Reaffirming Enlightenment: On an Actively Engaged Politics: A Fine Translation from Chinese

Author: (American) Bronner, translated by Yin Gao
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-11-01
Features: This book aims to revisit the topic of the theoretical and practical traditions of the Enlightenment. Of course, the 21st century and the 18th century are worlds apart: the past and the present are incomparable. To address the new circumstances, the Enlightenment's advocacy for intellectuals to engage in worldly affairs and the ethical model it proposed to resist oppressive power structures urgently need reinterpretation. Today, the strict concept of progress has been forgotten; no organization or party can claim to represent humanity's ideals, and intellectuals often equate the university with the world. Images in television and film have replaced the words in books in shaping public opinion. Liberal regimes are often tainted by imperialistic ambitions and parasitic elites. Both the left and the right support authoritarianism. The global new expansion of capitalism, the rise of bureaucratic states, the consolidation of media, blind consumerism, neglect of the environment, and cultural relativism are all undermining the many ideals proposed by the Enlightenment: cosmopolitan tolerance, economic justice, democratic responsibility, and the concept of a "good society."