Seth Radwell

Kind of a muddle, but with some useful ideas and parts I agree with. The history parts are interesting, and have given me a stronger desire to learn more about the French revolution and thinkers of that time. The American history is reasonably accurate. Moderate vs Radical enlightenment seems like a useful lens to view history through, and through much of the book he details why the Radical is good and the Moderate is bad, before changing tune to say both are useful at the end. His "counter enlightenment" parts don't make as much sense to me, and I didn't get a clear view of what he wants regarding "freedom from religion" - it seems like he's saying religious views shouldn't "influence" public/civic debate, which is hard to square with his radical enlightenment view that all citizens should have an equal voice. He at least tries to address this in the case of MLK, who is given a pass on his religious views influencing public debate since they were in sync with radical enlightenment values.

Where I agree with him:
- he's pro-truth and against the postmodernist idea of "no truth/your truth/my truth"
- he's against the idea of equal outcomes and wants to keep the idea of meritocracy & people being able to keep (some of) the rewards of success.
- he's in favor of equality under the law and a broad view of who is included in "we the people". He believes in democracy.

His suggested solutions are mostly standard liberal/progressive policies. Tax more (esp the rich), spend more on education, elect the president by national popular vote, eliminate the filibuster (and possibly do more to make the senate less important), reverse Citizens United, ban political advertising on TV/internet, eliminate voter ID rules and gerrymandering (he didn't address current gerrymandering to ensure more racially diverse representation in congress, so maybe he isn't aware). To him it seems obvious that this all flows from the ideas of Jefferson and other radical enlightenment thinkers, but I'm skeptical. At least he's open to debate with people who also support democracy and the rule of law, which is more than can be said for many partisans of either side.

The book was an incredibly ambitious effort, and he deserves credit for that, and for trying to address a truly important issue. But most readers would probably be better served by looking at history and enlightenment thought more directly, particularly the writings of Jefferson, Franklin and the French Enlightenment thinkers.… (meer)