The Cost of Enlightenment | Daniel Ajamian

The Lou Church Memorial Lecture, sponsored by the Lou Church Foundation. Recorded at the Mises Institute on March 23, 2019. Includes an introduction by Joseph T. Salerno.
The Austrian Economics Research Conference is the international, interdisciplinary meeting of the Austrian School, bringing together leading scholars doing research in this vibrant and influential intellectual tradition. The conference is hosted by the Mises Institute at its campus in Auburn, Alabama, and is directed by Joseph Salerno, professor of economics at Pace University and academic vice president of the Mises Institute.

[@orangesox915]

It is nice to hear a Mises Institute lecturer who quotes Chesterton favorably.

[@JennWest-Liberty]

Now I have to go read Chesterton. 🤓

[@cw4091]

This was brilliant. I left the libertarian social media groups years ago because nobody seemed to be able to wrap their head around the concept: are we interested in creating liberty or just perfecting libertarian theory? This lecture encapsulates the problem.

[@itzoma]

The most important speech Libertarians don't know about. I didn't get it when I first watched this speech at the time the presenter did it but every year after it makes more sense. I now follow traditional Christianity from Eastern Orthodox and it's clear to me.

[@emZee1994]

Read about the Neoreactionary Trichotomy, it explains what he's trying to say well. But I don't think the role the church played in the past can be done by the church today. As the British author Douglas Murray says "we can't believe like our ancestors did, even if we wanted to". Something needs to replace the church, idk what tho

[@cw4091]

As someone who converted to Eastern Orthodoxy, I say you are wrong. But it must be gradual. More and more Protestants are understanding the errors their faith has wrought in the world.

[@emZee1994]

@@cw4091 I made this comment a year ago, and by the grace of God today I'm also an Eastern Orthodox Christian. So I take back what I wrote, Orthodoxy is the way ☦️❤️

[@dekzzx]

great talk.

[@danielazevedo7707]

Anybody has links to the sources? It wouldbe awesome reading about complete books about critics of enlightenment

[@cw4091]

Patrick Deneen Why Liberalism Failed. Hoppe Democracy the God that Failed

[@itzoma]

After God: Morality and Bioethics in a Secular Age by H. Tristram Engelhardt Jr is a excellent book that critiques the Enlightenment and Roman Catholicism from an traditional Orthodox Christian perspective.

[@cw4091]

Humans need eternity for morality to matter. The problem with the enlightenment and particularly the protestant reformation as it has devolved into a very individualized faith is that each man has now become his own pope. He is either free to think about eternity or has become free to be convinced that no matter what he does, he is either damned for eternity outside his own will (Calvinism) Or he is to be exalted for eternity outside of his own well and actions. We could really hone in here on the detrimental effect of the reformation specifically. Perhaps if we had had an enlightenment without a reformation things would not be so bad. Because at any rate you would still have a unified church fighting or counterbalancing a government structure no matter what it was.

[@cw4091]

To the commentator who is asserting the the Byzantine emperor had more influence over church politics, my suggestion is simply to read the church fathers and the lives of the saints, the primary sources. Read about the response of the various emperors to various bishops and the bishops/saints battling one another over doctrine, etc. There was certainly a lot of ebb and flow. Who was banished? Who was reinstated? How did we arrive at correct dogma and doctrine? Perhaps when this is looked at from a secular view, it appears that the government was more influential. Having studied it from a church history view, I would say that the opposite was true. The secular take belies a secular worldview. From which point do we begin studying history and what lens should we view it from? Christian historians will use the incarnation for all of this analysis. What REALLY mattered was who won out for right dogma and doctrine (the eternal things)? Not who had temporary power. The answer is, of course, that in matters of eternity, the Church prevailed. (EOC American convert from Protestantism here).

[@beastlyendeavour9184]

And those most like Christ will be sweating drops of blood before truth is put back up on the cross.

[@cw4091]

This lecture is missing a treatment of the definition of "liberty" which Deneen covers well in his book Why Liberalism Failed. It should have been analyzed here in depth. We are not using the same terms. The truly classical definition has to do with telos and "freedom to be what one was created to be" based on Aristotelean causes. The enlightenment era classical definition has to do with "freedom from restraint" with each man being free from: time, place, culture, church, family, etc. I am surprised this wasn't addressed. I will have to read Burkowitz's critique of Deneen to see how he addressed it.

[@iseeundeadpeople9]

Nobody was "created" to be anything.

[@Sheeshening]

1) Re-evaluate your deism to include what we now know to be important. JBP style 2) Have the new church or other states compete on the same territory with the state 3) That’s it. Don’t need to believe in or get subjugated by classic christianity as it has a pretty bad track record for libertarian purposes

[@cw4091]

This is a short sighted and asinine statement that shows a lack of depth of understanding of both philosophy and history. Read more and come back to these ideas.

