1) This is a short thread on the ‘relevance’ of ‘the humanities’ today, exemplified by widespread interest in and debate over the history and legacy of the Enlightenment.
2) As @jbouie’s feed today shows (along with interventions by @HeerJeet @mattyglesias & others), the Enlightenment is a topic of significant *public* interest. And as @jbouie’s feed also shows (thanks to him for his patience and erudition), it’s heated.
3) Thing is, people are really ideologically committed to a ‘side’ on this, and will ignore scholarship on the Enlightenment. Arrogance and ignorance reigns too often. Denial of the dark sides of the Enlightenment is a powerful ideological commitment.
4) It’s an example of how, regardless of how topical our scholarship is, ‘relevance’ is not what matters. What matters is whether experts and rigorous processes are acknowledged and respected (as @jbouie does), or whether these are dismissed for ideological purposes.
5) Crying ‘postmodernism’ is one way that crude dismissal happens. And the irony there is, if course, that Rationalist identity politics despises ‘pomo’ or ‘cultural Marxism’ or whatever because they believe these to be ideological distortions.
6) On the Enlightenment, it’s clear that calling yourself a fan of the Enlightenment or ‘Enlightenment values’ doesn’t inoculate you from simple, smallminded boosterism that flies in the face of Enlightenment history and mainstream scholarship in the field. /end
Addendum: for my more detailed thoughts on this, read my @voxdotcom essay: vox.com/platform/amp/t…
