western civilization it's been around for a while but suddenly everybody is talking about it some are anxious to save it others are happy to see it go but what exactly is western civilization is it the great cathedrals of europe or the nazi concentration camps is it the freedom secured in the u.s constitution or chattel slavery life-saving medicines or poison gas the left likes to focus on the bad genocide slavery environmental destruction but those have been present in every civilization from time immemorial the positives are unique to the west religious tolerance abolition of slavery universal human rights the development of the scientific method these are accomplishments of a scope and scale that only the west can claim these aren't the only achievements that make the west special and uniquely successful as western thought evolved it secured the rights of women and minorities lifted billions of people out of poverty and invented most of the modern world progress hasn't been a straight line of course but the arc of history is clear the obvious proof is that the world is overwhelmingly western and with few exceptions those parts of the world that aren't aspire to be why why has western civilization been so successful there are many reasons but the best place to start is with the teachings and philosophies that emerged from two ancient cities jerusalem and athens jerusalem represents religious revelation as manifested in the judeo-christian tradition the beliefs that a good god created an ordered universe and that this god demands moral behavior from his paramount creation man the other city athens represents reason and logic as expressed by the great greek thinkers plato and aristotle and many others these two ways of thinking revelation and reason live in constant tension judeo-christian religion posits that there are certain fundamental truths handed down to us by a transcendent being we didn't invent these truths we received them from god the rules he lays down for us are vital for building a functioning moral civilization and for leading a happy life greek thinking posits that we only know truth by what we observe test and measure it is not faith but fact that drives our understanding and exploration of the universe western civilization and only western civilization has found a way to balance both religious belief and human reason here's how the balance works the judeo-christian tradition teaches that god created an ordered universe and that we have an obligation to try to make the world better this offers us purpose and suggests that history moves forward most pagan religions taught the opposite that the universe is illogical and random and that history is cyclical history just endlessly repeats itself in which case why bother to innovate or create anything new second judeo-christian tradition teaches that every human is created in the image of god that is each individual's life is infinitely valuable this seems self-evident to us now but only because we have lived with this belief for so long the far more natural belief is that the strong should subjugate the weak which is precisely what people did in nearly every society in all of history only by recognizing the divine in others did we ever move beyond this amoral thinking toward the concern for human rights democracy and free enterprise that characterized the west but judeo-christian religion alone didn't build our modern civilization we also required greek reason to teach us objective observation that man has the capacity to search beyond revelation for answers greek reason brought us the notion of the natural law the idea that we could discover the natural purpose the telos of everything in creation by looking to its character human beings were created with the unique capacity to reason therefore our telos was to reason by investing reason with so much power greek thought became integral to the western mission nowhere is this more perfectly expressed than in the american revolution in which the founding fathers took the best of the european enlightenment with its roots in greek thought and the best of judeo-christian practice with its roots in the bible and melded them into a whole new political philosophy without judeo-christian values we fall into scientific materialism the belief that physical matter is the only reality and therefore also fall into nihilism the belief that life has no meaning that we are merely stellar dust in a cold universe without greek reason we fall into fanaticism the belief that fundamentalist adherence to unprovable principles represents the only path toward meaning the soviet union communist china and other socialist tyrannies rejected faith and murdered 100 million people in the 20th century much of the modern muslim world has embraced faith but rejected reason it's noteworthy that when the muslim world did embrace greek reason from the 8th to the 14th centuries it was a leading center for scientific advancement so again we need both jerusalem and athens revelation and reason and yet many want to reject both these people call themselves progressives ironically they want to take us backwards to a time when man was governed neither by reason nor faith but by feeling and therefore back to a time of moral chaos and disorder of feeling over fact it would be a fatal mistake to follow the progressives stick with athens and jerusalem i'm ben shapiro editor of the daily wire and author of the right side of history for prager university over the last 400 years what power has done the most to spread the ideals of limited government and independent judiciary certain inalienable rights and free markets that power would be the british empire it was britain that gave these ideals to the united states it was the british empire the largest empire the world has ever known which made these ideals global aspirations it was the british empire along with america that defended these ideals in two colossal world wars freedom was an englishman's right and wherever he went he took that right with him whether he was an english colonist in america governing himself through a locally elected assembly or an english adventurer like sir stamford raffles creating the free-market city-state of singapore or an english officer like t.e lawrence leading arab tribesmen against the turks the british