[@TheMCamera]

There cannot be ethics without God? Human being is unable to derive its morality from reality and his reason? Yes, I like Ayn Rand ... but I'm an Anarchist (Voluntarist) too ....

[@edwaggonersr.7446]

Recall that God sent 23,000 into a pit of fire before Moses delivered the Ten Commandments. That God exists, morality and ethics stem from the Natural Law which is within the grasp of human reason alone. Truths like, the Trinity, the Virgin Birth, Transubstantiation and etc. though not contrary to reason cannot be arrived at without God's grace. "Flesh and blood hath not reveled this to thee, but My Father in heaven." I've read and reread Romans 1: 18... many times and recommended it to many others.

[@BobWidlefish]

*@koltci* I’ll look for this comment and try to add a timecode for it. If he really said that, that seems really naive. I’ve studied ethics for most of my life and I know there are quite a few non-God ways to get to ethics. It’s true that God(s) can be used to get substantial community agreement on particular ethical principles. It’s not just God(s), but actually religions generally. Being a voluntaryist IS being a part of something an anthropologist could fairly call a religion (technical term, neutral connotations). Voluntarism is a way to bootstrap ethics just like Catholicism, no God required (though lots of voluntaryists do believe in God, even Catholics, and that’s fine, obviously). Ethics can also be derived on rational grounds, from nature law, Objectivism, Scientology, Buddhism, etc. One might think they’re bad ideas or mistaken in their truth claims, but these systems of thought have ethical systems every bit as strong as Judaism or Christianity or Islam or Mormonism, sometimes MUCH stronger!

[@Castle3179]

There can't be ethics with god either. The existence of God doesn't make it any easier to derive an ought from an is.

[@abruisedreed8847]

"In the field of ethics and philosophy in general, it is simply an empirical fact that the greatest thinkers, for two thousand years, have been Christian; and to ignore these Christian philosophers and to attempt to carve out an ethical system purely on one's own is to court folly and disaster." - Murray Rothbard

[@timothyfoster6215]

If everything breaking down mattered then North Korea would have resolved it's self.

[@BiznizTrademark]

The Institute slips further away from Mises to Moses...

[@abruisedreed8847]

"In the field of ethics and philosophy in general, it is simply an empirical fact that the greatest thinkers, for two thousand years, have been Christian; and to ignore these Christian philosophers and to attempt to carve out an ethical system purely on one's own is to court folly and disaster." - Murray Rothbard

[@ozowen904]

The enlightenment has many costs, with its reason and individualism and somehow responsible for emotional & collectivist like communism and the French Revolution lol give me a break

[@devonboone8220]

Probably the worst Mises Institute talk I've heard. He doesn't have an academic background in medieval history or theology and it really shows. His descriptions of the pre enlightenment political/religious economy and philosophical positions held during just aren't accurate, which is disappointing as a well informed critique of the enlightenment would have been really interesting.

[@Blitzman1999]

I love the Mises Institute but talks like these just feel silly. In relation to Libertarianism there are both friendly and hostile political ideals that came out of the Enlightenment. Religion is not necessary for libertarianism; anarcho-capitalism is neutral in terms of faith, it allows atheists and theists to live together in peace, which is clearly shown with the religiously diverse staff at the Mises Institute. Talks like these just alienate nonbelievers from considering libertariansim and make the believers facepalm.

[@abruisedreed8847]

You're living in a dreamland. Liberty was birthed in Christian culture.

[@Blitzman1999]

@@abruisedreed8847 Rothbard would disagree, he thought Natural Law had a secular foundation. Libertarianism earliest foundation is from Aristotle, 300 years before the birth of Jesus.

[@abruisedreed8847]

@@Blitzman1999 History would disagree as Ralph Raico lays out in in his talks on The Rise of the West, citing the Catholic Church as a key moral influence and counterbalance to tyranny of kings/oppression.

[@Blitzman1999]

@@abruisedreed8847 I don't think the Great Ralph Raico's comment contradicts what I said. I agree with Raico, the struggle for power between the Church and State stopped the dominance of one group, gave an unique competitive advantage to western civilization, and "the struggle for power" helped the development of liberty-minded ideas (Lecture 1: The European Miracle 17:00 kzbin.info/www/bejne/Y5TOnHaFZruWp5o). It doesn't prove false the influence that libertarianism had from Aristotelianism, particularly the concept of individualism. Regardless, liberty isn't a purely Christian invention, as it's the Classical, Christian, and Modern ideas that all contributed to it. Natural law began with Aristotle and was adopted and advanced by Thomas Aquinas, while by "Modern" I mean the economics of the Austrian School under Mises and Rothbard. All these traditions have influenced and contributed to libertarianism.

[@abruisedreed8847]

@@Blitzman1999 There's theory and then there's practice. My point was @ practice.