Enlightened Hypocrisy

Enlightened Hypocrisy

“The influence of personal interest ought to count for nothing in this domain… this kind of interest creates the most formidable enemies of the people.” (Hunt, 69) In his pamphlet on the Third Estate of France, Abbe Sieyes notes the wide disparity between the just values of the Enlightenment and their very narrow application. In this way the Enlightenment suffered from a kind of rhetorical and applicatory ambivalence. In one breath its philosophers claimed that all men had rights by virtue of existing in nature, all the while insisting on a very specific racial and social hierarchy that continued to favor the sole enfranchisement of one specific sect of western society. While most modern scholars can agree that the axiomatic nature of Enlightenment texts suggests universal moral support for all mankind, careful analysis of their application reveals that most Enlightenment principles, including natural rights, was a mere ideology that served the political and economic interests of white, Christian, males.

To understand the problems of Enlightenment ideology one has to understand, in a very basic sense, the state of Europe in the sixteenth century. At the time the first proverbial shot was fired in the revolution that was to become the Enlightenment, all of the political power of Europe was concentrated at the top with about twenty percent of the population exerting arbitrary domination over the other eighty percent.  This twenty percent was made up of, mostly, the nobility of the countries and the clergy of the Catholic Church. As Lynn Hunt points out in her book, The French Revolution and Human Rights, European monarchs derived their legitimacy to rule on a theory of “divine right”. That is, of course, that “monarchs ruled because God had chosen them for their position.” (Hunt, 6) This divine right of kings was reinforced by the hegemony of the Roman Catholic Church and their symbiotic relationship was best described by Enlightenment-era scholar John Adams as “the cannon and feudal law” – insisting that men were held in subjection by the withholding of education and knowledge by the Church and monarchs. The whole cosmology of the world was based on church-endorsed Aristotelian philosophy and the writings of Thomas Aquinas who did much to marry the Greek notions of matter and form to a very strict interpretation of the Christian Bible. Challenging the authority of kings, the church, or their particular agendas meant inquisition, imprisonment, or even death.

 It was in this setting that the Enlightenment began. From the beginnings of the Protestant Reformation to the French Revolution, Europe’s religious, scientific, and political landscape was irrevocably transformed. The Enlightenment is defined in the American Heritage^® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy as, “An intellectual movement of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries marked by a celebration of the powers of human reason, a keen interest in science, the promotion of religious toleration, and a desire to construct governments free of tyranny.” Perhaps most accurate of these claims is that the movement was “marked by a celebration of the powers of human reason” and that these men had “a desire to construct governments free of tyranny.” It was in the power of human reason that the modern liberal republic formulated. It was by a trust in human reason that the ancien regime was swept away by the tides of natural rights and the equality of men.

One of the first and most radical leaps taken in reforming the politics of Europe (and, subsequently, the New World) was based on the writings of John Locke. In his Second Treatise on Government, Locke argues for three major themes: men are born into a state of nature (not a state of societal hierarchy), men are born with certain rights (life, liberty, and property), and the legitimacy of any government lay in its mission to guarantee and protect the rights of its citizens. These major themes may seem rather mundane to the modern reader, but considering these “realities” were completely absent from the Earth at the time of Locke we should view them for what they were: radical and even, to some, dangerous! To Locke these “rights”, understood as a just or legal claim, were inherent to all men and could not be denied by any power nor relinquished by any man without just cause. Locke’s theories were influenced heavily by the English tradition that had developed over centuries ensuring particular rights to its citizens, most of which were guaranteed after the English Civil War between King Charles I and Parliament. (Hunt, 5) Indeed, fearing that the status quo had not really changed since Locke’s era and arguing for a radical implementation of Locke’s theories, Thomas Paine wrote that the fate of Charles I had not made kings more just, only more subtle in their oppression. It was through the writings of Locke and Paine that the foundation of the first modern liberal democracy was formed in the United States of America, and it was with the Declaration of Independence that we see a culmination of Enlightenment principles: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.” Upon the initial success of the American Republic, though still far from certain, many supporters in France began to write feverishly on the subject of rights and franchise. One such individual, Diderot, paid homage to the modern rationalistic tradition that had been developing for nearly two centuries when he argued that man was “an animal who reasons” (Hunt, 36) and subsequently argued for the universal application of law instead of the privilege – “private law” – of the elite. (Hunt, 7) What Diderot and his ilk gained instead was the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. In many ways the Declaration was very similar to its American counterpart. They both inserted the power of human reason instead of the arbitrary interests of the enfranchised elite, they were both radical statements encouraging the establishment of a common electorate, and they both founded – in their respective nations – the theory of human rights. It is where they differ, perhaps, that shed the most light onto the framework of revolution necessary in many European countries that were rooted in deep traditions, especially those of ardently Catholic nations.