always thought of themselves as liberators as bringers of freedom the british believed the final and necessary justification of their empire was a moral one the british kept the peace they brought sound honest administration and they insisted that basic moral standards were honored the british did not try to nation build in the way we think of it now they were under no illusions about making arabs or afghans or zulus into englishmen they were more than content to leave people alone to let them be themselves to govern them with the lightest possible hand in american history we remember this when we think of the british empire's so-called benign neglect we can see it throughout the history of the british empire think about the vast territory of the sudan it was governed by 140 british civil servants even gandhi praised the british empire paraphrasing jefferson saying that he believed that the best government was the government that governed least and that he found that the british empire guaranteed his freedom and governed him least of all in the defense of freedom the empire drew moral lines no power did more to abolish slavery and the slave trade in the modern world then did the british empire the british treasury spent enormous sums to liberate slaves and compensate slave owners in the caribbean the royal navy had as a primary duty the eradication of the slave trade and in fact abolishing the slave trade became a major factor driving the expansion of the british empire the british enforced a pax britannica putting down pirates taming head hunters and keeping the peace between previously warring tribes and religions while respecting and often ruling through local leaders the british still insisted on certain judeo-christian moral standards they were not in that respect multiculturalists they had a firm sense of right and wrong when sir charles napier was confronted by the practice of suti widow burning in india he told the brahmana priests involved that he understood it was their custom but the british had accustomed too they hanged men who burned women alive and their goods were confiscated so if the brahmins insisted on continuing their tradition of widow burning then he would insist on following his british tradition of hanging the murderers of widows widow-burning in india soon ceased but we don't have to dig far into history into the abolition of slavery and widow-burning to find the british empire on the side of moral right and freedom we can think of events within our own lifetimes or those of our parents and grandparents when we think of the two deadliest threats to freedom in the 20th century we generally think of communism and nazism but how many remember that in 1940 after the hitler stalin pact and after the fall of france one power the british empire stood alone in mortal combat against the combined tyrannies of the world even where the british have merited criticism as in ireland there is more to the imperial story during negotiations to create the irish republic for instance british prime minister david lloyd george who could speak welsh reminded the irish nationalist and gaelic extremist eamon d valera that the celts never had a word for republic it was an idea given to them by the english this is our own history too if you love america you should also love the power that gave us our sense of inalienable rights rights traceable back to magna carta it all started in america with the british empire a great liberty-loving empire it is the empire's legacy the english-speaking world that remains the great global guardian of freedom today i'm h.w crocker for prager university as an historian i'm often asked if i could stop one event in modern history from happening what would it be my answer is world war one if there had been no world war one there would have been no russian revolution no world war ii no holocaust no cold war and that doesn't even consider the millions who died in the war itself following the end of the napoleonic wars in 1815 europe experienced an unprecedented period of economic growth brought about by the industrial revolution this new prosperity spawned rapid developments in science medicine art and political philosophy the future of civilization never looked brighter and then suddenly it all went up in flames the fuse was lit in june 1914 in a street in sarajevo bosnia it was there that archduke franz ferdinand the heir to the austro-hungarian empire was assassinated by a serbian nationalist it should have been no more than a sad footnote in history instead it changed history austria-hungary seeking to avenge the archduke's murder declared war on serbia but before taking this drastic step it asked for and received a blessing from its powerful ally germany serbia knowing that it had no chance against austria-hungary called on its ally russia to defend it russia agreed to strengthen its hand russia solicited french support should war break out france ever suspicious of german intentions ascented germany then made a preemptive move to take france out of the war the german command having long planned this war invaded france through neutral belgium this prompted britain to join france against germany suddenly the entire continent was engulfed in war the key player was germany their strategy was to punch through belgium and france and capture paris before the french had time to react this was the so-called schlieffen plan named after the german general who conceived it with france conquered they would turn their attention to russia that germany thought it would actually work comes down to one man germany's leader kaiser wilhelm ii the emperor of germany from 1888 until his first abdication in 1918 wilhelm was a profoundly unpleasant unstable and vicious personality by 1914 he believed that germany should not only dominate europe but the entire world had the schlieffen plan worked germany most certainly would have but it didn't work the british and the french put up stiff resistance in the west russia did the same in the east the losses incurred by all sides were immediate and appalling the widespread use for the first time of barbed wire machine guns tanks and worst of all poison gas turns the fields of france and the steps of russia into vast cemeteries by 1917 the war was at a stalemate who knows how long it would have stayed that way if the united states had not been drawn in ironically president woodrow wilson had been elected largely because he promised to keep america out of europe's war his attitude changed when germany attacked american merchant ships in the atlantic the final straw was the infamous zimmermann telegram in which germany promised to give mexico in exchange for its military support much of the american southwest including texas the infusion of american manpower and weaponry allowed the allies to take the initiative the war finally ended in november of 1918. 