Predictive History - The Story of "Civilization", "Secret History", "Game Theory" and more - Civilization #46 - The Revolution of Reason

Episode Date: October 7, 2025

Civilization #46 - The Revolution of Reason

So today we started three-part series on the French Revolution, which I believe to be the most significant event in human history. Okay, so let me very quickly explain its significance. So as I keep on mentioning in this class, it is the religious worldview that underpins society and civilization. It is what allows society to function. And to oversimplify, there have been four major religious worldviews in human history. Okay?

So let's go over them briefly. The first is what we call the animistic. And this is basically during the Ice Age when we were hunter-gatherers, and we were just roaming the earth. Okay? And there are three major keywords that underlie this world. view, balance, harmony, and oneness. We did not believe that we were different from the plants, the animals that lived on this planet.

We were one with them. We were interconnected with them. We didn't fear death because life and death were part of the same continuous cycle. Okay, so this is the idea of the animistic worldview. From then, we moved on to the polytheistic, polytheistic, many gods. And the three main ideas that underpin the polytheistic worldview are action, ritual, and fate.

No one, not even the gods, can escape their fate. Our fate has been preordained. What courage is, is the willingness to embrace with honor and with dignity your fate. So think of Hector as he is about to battle Achilles. He knows he is going to get killed, and he's afraid. He shakes, but he still confronts his fate and he dies.

And that's what expected of you in the Viking world, in the Greek world, in the Roman world, to face your death with honor and dignity. To live your life with courage, action, but in a ritualized manner, in a way that the community expects of you and to embrace your fate no matter what it is. That is a polythistic worldview. Then this leads us to the monotheistic worldview.

Monotheistic, okay? So the monophistic are the Jews, the Christians, and the Muslims. The three major ideas that underpin the monophistic worldview are faith, orthodoxy, and truth. There is an eternal truth called God. We must have faith in him. And faith and truth are expressed through orthodoxy. There is a set of beliefs that you cannot question, that you must. must believe and you must live your life according to this orthodoxy.

Okay, so these are three major ideas underlying monotheistic. Now, we move to the modern period. Another word that we can use for modern is daisim, okay? Diasm. You may have heard of this, but the idea of diism is that there is a god, God created the universe, but then he left us. He doesn't care about what happens anymore because the word he created was perfect. And it is up to us to understand the perfect laws of the universe and then perfect our lives according to these laws. Okay? So let's say you have the diastom. This is important because diastism is the founding religion of both the American as

well as the French revolutions. All right. And there are three names. major beliefs that underpin Dioism. The first is reason. So rather than faith, we have to use our reason. Because that's the gift that God gave us before he left. We are able to, using logic, using intuition, using skepticism, to understand how the world works, reason. Okay, reason.

All right? But reason by itself is not enough. You have to engage. in debate in order to fully use our reason. You may not able to reason out for yourself the truth, but in the debate, you're able to hear out the truth, okay? And if we do this, if we continue to exercise our reason, if we continue to engage in debate,

what is often called the marketplace of ideas, this will lead to the idea of progress okay so what's happened is that the modern period is responding to the Christian period by replacing faith with reason or paradox with debate and truth with progress okay and these three ideas reason debate and progress are the foundations of the period we live in today called a modern period it is it is about these three ideas are the foundations of our school system for our universities for scientific institutions okay does that make sense all right now having gone

through these four different periods I want to do some analysis okay the first analysis is to explain to you how these changes manifests it themselves so the animistic period is the most natural It's what makes the most sense. Quite honestly, if animals had a religion, it would probably be an animistic religion, okay? So how do we transition from the animistic to apotheistic? Well, the main reason is because of civilization, okay?

Because of mass society, civilization. Because we chose to settle down and learn agriculture and develop religious systems. All right, and with that comes war, comes hierarchy, comes inequality. And as such, we developed the politic worldview. From a polytheistic worldview, we then transition into the monotheistic worldview.

Why? Because of Christianity. All right? Christianity. Remember, you're usually taught that Christianity is, oh, Jesus dies and then everyone becomes a Christian. That's not what happened, okay? As you learn in this class, Christianity was a mechanism

developed by the Roman Empire in one. to assimilate the Jews and then later on to assimilate barbarians who are economic migrants into the Roman Empire basically was the tool of control for the Roman Empire okay but then you have this mass transition from monotheism the Christian period into modernism all right and this turning point which the most radical turning point in human history is what we call the French Revolution Without the French Revolution, marginally could not happen. All right.

And what's amazing about the French Revolution is it is entirely unprecedented. We've never had anything like this before. It was entirely unpredictable. It was unique in human history. So we will start next three classes to understand how the French Revolution happened. because without understanding the French Revolution, you cannot understand future events, especially communism, the rights of communism, World War I, World War II. None of these things would have been possible about the French Revolution.

Okay? All right. So, another thing that's really important for us to understand is that all four worldviews still exist today. There are still people who believe in animism, polytheism, but they're the minority. The dominant people are still the monotheists, and they're in competition with the modernists, who are the educated elite. So this conflict is still going on today. The other thing that's really important for us to understand is

none of these beliefs is inherently superior to the other. Okay? You cannot make the argument to me, at least, that one is better than the other. But new systems believe they are superior to the other, okay? To the previous. So the polytheists believe they are superior to the animus. The monotheists think they are superior to the polytheists. And the the the theists think they are superior to the monotheists.

Okay? And because of this sense of superiority, they try to crush previous worldviews. So these four worldviews are not in competition with each other, but the new ones seek to displace the old ones. And this has led to a lot of conflict. to a lot of conflict throughout human history. So this is the overall framework we're working with. I know it's a bit simple, but for the purpose of this class, it's good enough, okay? All right.

So now what I'm going to do is explain the framework for the next three classes. My argument to you is the French Revolution was ultimately a religious crusade. That is the main thesis of the next three classes. In each class we will introduce different elements of this crusade that made it possible. For a crusade to happen, you need three different types of geniuses. You need the poet to envision the future, okay? The poet. But then you need the prophet who has to the the courage to take the people into this new land and then you need the prince or the conqueror who has the conviction and determination to physically conquer this

new land and expand the revolution okay so the poet is Rousseau Jain Jocsouz Rousseau he wrote the social contract we'll be focusing on him mainly today He's the one who introduces the idea that is possible to build a new world based entirely on reason itself. All right? That's result. Then you have the prophet. The prophet is the one who has the courage to lead the people into the new land even though it may cost him his life.