The very first statement of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen alleges, “All men are born free and equal in rights.” (Hunt, 78) Most interestingly is that, unlike the Jeffersonian document produced across the Atlantic, the alleged “equality” of man was defined: men are equal in rights. Whereas Jefferson left the equality up to a more ambiguous interpretation – which would spark debate in America well into the twenty-first century – the French authors specifically limited the equality of men to their right to remain free. Another interesting note is that the French document abstains from any mention of a “creator”, even one so indefinite and agnostic as the deistic “creator” alluded to in the American Declaration. Instead the French authors pursue a more naturalistic and limited scope: they are “born” free and equal. In the context of the modern debate on abortion and when human life begins one can understand how this careful terminology has potentially impacted the evolution of rights in Europe in contrast to America. What also becomes clear upon further inspection is that these “rights” rendered unto all men were specific: men had the right to “liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression.” (Hunt, 78) It is in the right to resist oppression that members of the aristocracy and church must have seen the greatest threat. For what was, I’m sure, very practical reasons the authors did not begin to define security or oppression. Combined with the glaringly absent right to “life”, it is not difficult to see the makings of a particularly bloody revolution. Perhaps every bit as remarkable is the nearly unlimited scope given to the definition of liberty! “Liberty” was given a definition that was, at the same time as being specific, also highly subjective: a nearly unlimited scope of rights that can be exercised to the point of anything that “does not harm another.” This, of course, begs the question: At what point does one’s right become injurious to another or society? And who is the judge? Is there a burden of reasonable proof? The Declaration is ubiquitously silent on the matter. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen is riddled with such seemingly obvious flaws – especially obvious in hindsight. It seems, in several ways, that the Declaration leaves the people of France with more questions than answers. For instance: The Declaration does not adequately differentiate between “man” and “citizen”. The relationship between “man” and “citizen” is indistinct and potentially incongruent. When “men” are declared to be born free and have equality in rights, does the word “men” mean citizens only? Or does it mean all men regardless of citizenship? Men are given the freedom to have whatever opinion they want – even in religion – but what of Protestants and Jews? Did the authors intend to give rights to them as well? The verbiage employed on the subject is that “no one should be disturbed”. This, naturally, leads us back to the original question at hand: Did the Deputies of the National Assembly intend to give rights to all men and make all men (race, creed, and gender) citizens of the “nation”? The first fact that should be noted is that these deputies were experienced legislators. They may not have had the depth and longstanding tradition of the Parliament in England, but these men had deliberated and argued over these complex legal notions for quite some time, as evidenced by documents 1-10 in Lynn Hunt’s The French Revolution and Human Rights. The process of bringing rights to French citizens was an involved evolution over time that included the greatest legal and philosophical minds of their culture. What’s more, one must remember that the French language is incredibly deep and complex. The Latin term lingua franca should remind any scholar of its widespread use among most European communities for the exchange of ideas and business. The French language, unlike its contemporary English and German counterparts, was much better for conveying very specific thoughts and accurately portraying ideas especially in law and philosophy. This was, of course, part of its romantic heritage but also unique in its loose relationship to Latin. A man could say something in French and have a much easier time of transmitting a very precise notion without the kind of rhetorical haziness of other languages. Another consideration is that the National Assembly had the advantage of drawing from existing constitutions in Britain, the national constitution of the U.S., and their various state constitutions when creating the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. Taking all of these reflections together it becomes increasingly obvious from the imprecision of the verbiage, the inconsistency of the terms; the subjective nature of the definitions and protections is not unintentional but rather inherently prejudiced. The most likely conclusion to be drawn is that these men had no intention of allowing women, non-Catholics, and non-whites to be “active” citizens. All of these thoughts taken together must mean that the primary intention of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen was to limit the monarchy’s power, not to enfranchise the masses. This is most evidenced by articles 3, 12, 13, and 16 of the Declaration. (Hunt, 78-79)

