12:38care? It shows that kings could be
12:41judged by their people. It challenges
12:43the divine right to monarchy. Right? And
12:45it forced all of Europe to think
12:47seriously about constitutional limits.
12:50And many countries did except the
12:51French, right? So, we track him. If you
12:55need to pause this, feel free. Hoping
12:57the recording works out. I recorded this
12:58already last week or two weeks ago, and
13:00it didn't really work for me. So, here's
13:02hoping. Right now, moving down, you see
13:05the tutors there and tutor absolutism.
13:08The tutors wanted to grab as much power
13:10as possible.
13:12Um and what Henry did was probably one
13:15reason ma this matters for our story is
13:18one way he grabbed power was to take
13:21England out of the church of Rome that
13:23would no longer be Catholic. He kind of
13:25embraced different kinds of religious
13:27strains over the course of his life to
13:28secure donastic stability. He wanted his
13:30son. That's the little dude at the top
13:32there. You also see so there's Henry in
13:35his big robe, his son Edward right there
13:38the sixth and there is um his daughter
13:41Mary Tutor who was a Spanish Spanish
13:44descent who bring what happens is
13:46England moves back and forth between um
13:49loyalty to Rome Roman church Catholic
13:52church and to some various Protestant
13:55examples. Eventually under Elizabeth,
13:56Elizabeth the first, the English will
13:58settle on Anglicanism, which is kind of
14:01respect to Father Cory other side of
14:03campus kind of like a um diet coke or
14:07diet Dr. Pepper Catholicism. It still
14:10has a liturgy but kind of rejects the
14:12pope.
14:13Um so moving down to 1689, right? In the
14:18Glorious Revolution, the Parliament of
14:21England kicks out Charles the first son,
14:24James II, right, and replaces him with
14:28William and Mary, who the college over
14:29in Virginia is named for, but only under
14:32conditions set by Parliament. What we
14:34get then in 1689 is the English Bill of
14:36Rights, which limits royal power and
14:38strengthens Parliament. Key principles
14:40there. The monarch could not suspend
14:42laws without asking parliament. The
14:44monarch could not tax the people without
14:46parliament.
14:47Parliament had to be called regularly,
14:50right? And subjects had certain legal
14:53legal protections protected by law,
14:55right? So England, if we want to look at
14:57the bigger picture, have become a model
14:59of constitutional monarchy. Monarchy
15:01limited by law, by custom, and by
15:04representative institutions.
15:06Why should you care? Because English
15:09constitutional monarchy becomes a
15:11political model for enlightenment
15:12thinkers who will directly influence the
15:14French Revolution. Philosoph like Monscu
15:17admired England because it seemed to
15:18balance monarchy person of the king
15:21aristocracy
15:22in the nobles right and popular
15:24representation of democracy in the
15:26people of the commons for French critics
15:28of absolutism England then proves a
15:30powerful example that you didn't
15:33necessarily have to have a monarch to be
15:36a rich and powerful state because the
15:37English by the 1780s certainly are
15:41the tracking we're good
15:46So what do we have in France? None of
15:49this, right? None of this. Um, in fact,
15:53the estates general, the collection of
15:55the three representatives of three
15:57different French social estates, right?
15:58Nobles,
16:00clergy, and the peasants or commoners
16:02doesn't meet for almost 200 years on the
16:06eve of the French Revolution. It's like
16:08175 years. That's a long time. That's
16:10like Congress not getting together in
16:12America for almost 200 years and just
16:14letting the president do whatever he
16:16wants.
16:17That should sound shocking to you. So in
16:20the French context you see here um there
16:23is no history of constitutional
16:25development, no checking of royal power.
16:28The legislature more or less rubber
16:29stamps whenever it gets together. They
16:30don't really have a legislature in
16:32France in the 1780s
16:37or advisory councils to royal power.
16:40dictated by the king.
16:44Everybody good to go? I hope so.