And this person, his name is Maximilian Ropes Pierre. Okay? Maximilian Ropes-Pierre. is, in my opinion, one the most misunderstood and underrated individuals in human history. Next class we'll focus on Ropes' Pierre. Without Ropes' Pierre, the French Revolution could not have succeeded. And then now you need a prince

who will tick the ideas of the prophet, and he will militarily expand. into the world and conquer a new world and build a new world and this person's name of course is Napoleon born apart Napoleon and this is the last class all right and my argument to you today is that about the active cooperation of all three if they're not able to build on each other's work the French Revolution would not have succeeded Because if you just look at the French Revolution, the odds were so against the revolutionaries, right? They were not only against the aristocracy and their own people, they were up against the entire world. Britain, Prussia, Russia, Austria, Austria, everyone wanted to destroy the revolution before it threatened their nations.

So the odds were completely against the French Revolution, but they succeeded. Revolution but they succeeded. It was only because of the cooperation of these three particular types of geniuses. Rousseau the poet, Ropes Pierre, the Prophet, and Napoleon the Prince. So that's what we'll be doing these next three classes. All right. So let's talk about the ideas that underpin the French Revolution, the enlightenment. How do we get into the modern period where the ideas are now reasoned debate and progress. Okay, so let's go back to Dante.

Dante's divine comedy is a prophecy. It is a new understanding of the world. So what the divine comedy does is, what it helps people do is take all these new structural forces that are being unleashed onto the world and understand it in a new way that unleashes three major movements, okay? These are of course the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Cyprivate Revolution. Now as these things are happening, what else is happening is the gunpowder revolution, the gunpowder revolution.

And these things combine in order to create massive structural changes within European society. So we discuss this, but there are three major changes that are happening throughout this period. The first is the transition from feudalism to a nation, the idea of a nation. At first it's an absolute monarchy, but then after the French Revolution, it transitions into a nation state. Okay, from decentralization, just intercentralization, basically. That's the first major change. Second major change is from rural to urban. Basically from agriculture into industry, And the third major change is from religion into science. All right, and this is what's happening in Europe because of the gunpower revolution.

Now, what's important about this is with these structural changes comes massive, demographic, political, and economic changes. Essentially, what's happening is that new groups of people are being created. And these groups of people are who we collectively call, who we collectively call the middle class okay so let's look at the middle class all right so previously in Europe there are just roughly speaking two major groups okay there's the nobility and the clergy okay there's almost no difference between the two because they intermarry they come on the same families okay but they're the leading elite of

society okay you have the tall people the nobility and then at the other end or the peasants and slaves. And of, but of course, I mean, like this is not that simple. I mean, you always have, I mean, a class, you always have tradespeople, you always have people working in towns. But they're a minority. And what's happening now because all these changes to society is they now become an increasingly powerful group of people.

They're the ones who are driving economic change. change. Now, the middle class is extremely complicated set of people, but roughly speaking, we can divide them into three major categories, okay? Three major categories. The first is what we call the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie is a French term that we use, and it comes actually from the German, which is burger. Burger means the leader. citizens of a town, the burghers. And the leading citizens of a town usually are the factory owners, the merchants, the people who trade, the bankers, the people have control of the money, the lawyers.

So these are the bourgeoisie, these are the elite. And this is a new group of people that work very closely with the nobility, but they have some differences. Okay, and the thing to remember about these people is they tend to be conservative because in terms of status They already have All the status that they want okay and over time what will happen is that The king and nobility will increasingly depend on the bourgeoisie for financing Okay, so they pay for wars they pay for a new new industry. They pay for roads. Okay, so the bordersts

are the ones who are most heavily taxed but they're usually conservative they're really happy with the way things are at the other end um sorry next to the bourgeoisie are we called the petite wangerzi all right and these people are not rich but um they're suddenly the middle class they're comfortable where they are okay these people are school teachers maybe they're restaurant owners maybe they're notaries okay So the thing about these people is that they tend to be aspirational. They're not happy with their lives, they want more.

And as such, they are opportunistic. Usually the people who are most likely to lead the revolution come from members of the Petit Vosier. So most of the leaders of the French Revolution, the most radical members, were provincial lawyers, lawyers who worked in small cities. They're not part of the elite, the bourgeoisie, but they're pretty comfortable where they are.

They're the provincial elite. If you look at the communist revolution, Mazadón, he was a petite bourgeoisie, right? He was a provincial elite, not a Beijing elite. And the last group is what will be referred to in the future, not now, as the politariat. Poleterate. The Politerate are basically artisans,

crafts people, people who work in cities, in the urban centers, and they have a specialized craft that makes them valuable, okay? They're not peasants, they're not poor, but the problem is they are very precarious, okay? Precurious. What this means is that as the Santic Revolution progresses, new technology will start to replace the artisans.

Okay? Like a solar machine. And as such, they lose their livelihoods. So their lives are very precarious. Therefore, they're most likely tend towards violence. So these are the foot soldiers of revolutions. The petite bourgeoisie are often the thought leaders, but the politariat are the ones who provide the muscle.

So if you look at most revolutions, this is how it works. What's really important for us to understand is that, first of all, these categories are not strict. There are lots of interchange between the politariate and the peasantry. There's lots of interchange between the borderline. and the nobility okay these categories are not static the other thing is that the loyalties of each group will change according to the circumstance okay so the

people petite porz or z it's not definite that they will rebel against the partial z it depends on their economic interest and it is not definite that the peasants will work with the Petit Port-Eau-Gis against the nobility. In fact, during the French Revolution, this is really important, the nobility and the peasants working together to suppress revolution. Why? Because the French Revolution wanted to destroy the Catholic religion. The peasants love their religion, okay? The peasants want it to be Catholic and they want to protect their priests. So there was a massive civil war going on in

France between the peasants and the politariat and that would be counterintuitive to you think it's like why would poor people be fighting against poor people well it's because they have different religious interests okay does that make sense all right so this is a framework that I want you guys to remember there are different groups this is an oversimplification and their loyalties will change so during the revolution the loyalties will change and it will mark different stages in the French Revolution. And you can use this framework to also understand future revolutions,

especially the communist revolution. And it's also important for us to remember that most revolutions will fail. All right, so this is the middle class. Now, the thing about the middle class, the thing about new groups is that what they have have to do is they have to establish group solidarity okay and the way you do that is by establishing group identity so how is it that the middle class is different from everyone else okay and as we discuss what the middle class will

do is they will slowly adopt the enlightened principles of reason debate and progress That's how the middle class, or most members of the aspirational middle class, will try to differentiate themselves from everyone else by embracing the enlightenment. And that's why we have the enlightenment. So over time, these things will become much more concrete. So what makes the middle class identity? The first is the idea of education. Second is the idea of achievement.