“Men are born and remain free and equal in rights.” (Hunt, 10) The very language used in every Enlightenment document with regards to natural rights inherently excluded women from the start. The use of “man” or “men” as a descriptor for the considered masses seems both conscious and unconscious for the efforts of defining the enfranchised population. It was conscious in the sense that the rights of an active citizen were limited to males, but unconscious in the sense that – to many of this time – it was quite literally unthinkable to consider women for political rights. It is hard to determine whether this was a reason or an effect, but it is certain that women, like slaves and criminals, due to their general state of reliance on other “qualified” citizens were considered incompatible with independence and, thus, incompatible with citizenship. (Hunt, 82) What’s more, France’s female population – not altogether dissimilar from any contemporary society – was defined by their gender and not by their status in society or occupation. (Hunt, 11) A particularly potent example of this gender-based chauvinism is that of Olympe De Gouges. Gouges, responding to what she considered incredible intolerance, published the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and met intense resistance. She was widely criticized and eventually was executed. (Hunt, 27) One of her most incensed critics, Chaumette – who was, ironically, a radical abolitionist – decried Gouges as a “shameless” woman that “abandoned the cares of her household”; a common accusation that intended to portray politically active women as ones who “renounced their sex.” (Hunt, 27-29) Delivering another “diatribe” against women’s rights he asked, “Since when is it permitted to renounce one’s sex? Since when is it decent to see women abandon the pious cares of their household, the cradle of their children, to come into public places, to the galleries to hear speeches, to the bar of the senate? Is it for women to make motions? Is it for women to put themselves at the head of our armies?” (Hunt, 139) Statements such as this serve as an effective illustration of the resistance, even among social progressives, to allowing women into the political sphere. The nature of women’s exclusion from politics and political rights seems highly misogynistic, as evidenced by the spokesman of the National Convention claiming women were “hardly capable of lofty conceptions and serious cogitations.” (Hunt, 28-29) All of this should not serve, however, to insinuate that men in this way universally maligned women. An advocate for women’s rights, Cordocet seemed to appeal to men’s reason when he argued that the more domesticated station of women in life may be enough for men not to vote for them, but it could not be a reason for their exclusion. (Hunt, 121) Even in such a groundbreaking time, such longstanding traditions, relatively unchallenged during the French Revolution, left many women in the yoke of subjection until the twentieth century. Despite several passionate attempts by zealous activists to appeal to justice and reason, women were disqualified from political rights with extreme prejudice upon pain of imprisonment or death. (Hunt, 27)

