Barcelona Metropolis

For decades, we’ve been enveloped in a general sense of pessimism, partly as a result of postmodern influences. In this context, some people yearn for the Age of Enlightenment. However, if we want to be truly enlightened, we need to stop romanticising the past and confront the present, just as those from that era did. Let’s embrace the ambiguities of our time and face our shared vulnerabilities without fear.

When things go wrong, we often seek comfort through distractions. We need to forget. But when things take a turn for the worse, it’s almost impossible to resist the pull of nostalgia. Instead of helping us find a way to move on, it ensnares us in a cycle of unrelenting memory.

The term “nostalgia” originally referred to the peculiar condition some soldiers experienced when they spent too long away from home. The suffering (algos) of being unable to return home (nostos) created a vague mix of pleasure and pain, enveloping them in a haze of melancholy.

Nostalgia is an experience of emotional exile. It often emerges to fill a painful or sorrowful void, which is why it may initially seem to provide relief. However, since this void is filled with memories, the process can start to feel repetitive and burdensome.

Not long ago, the Romanian sculptor Albert György sought to capture the experience of melancholy in his work. In his sculpture The Emptiness of the Soul – Melancholy (2012), he carved a figure sitting on a bench, with arms crossed and resting heavily on its knees, its tiny head bowed over its torso. The torso is merely outlined, lacking any substantial detail, which makes the spectral journey into the void conveyed by this figure particularly haunting. Anyone who has experienced this knows how unsettling it is to look within and find nothing but a barren wasteland.

For years, even decades, we’ve been immersed in a widespread pessimism that seems unrelenting. Oppressive neoliberalism has reduced life to a matter of bare essentials in the most literal and tragic sense, which, in a welfare state, is a form of algos that shouldn’t be happening. Yet, it persists. Our pessimism, however, is due to more than just one factor. Not all life’s phenomena can be understood solely through infrastructure. Other influences also come into play. One such influence is the ongoing impact of postmodernism, which still exerts a significant force.

Abandoning the metanarrative

In 1979, J. F. Lyotard published The Postmodern Condition, a pivotal work on the concept of postmodernity. His central thesis was that belief in metanarratives had become untenable. Postmodernity imposed the condition of rejecting metanarratives on any cultural reflection about society or the world. Any attempt to provide a fairly cohesive discourse, a general perspective on experience or the world (a narrative of narratives, a metanarrative), was fundamentally ruled out. This not only impacted Marxism, neopositivism, Christianity and the Enlightenment, but also meant that discussions had to focus on the fragmented nature of reality, avoiding any overemphasis on unifying theories.

Postmodern theories had their (pro)positive aspects. They showed us that our perception of reality is far smaller than its true complexity, diversity and dynamism. There isn’t a single world but rather multiple experiences of the world, and we are too self-absorbed to truly understand how things work. Reality, if it can be described in the singular at all, is much more chaotic and disordered than our concepts suggest.

The acceptance of fragmentation as an existential principle led to the discrediting of any philosophical or cultural discourse that referred to concepts like reason, truth, goodness or reality, and to some extent, they had a point (forgive the redundancy). However, it might be that this has gone too far. As a result, any discourse that sounds “modern” or “enlightened” is automatically viewed with suspicion, as per postmodern norms. This may also help explain why post-truth and fake news have been able to spread so easily.

Today, more than ever, everything revolves around the “for me”, both online and offline. We might not fully grasp what we mean when we say “I” (who are we, really?). It’s easy to view subjectivity as a fiction, a narrative or even a pose, but our daily reality is defined by hyper-individualism. Rather than being deconstructed, the self continues to dismiss anything that doesn’t align with its own interests, because the self is the sovereign of our existence.

In our situation, there may be a temptation to think that any past era was better, especially if we are referring to the Enlightenment. But being enlightened is far from escaping the present to seek refuge in an idealised past.

In his book The Philosophy of the Enlightenment, published in 1932, Ernst Cassirer offers a comprehensive overview of the philosophical ideas of the Enlightenment. In the fifth chapter, titled “The Conquest of the Historical World”, Cassirer explains that an awareness of historicity was a hallmark of the era. For Enlightenment thinkers, the work of the historian was akin to that of a natural scientist. Both sought the hidden laws that structure history and nature. While reason was considered timeless and, therefore, above contingencies, Cassirer points out that for the Enlightenment philosophers, history was the sole stage where this reason could be unveiled.

Today, our historical consciousness is neither particularly flattering nor optimistic, but the question and responsibility it raises remain the same as they did then: What should we do? If we want to be enlightened, we must stop idealising the past and take responsibility for the present, just as the figures of that century did. This does not mean forgetting the Enlightenment. No present exists without a past, and ours also has its roots in the 18th century. However, indulging in nostalgia for the past can lead to excessively idealising it, as if the present were not also a result of the limitations and contradictions of a past that should stay behind us. The Enlightenment achieved many significant milestones, but it also had serious shortcomings with tragic consequences. The Enlightenment must also undergo scrutiny and confront its shadows, as Antoine Lilti recently highlighted in L’héritage des Lumières: Ambivalences de la modernité [The Legacy of the Enlightenment: Ambivalences of Modernity].

The chapters of history should be reread as often as needed to maintain our grasp on them, but not to copy and paste them. Let us be enlightened and confront the ambiguities of our time, benefitting from the perspective of coming after the Enlightenment. Let’s open a new chapter and face our shared vulnerability without so much fear, because it is there that we will surely find each other. Pen in hand, let’s tackle the present with our insights and the awareness of our shadows, for history continues.