And the third is the idea of morality. So what is the middle class? The middle class are those who embrace these three ideas. Education, achievement, and morality. If you're in the middle class, you'll be much more educated than nobility and the peasantry. You will read books. You will read newspapers.

That's what we have newspapers, because the middle class wants information. Achievement, the achievement ethos is, I will always strive to be better. I want my children to be better than me. If you're a peasant, you don't believe your children will live a better life. If your nobility, you don't really care if your children live a better life. But for the middle class, it's very important that their children live better lives. So the idea of the achievement ethos, to work hard. Okay.

So you guys shouldn't understand this because you're all members of the middle class. class in China right now last is the idea of morality and this is really important morality is especially when it comes to sexual morality all right sexual morality so the idea is that if you're a poor person the thing about being poor is you have no control over your body so during this time of industrialization what's happening is a lot of peasants are moving into the cities And what are women doing? Well, they're becoming prostitutes.

There are tons and tons of prostitutes in these cities at this time in Europe, okay? We just walk on the street and guess what? There are prostitutes everywhere. So as a poor person, you have absolutely no control over your body. So with the middle class, the way that they differentiate themselves is by saying that we have enough resources to protect our bodies. And if you're part of the middle class, then you're a middle class,

you are expected to adhere to a very strict morality. Does that make sense? That's where we get the idea of morality from, from the development of the middle class. As a middle class, you have sexual, you are much more sexually peer, but also you have a new idea called childhood. If you are a poor person, your child age six starts to work.

At age 10, he or she may be working in a factory, and by 12 may be. dead what the middle class can do is give his her child a childhood okay the modern class of childhood comes from this period and we're looking at this okay so that's the idea here the enlightenment basically was a movement in which a nuclear people the middle class they've always existed but now they in they exist in they exist in quantity and And they have more resources than they used to have before, especially literacy, access to information.

They have more wealth. They have more technology. They are the future leaders of the world. And as such, they want to embrace a new identity. And that's why we have the Enlightenment, okay? The Enlightenment was basically a period when they tried to bring the ideas of science into society in order to create a new middle-class identity. it still exists today.

All right, so that is the basic framework for today. Now we will look at specific writers and thinkers of the Enlightenment. Any questions so far? Okay, great. All right, so let's start looking at some major thinkers of the Enlightenment. All right, so today's class is on the European Enlightenment.

Now, what's really important for us to remember is that there are major ideological differences between the British Enlightenment and the European Enlightenment. Okay? European just means France, Germany, Netherlands, that, okay? Basically, kind of Canada, Europe. The ideas that develop in Europe will be different from the ideas that develop in Britain. After French Revolution, we'll look at Britain specifically, but now I just want to focus on the European Enlightenment, okay?

So please remember that. The British Enlightenment and the European Enlightenment have contrasting ideas, even though most historians consider them part of the same historical movement. All right, so what is enlightenment? It is a movement to systemize and introduce drive Dante to create a new European middle class identity. So all these ideas are coming from Dante, but there is a major difference that we must remember.

Remember, the Enlightenment for the Enlightenment thinkers, what God left us is a capacity to read For reason, we can access the mind of God. Reason is the fundamental principle of the Enlightenment. That's not what Dante said, though. Donnie said, love is what God gave us. Love is the light in us. Now you think, well, what's the difference between love and reason?

Okay, what I will do over the course of the semester is show you that there's actually a huge, huge difference between love and reason. Specifically, reason is independent. You can by yourself reason out things. But love requires you to connect with someone else. Either your child, your wife, your mother, who knows, okay? But you must connect with someone else. And because of that idea, interconnectedness, it puts a restraint on your reason.

But you're capable of reasoning by yourself, you can reason anything. including concentration camps, nuclear bombs, genocide, okay? So there's a huge difference between love and reason. And it's really important that the Enlightenment thinkers see reason as a central organizing principle of human society and not love. So I just want you guys to keep that in mind as we move on. The Enlightenment happened mainly in salons. These are places organized by wealthy, wachosier, woman.

And these salons were not political. They were mainly designed to learn manners, speech, refinement, because they're trying to differentiate themselves from the nobility, the clergy, and the peasantry. And one way that they want to do this is through their education, through their knowledge, expertise, salons. In Britain, they mainly spread ideas through coffee houses.

All right? Coffee houses. So the idea of meaning of coffee house comes from this period in Britain. So this woman, like Madame Labard, were the ones who were driving enlightenment ideas. And these salons were places for the leading intellectuals of the time to come and debate ideas. So these were the leading woman of that time. So there were lots and lots of linemen thinkers because this is a time of literacy, right? People want to read. There's a marketplace of ideas.

So money can be made from writing books. And that's why you have this explosion of ideas, the marketplace of ideas during this time. But now I want to just go through some of the major thinkers of the Enlightenment, okay? The first major thinking of the Enlightenment is René Descartes. And René Descartes, he, he's a mathematician,

he's a philosopher. He wanted to ask two questions. The first question is, how do we know that God exists? And how do we know the soul exists? These are the two questions that he is trying to grapple with in his philosophy. And he wrote a book called Meditations on First Philosophy. This is a really important book in development of Western civilization. We will be referring to this book quite often for the rest of the semester.