16:48So, let's talk the reformation. All
16:50right, your mind. We've just done a kind
16:52of overview of English history more or
16:54less from 1215 with Magna Carta through
16:58the wars of religion with the tutors,
17:00right? We're about to talk Luther here
17:01in a second to 1689, the eve and dawning
17:04of the 18th century, which of course
17:06will culminate for England in the
17:08American Revolution and the loss of her
17:1013 mainland colonies which become the
17:12United States 250 years ago about a
17:15month from now. Okay. The other kind of
17:18background we want to have is the
17:20reformation to challenge a German monk,
17:23former Augustinian monk and priest uh
17:25Martin Luther raised to the church of
17:28Rome, the Roman Catholic Church. You can
17:31kind of see there's Rome in the
17:32background down at the bottom. And
17:34there's an artist rendering of Luther
17:36nailing his 95 arguments or thesis to
17:38the Vittenberg church in Halloween.
17:42Um, see, I believe I have this in the
17:44slides for y'all.
17:47See, there we go. Why should we care?
17:52Right. The reformation is important
17:54because it shatters religious unity.
17:55This is another thing that'll open up
17:57the possibility of the individual,
17:59right?
18:01All across Western Europe
18:04before the reformation. Let me see.
18:09Bring that back in a sec.
18:11Just pause this as you need to to write
18:13things down. Don't you don't have to
18:15take down everything for credit but get
18:16the main stuff. So before the
18:18reformation the Roman Catholic Church
18:19was not just a religious institution. It
18:22was also a source in the west of
18:23knowledge.
18:25People learn from the church education.
18:28The church founded many many schools.
18:29Most of the oldest colleges in the west
18:31or the world were founded by um Catholic
18:34monks and priests. Um it was a source of
18:38morality of political legitimacy. You
18:41could not claim power without the
18:42support of the church. social order. It
18:44ordered life, right? And cultural
18:46meaning. People derive meaning through
18:50their church. Many people still do, just
18:52maybe not the Catholic church. So when
18:54Luther and other reformers challenged
18:56Rome, they did not just start a bunch of
18:59new churches, which ironically is not
19:00what he wanted to do. Luther just wanted
19:02to reform the church Catholic, small C,
19:05um the church global. Everybody would be
19:07Lutheran in his idea. All right. They
19:10also weaken the idea that one universal
19:12authority, religious or any other,
19:15right, could define truth for everyone.
19:17Um, so what does reformation do? It
19:19creates a Europe in which authority
19:21itself
19:23is contested, right? So you can kind of
19:26see on the slide there, the bonds
19:28between the church and state start to
19:29weaken, separate. At first, rulers
19:32decided religious matters themselves.
19:34Whatever the king was or the prince is
19:36what you were, that was it. famously in
19:40I believe it's one of the Scandinavian
19:41countries, the king told the people,
19:43"Look, we're not Catholic anymore. We're
19:45Lutheran, but church service didn't
19:46really change, so they didn't care." Um,
19:49what this also inaugurates then is the
19:52wars of religion, right? The 30 years
19:54war, cataclysmic conflict. Most
19:57textbooks kind of deal with if you take
20:00a big survey class at the University of
20:02Tennessee or Kentucky. I took one when I
20:03was up at UK. It goes right from 1608
20:06more or less to 1648
20:11or 1618. Do my math right to 1648. And
20:14it's this division, this battle between
20:17central kind of Catholic countries. You
20:19have northern Europe. I'll show you on
20:21the slide in a second. Protestant
20:22nations battling it out with southern
20:24nations. So we've got this
20:26constitutional kind of context right
20:28from England, the Anglo-American
20:29tradition. We're still in a French
20:31Revolution class, so you're tracking.
20:34We've also got religious division.
20:36Again, this is cracking authority,
20:38opening up the possibility of critique.
20:46Now, again, why should we care? So, the
20:49divide between Catholic and Protestant
20:51wasn't just um political or even
20:54religious, it was also geographic. Kind
20:57of see on the slide there, right? North
20:59versus south and east versus west.
