Enlightenment and early political thought Notes

How Did New Ideas Challenge Authority?

1. The Enlightenment was basically the moment when people across Europe began asking dangerous questions, questions like:
   1. Why do kings rule?
   2. Who gave them the right?
   3. Why should the Church decide what’s true?
2. For centuries, monarchs, nobles, and religious leaders had held enormous power, largely unquestioned.
3. Enlightenment thinkers flipped this world upside down by arguing that:
   1. Humans had natural rights
   2. Governments should serve the people
   3. Society could be improved through reason rather than blind obedience.

What Was the Enlightenment?

1. A major intellectual movement in the 1700s that emphasised reason, science, and human rights.
2. Thinkers challenged absolute monarchy, Church authority, and traditional hierarchies.
3. The belief grew that societies could change and even be improved through rational debate.
4. Essentially, people started asking whether power should be earned, not inherited.

Key Enlightenment Thinkers and How They Challenged Authority

John Locke (1632–1704)

1. Argued that people are born with natural rights: life, liberty, property.
2. Said governments only exist because people consent to them.
3. If a ruler violates rights, people have the right to rebel.
4. → Directly challenged the idea of divine-right monarchy.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778)

1. Believed that sovereignty comes from the general will of the people.
2. Criticised inequality and argued humans were corrupted by unjust societies.
3. Inspired democratic movements and revolutions.
4. → Suggested that legitimate authority comes from the people, not kings.

Voltaire (1694–1778)

1. Attacked censorship and Church power.
2. Promoted free speech and religious tolerance.
3. → Undermined the dominance of Church authority.

Montesquieu (1689–1755)

1. Argued governments should be divided into branches to prevent tyranny.
2. → Challenged absolute power by promoting checks and balances.

How Did Enlightenment Ideas Spread?

1. Books and pamphlets became cheaper.
2. Coffeehouses and salons allowed discussions outside Church or king’s control.
3. Scientific discoveries proved that old explanations weren't always right.
4. Middle-class literacy increased, meaning more people could question authority.

Did These Ideas Lead to Real Change?

Yes, in huge and long-lasting ways.

1. Inspired Revolutions

1. American Revolution (1776): based heavily on Locke’s ideas.
2. French Revolution (1789): challenged monarchy and privilege.
3. Later revolutions across Europe in 1848 took Enlightenment further.

2. Challenged Traditional Authority

1. Kings lost their aura of divine power.
2. The Church faced rising criticism.
3. Ordinary citizens demanded representation.

3. Encouraged New Political Ideologies

1. Enlightenment thought laid the foundations for:
   1. Liberalism: individual rights, constitutional government.
   2. Socialism: fairness, equality, reforming industrial society.
   3. Anarchism: radical rejection of state authority.
   4. Nihilism: belief that society must be destroyed to be rebuilt.
2. These ideologies were the nineteenth-century descendants of Enlightenment questioning.

Anarchism: When Challenging Authority Becomes the Entire Philosophy

Anarchism pushed Enlightenment ideas to their extreme: if authority must serve the people, why keep authority at all?

What Anarchists Believed

1. Society should operate without a state.
2. People should live in self-governing communities.
3. Governments are often oppressive and unnecessary.
4. Freedom comes from abolishing imposed authority.

Bakunin: The Face of Revolutionary Anarchism

1. Mikhail Bakunin was the revolutionary who essentially said: “If the state always ends in oppression, why keep the state?”

2. Influenced by Proudhon’s idea of decentralised, self-managed communities.
3. Joined the socialist “International” in 1868.
4. Clashed with Karl Marx:
   1. Marx wanted a strong state to manage a socialist transition.
   2. Bakunin argued that this would become authoritarian socialism: a dictatorship.
5. His ideas influenced:
   1. the Paris Commune (1871),
   2. movements in Spain,
   3. anarchist groups in Russia and beyond.

Nihilism: Challenging Authority Through Destruction

1. Nihilists believed society had to be destroyed so it could be rebuilt.
2. Often associated with violence or terrorism.
3. Rejected government, religion, and all imposed values.

How Did These Movements Challenge Authority?

1. By arguing that authority should be justified, not assumed.
2. By denying that kings, clergy, or elites naturally deserve power.
3. By promoting rights, liberty, and individual reason over tradition.
4. By encouraging the working class and peasants to imagine life without oppressive structures.
5. By inspiring new forms of protest, revolution, and political organisation.