So I want you guys to remember this book, Meditations on First Philosophy. And so he's asking these questions. And let's read a few paragraphs. from his book to understand his thinking okay it is some years now since I realized how many false opinions I had accepted as true from childhood onwards and that whatever I had since built on such a circuit foundations could only be highly doubtful all all right so what he's doing here is saying okay I want to know if God exists but first I must ask myself what do I believe and how do I know if it's true or not

I must look inside myself all right hence I saw that at some stage my life the whole structure would have to be utterly demolished and that I would have to begin again from the bottom up if I wish to construct something lasting and unshakable in the sciences and what he's saying here is that after I examine my own beliefs I recognize that most my beliefs are not true okay this is a radical departure from previous traditions where you know something is true because someone really smart said it you refer to you you defer to authority right that's a practice we here we use in China where well Confucius said this so this

must be true and what René de Kark saying is that no that's not true okay I myself have the capacity to know if something is true and I have a responsibility to reflect and question everything I know and through that process of self-doubt self-examination I can construct something that is more truthful And this is the idea of enlightenment. All right? And this is the idea of education. You know, when we try to teach you critical thinking skills,

this is what we're trying to do, okay? Trying to get you to question things so that you may construct a more eternal truth. All right. But this seems to be a massive task, and so I postponed it until I had reached the age when one is as fit as one will ever be to master the various disciplines.

So to get to this point, you also have to go through a long through a long process of education, okay? You just can't be like, okay, I'm gonna do this right now. You have to first learn these beliefs, and then you have to go back and then we examine these beliefs. I've delayed so long that now I should be at fault if I used up in deliberating the time that is left for acting.

The moment has come, and so today I have discharged my mind from all its cares, and I've carved out a space of untroubled leisure. I was drawn into seclusion and shall at last be able to devote myself seriously about incomprehence to the task of destroying all my former opinions. Okay. What is doing here is saying that for me to discover the truth, I just have to rely solely on my reason. Not debate, not talking to others, not reading old books, but by self-examination.

Okay? And so this is the beginning of the book. We will read other sections later on in the semester, but this is the introduction, okay? So this project is a process of constant self-examination. And through this self-examination, what he discovers is evidence is false. How do we know the sky is blue?

How do we know the sky exists? We don't. How do I know that the words I'm speaking make any sense? I don't. It's a constant process of sub-negation, okay? But what then he recognizes is that the only way that I can actually engage in this process of self-examination is through doubt. Right? So what do I know to be true?

Doubt is true. I doubt, therefore I am. You know the expression, I think therefore I am, right? It's actually I doubt, therefore I am. The Latin is cajato argo sum. Okay? the thing that I know to be absolutely true is my capacity to doubt and that is who I am therefore I exist and so the capacity to doubt is my soul all right now how do I know that

God exists well if God didn't exist then I would have I would not have the capacity to doubt right someone must have given me the capacity to doubt and that must be whoever God is but now how do I know that God is good right because God could be a trickster God could be the devil and God could be deceiving me and my capacity to doubt will only lead me into error okay so that's that's question you asked now and then he says well because God is perfect if you are perfect you're incapable of fault therefore I know God is good. Okay?

And obviously, this makes me logical sense. This is not logical. It's what we call a tautology, right? God is perfect, therefore I know God is good. God is good, therefore he's perfect. It makes no sense. But what's important is that René Descartes is asking us to challenge our assumptions about the world,

to doubt, to reason. And he's saying that the idea of reason, is the most powerful force in the world more powerful than the church more powerful than dogma more powerful than society itself okay our individual capacity reason is what matters it is what allows us to have access to God doesn't make sense right so this is one of the major ideas underpinning the enlightenment all right now let's move on to Gerda Johan Wolfgang von Gerda

He is considered the greatest German writer of all time. And he wrote a book called Faust. Okay? Faust. And we'll just read a few passages from Faust. But Faust is also a very quintessential enlightenment work of art. And so the book of Faust, it's based on another book called the book of Job, which we find in the Bible.

In the book of Job, it's about this very pious individual who is very faithful to God. He's very wealthy. He has a lot of children. He's very happy. He prays to God all the time. He makes sacrifice to God all the time. He's very generous. He has a lot of friends.

One day, God is in heaven, and there's a meeting with Satan. Satan in the Bible means adversary. So Satan is actually an archangel, an agent. agent of God who roams the planet and God is very proud of Job and he says to Satan have you seen Joel do you see how faithful he is to to me he's very proud and Satan says God he's only faithful to you because he's rich okay you take away money you take away his children and he will curse you and God says Fine, I make you this bet.

You can do anything you want to him, but you must not kill him. That's the only condition. So Satan basically makes Job's life a living hell. All his children die in accidents. He loses all his money. He becomes infected with diseases. He's old. And eventually he curses God.

And he's like, why is God doing this to me? And then God appears before him and says, how dear? You question me, God. I create the world. What have you done in your life? But basically, God calls him for a long, long time, and curses Job, and says, you, as a human being, have a subsidy no right to ever doubt to ever question me. I can do whatever I want. I'm God.

I'm a mystery. Do not ever think you can understand me. Do not ever believe you can question me. Okay, and then what God does is he restores Job's health and wealth, okay? So it's a very strange story, and it's one that is meant to inspire fear among people. And so what Gerda does, that's really interesting, is that he reimagines the story of Job and turns it into a much more confident, optimistic story that captures the spirit of the Enlightenment. Does that make sense?

The story goes like this. Falsh, he is a professor. He loves learning. He's very curious. But what he recognizes is that despite all his book learning, he doesn't really have access to the truth. He's not really learning new information, new knowledge. He doesn't feel as though he's accessing God.

So he tries magic. One day, the Satan, and Satan's name here in Falls, his name, Mephesifestephys, okay? please talks to God and and Bethes says to God you know what the worst thing you ever did was allow humans a capacity to reason because you're idiots just stupid if you're stupid and you can reason all it does is confuse you and make you unhappy and then God is like well have you met false false is my favorite person in the whole world because he's curious he loves learning eventually for the

process of self-exploration he will discover the truth he will get there I have faith in false and my father my father says fine I'll make you a bet I bet you I can make him complacent I bet you that I can make him not want to learn anymore to lose his curiosity and if I witness bet then false will become my servant okay his soul will be will be mine I will damn him to hell for eternity okay and that's a bet All right, so let's look at some passages. This is Mephesi saying to God, their lives will be a little easier if you not let them glimpse the light of heaven.

They call it reason and employed only to be more beastial than any beast. What's important for us remember is that here Gerta is invoking Dante, right? Remember Dante, the divine comedy says that love is the light of heaven. And here, Gerta, and the Enlightenment thinkers are saying that, no, it's reason that is the light of heaven. In fact, in many ways, false is a rewriting of the divine comedy. So, Mephesi is saying to God, reason is bad because it makes people who are stupid, more confused.

