From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Mon Oct 14 2002 - 18:50:34 MDT
Steve writes
> So true! The nineteenth century gets a lot of deserved credit (unprecedented
> rise in living standards, abolition of slavery etc) but all that came as the
> working out of social innovations from the 1715-1815 period. I think the
> crucial thing about that period was a whole series of conceptual and
> institutional breakthroughs (e.g. the very idea of "technology" - see what
> Peter Drucker has to say about this.). Not to mention great cultural
> achievements as well.
Yes, it does seem that there was something quite
special about the 18th century. It was the age
of Reason, after all.
> Why did this happen though? I still think the improvement
> in the weather had something to do with it,
Quite! I was very serious about the Maunder Minimum.
When the "little ice age" faded in the early 1700's
everything seemed to take a turn towards the better.
Historically, at least, global warming has always
been a *good* thing. In every case, humanity has
thrived as it got warmer, and shrivelled when it
got colder. The same would be true next time, I'm
certain, but having something to worry about---no
matter how much in defiance of history or logic---
provides a panic and an excuse for drastic action
(read huge government spasms).
> but IMHO the critical thing was the crisis of religious
> belief that took place at the end of the 17th century,
> one aspect of that being the revolutionary idea of ture
> religious toleration.
Well, both Protestantism (i.e. weakening of the Roman
Church) and the printing press both had 16th century
origins, so I can't explain the toleration of the
18th century. You're very possibly right.
Lee
> > Was not the 18th century the most wonderful and
> > astounding in the history of humankind? For the
> > first time, the argument between Ancients and
> > Moderns could definitely be established in favor
> > of the latter. For the first time, barbarism,
> > ignorance, cruelty, and repression were themselves
> > repressed. Even Jenner's 1796 initial inoculation
> > against small pox sneaked in, while earlier Lady
> > Mary Wortly Montagu and the Turks were already
> > on target: http://www.keratin.com/am/am002.shtml
> >
> > The previous century really ended in 1715, just as
> > the 18th century itself really ended in 1815, and
> > the 19th in 1914. Because in 1715 one sun was
> > replaced by another. The outgoing sun, Sun King
> > Louis XIV, Le Etat c'est Moi, absolute ruler of
> > 25 million of the most advanced citizens of Earth's
> > richest country, died that year, and our good old
> > global-warmer itself, our real sun, came back from
> > its Maunder Minimum.
> >
> > Imagine George Washington giving one of his humble
> > self-conscious speeches and try to find anything
> > in the previous century to match it. Consider the
> > sophistication of the French and English writers of
> > the late century, nothing earlier in the world can
> > compare to their erudition and expertise. Diderot
> > wrote an encyclopedia, and Johnson a dictionary.
> > The 1600s had been mostly still ignorance and super-
> > stition, but the eighteenth century---it was the age
> > of Euler and Catharine the Great, Frederick the
> > Great, and lots and lots of other greats on so
> > many continents and in so many countries.
> >
> > It was *itself*, the wonderful and irreplaceably
> > marvelous 18th century. Put on some Haydn!
> >
> > Lee
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