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Darrin M. Mcmahon. Enemies of the Enlightenment and the Making of Modernity. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001

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Darrin M. Mcmahon. Enemies of the Enlightenment and the Making of Modernity. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001 Darrin M. McMahon. Enemies of the Enlightenment and the Making of Modernity. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. xii + 262 pp. $35.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-19-513685-2. Reviewed by Richard A. Lebrun Published on H-Catholic (January, 2002) Self-consciously approaching the subject from As McMahon points out in his Introduction, the context of our contemporary world, which ap‐ the "enemies of the Enlightenment" have received pears to be doing its best to mock "the Enlighten‐ relatively little attention from historians. R.R. ment assumption that the 'darkness of fanaticism' Palmer, in his classic 1939 study Catholics and would naturally give way to the 'light of reason'" Unbelievers in Eighteenth-Century France which (p. ix), Darrin McMahon's study of the "culture McMahon cites, had observed "that the thought of wars" between the French philosophes and their the Age of Enlightenment, more than that of any enemies before, during, and after the French Rev‐ equally important period in modern history, has olution makes two important contributions to our been studied from writings which express only understanding of the Enlightenment, the French one side of the question" (p. 8). Until recently, Revolution, and our contemporary situation. In Palmer's assertion still held true. It was only in the frst place, McMahon provides an exceptional‐ 1973 that Isaiah Berlin gave the term "Counter-En‐ ly comprehensive and balanced account of the lightenment" common currency.[1] Palmer's ac‐ "anti-philosophes," their concerns, their writings, count, however, was selective and incomplete, and their political activities. Secondly, his way of and focused entirely on the "men of ability," thus, looking at the dynamics of cultural cleavage as a in McMahon's words, "occluding the radical rage profoundly dialectical process helps make intelli‐ and vehemency that moved a great many of the gible the rhetorical violence of the clash between Enlightenment's opponents" (p. 8). Berlin's the Enlightenment and its enemies and the physi‐ Counter-Enlightenment, on the other hand, was cal violence of the French Revolution as well as primarily German, and his interest too was limit‐ providing a valuable perspective on the deep ha‐ ed to "men of ability." McMahon contends that treds and terrorist violence that seem increasing‐ what we need to do is "move beyond the confines ly to characterize the global culture clashes of the of great thinkers and timeless thought, applying early twenty-first century. to the study of the Counter-Enlightenment the same tools that have been developed by students H-Net Reviews of the Enlightenment itself in the last thirty years" temporary sources of all kinds (books, pamphlets, (p. 9). Acknowledging his debt to the work of Kei‐ sermons, plays, poems, letters, diaries, newspa‐ th Michael Baker and Robert Darnton among oth‐ pers, and journals), the printed sources evaluated ers, McMahon attempts a "social history of ideas," for influence on the basis of circulation fgures, venturing out and down into the broad world of editions, and print runs, and the argument the Counter-Enlightenment, a world inhabited by strengthened by frequent reference to the best of "militant clergy, members of the parti d,vot, unen‐ relevant recent scholarship. Each chapter is so lightened aristocrats, traditionalist bourgeois, Sor‐ packed with new information and significant con‐ bonne censors, conservative parlementaires, re‐ clusions that it is extremely difficult to provide an calcitrant journalists, and many others ... the so- adequate summary, even in an extended internet called fanatics of the Enlightenment catechism" review. (p. 6). In his chapter on eighteenth-century origins, McMahon's successive chapters offer an in- contradicting Isaiah Berlin's emphasis on Ger‐ depth exploration of the dynamics of hostility be‐ many and philosophy, McMahon stresses the ex‐ tween Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment tent to which the Counter-Enlightenment was as it developed from the early decades of the eigh‐ French and religious. "It stands to reason," he sug‐ teenth century (Chapter 1), exploded in mutually gests, "that the reaction to the Enlightenment condemnatory revolutionary and counter-revolu‐ should also have occurred frst in the place of its tionary rhetoric and conspiracy theories from the birth and been spearheaded by the very institu‐ early months of 1789 (Chapter 2), spiralled into tion--the Catholic Church charged with maintain‐ the massive and bloody violence of the Terror that ing the faith and morals of the realm" (p. 9). In confirmed an internationally constructed part because their deepest concern was religious Counter-Revolutionary image of the Enlighten‐ (and thus concerned with matters of ultimate im‐ ment and the Revolution as a satanic plot against portance), and in part because they linked the religion and