I thank the Enlightenment for being able to laugh at this bubblehead without being sent to the Tower.
The Prince of Wales has never been a man to suffer from a lack of enemies, from modern architecture to intensive farming. Yesterday, however, he declared war on a new — but also ancient — adversary: the Enlightenment.
Even by the Prince’s standards, his opposition to the system of beliefs that came to dominate thinking in the 18th century and has held sway ever since is an ambitious one, if a little tardy.
Long regarded as the foundation of contemporary political and intellectual culture, by way of influences ranging from the American Declaration of Independence to the scientific method as embraced from Isaac Newton on, the Enlightenment was based on the belief that all society’s ills could be vanquished by the application of reason.
Its seminal figures included the likes of Descartes, Leibniz, Locke, Voltaire and Rousseau. To Prince Charles, however, it is old hat. “I was accused once of being the enemy of the Enlightenment,” he told a conference at St James’s Palace. “I felt proud of that.”
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