21:01basically northern Europe,
21:05north and kind of east, um Europe is far
21:08more Protestant, but even the
21:09Protestants themselves are not united.
21:11They still aren't. Now, if you go
21:13southern and western, right, south of
21:15the Alps towards France, um the Iberian
21:19Peninsula with Spain and Portugal or um
21:22Italy,
21:24it's Catholic, right? We see entrenched
21:27divisions, right, between all these
21:29different groups.
21:32So the reformation then as I just told
21:34you creates a Europe in which authority
21:36itself excuse me is contested.
21:39We have questions on that. So what have
21:41we said so far? Right? Talked about how
21:43the French Revolution matters. It
21:45creates this language of rights and
21:47personal individual dignity. It also
21:49enthrones the state above everything
21:51else as long as it's collected by its
21:53people theory. Right?
21:56Then we talked about some of the
21:57divisions in England and then the
21:59reformation.
22:00challenging religious authority right
22:03all over.
22:05For their part, the French land on a
22:07fairly staunch Catholicism which will be
22:09absolutely get destroyed but broken
22:13during the reformation or um the French
22:15Revolution.
22:17Okay. So if we're going to understand
22:20any of these revolutions, if you're
22:21taking a class on the American
22:22Revolution or if you were taking a class
22:25on you are taking a class on France, you
22:27got to understand the enlightenment,
22:29which of course is a bit of branding.
22:33Other things on
22:36the Reformation, right? It contributes
22:38to several long-term changes that matter
22:40for us. We're looking at the
22:41reformation, why it matters for the
22:43French. The challenges religious
22:45authority, right? Luther's challenge to
22:47Catholicism raised certain questions on
22:49what ground did the highest authority
22:51rest. It also indivi um emphasized
22:54individual conscience. It encouraged
22:57literacy and print culture. Everybody's
22:58got to have a Bible.
23:00The reformation spread primarily through
23:02pamphlets, sermons, u translations of
23:05the Bible and vernacular and polyical
23:07writings. That is kind of almost tweets
23:10of their time trying to convince you of
23:12something or make someone else look bad.
23:14This helped build a culture of public
23:16debate, right? So give us the
23:18enlightenment just to submit which would
23:20use similar tools, books, pamphlets,
23:23newspapers, um salons, not getting your
23:25hair done, but places to talk,
23:27encyclopedias, coffee houses, bars,
23:29pubs, the street, anywhere could be a
23:31place of debate.
23:35All this matters because by the 18th
23:36century, France had a powerful monarchy,
23:39but it also had an increasingly
23:41um
23:43vocal
23:44populace used to a culture of criticism.
23:49It's going to get even more.
23:52All right.
23:53So, the Enlightenment, what is the
23:55Enlightenment? The Enlightenment was a
23:56major intellectual um
24:00flowering, I guess, is the best way to
24:02say it. The term is 19th century
24:05branding kind of throwing shade at the
24:07middle ages, right? The so-called dark
24:09ages. It's a age of age of light. The
24:11light of what? The light of reason.
24:16The enlightenment does not cause the
24:17French Revolution by itself. hunger,
24:20debt, taxation, a stupid taxation, war,
24:25class conflict, political failure, um
24:27the incompetence and stupidity of the
24:29monarch. All these sorts of things
24:31together at a certain time and place
24:32make that possible. But what the
24:34enlightenment does do is give people a
24:36new language for criticizing the old
24:37order.
24:40Right?
24:42That language includes notions of
24:45reason, nature, rights, liberty,
24:48equality, progress, toleration, public
24:51opinion, censorship, constitutionalism,
24:55and something called the social
24:56contract. What do we owe one another by
24:59living together in society?
25:01Right? more conservative small C thing
25:04coming out of the age of monarchy and
25:06the church would be something far more
25:07organic that you have debts that you owe
25:09to your ancestors
25:12history is built over time and those
25:14bonds are forged and we have certain
25:16obligations we have to honor it's a
25:18conservative understanding a more
25:20liberal right the lightman gives us
25:22these terms too conservative and liberal
25:25would say no the earth belongs to the
25:28living
25:30so why does all that matter and Again,
25:32pause this as you need to. Um,
25:34revolutions require more than suffering
25:36to work. People can suffer for centuries
25:38and many did without revoling. They
25:40just, right? A revolution requires
25:42people to believe certain things, right?
