VLVL the collapse of the Youth Movement/Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys

[Paul Mackin]

On Tue, 2004-02-24 at 14:10, Richard Romeo wrote:
> for a little perspective
> 
> from current ny review of books, review of Robert
> Darnton's George Washington's False Teeth by Gordon
> Wood:
> 
> "In a path breaking and much-cited article, 'The High
> Enlightenment and the Low-Life of Literature in
> Pre-Revolutionary France', Darnton drew a distinction
> between the heroic Enlightenment of the mid-century,
> when risk-taking Voltaire and his allies shook the
> power structure to its roots and the High
> Enlightenment of the generation that followed the
> famous philosophes during the last 25 yrs of the Old
> Regime. By the time of this later phase, in the 1770s,
> Darnton argued, Voltaire and the other philosophes had
> lost much of their earlier critical edge.  They had in
> some ways become tamed and domesticated by the
> establishment..."
> 
> "Although they continued to criticize the Old Regime
> and to fit bigotry and injustice to the end, they had
> become identified with the fasjionable radicalism that
> many of the nobility themselves were drawn to."
> 
> More interesting points:
> 
> "They (historians) needed to look at 18th century
> literary life from the bottom up, not from the lofty
> point of the philosophes in the salons and academies,
> but from that of literary low-lifes and obscure
> scribblers...

In addition p-people such as ourselves may be interested in 
Darnton's so called "general statement" about the Enlightenment in the
title essay of the collection.

In this essay (according to Gordon Wood the reviewer) "Darnton abandons
his role as a historian and becomes an advocate, vigorously defending
the Enlightenment against its critics, particularly John Gray and other
postmodern writers. The critics held the Enlightenment responsible for
much of what they don't like about the current world, especially for the
Western hegemony and imperialism and its stereotype of non-Western
'others.' A number of modern intellectuals such as Jacob Talmon have
even claimed that the Enlightenment led to twentieth-century
totalitarianism and fascism. Other have deplored its excessive reliance
on reason. which left modern society helpless against the forces of
irrationality. These critics are saying that the eighteenth century
Enlightenment is outdated and inadequate to deal with contemporary
problems.

"Darnton believes that such critics have inflated the Enlightenment,
identifying it with nearly everything subsumed under the name of Western
civilization." (he goes on to say that Darnton considerable deflates the
Enlightenment to a more specific time and space than is frequently
envisioned---it's too much to type. Try and read the review.
Unfortunately it's not one they put on line.


"
> 
> 
> --- jbor <jbor at bigpond.com> wrote:
> > on 24/2/04 8:45 AM, jbor wrote:
> snip
> > But after
> > > she, and other betrayers like her, had brought it
> > crashing down, these
> > > causes were also lost. The '60s Youth Movement
> > achieved nothing, or very
> > > little, of its original agenda.
> snip> 
> > Part of the fault
> > rests with Brock, and less directly, the regime; the
> > bigger component of it,
> > and what Brock recognises, is just how easily and
> > readily the hippies and
> > revolutionaries allow themselves to be exploited,
> > and how quickly they turn.
> > 
> > best
> > 
> 
> 
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