16 million people soldiers and civilians were dead 3 million russians 2.5 million germans 1.7 million french 1 million british and 117 000 americans russia was now in the hands of vladimir lenin and the bolsheviks france and britain were physically and morally shattered germany forced into a humiliating surrender treaty at versailles would soon be further decimated by runaway inflation that destroyed what was left of its economy meanwhile the united states retreated into isolationism it was a pause not a piece the stage was being set for a new and very much worst disaster a second world war one that would lead to three times the deaths of the first one it would be instigated by a madman who fought for the kaiser and shared the same dream of world domination had it not been for world war one we would never have heard of him i'm andrew roberts for prager university from the end of world war ii the united states and its western european allies were involved in a nearly half-century-long titanic struggle with the soviet union known as the cold war it was cold only in the sense that the russians and americans never came to direct blows but it was certainly not cold for the cubans koreans vietnamese and others who got caught up in the communists relentless drive to destabilize the free democratic capitalist world there were to be sure many morally complex moments during this long struggle but the cold war was at its core as clear a conflict of good versus evil as world war ii had been just like that war the cold war was a death match between the forces representing freedom and the forces representing totalitarianism because hundreds of thousands perhaps millions died in it the cold war can with good reason be described as the third world war the instigator of this war was joseph stalin the mass murdering dictator of russia and of the many non-russian peoples he had incorporated into what was known as the union of soviet socialist republics or soviet union for short stalin knew that his soviet armed forces could not take on the might of the free west instead he decided to wage this fight through the use of proxies and by a massive use of disinformation and misinformation his initial prey was eastern europe the baltic states lithuania estonia and latvia as well as poland romania hungary bulgaria and czechoslovakia stalin had troops in all these countries at the end of the war despite what he promised american president franklin roosevelt at the yalta conference the soviet leader had no intention of removing them and gaining control over their governments proved to be quite easy in march 1946 winston churchill famously declared that from stettin in the baltic to trieste in the adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the continent when stalin threatened both greece and turkey president harry truman finally had enough the so-called truman doctrine was born the united states and its allies would not permit any further expansion of the communist empire the cold war was on for the next five decades and across four continents europe africa asia and south america the u.s and the soviet union battled for influence sometimes overtly like in korea and vietnam and sometimes covertly through their various spy agencies but the moral lines of this battle never changed the freedom of the west versus the communist tyranny of the soviet east there are nonetheless as there were even at the time those who argue that the cold war was an overreaction by the west that the ambitions and strength of the soviet bloc were greatly exaggerated and that america with its massive defense buildup was just as responsible for the cold war as was the soviet union but this simply isn't true as an immense amount of archival evidence from russia not available until after the cold war ended now proves nikita khrushchev stalin's successor stated soviet intentions plainly in 1956 we will bury you he told the west nor would any amount of negotiation dettont as it was called then have led to a just conclusion of the war the american diplomat george kennan rightly warned that short of becoming a communist country there was nothing the united states could do to gain the kremlin's trust the soviets could not be appeased only contained but even containment was an inadequate strategy yes the soviet union could not have beaten the us in a head-to-head confrontation but it didn't have to victory in the cold war would have allowed it through intimidation and subversion to dominate the globe making communism rather than democracy and capitalism the preeminent ideology there were many times during the five decades of the war that it seemed like this would be the case but thanks primarily to the strong leadership shown by ronald reagan margaret thatcher and pope john paul ii the cold war ended not with a bang but a whimper the soviet union was the close of the 1980s to use historian paul johnson's description a bewildered giant economically bereft military exhausted no longer able or willing to enforce its will communism had failed in every possible way economically politically morally it had tried to create a utopia on earth and instead created hell for all of the nations that came under its sway yes the forces of liberty eventually won the cold war but this triumph offers little consolation to millions who died or suffered needlessly through no fault of their own for a never viable and now badly discredited cause i'm andrew roberts for prager university ideas have consequences sometimes good sometimes bad and sometimes catastrophic like the ideas of karl marx born in germany in 1818 marx didn't invent communism but it was on his ideas that lenin and stalin built the soviet union mao built communist china and innumerable other tyrants from the kims in