Enlightenment and Power

Abstract

Focused, as it is, on energy—which is both the single largest cause of global warming and the largest industrial sector of the global economy—this chapter confronts a monolith of unenlightenment in order to demonstrate that an enlightened politics based on local democratic self-rule not only is necessary to transform energy but has also proven viable by successful grassroots efforts in some of America’s more decadent political milieus. From the Cold War up to this day, the left in Europe and the United States has engaged in a dialectical critique of the failures of the enlightenment. Flipping this negative critique of enlightenment on its head, and declaring the futility of resistance theory, this chapter posits a positive dialectic that situates local politics in opposition to the global politics of providential imperialists and postmodern resisters alike. What emerges is a viable example of localized intellectual intervention in the public realm that reinvigorates republican self-governance and reclaims democracy at the municipal level as the proper arena for enlightenment.

“Sometimes the most dangerous man in the room is the one who says everything is going to be alright.”

– Voltaire

“‘God knows,’ exclaimed he, at his wit’s end; ‘I’m not myself – I’m somebody else – that’s me yonder – no – that’s somebody else got into my shoes – I was myself last night, but I fell asleep on the mountain, and they’ve changed my gun, and every thing’s changed, and I’m changed, and I can’t tell what’s my name, or who I am!’”

– Rip Van Winkle