Well hey there and welcome back to Heimler's History. Now we have finally got to Unit 5 of our AP World History curriculum and this unit spans the years from 1750 to 1900. Now the main theme that runs throughout this unit is the massive global changes that occur because of the Industrial Revolution. And in this video we're going to talk about a new development among the thinky thinky people called the Enlightenment. And in many ways it was Enlightenment thinking that occasioned the social and political changes that were necessary for the Industrial Revolution. So if you're ready, I'm ready.
Let's get to it. So the Enlightenment. Shall we begin with a definition?
The Enlightenment was an intellectual movement of the 18th century that advocated the use of reason to reconsider the accepted ideas and social institutions of the time. Or to put it another way, the scientific revolution and the humanism of the Renaissance got together and had a baby. Aww, look at the baby! Did you poo-poo all over the millennia-long habit of discerning truth through tradition and religious revelation? Yes you did.
Yes you did. Alright, let me just say it plain. The emphasis of the Enlightenment was the application of human reason to natural laws.
The thinkers during this time began to see that the world and the fullness thereof was ordered by a set of natural laws, and if only we could tap into the wisdom of those natural laws and apply it to the world. And that's what we're going to do. apply them to our society, then progress would occur. Prior to this, societies understood reality because it was revealed to them by the Bible or by the Quran or by traditions or ancestors. And the big revolution of Enlightenment thought was that we are no longer accepting as true anything that that comes from outside of us.
It's the working of our minds and the understanding of the natural laws that will lead us to truth. Now, the contrast I just made is far too simplistic to describe the complex reality of all that, but at least it helps you understand why the Enlightenment was such a big deal. Okay, now let's talk about where all these powerful ideas came from.
And we'll start with Francis Bacon and the idea of empiricism. Empiricism is the idea that reality is discerned through the senses, like the sight and the hearing and the smell and the taste and the touch. Therefore the only way to really know the nature of reality is through the senses. is through the senses. And this idea took the old way of knowing truth and reality and kicked it in the face like a crazed donkey.
As I mentioned before, the old way of knowing truth was by revelation, and in the case of Europe, that meant the Bible. The truths in the Bible come to us from outside the world and tell us what reality is like. Empiricism, on the other hand, says that we're going to figure out what reality is like and what it means through our senses and our brain folds. And how are we going to do that?
Well, by running scientific experiments to determine what is true and what is false. Also, we've got John Locke making contributions to the political side of things through his book Two Treatises on Government. He argued that the whole divine right of kings thing was a deeply flawed organization of the political hierarchy. Rather, human beings are endowed with natural rights like life and liberty property.
And those rights are not granted by a king, but by virtue of being a living human being. And as such, it is human beings who ought to have the power in a government. And Locke explained that human beings and their government were in a social contract together. And that just means that if it's true that the power to govern is in the hands of the people, then the social contract means this, that they willingly give up some of that power to a government who is willing to protect their natural rights. And implicit in this agreement is the following, that if the government ends up being a turd, then the people have the right to flush it.
Now one of the consequences of this kind of thinking as applied to politics was revolution. Enlightenment principles like the equality of all human beings led to the breakup of empires and the proliferation of constitutional governments around the world. It also led to a growing nationalism in many places. And just in case you forgot, nationalism is a strong identification of a group of people who share an ethnic identity and a language.
You see, prior to this, people tended to be loyal to a ruler or a city. And with this rise of nationalism, people are now loyal to a nation. And this is a big deal because in case you forgot, Europe had spent centuries building up multi-ethnic empires. And this new nationalistic fervor threatened those empires from every side.
Alright, let's shift and talk about Enlightenment principles as applied to economics. And for this I need to introduce you to Adam Smith. In 1776 he published a massively consequential book called The Wealth of Nations, which was his critique of the mercantilist economies of Europe.
You see, economics under mercantilism required a heavy hand from the government. Smith on the other hand argued for laissez-faire economics, which is French for let alone alone. So Smith's economic replacement for mercantilism, namely capitalism, was the idea that the government needed to take their hands off and just let things go.
Essentially, Smith argued that if individuals were left alone to make their own individual economic choices, then those choices that they make would eventually, being guided by the invisible hand of the market, benefit all of society. Okay, now let's look at how the Enlightenment affected religion. Because of this new way of thinking, people began to reexamine their relationship with God.
As you know, Christianity was the dominant religion of the Europeans during this time, and if you've ever read the Christian scriptures, you'll know that the God of the Bible often intervenes in history. But the new brand of Enlightened religion was called Deism, and in Deism the idea was is that yes, there was a God, and that God created all things in the beginning, but that God does not intervene in history. Rather, God is like a cosmic watchmaker who put all the gears and springs in place, which is to say the natural laws, wound the thing up and now is letting it tick away without any concern.
So in this system, if you want to know God, then you discover his ways through the contemplation of natural laws. Now with all of this upheaval and change in thought patterns, you should know that not everyone embraced the Enlightenment's pattern for change. And the people who resisted it were known as conservatives. And conservatism, by definition, is a strong belief in tradition and the shunning of ideology in favor of practical ideas.
I'm not going to explain specific conservatives here, but it's enough to know that they existed and that they resisted this revolution of thought. Okay, now let's just talk briefly about some of the long-standing institutions that were affected by Enlightenment thought. Namely, women and the abolition of slavery.
So with all this Enlightenment talk about human beings being invested with natural rights just by virtue of being human beings, the women looked up and said, uh, what about us? Now if you know anything about world history, you know that pretty much in every society the outlook on women is pretty bleak. In fact, maybe our good buddy Aristotle can sum up the general view of women in many societies. He thought that a woman was an inadequate and infertile male who plays only a passive role in reproduction and is incapable of rational thought."Now, just to be clear, that's not what I believe, but I think it's a pretty good summary of what most cultures in society have believed about women. But because of the Enlightenment, many women found power in their voices that they had not yet accessed heretofore. In England, Mary Wollstonecraft wrote a vindication of the rights of women, in which she argued for women's education and claimed that women, given the chance, could succeed in every endeavor which were reserved exclusively for men, like politics or professional society. Over in the United States, a conference called the Seneca Falls Convention was called to rally for women's rights, including women's suffrage, which is to say the right to vote. And they composed at their gathering the Declaration of Sentiments, which borrowed heavily from the American Declaration of Independence, but with some key changes. For example, we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men and women are created equal. As a result, these women argued that women ought to be less dependent on their husbands in terms of property and income. But the Enlightenment also affected the institutions of slavery and serfdom. Again, because of the Enlightenment ideal that all human beings are created with certain unalienable rights, the abolitionists were forced to abandon their rights. abolitionist movement began to gather steam. In the United States, the slave trade was banned in 1808, but between that year and the middle of the 19th century, the population of enslaved people in America grew dramatically. And at this point, the fight between the slaveholders and the abolitionists grew to a fever pitch, which eventually led to the Civil War and the abolition of slavery. And on a shorter note, in Russia, due in part to Enlightenment thought, 23 million serfs were emancipated. Alright, that's what you need to know about the Enlightenment for Unit 5 of AP World History. If you're feeling enlightened by this video, then hit that like button. Your sense perception will tell you it's the right thing to do. If you need help in AP World History, then subscribe and come along. And finally, if you want to prove Adam Smith right about voluntary economic contributions being better for society, then let the invisible hand of the free market guide you to go join the community of Heimler's History supporters over on Patreon. Heimler out.