north korea to the castros in cuba built their communist regimes ultimately those regimes of movements calling themselves marxists murdered about 100 million people and enslaved more than a billion marx believed that workers specifically those who did manual labor were exploited by capitalists the people who owned as marx put it the means of production specifically factories but who did very little physical labor themselves only a worker's revolution marx wrote in das kapitel could correct this injustice what would that revolution look like marx and his collaborator friedrich ingalls spelled it out point by point in the communist manifesto it included the abolition of property and inheritance and the centralization of credit communication and transport in the hands of the state and a lot more along the same lines in other words the state owns and controls pretty much everything this notion was widely discussed and debated in european intellectual circles during marx's lifetime but nothing much came of it until vladimir lenin took power in russia in 1917. this changed everything despite its repeated economic failures lenin's russia which became known as the soviet union became the model for dictators around the world wherever marx's ideas were practiced life got worse not by a little but by a lot there's not a single exception to this rule not the soviet union not eastern europe not china not north korea not vietnam not cuba not venezuela not bolivia not zimbabwe wherever marxism goes economic collapse terror and famine follow so if cataclysmic failure meaning terrible human suffering is the inevitable legacy of marxism why do so many people and now especially young people defend it the most common answer marxism's advocates offer is that they whoever they are lenin stalin chavez never really practiced marxism they all somehow got it wrong marxism we are told is at its essence about sharing what we have from each according to his ability to each according to his needs as marx put it maybe that sounds good to you but what does it mean who determines ability who determines need the answer is the state the ruling elite under marxism that's who has all the power that's why the truth is this marxist dictators like lenin mal and pol pott really did get marxism right they wanted absolute power and marxism gave them the way to get it karl marx never had to face the consequences of his theories he lived most of his adult life breathing the free air of london england living off the generosity of his collaborator and patron ingalls who as it happens inherited his money from his wealthy merchant father mark spent his days in the reading room of the british museum researching and writing although he was obsessed with the term scientific he was never able to marshal data to prove his theories there's a good reason for this there was no data to prove his theories for all his time in the library marx couldn't find any evidence to suggest that capitalism the free exchange of goods and services through privately owned business was a passing phase throughout the industrial age working conditions constantly improved and wealth expanded marx had to rely on outdated reports to make his case and even then he had to manipulate the data to get it to conform to his predetermined theories but marx really had no interest in proving his theories he knew that they could be put into practice only by brute force he said so himself of course in the beginning communism cannot be affected except by a means of despotic inroads he wrote his ends could be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions all existing social conditions that's religion family personal possessions freedom and democracy they all had to go in order to achieve marx's vision of an earthly paradise but since few people give up their liberties and property voluntarily creating a marxist state has always required guns prisons and summary executions marx's many disciples from one and on never considered this a problem some like revolutionary poster boy che guevara considered it a bonus i don't need proof to execute a man che is said to have boasted i only need proof that it's necessary to execute him if you're still a fan of marxism after all the death suffering and destruction it's caused that's your right but own up to it don't hide behind the it's never really been tried lying it has i'm paul kengor professor of political science at grove city college for prager university in may 1940 adolf hitler and his nazi war machine were sweeping across the european continent the future of the free world hung in the balance an isolationist leaning united states was an ocean away there was one man who stood between hitler's seemingly invincible army and crushing defeat that one man was winston churchill he was born on november 30th 1874. though we think of him as the quintessential englishman he was actually half american his mother jenny was the daughter of a wealthy new york stock speculator his father lord randolph churchill was of english nobility and a major political figure from his early school days churchill recognized the power of words throughout his life he used them with consummate skill they never let him down he first made a name for himself as a war correspondent in the 1890s covering conflicts in cuba northern india the sudan and south africa though he never abandoned journalism and became one of the greatest historians of his age churchill used his family connections and his own fame to launch himself into politics his confident manner and matchless oratory marked him as a natural leader 1914 and world war one found him in the key position of first lord of the admiralty where he did much to modernize britain's navy in 1915 churchill thought he could bring a speedy end to the war by opening a new front in turkey which he perceived as the weak link in the german alliance against the allies this led to the infamous gallipoli campaign badly underestimating the fighting strength of the turks thousands of british australian and new zealand soldiers were killed in battles that proved to be every bit as indecisive and bloody as the campaigns on europe's western front churchill took the blame this was perhaps the low point of his life dismissed from the war cabinet five months later he enlisted in the army where