[Buddha-l] Enlightenment vs The Enlightenment

[Jayarava]

Came across this passage last night:

"Despite their quarrelsome diversity... most Enlightenment thinkers shared certain intellectual traits - an insistence on intellectual autonomy, a rejection of tradition and authority as the infallible sources of truth, a loathing for bigotry and persecution, a commitment to free inquiry, a belief that (in Francis Bacon's words) knowledge is indeed power." (Wheen, F. How Mumbo Jumbo Conquered the World : a Short History of Modern Delusions. Harper 2004, p.5-6)

Enlightenment. There's another English term colonised by Buddhist jargon! Anyway I thought this was a neat summary of our intellectual values. I see many potential crossovers with Buddhist intellectual values as well. However reflecting on recent Buddha-L dialogues I realized that at least some Buddhists seem to hold values almost directly opposed to these. To wit: one is not supposed to think for oneself because the tradition and authority figures tell us what the Truth is; they reject free inquiry as egotism and try to restrict knowledge. While calling the resulting behaviour bigotry or prejudice may be too strong, they are quite judgemental and will sometimes use rude words about people who disagree with their anti-Enlightenment sentiments.

In these increasingly barbaric and superstitious times I think Buddhists (Buddhist intellectuals anyway) will have to find some way of incorporating the spirit of the Enlightenment into our practice. Otherwise we run the risk of following the general trend towards unreason and "obscurantist bunkum". I suppose that engaging with academics such as Buddha-L provides for is one way of doing that, though it is not without pitfalls (and pratfalls!). 

Jayarava