Do most historians consider the enlightenment belief about human reason a precondition for democracy to emerge?
Upvote:1
It's a reasonable hypothesis, but the problem is that you have two 'squishy' things - reason and democracy - and you're asking for a coherent answer. It's not impossible, but it's a difficult one.
As you know, the word democracy long predates the enlightenment, there are some examples here. They include not just obvious democracies like Athens, but more obscure ones like early Native American societies. Many of these societies had slavery, property and gender-restricted franchises, but then so did most nineteenth-century democracies. I can just about credit that the ancient Greeks had an enlightenment-style attitude towards reason, but extending that to Mesopotamia, India and the pre-Columbian Americas seems a bit much. Not saying that they didn't have reason or a belief in it, just that if they did it must be a universal human quality whether you live in a democracy or an autocracy.
The main difference between ancient democracies and modern ones is that modern ones cover an entire country. Large countries existed in antiquity, but only as autocracies. What made it possible to run a democracy where the demos is spread over thousands of miles, and can never know one other, let alone meet in one place to make decisions?
The answer: the printing press. That allowed people to talk to the whole country at once, and for everybody to be informed in a timely way about what the country's problems were, and what was proposed to do about them. The printing press also cemented a belief in human reason. A medieval bishop could believe - or pretend to - that reason was some special quality which only the best people (aristocrats) could possess. The expensiveness and consequent scarcity of books, and concomitant widespread illiteracy, lent some plausibility to those claims. Medieval European paper and ink was more scarce and dear than that used in ancient Rome, although it did last longer.
In other words, both belief in reason and modern democracy are an outcome of the same innovation: printing.
More post
- 📝 How did different asset classes perform during the Weimar hyperinflation?
- 📝 In 1947, how many Reichsmarks would 1 U.S. dollar buy?
- 📝 What is the source for John Adams Sr. writing about Hamilton taking blame for Washington?
- 📝 How cheap were sailing ships in Gold Rush California?
- 📝 Why didn't China try to explore or colonize the Americas?
- 📝 Whig party identification in the House of Lords
- 📝 What is the oldest inscription of Yahweh found?
- 📝 What is the archaeological evidence for the Aztecs' use of entheogens?
- 📝 How much faster/better were European printing presses compared to Chinese block printing?
- 📝 Was Jud Suss a veiled criticism of Hitler?
- 📝 An Austrian Emperor who thought taking his own sweet time about rewarding his underlings was the best way to inspire respect?
- 📝 Why did Peter the Great tie particular expenditures to particular revenue sources?
- 📝 What do I need to know about Syria's history to understand the 2011-2012 uprising?
- 📝 How did the US vet Soviet refugees for possible spies/infiltrators?
- 📝 What do these artillery shell stamps indicate?
- 📝 When were public roads cleaned electromagnetically?
- 📝 Why does English use Roman months, but Germanic days of the week?
- 📝 Have any large scale cultural or ideological shifts ever been successfully reversed by those who opposed it?
- 📝 What percent of the US Federal Budget was spent on WW2?
- 📝 Use separation papers to identify a US soldier's WWII service in Northern France GO 46 WD 45
- 📝 Where can I find annual population estimates for each US state, from 1865-1899?
- 📝 Why did navies abandon armour?
- 📝 When did western medical certification start?
- 📝 What were the regimental colors of the 18th NY Infantry Regiment?
- 📝 Has any war in recorded history ever resulted in the complete annihilation (civil and military) of an enemy - all of them killed with no survivors?
- 📝 How did Americans' hatred of taxes shape the country up through the Gilded Age?
- 📝 What does Spivak mean by "epistemic violence" in her paper "can the subaltern speak"?
- 📝 Could Thomas Jefferson have ever heard Mozart's Symphony No. 40, KV. 550?
- 📝 Why were bows referred to as "Indian Artillery"?
- 📝 Was there really a Communist presidential nominee or political party in the 1876 election?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 Do most historians consider the enlightenment belief about human reason a precondition for democracy to emerge?
- 📝 Do any historians consider superior German airpower as the most important factor in the Battle of France?
- 📝 About how long ago was the most recent day on which a human did not die
- 📝 What is the historical reason for 18 years being the most commonly accepted age of adulthood?
- 📝 What can be considered to be the single most important reason for the decline of muslim Golden Age?
- 📝 What do historians mean when they talk about "supply side" and "demand side" explanations of the industrial revolution?
- 📝 How did historians find out about the undoctored version of Stalin's doctored photographs?
- 📝 Is there any good reason to call the German Emperor "the Kaiser", implying something uniquely German about him?
- 📝 What is the most historically prevalent reason of states dissolving, other than military activity?
- 📝 When studying about the history of, say, Philippines, is it generally better to prioritize the works of Filipino Historians than foreign historians?
- 📝 Is there still controversy among historians and archaeologists about the exact date of the Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79AD?
- 📝 What do historians infer about the world view of the ancient Egyptians based on the prophecy of Neferty?
- 📝 Who (or what) has received the most votes for anything in human history?
- 📝 Did most major ancient cultures (e.g. the Mesopotamians) consider the heart as the main cognitive organ?
- 📝 What do subjects in Hellenistic and Renaissance art suggest about the average human physique throughout history?
- 📝 Do historians agree that most wars are caused by religion?
- 📝 How do historians and linguists know how to pronounce the names from non-phonetic scripts?
- 📝 When did the allies find out about the killing of Jews during WW2
- 📝 What did Germany do in World War II about the different rail gauge in the Soviet Union?
- 📝 What is the reason for the selections of gun caliber size in history?
- 📝 Why did the German army execute so few soldiers in World War I compared to most other armies?
- 📝 What is the oldest authentic example of people complaining about modern times and the young?
- 📝 How serious was Fermat's statement about the ancients?
- 📝 What was the reason for Soviet troops to withdraw from Yugoslavia in World War II?
- 📝 Why did modern "Romania" remain the most "Roman" part of the Balkans?
- 📝 Why could China keep most of the lands it conquered after 17th century but European powers could not?
- 📝 What is the most number of times someone has become leader of a European country?
- 📝 What do the modern Japanese people think about the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
- 📝 What disruptions were brought about by Islam that the Arabians saw so many victories?
- 📝 Which battle was the most lopsided result in terms of casualties?