ISN’T IT ROMANTIC?: Suicide, Homicide, Terrorism and Romanticism
The Enlightenment is no foolproof contrast, or alternative, to Romanticism. That’s how it’s simplistically taught, however, and how most people “understand” them.
The Enlightenment spawned the Cult of Reason, Deism, etc., also Rousseau’s idealization of Freedom (“Man is born free and everywhere is in chains”; his pedagogical treatise extolling man in nature, “Emile”), all of which inspired Communism’s theorists and thinkers. They too are at odds with anyone who recognizes the authority of Judeo-Christianity. Romanticism and The Enlightenment each are part of “the package” of Western Civ. — neither good nor bad in themselves.
Today’s All Things Beautiful post features an engrossing painting by Caspar David Friedrich (who painted the one Photoshopped at the top of this article).