25:46Um, the existing order they have to
25:48believe is not natural, not inevitable,
25:50and not legitimate. The enlightenment
25:53helped people imagine society be could
25:55be uh could be redesigned.
25:58All this requires a massive mental
26:00shift. Right? The old assumption society
26:02is inherited from God from tradition
26:05protected by monarchy established by
26:07custom. In the new tradition, society is
26:11made by human beings and therefore can
26:13be improved and changed by human beings.
26:16Does that make sense? I hope so.
26:21There's some notes over here, right? Use
26:24those as you wish. Now, the heart of the
26:26enlightenment was a linked activity. And
26:28people don't think about the Scottish
26:29Enlightenment. It's really fascinating.
26:32Some pretty cool books on this. But were
26:33the so-called philosophers, right? Um,
26:36basically public intellectuals.
26:39They were critics, writers,
26:41intellectuals, and reformers,
26:44not really public thinkers. They wrote
26:46for educated readers and wanted to shape
26:48public opinion.
26:53Right? You can see it over here. So,
26:54just pause if you need to to take some
26:56of that down. I have a few examples for
26:59y'all. Let me see.
27:02Um, the energy unleash right expressed
27:04not only the intellectual format but it
27:07was on both sides of the water America
27:09and France.
27:14So the whole point here is that progress
27:18is the point movement is the point.
27:20Change is the point. Enlightenment
27:23thinkers want to convince people, and
27:26that's what they're very interested in
27:27is convincing people, making things
27:29happen. Um,
27:31that change is possible. Not only
27:33possible, required, demanded that
27:36history demands it of you. I give a few
27:39thinkers here. Here we go. Um, see,
27:46I didn't put those down. That's okay.
27:49I'll just listen for y'all here. um how
27:53does history work right so a few
27:54thinkers is maybe later in this
27:56presentation I don't want to go
27:57scumbling through because that's kind of
27:59disconcerning people like Voltater who
28:02argue religious toleration criticism of
28:04the church and evil um civil liberties
28:06matter there's monscu who argue for the
28:09separation of powers constitutional
28:11government and that despotism should be
28:13resisted there's Jean Shakuso
28:16right he argues for popular sovereignty
28:19power of the general will inequality is
28:22a thing and a bad thing he would say and
28:24a critique of corruption and luxury.
28:26There's kind of a class critique built
28:28into that. There's Ditto. He was the
28:31editor of the encyclopedia, the idea
28:33that there should be just knowledge
28:34available
28:36kind of a way precursor Wikipedia. He
28:40championed secular knowledge and he
28:42hated inherited authority. Um, Bari is
28:46another one who argued for legal reform,
28:48the opposition to public or any kind of
28:50torture and cruel and unusual
28:52punishments which of course find their
28:53way into the American Constitution. Adam
28:55Smith, right, the Scottish thinker
28:57arguing for free markets, moral
28:59philosophy and a commercial society that
29:02you can participate in to your benefit
29:04of ruin, not controlled by certain
29:06groups like kings or monarchs.
29:09Uh there's also Mary Wilstonecraft,
29:11right, who championed uh women's
29:13education and the rights of women at a
29:15time when that was not even heard of.
29:18She certainly did.
29:21We haven't talked too fast again. You
29:22can just pause this as you need. Right?
29:25So the enlightenment drawing from
29:28ancient roots, you can go back to Plato
29:30and Socrates for this and the Greek
29:31philosophers
29:331500 years, you know, in the past 2,000
29:35years earlier would talk about
29:38three classical ideas.
29:41There is the good, the beautiful, and
29:43the true, right? The true is what you
29:45know and how you can know it. How do we
29:47know something's true? Is it just true
29:50for everyone like the sun coming up or
29:53is it subjectively true for you? Um,
29:56enlightenment thinkers are going to tend
29:59to lean hard into subjective truth.