he saw action in france he rose again in british politics throughout the 1920s making money as he always did through his writing and speaking as adolf hitler took power in germany in the 1930s churchill was one of the first and certainly the loudest voice in england sounding the alarm but it was an alarm few in england wanted to hear the english had been traumatized as had all of europe by the shocking amount of death and destruction of the first world war no one wanted to face the possibility that it could happen again churchill however saw that a new confrontation with germany was inevitable and when the inevitable arrived with the stunning german attack on france in may 1940 a desperate nation turned to him he was ready his weapons were his pen his voice and his words i have nothing to offer but blood toil tears and sweat he told the house of commons in his first speech as prime minister things quickly turned from bad to worse france collapsed belgium surrendered and a quarter of a million british soldiers barely managed to escape from dunkirk even as the war news moved from dangerous to desperate to disastrous churchill never wavered in speech after speech he infused the british with the spirit to fight on against hitler's monstrous tyranny we shall not flag or fail he said after dunkirk we shall go on to the end we shall defend our island whatever the cost may be we shall never surrender the point about churchill in 1940 is not that he stopped a german invasion but that he stopped the british government making peace if churchill had not been prime minister the pro-appeasement foreign secretary lord halifax would have been we know that halifax was open to negotiating with hitler we'd be mistaken to assume that the german fuhrer's terms would not have been reasonable they probably would have been very reasonable as hitler wanted to fight a one-front war against russia and an agreement with britain would have allowed him to do just that churchill made this impossible had he not rallied the british people in the face of defeat after defeat preventing hitler from concentrating his full efforts on russia the entire history of the free world would have been much different and undoubtedly much darker because of churchill's efforts and the marvelous resilience of the british people the united states had an unsinkable aircraft carrier britain from which to mount the liberation of the european continent in june of 1944 for this and so much more free people everywhere can thank the greatest man of his age winston churchill i'm andrew roberts for prager university no period of history is more misunderstood or under-appreciated than the middle ages the ten centuries from the fall of the roman empire in the fifth century to the start of the renaissance in the 15th this is especially true between the year 1000 when global warming brought grapes to england and grain to the coasts of greenland doubling the population and reviving town life all across europe and 1348 after the warming had ended and the black death arrived from the east let's take a closer look at these years we'll make a good start by dispelling some nonsense the people of the middle ages did not believe the earth was flat they knew it was round the ancients said it was round the fathers of the church said it was round they saw its shadow during an eclipse of the moon and the shadow was round they saw masses of ships sinking below the horizon round more nonsense the middle ages were cheerless quite the reverse they were full of color of celebrations involving everybody in town they invented the carnival they revived popular drama which had lain dormant for a thousand years whatever they did whether it was sinning or fighting or repenting or falling in love or traveling thousands of miles to rome or to the church of the holy sepulchre they did it with energy and gusto what do we owe to the middle ages how about the university medieval man invented it for the first time in the history of the world you could go to paris or bologna or padua or oxford or prague or cologne and study under masters of law medicine philosophy and theology and your degree designating you as a master or a doctor would hold good anywhere in europe it was an international community of scholars a young thomas aquinas born in southern italy at the beginning of the 13th century would travel to cologne to study philosophy under the philosopher biologist albert the great then to paris where he taught theology and philosophy then to rome and back to france and this sort of thing was the rule among scholars not the exception how about modern science thomas's teacher albert was a biologist why should that surprise us medieval man believed that god made the world as an ordered whole they learned it both from scripture and from pagan thinkers such as aristotle science did not burst on the scene with galileo copernicus died in the 16th century but he was a priest astronomer at a polish university founded in the middle ages he wasn't even the first man to suggest that the earth orbited the sun others had ventured the suggestion most prominent was the late medieval nicholas of cusa a philosopher and a cardinal in the church how about architecture if the middle ages were dark and ignorant how come ordinary people masons carpenters painters sculptors glazers erected the most beautiful and majestic buildings to grace the earth the gothic cathedrals without power tools with pulleys and winches and scaffolding in their bare hands they built up lace work in stone and glass flooding vast interior spaces with color and light we have nothing to match their complexity and beauty and art studying the ancients medieval man produced whole genres of art that the world had never seen there had never been anything like dante's divine comedy or chaucer's canterbury tales or the arthurian legends of de toi or the paintings of jotto or the astonishingly beautiful and precise work of the illuminators of manuscripts what else do we owe to them western music they invented our musical notation and western harmony not to mention the humble carols we enjoy at christmas time a tradition of local self-government witness the chartered towns all over europe free associations of men united for the common good friars guildsmen members of lay orders devoted good works people