And then God says, do you know false? And the Mephasic says, the doctor, the Lord says, and my servant, my favorite person in the whole world. Methesicles, indeed, he serves you in a curious way. The food is not content with earthly food or drink. Some ferment makes him want what is exotic, yet he's half conscious of his father. Fals wants to understand the world. He's curious.

He's driven by his curiosity and his imagination. And Methescalis makes fun of him because he'll never get there. From heaven he claims as his the brightest stars and from the earth all of its highest joys but nothing near and nothing far away can satisfy our hearts so deeply agitated okay he's just too curious he can't be satisfied and the god says though you though now he only serves me blindly and aptly I shall soon lead him into clarity the gardener knows when the sapling turns green that blossoms and fruit will brighten future years okay so God is saying if he continues

needs to be curious eventually I God will lead him into the light okay so it's important for us as humans is to be curious and that's how we show our faith in God all right now so Mepheselese and false meet and Mephasel says to false listen I know you want to know the truth about the world I want I know you want to experience a whole world whole world but you can't do by yourself so I will help you okay I will grant you the knowledge of the world but if at any point you become complacent you stop striving you're happy with the way things are you're happy with the moment then

you will become my servant is that a deal false and false is sure because false does not believe that he can ever lose his curiosity okay so what happens is all these strange events where false false in love with a maiden name Gretchen and Gretchen falls in love with him and they try to have sex but the mother gets in the way so false has Gretchen kill the mother the brother finds out and tries to kill false Fals kills the brother Gretchen gets pregnant and then has to kill the baby because false has disappeared and then Gretchen basically dies in prison okay so it sounds terrible but what happens is that eventually Gretchen forgives false because Gretchen goes to him.

heaven and then Goets and then false has more adventures he becomes a servant to the king he builds a lot of roads and a lot of cities he marries Helen of Troy he goes back in the past anyway a lot of strange things happen okay but what's happening is that he's experiencing life for all its potential for its all its possibilities and that and so as he gets older he's about to die and methesa he comes to collect his soul okay And this is the last speech of false before he dies. A swamp lies there below the hill, infecting everything I've done.

My last and greatest act of will succeeds when that foul pool is God. So he is an architect and he is an urban planner working for the government. He's a civil servant basically. And his job is to make the city much more livable for people, okay? To help civilize the world. And he's taking pride in his work. Succeed when that foul pool is gone, okay? Let me make room for many a million.

Let me make space for more people. Not wholly secure, but free to work on. Green fertile fields where men and herds may gain swift comfort from the new-made earth, quickly settled in those hills and brace, pound high by a brave industrial race, and in the center here a paradise, whose boundaries hold back the raging tide, and though it to enter in by force the common urge unites to hold its course okay so he's taking pride in all that he's accomplished and that he will accomplish okay he's taking pride in this moment when he's actually contributing to the betterment

of civilization but because he's taking pride in this moment he's now lost a bet to methethyst please right he's not become complacent he wants to live in the moment you can't do that yes I've surrendered to this thought insistence the last word wisdom ever has to say he only earns his freedom in existence who's forced to win them freshly every day childhood manhood aged vigorous years surrounded by dangers they'll spend here I wish to gaze again on such a land free earth where a free race and freedom stand okay so to be alive means to constantly struggle to progress things and this is it then to the moment I dare say

stay a while you are so lovely he wants to stay in this moment forever through aeons then never to fade away this path of mind for all that's earthly anticipating here its deep enjoyment now I savour it that that highest moment okay in this moment when he feel he's contributed to development of society he feels at peace he feels fulfilled and so the irony is that at this moment when he's most fulfilled he should not he should not be damned to help right but what happens as methesel is about the claim false soul is

angels appear and steal it from from mefthelites okay the angels pure incandes whom it's flames blessed blissful of goodness is their existence gather together rise now and praise spirit can breathe here in pure waves So God has come to save false. They rise, carrying away the immortal part of false. False soul is now in heaven. The festival says, how then? Where did they vanish to?

You took me by surprise, you adolescents. Now with what they've salvaged from the tomb as their own prize, they've flown off to heaven. They've stolen a great and unique treasure. That noble soul mortgaged to my pleasure. They've snatched away with cunning even. But whom could I even complain to? anyway okay so methecelsies knows he's been tricked but he has no say in the

matter okay and so false it is considered the greatest work of German literature and the main message is God loves us God wants us to be curious God wants us to explore to challenge ourselves to grow and we do that God will always protect us no matter how many stupid things we do okay God is ultimately about forgiveness and love and mercy and kindness and generosity. So that's a very optimistic and confident view of the world. Any questions so far?

Okay, let's move on to Emmanuel Kant. Emmanuel Kant is the greatest philosopher who ever lived. We'll be spending a lot of time on the Mineral Khan throughout the semester, okay? So I introduce you to him here. In a very influential essay called, What is Enlightenment? Why do we have enlightenment?

All right, so, enlightenment is man's emergence from a self-imposed knowledge. Knowledge is the inability to use one's own reasoning about another's guidance. This knowledge is self-imposed if it's cause lies not in lack of understanding, but in indecision and lack of courage to use one's own mind, but another's guidance.

Dear to know, have the courage to use your own understanding is therefore a model of enlightenment okay so what he's saying here is that your students and I'm the teacher okay I'm enlightened because I'm using my reason but you're not enlightened because you're not you because you're relying on my reason right and what he's saying is that it's not because you like the capacity to reason that's a problem it's because you guys are lazy right it's easier for you to sit sit there and take notes rather than to actually read this text for yourself and

understand them yourself that's where you rely on me okay but well but if you don't ever rely on yourself you can ever be free to think it doesn't make sense that's what he's saying here laces and cowards are the reasons why such a large part of mankind gladly remain minors all their lives long after nature has freed them from external eternal guidance okay you have the capacity to reason, you can just read these things by yourself, but you're lazy and you're cowardly. You don't want to make a mistake.

You don't be wrong. Thus, it is very difficult for the individual to work himself out of knowledge which has become almost second nature to him. He has even grown to like it and is at first really incapable of using his own understanding because he has never been permitted to try it. Okay?

So everyone can do it, but only a few can do it so what's the solution to this problem the solution is free and open debate does that make sense if you're able to access information you're able to access different points of view then you're able to do hear the truth for yourself okay does that make sense all right so you don't want to find the truth for yourself but if you're able to hear the truth Here the opinions of others, then you can make up for your mind, make up your own mind as to what the truth is. And you can, because you have access to reason that God implanted in you, okay?

