Source: Law & Liberty
by Graham McAleer
“[Richard] Whatmore grants that there was a plurality of enlightenments. Nevertheless, at the close of the eighteenth century, ‘all of the strategies advanced to maintain civil peace were seen to be failing by major and minor philosophers, politicians and commentators in the final decades of the eighteenth century.’ Though he fully appreciated the perceived gains in the 1700s, Hume ultimately concluded that these initially appealing trends had stirred a new brew of addicts and fanatics. His diagnosis was that the high ideals of the age were squeezed by trading empires addicted to luxury and fanatic nations ‘wading to their Rights through Blood’ (Coleridge). War became the motif of the century, not toleration. Whatmore’s avenue into the Enlightenment is eighteenth-century British history, and he thinks it is eerily relevant to our own times.” (09/10/24)
https://lawliberty.org/book-review/the-enlightenments-addicts-and-fanatics/