who established schools orphanages and hospitals far from the dark ages which it is popularly called the middle ages might better be described as the brilliant ages a startling epoch of progress from science to art from philosophy to medicine indeed in one crucial way we are less civilized than those who enhanced human existence over a thousand years ago we dismiss the achievements of our ancestors and fall short of them they honored their ancestors and surpassed them i'm anthony essalin of providence college for prager university napoleon bonaparte was the most famous man of the 19th century at the peak of his power he personally controlled more of the european continent than anyone since the great emperors of rome today most people see him as an ambitious little man with an outsized ego others see him as a forerunner of the great aggressor of the 20th century adolf hitler this portrait is as flawed as it is unfair napoleon bonaparte was born on the 15th of august 1769 on the mediterranean island of corsica ironically the island long connected to the city-state of genoa italy only became part of france the year before he was born but for this twist of fate napoleon would never have been a french citizen let alone its emperor his parents sent him to the mainland at the age of nine where he studied to be a soldier his facility in mathematics organization and map reading marked him for future success the french revolution with its overworked guillotine provided a unique opportunity for advancement that is for anyone who could keep his head literally napoleon did he became a general by the age of 24. at the age of 26 he achieved a series of stunning victories in italy against an austrian army that had come to destroy the revolution and return the french royal family the bourbons to the throne these victories made him a national hero as shrewd a politician as he was a general by the first month of the new century at the tender age of 30 napoleon was the undisputed leader of france he crowned himself emperor on december the 2nd 1804 turning the french republic into the french empire with a bonaparte line of succession napoleon's establishment of a french empire only increased the fears of the royal houses of europe and of france's historical enemy britain as a result in september 1805 austria invaded bavaria a french ally and russia joined the attack napoleon and his grand army roundly defeated them at the battle of austerlitz the prussians were the next to test napoleon declaring war on him in 1806 the austrians tried again in 1809. napoleon didn't start any of these wars but he won them all when russia broke an uneasy peace in 1812 napoleon decided to invade but this proved his undoing his catastrophic winter retreat from moscow cost him more than half a million casualties the end came in june 1815 at the battle of waterloo where the combined european armies led by the duke of wellington decisively defeated napoleon's forces the battle could have gone either way wellington himself described it as the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life in all napoleon won 46 of the 60 battles he fought drawing seven and losing seven his record clearly marks him as one of the greatest military commanders of all time yet while napoleon is best remembered for his military exploits it's his political reforms both inside and outside of france that had the most lasting effect in france he established the code napoleon a distillation of 42 competing and often contradictory legal codes into a single body of french law he modernized the french educational system and created the sorbonne which became one of the great universities of europe he promoted a building boom in paris a city whose architecture continues to enchant us the bridges he built across the sen and the sewer system he constructed beneath the city still functioned today to europe napoleon brought the best fruits of the french revolution concepts of equality and meritocracy he liberated the jews from the ghettos to which they had been confined for centuries leading to an explosion of artistic scientific and economic innovation from this long oppressed minority it's hard to assess napoleon because he was responsible for all these good things while also being responsible for much that was bad but we can say this with certainty to compare him to the murderous oppressive dictators of the 20th century like hitler and stalin or their tin pot versions like saddam hussein or colonel gaddafi is a gross injustice napoleon was suey generous unique unto himself and proof positive that one man given the right circumstances can change history i'm andrew roberts for prager university modern science medicine political freedom the market economy all of them we're told are the result of a sort of miracle that took place 250 years ago that miracle is called the enlightenment a moment in history when philosophers suddenly overthrew religious dogma and tradition and replaced it with human reason harvard professor stephen pinker puts it this way progress is a gift of the ideals of the enlightenment there's just one problem with this claim it isn't really true consider the us constitution which is frequently said to be a product of enlightenment thought but you only need to read about english common law which alexander hamilton and james madison certainly did to see that this isn't so already in the 15th century the english jurist john fortescue elaborated the theory of checks and balances due process and the role of private property in securing individual freedom and economic prosperity similarly the us bill of rights has its sources in english common law of the 1600s or consider modern science and medicine long before the enlightenment tradition-bound english kings sponsored path-breaking scientific institutions such as the royal college of physicians founded in 1518 and the royal society of london founded in 1660. the truth is that statesmen and philosophers especially in england and the netherlands articulated the principles of free government centuries before america was founded so why give the enlightenment all the credit apparently because it doesn't look good to admit that the best and most important parts of modernity were given to us by individuals when nearly all held conservative religious and political beliefs