It may be understandable that the notion of equality among men would not apply to women, even if that notion is – to a modern mind – not entirely reasonable or just; but what of the exclusion of the Jew? Or the Protestant? If the Enlightenment, and the theory of natural rights, was based on universal concepts of equality among men based on human reason, what cause was there to bar men on the basis of religion? Even the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen claimed that “no one should be disturbed for his opinions, even in religion, provided that their manifestation does not trouble public order as established by law.” (Hunt, 79) But doesn’t the disenfranchisement of non-Catholics and Jews constitute them being “disturbed”? Unfortunately, the uncertainty of the terminology enabled abuse of the concept. Even if the authors of the Declaration had intended for these rights to apply universally, there can be no doubt that such educated and litigious men would foresee that such non-specific language would lead to misuse and, perhaps, exploitation. Minority religions suffered a great deal at the hands of the dominant religious powers in every country in the world during this time. There’s absolutely no exception for Europe, and least of all in France. Even in post-Enlightenment Europe, prejudice over traditions and cultural disparities left deep wounds, which many were unable to get past. Consider the history of Northern Ireland, or the impact on modern east-west relations because of the Crusades that occurred, in bulk, nearly 1,000 years ago. The religious prejudices that existed during and after the Enlightenment are one of the most obvious indicators that much of the discussions around equality, reason, and rights were simple ideology intended to benefit a specific sect of society at the exclusion of others.

First to consider is the case of the Jews. Were the Jews a people of all women that they should be so universally excluded from political rights? Were they men “of color”? Had the Jews been included in the chattel slavery system of colonialism? Were Jews criminals or thugs? Had they attempted to undermine the laws of Europe? On the contrary to all points! Of course there were males among the Jewish populations of Europe, and of course those men were of the same race as the Europeans. Even the polygeneticists of the eighteenth century agreed that Europeans and peoples of the Mediterranean (including Jews, Greeks, and Arabs) were of the same race or species as the French and English. According to the petition submitted by the Jews of Paris, Jews in France even wanted to be considered citizens! (Hunt, 94) Even after all of the mistrust, the harassment, and the persecution (Hunt, 95), the Jewish population of France wished to become individual citizens of the nation. It was argued, most heavily amongst ardent Catholics, that the Jews were a nation of their own and not really capable of assimilating into their host countries. (Hunt, 89) If, however, there was a cultural divide between the Jew and the Frenchman – and, to be sure, there was – it was as much the responsibility of French laws and prejudice as it was the perceived “oddities” of Jewish people and customs. (Hunt, 87) “If they [the Jews] had to prevail on justice, they would have little to say. But they have to combat a prejudice…” (Hunt, 94) This prejudice is the enemy of reason, and, as the Jews of Paris rightly argue, the existence of such prejudice against the Jew shows a lack of true reason. When the Jew was excluded from the political process in Europe, all eloquent rhetoric notwithstanding, the Deputies of the National Assembly may as well have pointedly noted their reason as: “You are not like us.” It is in that rampant egotism that we see the true ostentation and nature of Enlightenment ideology. All men are equal, so long as they’re “like us”. If the case of the Jews wasn’t convincing enough, consider the lot of the Protestant in this same situation. Remove the cultural oddities, remove the reclusive nature of the Jewish community (real or imagined), and remove the controversy over usury. What remains? A man like any other man. But what then separated the Protestant from the Catholic? One seemingly simple belief about the nature of the Church. Did the Protestant follow the customs of the Catholic? Overwhelmingly, yes. Did they worship the same God? Yes. Did they seek salvation from the same Redeemer? Yes. Did they have the same contempt for usury? Yes. But what then remains? “You are not like us.” The example of the Jew and the Protestant in Revolution France goes a long way to demonstrate the truth of Enlightenment ideology serving only a prescribed sect of society.