30:03There's also the good, which plays
30:05itself out in politics and morality.
30:08Um, how should we live together was the
30:11fundamental question of of the good?
30:13What is the good? How should we live
30:14together? Right? And the beautiful
30:18primarily played out in art and culture.
30:20What should we admire? What should we
30:22create? What should we value? What
30:24should we not? If you define for any
30:28society, the true, the good, and the
30:30beautiful, the good, the beautiful, and
30:31the true, you can understand how they
30:33understand themselves. One way to get at
30:36the current political debates, right, is
30:39many Americans or people across the
30:40Western world do not agree on these
30:42things anymore. They don't agree on what
30:44truth is. They don't agree on what the
30:46good should be, how we should live
30:47together. And they do not agree on what
30:49is beautiful, worthy of praise.
30:55So I like to do before and afters. I
30:57think those kind of comparisons are
30:59really, really useful. Right? Europe,
31:02Western Europe anyway. And the east is
31:04dominated by um
31:07the Orthodox religion or tradition. Um
31:10that's another liturggical form of
31:11Christianity and Islam. Right? But in
31:15the west, we see before Europe a
31:17comprehensive more or less scripturally
31:19based on either Islamic or
31:21Judeo-Christian traditions view reality,
31:23right? Which has what? A transcendent
31:26deity. Someone above everybody else,
31:29right?
31:31the God that's above everything that
31:32makes everything work and all of society
31:35kind of plays out under this God after
31:37the enlightenment. Right. All we got is
31:40what we see.
31:42An inherent skepticism, not quite an
31:44atheism exactly, although some would
31:46claim it. More of an agnosticism, a deep
31:48uncertainty and doubt and that sort of
31:51twin. There's the possibility and the
31:52peril of it. Right. So the possibility
31:55is that anything's possible. Your life
31:57is your own. Do what you want.
32:00peril or scariness of that is your life
32:02is your own. There's nothing else. This
32:04is all.
32:06So world without faith certainly leaves
32:07it all up to you. But I guess the
32:09downside or upside if you're talking to
32:11the philosoph would be everything's up
32:13to you.
32:16By tracking we feeling pretty good
32:22a little bit more. Then I'm going to
32:24stop this and see if it works and I can
32:26just post a couple videos there to see.
32:29Okay,
32:30let's see.
32:33So, you can kind of see where the
32:34reformation fits in there. So, what's
32:36some of the consequences of this? God,
32:40existence, reality. The term God itself
32:42is almost it's almost benign, right? We
32:45could say like from the MCU, Thor is a
32:47god. He's kind of like a superhuman.
32:49It's really not what the word god meant
32:51or even means if you're looking at it
32:53from a scriptural standpoint. God is
32:56existence, right? the Judeo-Christian
32:58version, I would even argue this Islam,
33:01the Muslim version of God. When God says
33:04to Moses, I am, what he's saying is, I
33:06exist. I am the thing that doesn't
33:08require anything else to exist. I am
33:11existence itself.
33:14That's what Yahweh means, the sacred
33:16name. I am I exist. Existence. God is
33:20God. And underneath him, everything
33:23else, the pronoun there is just about
33:24power, not gender. um exists. That's it.
33:29He's a transcendent other that created
33:31everything. It all exists with, through,
33:33and for him, right? He's only known
33:36through his effects or through
33:38analogies. You can't really approach
33:40God.
33:41After the enlightenment,
33:43God is pulled down.
33:46Even for the most fervent and faithful,
33:48the faith in God intends to be
33:49subjective even if it's shared in a
33:52communal experience because society as a
33:54whole does not necessarily reflect those
33:57views or values. So God becomes
34:01just a characteristic just someone else
34:04someone along the way.