the claim that all good things come from the enlightenment is most closely associated with the late 18th century german philosopher emmanuel kant for kant reason is universal infallible and independent of experience his extraordinarily dogmatic philosophy insisted that there can be only one correct answer to every question in science morality and politics and that to reach the one correct answer mankind had to free itself from the chains of the past that is from history tradition and experience but this enlightenment view is not only wrong it's dangerous human reason when cut loose from the constraints imposed by history tradition and experience produces a lot of crazy notions the abstract enlightenment philosophy of jean-jacques rousseau is a good example it quickly pulled down the french state leading to the french revolution the reign of terror and the napoleonic wars millions died as napoleon's army sought to rebuild every government in europe in light of the one correct political theory he believed was permitted by enlightenment philosophy today's cheerleaders for the enlightenment tend to skip this part of the story they also pass over the fact that the father of communism karl marx saw himself as promoting universal reason as well his new science of economics ended up killing tens of millions of people in the 20th century so did the supposedly scientific race theories of the nazis the greatest catastrophes of modernity were engineered by individuals who claim to be exercising reason in contrast most of the progress we've made comes from conservative traditions openly skeptical of human reason the enlightenment's critics including john selden david yum adam smith and edmund burke emphasized the unreliability of abstract reasoning and urged us to stick close to custom history and experience in all things which brings us to the heart of what's wrong with today's idolization of the enlightenment its leading figures were not skeptics open to what history and experience might teach us their aim was to create their own system of supposedly infallible truths independent of experience and in that pursuit they were as rigid as the most dogmatic medievals anglo-scottish conservatives had a very different goal they defended national and religious tradition even as they cultivated what they called a moderate skepticism a combination that became known as common sense i think a lot about common sense these days as i see american and european elites clamoring for enlightenment now they rush to embrace every fashionable new ism socialism feminism environmentalism and so on declaring them to be universal certainties and the only politically correct way of thinking they display contempt towards those who won't embrace their dogmas branding them unenlightened illiberal deplorable and worse but these new dogmas deserve to be greeted with some of that old anglo-scottish skepticism enlightenment over confidence and reason has led us badly astray too many times i'm joram josoni author of the virtue of nationalism for prager university when john adams and benjamin franklin read thomas jefferson's draft of the declaration of independence they undoubtedly recognize two things jefferson's peerless prose and the political wisdom of the 17th century english thinker john locke we still admire jefferson's skill as a writer but we have lost an appreciation for jefferson's philosophical mentor john locke was born in 1632 in a small village in somerset england he studied at oxford to be a physician but achieved fame as a political theorist in 1690 he authored one of the most famous political tracts in history two treatises of government england had just gone through a period of great political turmoil the so-called glorious revolution of 1688 in which the catholic king james ii was overthrown and replaced by a protestant one william of orange the purpose of that revolution which locke supported was not merely to substitute one king for another but to move power away from the monarch and place it in the hands of the people and their elected representatives the laws and liberties of this kingdom in locke's view belonged to its citizens this was of course how the american rebels saw their relationship with england the americans had no say in laws that the english crown and parliament were forcing on them and to put it mildly they didn't like it no taxation without representation was a classic expression of their displeasure but how to frame the argument so that the whole world would understand it jefferson looked to lock for inspiration and guidance and using lock helped in another way how better jefferson calculated to justify an american revolution than to use the arguments that were once used to justify an english one so what were those arguments lock posited three first all men are created equal second certain basic rights exist independent of government third government exists to protect those rights let's take them in turn number one all men are created equal lock starts this argument at a very basic level namely that human beings were created equal by god we're all part of the same species we're all capable of doing human things in that sense we are equal not in qualities or outcome but in right as john locke wrote creatures of the same species born to all the same advantages of nature and the use of the same faculties should also be equal without subordination or subjection in this way a king is in no way superior to a commoner such that he might violate the commoners rights the king is a human being the commoner is a human being each can reason therefore one is equal to the other we take this for granted now but in 1690 it was a radical motion number two certain basic rights exist independent of government locke believed that it was man's natural state to be free therefore freedom pre-exists government that is freedom came first government came later one hears this thinking expressed in jefferson's famous phrase we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights here's how locke put it the natural state of man is to be free from any superior power on earth and not to be under the will or legislative authority of a government as rational human beings lot contended we have the liberty whether king or commoner to think and act as we wish so long as we harm no one else