That's the logic here. It is more nearly possible, however, for the public to enlightening itself. Indeed, if it is only given freedom, enlightenment is almost inevitable. There will always be a few independent thinkers, even among a self-appointed guardians of the multitude. So this idea of reason, debate, and progress. If there's a debate, if everyone is able to hear different opinions, then society will almost always progress. Okay, doesn't make sense.

This enlightenment requires nothing but freedom, and the most innocent of all that may be called freedom. Freedom to make public use of one's reason in all matters. Now I hear the cry from all sides. Do not argue. The officer says, do not argue. argue, drill, the tax collector, do not argue, pay, the pastor, do not argue, believe. Only one ruler in the world which says, argue as much as you please, but obey.

We find restrictions on freedom everywhere, but which restrictions is harmful to enlightenment, which restriction is innocent, and which advances enlightenment. I reply, the public use of one's reason must be free at all times, and this alone can bring enlightenment to mankind. He is arguing for absolute freedom. of expression okay even if it's hate speech in even if you say racist things you're still allowed to say it because people have reason and therefore the capacity to judge for himself or herself what is true whenever you censor something you're denying freedom to people okay so this is an absolute list understanding

of freedom and this becomes a foundation for of course the American Constitution or the American Revolution. In view of this, he as preacher is not free and ought not to be free since he's carrying out the orders of others. On the other hand, as a scholar who speaks to his own public through his writings, the minister in the public use of his reason enjoys unlimited freedom to his own reason and to speak for himself. This is a really important idea. All right, so I'm your teacher. I'm a teacher. Now, I can perceive myself in different ways.

I can perceive myself as a employee of a school in China. Therefore, I must be aware of censorship laws in China. I must be aware of what I can teach you and what I cannot teach you. I must also be aware that my main responsibility is to make you a citizen of China and therefore make you feel good about China, okay? If I see myself as an employee of a school and, in China but if I see myself as a free individual in a service of human progress then my job is to enlighten you as the possibilities of human reason right so I must be

honest of you I must challenge you to think for yourself I must give you the capacity to for you to think for yourself okay therefore I will not tell you what concept I will show you what concept so that you can by yourself interpret what he's saying. Doesn't make sense. Okay, that's the difference. You can either see yourself as an employee who is just making money in the service of others

or as a citizen of the world, as a citizen dedicated to the progress of human civilization. Okay? That's your choice. But society of ministers, the church council have the right to commit itself by oath to a certain unultimate doctrine in order to secure perpetual garnership over all its members and through them over the people. I say that this is quite impossible.

Such a contract concluded to keep all further enlightenment from humanity is simply no and void, even if it should be confirmed by the sovereign power by parliaments and the most solemn treaties. An epoch cannot conclude a pact that will commit seceding ages, prevent them from increasing and significant insights, purging themselves of errors, and generally progressing in enlightenment. That would be a crime against human nature whose proper destiny lies precisely in such progress. Okay, this is a radical statement. What he's saying is that I'm of an older generation than you, right? I have absolutely no right to tell you what you think.

I have absolutely no right to tell you what to think. I can show you possibilities, I can argue of you, but I must not enforce my ideas on you. Because that would limit human progress. Progress is determined by a new generation's capacity to question and negate previous generation's ideas. Does that make sense? All right. All right, so this is Voltaire.

Voltaire, I don't really wanna spend too much time on, but Voltaire is considered a celebrity of the Enlightenment. He was very famous at that time because he is what we call today a troll. a troll why because he's always making fun of the nobility and the clergy the powers that be and as such the middle class basically worshipped him okay they love his contributions but he himself was not a very deep thinker okay himself was not a great thinker so I don't want to spend too much time on him all right

so let's move on to Johnette Rousseau who is the most influential enlightenment thinker in France it is his idea is that will drive the French Revolution okay all right so he wrote a very influential book called Emil a meal a meal is his treatise on education how should you best educate children okay all right so let's just read some basic passages if the infant sprang at one bound from its mother's breast to the age of reason the present type of education would be quite suitable but his natural growth calls for quite a different training the

mind should be left undisturbed till its faculties have developed for while it is blind it cannot see the torch you offer it nor can it follow through the vast expense of ideas of paths so faintly traced by reason that the best eyes can scarcely follow it okay so what he's saying here and it's a very controversial idea what he's saying here is that kindergarten and primary school make no sense kids come into school to learn math to learn language right but the problem is that their faculty for reason has not fully developed okay it's like me asking you to fly even though you don't have wings so what

he's saying is this before the age of 12 let kids play because if you ask them to come to school all that will do is screw up their minds right if a child is crawling you make the child walk all All that's going to do is make the bones deform, okay? It's going to really scoop the legs. And that's what Rousseau is saying. Do not ever send kids to learn anything before the age of 12 because the faculty of reason has not developed before the age of 12.

And guess what, guys? This is the idea of childhood, okay? Childhood. Children should be allowed to play until the age of 12. And it comes from Rousseau. Okay? Does that make sense? Therefore, the education of the earliest years should be merely negative.

Negative just means like, don't have kids jump in the pool by themselves, okay? But don't be positive. Don't make them learn mathematics. It consists not in teaching virtue or true, but in preserving the heart from vice and from the spirit of error. If only you could let the well alone and get others to follow your example, if you could bring your scholar to the age of 12 strong and healthy but unable to tell his right hand from his left the eyes of his understanding would be open to reason as

soon as you began to teach him free from prejudices and free from habits there would be nothing in him to counteract the effects of your labors in your hands he would soon become the wisest of man by doing nothing to begin with you would end with a prodigy of education okay that's a secret of education before age 12 leave the kids alone make sure he's he or she is healthy make sure he or she is eating well but do not teach mathematics okay because because by leaving the child alone you free the child from bad mental habits you allow the child to think for

himself or herself okay so the very idea of childhood comes from Rousseau and this is this is an idea that a lot of middle-class parents will adopt I myself also believe very heavily in this idea. I don't want to send my kids to school before age 12, possibly even age 16, okay? I work in a school so I don't really trust schools. I don't trust teachers. It's like being a cook and you work in a restaurant.