In no circumstance is this kind of prejudice so clear and so flagrant as with the instance of race. The primary variable to consider in this period is that many Enlightenment-era thinkers did not consider all “men” to be of the same race of man. That is not to say that all men shared these views, but the men that held the belief of polygeneticism conformed to a theory that different ethnic groups of humans were actually wholly different species of men. One such thinker was François Bernier. In his essay “A New Division of the Earth”, Bernier argues that the differences between the various races are not simple geographical adaptations but rather they are the differences of special origin. In other words, mankind is an amalgamation of different species. These species, according to Bernier, were of four different varieties. Loosely translated for the modern mind these varieties were: European/Mediterranean, African, East Asian/Oriental, and Scandinavian. (Bernier, 2) Obviously missing from his list are the Native Americans or Pacific Islanders. He does concede that there are possibly a fifth species, but does not actually name them. (Bernier, 1) Similar to Bernier’s was the essay by Voltaire entitled “Of the Different Races of Men”. In it, he argues – among many other things – that, “None but the blind can doubt that the whites, the negroes, the Albinoes, the Hottentots, the Laplanders, the Chinese, the Americans, are races entirely different.” (Emphasis added – Voltaire, 1) Silently insinuated from these compiled lists are not only a set of different races, but also a very real hierarchy between them with Europeans at the top. From that racial hierarchy comes the gender hierarchy of men over women, “Enlightened” over uneducated, Christian over Jew, Muslim, or pagan and – in France - Catholic over Protestant. Therefore, in the European Enlightenment you have a very rigid hierarchy that has white educated Christian men as solely capable of citizenship and government. There are others who argued that all men come from the same race but, while correct, the pseudo-empirical philosophers of the day were more likely to agree with polygenetics. Bernier and Voltaire gave empirical differences to argue their case for different races such as skin color, eye shape, body build, hair type, nose shape, and lip size. These differences, accessible and available to the senses, without the advanced knowledge of genetics and DNA would lead many for centuries to agree with the polygenetic theory of human development. It is in this light that much of the seemingly contradictory efforts of men like Thomas Jefferson and John Locke become slightly clearer.

In contrast to the French Revolution, the American Republican ideology centered on the idea that freedom and liberty had been a natural progression of their development as a people over centuries and it was that heritage alone that enabled America to so perfectly execute a Republican government. As mentioned before, it was in this context – of different species of humans – that individuals such as Locke and Jefferson could have what seems to be in a modern world such a bundle of contradictions built upon freedom and slavery. We see that in the Declaration of Independence that Jefferson declares, “All men are created equal”. (Hunt, 13) Yet in what amounts to the same rhetorical breath, he argues in his “Notes on the State of Virginia” that “Negroes” are more suitable to forced labor and subjection to Europeans than whites. That, however, should not be considered as an outright endorsement of slavery. While being a slave-owner, Jefferson did argue that slavery was potentially a great evil. This evil, however, did not lie in racial subjection, but rather in the potential of slavery to corrupt the slave-master and persuade him that tyranny was acceptable. More confusing still is his insistence that the African was still suitable to be a slave because they lack the capacity of reason that whites have. But how could this argument be made without his contemporaries, colleagues, or, more specifically, his critics accusing him of absolute hypocrisy? It seems as though the world must’ve turned upside down in the mind of Jefferson: slavery is not bad for the slave because “negroes” are suited for nothing more than slavery, but it is bad for the slave-owner because it encourages a spirit despotism in him? Perhaps even more confusing is the rhetorical contradictions of John Locke. In his Second Treatise on Government, Locke argues that man is born into a state of liberty and a state of nature. (Locke, 8 § 4) Such a statement was radical enough for anyone of his time. But for someone that was so heavily invested in the slave trade monopoly – both financially and politically – the thought that followed would have been shocking: to hold someone in bondage or slavery was to perpetuate a constant state of war with them and the nature that held all men as free. (Locke, 8 § 4 and Locke, 17 § 24) In an article published by Robert Bernasconi and Anika Maaza Mann entitled “Contradictions of Racism: Locke, Slavery and the Two Treatises”, Locke is described as both the “architect of race-based slavery” and the foremost “philosopher of liberal freedom.” (Contradictions, 90-91) But how could these contradictions live in such enlightened individuals? Oddly enough, the answer may lie in their use of the word “negro”.