number three government exists to protect those rights for locke the purpose of government was to protect the individual's freedom and to protect the property the land and material goods he lawfully acquired the last thing locke wanted was to give the government the power to take away that liberty or undermine those property rights if government couldn't provide those protections or if it abused its power it didn't deserve to exist the end of law he wrote is not to abolish or restrain freedom but to preserve and enlarge freedom boiled down into a revolutionary slogan we might summarize lock's three-prong philosophy this way don't tread on me can't get much more american than that but today locke's ideas are under full-fledged assault there are many americans who believe that human beings are not created equal that we should treat people differently based on their group identity there are many americans who believe that rights do not pre-exist government that government is both our master and protector granting and withdrawing privileges as it sees fit and there are many americans who believe that government should have almost unlimited power everything that locke rejected these americans rushed to embrace their preference for paternalistic government is not what lock envisioned or what jefferson describes in the declaration of independence we need to reintroduce john locke and his ideas to a nation that has become increasingly blind to fundamental elements of its own history and character because if we lose luck we lose america i'm ben shapiro for prager university 500 years ago on october 31st 1517 a german catholic monk by the name of martin luther posted some complaints he had about the catholic church on a church door in wittenberg germany luther was upset by the church practice of selling what were known as indulgences to wealthy patrons indulgences might be loosely described as get out of hell free cards pay this amount to the church and the church would make sure you don't suffer unduly for your sins in the hereafter luther felt very strongly that the practice not only made the church look bad in the eyes of the common people but had no scriptural basis he believed the church needed to reform itself or would lose its legitimacy nobody including luther thought that his complaints and he had made a list of 95 of them would amount to much he simply wanted to spark a discussion on an issue that deeply concerned him instead he set off a chain reaction that literally changed the course of history the name we give to this change is the protestant reformation had luther limited his criticism of the church to indulgences as his friend the dutch scholar erasmus urged him to do the matter might have been resolved in the old order preserved but the headstrong luther was not someone to be restrained luther was what we would call today a flawed individual he was brilliant and charismatic but he was also vindictive and stubborn to a fault and at the end of his life sadly antisemitic luther believed there should be no separation between the bible and the believer every individual should have access to the word of god luther contended as any priesthood or even the pope we take this view for granted now but in the 16th century it was a radical concept and here's why for more than a thousand years the church had been the dominant religious and political authority in europe it alone taught christians how to understand the bible luther was now challenging the very basis of this authority not surprisingly the church didn't take it well what began as a squabble between a bold monk and the catholic hierarchy soon developed into a titanic and bloody struggle that split europe into opposing religious factions but the consequences of luther's ideas extended far beyond a religious dispute it's not an exaggeration to say that as a result of luther's ideas the modern individual was born a free actor endowed with god-given rights that exist independent of government or any other institution each person could find those rights by reading and interpreting the bible for himself of course to do that you had to be able to read the bible and throughout the first millennium right up until luther's day only a very few people could books including the bible were all handwritten a process usually that took months this made books rare and expensive furthermore most bibles were written in latin the language of the church a language familiar only to the clergy and educated elite this exclusivity was one of the many ways in which the church maintained its power luther answered this problem by translating the bible into everyday german so that anyone could read it but his efforts would all have been for naught except for the recent invention of the printing press by a fellow german johannes guttenberg the printing press allowed for the first time in history books and soon thereafter pamphlets and newspapers to be widely distributed without the printing press luther would have likely suffered the same grim fate of other reformers before him like john huss who was tried convicted of heresy and burned at the stake but because of the printing press luther's movement could not be stopped and indeed could not be controlled bloody religious wars between catholic and protestant forces quickly followed on the heels of luther's new ideas they lasted for 200 years and cost countless lives the 30 years war alone from 1618 to 1648 is reputed to have led to about 8 million deaths from fighting famine and disease but out of all this carnage many positive changes came too the protestant empowerment of the individual led to capitalism and the enlightenment just to name two byproducts of luther's protest the american revolution with its idea that individuals endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights should be free to form their own government was another of the 56 signers of the declaration of independence all but one was a protestant pronouncing a verdict on an epic as significant as a reformation is very difficult perhaps it's best not even to try but we can say this no other single figure made more of an impact on the modern world than the german monk martin luther and even he would be surprised to know that i'm stephen corneals of wartburg theological seminary for prager university you