You would never actually go eat in a restaurant because you know how they make the food, okay? All right, let's continue. There are two classes of men who are constantly engaged in bodily activity. peasants and savages okay there are these peasants who work the farm there's savages who run around in the forest all there okay so you think there's no difference but in fact there's a world of difference and certainly neither of these pays least attention to the cultivation of the mind peasants are rough coarse and clumsy savages are noted not only for their keen senses

but for great subtlety of mind savages are really smart peasants are really dull Why? Generally speaking, there is nothing duller than a peasant or sharper than a savage. What is the cause of this difference? The peasant has always done as he was told, what his father did before him, what he himself has always done. He's the creature of habit. He spends his life almost like an automaton on the same task. Having obedience has taken a place of reason. The case of the savage is very different. He spends. He is tied to no one place. He has no prescribed task, no superior to obey.

He knows no law, but his own will. He is therefore forced to reason at every step he takes. He can neither move nor walk without considering the consequences. Does the more his body is exercise, the more alert is his mind. His strength and his reason increase together and each helps to explore the other. The savage is an explorer. The savage is a problem solver. the savage is free and independent to make his own destiny that's the difference

okay so if you want to educate your child well then let the child be a savage and not a peasant oh man seek no further for the author evil that are he there's no evil but the evil you do or the evil you suffer and both come from yourself evil in general can only spring from this order and in the order of the world I find a never-failing system evil in particular cases exist only in the mind of those who experience it and this feeling is not the gift of nature the work of man himself pain has low power over those who have thought little look neither before nor after take away our fatal progress take away our

faults and our vices take away man's handiwork and all as well if you take children out of school you have to play by themselves so what they want guess what they become smart they become resilient they become educated they become curious they love learning so we if we try to build structure we try to build civilization if we move children away from the state of nature we can only screw things up schools are not designed to educate children schools are first and foremost designed to control children right why because we don't like kids running around

It's that simple. They're not meant for kids, they're meant for adults, so that parents don't actually have to see them and teachers don't have to deal with them. So that's what Rousseau is saying, and he's absolutely right. All right, so that was Emil. Now, Rousseau also wrote a really famous book called this course on the origin of inequality, which will have a major impact on the French Revolution and Enlightenment, okay? And it's the idea of private property. where this property come from?

The first man who, having closed a piece of ground, he thought himself of saying, this is mine, and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society. So we have society because some people want property, private property. From how many crimes, wars, and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not anyone have,

of mankind by pulling up the stakes or filling up the ditch and crying to his fellows beware of listening to this imposter you're undone if you cut if you want to forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all and the earth itself to nobody what he's saying is this suddenly one day some people in our society are like oh this is my this ground is mine you can't come here we should all been like what are you talking about that makes no sense How do you claim this ground for yourself? Well, we didn't do that. In fact, we claim our own ground or we let them have their own ground.

And because of this, because of the idea of private property, we now have inequality, patriarchy, war. Okay? This is where war and patriarchy and inequality come from. Because of some people's insistent on having private property. All right. Nate, any questions so far? Okay, it's all clear to you.

All right, so let's move on to the final book. The social contract, okay? The social contract is the Bible of the French Revolution. It is the book that is most influential development of the thinkers of the French Revolution. The most famous sentence, the sentence that begins the Social Contract is, Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains.

Here's one who thinks he is the master of others, yet is more enslaved than they are. Okay? So we were born free, but we choose they become slaves. But not only that, the people who have enslaved us think they are our masters, but in fact they're more enslaved than us because they are trapped by the system. You understand? Slavery is a system that enslaves all. It's not a system where a few oppressors.

the others, slavery system where an idea has oppressed everyone, especially the masters. We say at once that on this account of things, certain questions can be laid aside. Whose business it is to make laws? There are acts of the general will. Is the prince above the law? No, because he is a member of the state. Can the law be unjust? No, because nothing is unjust towards itself.

How can we be both free and subject to laws? There's no problem about this because the laws are nothing but. but records of our violations. Okay, so this is really important idea that I need to explain to you, all right? And it becomes a basis for a new type of society promoted by the French Revolution. All right, so Rousseau is trying to reason

from general principles as for how to form a good society, a social contract, where everyone chooses to participate in a society, and is that compelled to participate in this society. When he says this, there are two, There are two types of will. This is general will, and there's the particular will. General will is what we can agree on

if we are left to reason by ourselves. Particular will is what we believe if we are part of a group of people, a part of a interest. So let's say, for example, the central government in China is like, I want to spend $10 billion, on roads on new roads where should we invest this money okay general will is everyone agrees that we should invest these roads where they're most needed in China

right maybe Guayjo maybe you not the poorest parts because it will do the most good we can all agree on that right but because we're in Beijing we will be like no you should put the money in Beijing that's a particular will okay so in other words society if it is to function well must be based entirely on the general will and negate the particular will on the common interest and that's why everything works because if laws are based on the general will then all the laws are acceptable to people because they're the laws are just an expression of the general will and the king he's just acting out the general will so the king is acceptable to everyone okay does that make sense

The problem with this, of course, is that that's not how the world works, okay? There's actually no one in the world who is like, oh, I should do this because of the general will. It's always a particular will, right? Does that make sense? And so this is the major divergence between the French Revolution and the American Revolutions. The French Revolution, it is fundamentally idealistic. It believes that people are capable of considering the common interests. The American Revolution denies this, okay? So we will discuss the American Revolution later on,

but I just want you to be aware of this. The French Revolution is based on the idea of the general will, that everyone is capable of reason and of promoting the common interests. The American Revolution refuses to believe this. All right. Each of us puts his person and all his power in common on the supreme direction of the general will, and in our corporate capacity,

we receive each member as an individual part of the whole. Okay, so as long as we are capable of reason, which we are, we can understand the general will. If the populace held its deliberations on the basis of adequate information about the citizens communicating with one another, what emerged from all that particular wills should, would always be the general will, and the decision would always be good. Okay, so if you only think about the common interest, everyone would come the same conclusion about everything, okay? If the general will is to emerge clearly, it's important that there should be no partial society within the state and that each citizen should think only his own thoughts, which was indeed, I'm continually astonished that such a simple sign of good government isn't

recognized or perhaps may do recognize it but are honest enough to say so. What's the purpose of any particular association, the preservation and prosperity of its members? And what is the surest sign of their present? and prosperity, their number and the population growth. That's the sign you're looking for. Other things being equal, the unquestionably best government is the one

under which the population increases most without external help from naturalizing foreigners or establishing colonies. The government under which the population shrinks is the worst. Over to you, calculators, count, measure, compare. This is a really important idea here. What Russo is saying is that not only can

can we deduce good government from general principles, but good government can be measured, okay? So we can know how we are doing a society through measurement, by measuring things, by counting things, okay? Count, measure, compare, and that's what progress means. Now, what we'll learn later on is, this is actually a really dumb idea, okay?

