Week 2- Recap- Gascoigne and Gross

Last week Gascoigne and Gross defined the changes associated with the Enlightenment in terms of:

• The scientific revolution of the seventeenth century
• The Industrial revolution
• The Agrarian revolution
• The rise of early capitalism
• Empiricism and rationalism
• The rise of rational institutions of governance
• a bureaucratised, centralised government
• the rule of law
• The rise of modern political ideologies: liberalism, communism, socialism (Hobsbawm)

The totality of these changes can be understood in terms of the shift from tradition to the modern. Gascoigne defines the Enlightenment as “a movement which directly challenged many aspects of traditional practice”.

What does this shift from the  traditional to the modern entail?

Tradition can be defined as that which is pre-existing. However there is also a more specific definition:

Gross writes: 

• Almost all the important elements of a traditional attitude are expressed here: that the old ways are the best; that value is found by following the old paths; that comfort and peace come by holding on to the legacies of the past; and that "the past" and "the good" are for all practical purposes one and the same Tradition encouraged attitudes of piety and reverence toward what was inherited from the past. It affirmed the notion that one had to look backward toward some distant origin to find the source of all value. Thus, the essential quality of tradition is its conservatism. It produced respect for authority.
• Compared with tradition’s backward orientation, modernity entailed a belief in progress, a belief that the future would be better and more prosperous than the past. This belief or confidence in the future was inspired by new methods of scientific and intellectual inquiry such as empiricism and rationalism. Gascoigne writes: The view that society could be improved through the application of reason and industry gave direction to the new settlements and linked their endeavours with the faith in progress that was a keynote of the Enlightenment.

Thus “tradition” and “modernity” can each be understood as a general approach to the world, an attitude of mind, a “social reality” (Gross).