monarchical order (Chapter 3), threat posed by philosophie to the political disrup‐ evolved in the context of literary politics during tion that Protestantism had brought to France, the the early years of Napoleon's reign as he allowed counter-attack of the anti-philosophes was from Counter-Enlightenment writers to oppose the in‐ the beginning characterized by a rhetoric of ex‐ fluence of the Ideologues (Chapter 4), and hard‐ treme alarm. Though historians today stress the ened during the Restoration period into the per‐ diversity of views and themes within the Enlight‐ manent hostility between the Right (long Catholic enment, its enemies, constructing what was the and monarchist) and the Left (whether Liberal, first coherent portrait of philosophie, rapidly de‐ Socialist, or Communist) that has characterized veloped an "anti-philosophe discourse" that iden‐ French (and to a considerable extent European) tified its dangerous characteristics. Philosophie, politics to this day (Chapter 5). In tracing the his‐ they charged, sought the destruction of religion, tory of this "immensely influential French endangered social morality (by its materialism, Counter-Enlightenment movement," McMahon sexual immorality, individualism, and denigration believes that he is "writing a chapter in what is, at of the family and paternal authority), social hier‐ once, the history of France, the history of Europe, archy, the monarchy, and all political authority. of the New World, and in certain respects the his‐ The anti-philosophes early on persuaded them‐ tory of modernity itself" (p. 16). selves that they were involved in "an unprece‐ This is a richly textured study with the narra‐ dented war of world-historical importance, a tive illustrated by well chosen citations from con‐ metaphysical fight to the death" (p. 460). 2 H-Net Reviews Well before 1789, the anti-philosophes had >From the beginning of 1789, even before the put together the constituent elements of a nascent Estates-General actually met, the categories of ideology, one that stressed the importance of the anti-philosophe discourse were extended to ex‐ Catholic religion for the maintenance of social or‐ plain the causes of the upheaval, which was seen der, portrayed religion as a natural ally and but‐ both as a providential punishment for France for tress of monarchy, and developed a self-conscious having embraced philosophie and as the conse‐ defence of tradition, convention, and historical quence of a plot to destroy both throne and altar. prejudice. And yet, this ideology was not wholly Both proponents and opponents of change tended "conservative" insofar as its proponents saw from the beginning of the clash to explain opposi‐ many things in the France of their day that they tion to their own positions as the consequence of did not want to conserve. They forever decried dastardly conspiracies. McMahon illustrates the the moral decadence of their society (and may in process with chapter and verse from the state‐ fact have contributed to its decline by underscor‐ ments of both sides, and argues that an apprecia‐ ing its shortcomings), and tended to look back to a tion of this dynamic is essential to understanding mythic golden past (often situated in the reign of the course of the Revolution. "Such contentions" Louis XIX). In other ways, the Counter-Enlighten‐ of conspiracy, he writes, "fed one another, seem‐ ment was quite "modern." As much as they might ing to give substance to the fears of the radical bemoan the food of publications that came to revolutionaries, just as their own rhetoric seemed characterize the High Enlightenment, by produc‐ to give substance to the fears of the Revolution's ing their own counter-literature, the anti-philoso‐ most militant opponents." He concludes: "It is in hes used the same modern media in the same these mutually reaffirming apprehensions the di‐ public arena as their opponents. alectical logic of competing conspiratorial claims As the century wore on and the philosophes that one should look for insight into the Revolu‐ seemed to triumph (symbolized by Voltaire's tionary dynamic and ultimately the terrible vio‐ "apotheosis" in Paris in 1778), despite their oppo‐ lence that was its product" (pp. 64-5). nents' best efforts to raise the alarm (periodic As‐ For the enemies of the Enlightenment, the semblies of the Clergy kept warning the monar‐ course of the Revolution quickly confirmed their chy of the dangers of "bad books," the monarchy, suspicions. Anti-philosophes were particularly up‐ the Sorbonne, and the high courts had attempted set by the "Declaration of the Rights of Man and control through censorship, and anti-philosophe the Citizen", which they interpreted as a direct writers, often subsidized by the Church, had pro‐ product of philosophie, and the assault on the duced a food of opposing books, pamphlets, and Church. Though many anti-philosophes became journals), frustration and rage grew apace. In fact, involved in various counter-revolutionary activi‐ of course, the institutions that should have upheld ties, their effectiveness was severely hampered by the old religion and the old political order were in deep divisions of opinion among themselves, serious disarray for much of the century.
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