But for now, I want you to be aware of this. And the French Revolution will embrace this. And that's why in the French Revolution, they will introduce the metric system. The metric system comes from the Central Revolution. And the metric system is now used by every country in the world except two, right? There are two countries in the world

who don't use the metric system. They are? Do you guys know? There are exactly two countries in the world that do not use the metric system. They are? Can you guess? These two countries are the countries

that were most against the French Revolution. against the French Revolution these countries are American Britain okay yeah it's true in China we use Celsius right when you go to America they don't use Celsius they use Fahrenheit okay and when you go to Britain they use something called the imperial system so so so so so so just be aware when you go to America you will hear terms like oh 12 yards and you're like what is 12 yards okay so so so they don't you actually use the metric system in America but whatever else does but I'm wrong to speak of a

Christian Republic those two terms are mutually exclusive Christianity preaches only servitude independence its spirit is so favorable to tyranny that it always profits by such a regime genuine Christians are made to be slaves and they know it and don't mind much this short life counts for too little in their eyes okay so we're always rejecting religion in government this idea of separate of church and state which becomes the basis for the French nation state it's a very important idea and during the resolution this will lead to civil wars between the peasants who want to be Christians and the revolutionaries who want

to establish a secular state the dogmas of civil religion ought to be few simple and exactly worded with no explanation or commentary its positive dogmas are the existence of a mighty intelligent and beneficent divinity possess of foresight and providence the life to come the happiness of the just the punishment of the wicked the secondly of the social contract and the laws and just one dogma of exclusion in the exclusion of intolerance which is a feature of the cult we have rejected okay so what we're so saying here is that the new society should now have a new religion a state religion that is based on reason

okay and this new religion of reason must reject all other religion because these religions are intolerant of each other. And that's why in French today, there's so much conflict between, there's so much conflict in society. You have a lot of Islamic immigrants, and there are always in conflict with the French state. Because the French state insists on secular religion,

the Islamists want to practice their own religion. Okay? Okay, so that's it, okay? So these ideas that we looked at, will now become the basis of the French Revolution, right? So next class, we'll look at the French Revolution. All right. So I know this was a lot, but are there any questions about what we've learned so far?

Excuse me? Why are peasants so loyal to the religion, right? Okay, great. Great question. All right. Sorry, let me... All right. So what you learned in this class is that the Christian religion, it is something that is adopted, okay, or enforced.

But over generations, right, over the centuries, it becomes part of your tradition. Right? So what is religion? Okay. The people. What do we know that people are loyal to? People are loyal to their home, right? Their land. And that's true, right? People like being in a place. They don't want to move. Most people in the world don't want to move. If you give people the choice of Chinese, the choice of like just moving to America, you think, I think everyone would go. But no, no, no, most of it would not go because they want to live where they grew up, okay? So they're loyal to the land, they're loyal to the family,

they're loyal to tradition or culture. They're loyal to food. Right? This is true for most people. If you grew up eating, I don't know, rice, you don't want to eat potatoes you want to eat rice okay so what this tells us is that people are first and foremost people of habit it doesn't make sense why why are people of habit because this is a really important idea okay and I know this is a strange idea but because it feels good do you understand because when you do something out of habit you feel good about yourself when you break this habit you feel bad about yourself and the way that you the only way that you know something is good or bad is how you feel

about it okay right like you're eating rice and you're happy eating rice because you've been doing this all your life but then and now you're eating potatoes and like it kind of tastes weird but I tell you hey no no eating potatoes is better for you it's how it's more nutritious it's cheaper you don't care okay it's all feeling good. So you resort to habit. And habit is in the land, the family, the tradition, and the food. Does that make sense? And guess what? These ideas are all encapsulated in religion. Because religion is what determines your culture, your food. It's what your family practices. It's your connection to your family. It's connection to your land. And that's why people will die for the religion,

because religion is really a metaphor or an encapsulation of all these things that people understand and know and love. Does that make sense? Okay? Now, what you will learn in this class is people just don't die for religion. They also die for ideas, which include the nation, right? The nation state. Because all that, because what you will learn in this class is,

what the French Revolution will do is sort of process where religion becomes part of the nation our ideas of religion become transplanted into the nation okay so people will also die for the nation that's why you have these incredibly devastating wars like World War I World War II where people will die for the nation okay and they won't even think about it but it starts during the French Revolution. Does that make sense to you? Okay, great. Okay.

All right. Good question. So how can a religion be based on reason? All right. So, traditionally, religion is given us to buy God, okay? Right? Every religion is like, well, we have this religion because God told us to believe in him. Okay? So, and the way you do that is through priests, who then

tell you what to believe. So this is the way that most religion is practice, right? What the Enlightenment thinkers are saying, especially Rousseau, is, no, no, no, no, this system doesn't really work, right? Because you have reason. And therefore, you have the capacity to access God. So you don't really need priest, right? So we can just think reasonably what religion should be like.

and from first principles you can deduce the religion right okay does that make sense now if you just reason from first principles about religion should be like what are they well first of all there is a god okay first of all there is a god second of all is that there is heaven and hell you do good things you go to heaven you do bad things you go to hell right that's second thing third thing is good people go to heaven therefore you should do good okay and then fourth would be like if you believe in these things you are free to believe anything else for example you're like I don't know I I believe that animals have the same rights as humans well that doesn't contradict what

we already believe therefore you can believe that animals can go to heaven as well did you understand so what we're so is saying is that for just from general principles just because just if you're able to exercise reason by yourself you should be able to deduce the basic principles of an organized state religion and that's what he does in the social contract and it becomes a basis again for the French Revolution okay does that make sense all right any more questions okay great okay so I apologize for the length of this class but but the French Revolution is really complicated

and I really need to explain some basic ideas to you, okay? So next class we'll do Rose Pier.