34:07You go to deism, doubt, atheism,
34:09agnosticism, take God or leave God
34:12doesn't matter. Before you could not,
34:14you had to reckon with God. After the
34:16Reformation, you could or you could. And
34:19that's probably true for you now. Some
34:21of you watching this are people of deep
34:23faith. And some of you are kind of
34:25somewhere in the middle. And some of you
34:26don't care about God. That is a
34:28consequence of the enlightenment and the
34:31French Revolution that followed.
34:34So what are some other
34:39knowledge itself becomes secularized,
34:41right?
34:44God was at the center of the European
34:46worldview. How we understand things,
34:49right? Um had to be filtered through an
34:52understanding of God. U
34:56secularism doesn't mean everyone's an
34:58atheist. Most enlightenment thinkers
35:00were not atheists. Many were deists,
35:01many were religious, many were
35:03Christians. The cultural position of God
35:06changed. Right?
35:09religion um the center of Europe before
35:11the reformation moved right you can kind
35:14of see how faith works faith and
35:17academic inquiry were a lie right so the
35:19idea was that faith and religion are
35:21opposed the way your fingers on your
35:23hand are opposed with your thumb faith
35:25on one side
35:27um academic or scientific inquiry on the
35:30other and so the argument
35:32pre-reformation was that they only
35:34opposed because you can grab stuff with
35:37faith and reason
35:40after the reformation, right? It's all
35:43it's all up to you.
35:46Um, governments of course shift
35:49um
35:55toward the new understanding because it
35:56enforces the peace and lowers their
35:58obligations in terms of taxes to the
36:00church.
36:02Knowing was tied to sacred authority,
36:04right? pre-reformation the question was
36:06what has been revealed inherited or
36:08authorized and how do we know you just
36:09listen to a bunch of adult um knowledge
36:11was heavily connected to the clergy the
36:13church to Latin learning um the study of
36:16theology was like the one of the pr that
36:17philosophy the princes of the of what
36:19you're going to learn ancient
36:21authorities and universities generally
36:23under religious influence or control
36:26postreformation right um we see a
36:28weakened religious authority structure
36:31with the scientific revolution providing
36:32a new method for studying all sorts of
36:34things. The question then becomes what
36:37can be demonstrated, observed, tested,
36:40debated and improved. Empiricism,
36:43scientific method.
36:45Does that make sense? So if you need to
36:47um again any questions you have, you
36:51know.
36:52So what do we see right? What is the
36:56truth? natural science what you can
36:59observe repeat experiment that becomes
37:02the basis of all truth for many many
37:04people right not what you can
37:08I don't want to pick on people of faith
37:10because I am one but think about the
37:13things you can't prove that matter to
37:15you have any of you ever been in love or
37:17if you how do you prove that how do you
37:19know it
37:23that sort of meaning is the thing this
37:25gets out of Um, all right. A few
37:30philosophers for y'all to know about.
37:33First of all, Renee Deart.
37:35All right. The thinking man, cognitive
37:38kito erosum. I think, therefore, I am. I
37:42only thinking, the thinking mind is what
37:45makes you you.
37:47Right? He emphasizes doubt, method, and
37:51reason.
37:53Deart made reason and method central to
37:55modern philosophy. That's why we care
37:57about him.
37:59There's also David Hume.
38:04He was a skeptical empiricist. He
38:06questioned causation. He questioned
38:08miracles. He questioned religious
38:10certainty and the assumptions about
38:12human reason. He didn't even trust most
38:13people. Hume matters for us because he
38:16pushed enlightenment skepticism to
38:17uncomfortable depths. He reminds us that
38:20enlightenment reason also had its own
38:22critics.
38:24There's also Emanuel Kant who famously
38:27described the enlightenment as
38:28humanity's emergence from its
38:29self-imposed immaturity. So he wasn't
38:32super excited about faith, an age of
38:34faith.
38:36Um his motto was dare to know. He gave
38:39the enlightenment its classic definition
38:41which is what? Think for yourself.
38:44He stresses of course reason
38:47and empiricism experience.
38:54Why would we care at all about religion?
39:02Because it orders people's lives. It
39:04gives their lives purpose and meaning.