In his essay on “The Natural Variety of Man”, Johann Blumenbach refutes the theory of polygenticism and argues that mankind has many different varieties, but is only one species of being. (Blumenbach, 1) While he argues that it is possible to categorize the varieties of mankind he maintains that the differences between the varieties are far outweighed by their similarities. What seems to be the most striking difference between polygeneticists and monogeneticists of the day is the usage of the word “negro” to describe the people of Africa. The use of this name, now considered derogatory in modern cultures, is something that Enlightenment scholars like Locke and Jefferson share with polygeneticists like Voltaire and Bernier. Understanding that polygenetic theory seemed much more appealing to the empirical rationalist of the Enlightenment, we can see how Jefferson and Locke would have fallen in with the notion that these Africans, whom they advocated for slavery, were not actually men but a brutish sub-species of being more akin to an ape than a European. Blumenbach refers to Voltaire (a favorite of Enlightenment thinkers) specifically in his assertions of the ape-likeness of “negroes”. (Blumenbach, 33) It was the use of the word “negro” by Locke and Jefferson, in conjunction with race-based slavery, which illustrates that these men were committed to the concept of polygenetics. A careful examination of Herder and Blumenbach show that these men did not refer to Africans as “negroes”, while strict polygeneticists like Voltaire and Bernier used that word to denote the inferiority of the African race to Europeans. Even Blumenbach, in his categorizing of the varieties of mankind, seems to concede to a natural hierarchy in the following order: Caucasoid (European/Mediterranean), Mongoloid (East Asian), Maylay (Southeast Asian/Pacific Islander), Ethiopian (African), and American (Native American). As illustrated, the most primitive forms of human – to the polygeneticist – are African and Native American. These two races have, arguably, been the most mistreated and abused people on Earth with one suffering hundreds of years of exploitation and slavery and the other suffering near annihilation and, in some tribes, total extinction at the hands of Europeans. It was in the context of racial hierarchy that provides a valuable key to understanding the seemingly intractable contradictions of Locke and Jefferson. That is not to say that there were not some whole sections of European society that considered it utterly unacceptable for slavery and racial inequality to exist. As Hunt notes, many in French society criticized the principle of slavery but gave no serious plan to end it. (Hunt, 10) As would characterize the practice of slavery for decades more, it was considered an “evil” necessary to maintain the economic and social status quo of France.

There were, of course, brave souls that fought against the propagation of slavery both in America and in France. As would seem to mirror the Quaker movement an ocean away, “renegade” French priests like Abbe Raynal and Abbe Gregoire would argue that men should decide whether they are “to listen to the suggestions of interest, infatuation, and of barbarism, rather than those of reason and justice”. (Emphasis added - Hunt, 53) Critiquing the social construct of racial slavery, they brought the criticism to self-reflection upon the insistence that “the only advantage we [Europeans] have over the Negroes is, that we can break one chain to put on another.” (Hunt, 53) But in the end, after countless attempts to abolish slavery (one of which being successful), it was forced to return in the era of Napoleon. It is not only the rhetoric of the Enlightenment, much of which was a prejudiced and traditional as it was revolutionary and progressive, but also in the historical examples we were given that we can be convinced of the mere ideology of natural rights.

Many scholars are right to see the Enlightenment and its subsequent political, economic, religious, and scientific reforms as the beginning of a brave new world for the human race. It is both true and right to see the Enlightenment and the many revolutions of Europe as the launching platform for the liberty of all mankind, but it is dangerous to turn a blind eye to the gross exclusivity of those “inalienable human rights” in the eighteenth century. Perhaps one of the most difficult tasks for a historical scholar is to separate his modern worldview from the subject material he studies. Historians must be extra cautious not to import their particular experiences and the benefit of their hindsight to the individuals and periods they study. It is in this light that we understand that, while natural rights have a universal application in today’s world, the application intended for those rights by their authors was actually quite limited. More to the point, the enfranchisement of the masses (which include women, non-whites, non-propertied, and non-Christians) was never the primary objective of Enlightenment authors of natural rights. The primary intention of natural rights was to limit the power of arbitrary government, founded in the canonical and feudal systems, and enfranchise a very specific sect of society.