39:06Leaving it all up to you can be both
39:08exciting but also in a sense rather
39:10cold. Right? So what's missing?
39:17Institutions.
39:18Right? Institutions spread ideas. Salons
39:21or meeting houses, coffee houses,
39:23lodges, universities, hubs, reading
39:26clubs, libraries. The Enlightenment was
39:29not just ideas. It was networks. Also,
39:32print culture. Books, pamphlets,
39:34journals, newspapers. All these things
39:36allowed ideas to circulate quickly. Uh,
39:39print also helped create public opinion,
39:41which became politically powerful and
39:43still is. By the late 18th century,
39:45rulers had to worry not only about
39:47armies and nobles, but also what the
39:48educated people of their country thought
39:50because many of them paid taxes. Also,
39:53there are women. They hosted salon. Many
39:56were writers, translators, patrons,
39:58using their money to pay for ideas they
40:01liked or silence those they didn't.
40:03Critics, even revolutionaries.
40:06All of it has a private kind of thing
40:07going on to it here, right?
40:11So look, before the enlightenment, the
40:12good is defined by religious obligations
40:14and perspectives. Afterward, political
40:17choices and social priorities. What is
40:21true?
40:22Think for yourself. Not God, it's you.
40:25What is good, right? It's not about what
40:28the church thinks or tradition says.
40:30It's whatever you and a group of
40:32majority can say to make their views
40:34manifest, known, and persuadable.
40:39And the good, what is good, right?
40:42Before the enlightenment, humanity
40:44equals it. We were made in the image of
40:45God.
40:48Every person has a right to his or her
40:50own. But this is all from basically the
40:52biatitudes. Right? If you go back and
40:54read
40:56Matthew's the most famous example of
40:57this, but sort of the core tenant of
41:00Jesus's teachings if you're in terms of
41:03the social side of it, right? individ
41:06individual um universal human rights,
41:08individual dignity, the value of the
41:10weak, the poor, the marginalized,
41:13love and forgiveness as chief values,
41:16right? That's radical.
41:19The Romans would never have agreed. They
41:21would not agree that matters. They would
41:22think you're stupid to say, "Blessed are
41:24the meek." They would say, "That's
41:25insane."
41:30Most enlightenment thinking established
41:32the ultimate ends and good of society as
41:34political accomplishments.
41:36What could you achieve politically like
41:38in a live public way and impose on other
41:41people?
41:44Okay, so what are some key assumptions?
41:50Alignment politics challenge assumptions
41:52that the old regime was built on, right?
41:54You can kind of see them there on the
41:55slide.
42:00ideas that people are born into ranks or
42:02hierarchy. That kings deserve to rule by
42:04divine right, the right of God. They
42:06were just blessed by being in the right
42:07family. Nobles deserve privilege because
42:09of their birth. The church had special
42:12authority. Ordinary people were supposed
42:14to obey. That was it. Tradition was a
42:17source of legitimate understanding and
42:19authority. Right? All these things kind
42:21of get jettisoned and some will embrace
42:23them and create a reaction which is
42:24where you get reactionary thinking.
42:27What are the new assumptions? Human
42:29beings possess reason. Political
42:32authority has to be justified.
42:34Governments exist for human purposes.
42:36And if you don't like them, change them.
42:38Rights may exist prior to government.
42:41Law should apply equally.
42:44Society can and should be reformed.
42:47Public opinion matters.
42:49Citizens are not merely subjects.
42:53You kind of see even thinking about evil
42:54here, right? So in enlightenment ideas,
42:57there is no such thing as evil. Just the
42:58consequences of ignorance and bad bad
43:01systems. The most radical assumption
43:03underneath all of this is that the
43:06political order was made by human
43:07beings, not simply given to us by God or
43:10discovered in nature. And if it's made
43:12by human beings, it can be changed.
43:18Tracking. All right. I'm going to make
43:21sure this works. This is video one. Um,
43:26France 1763. So
43:29hopefully this works and I'll see you
43:30for video two.

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