The Enlightenment

Myth, Reification, Tradition, Modern
For what is a man, what has he got?
If not himself, then he has naught
To say the things he truly feels and not the words of one who kneels.
— Paul Anka, My Way
Oh! isn’t it a pity, such a pretty girl as I
Should be sent to the factory to pine away and die?
Oh! I cannot be a slave, I will not be a slave,
For I’m so fond of liberty,

Image from Maria Online
White popular musicians rebelling against appearances
Recently I attended two music concerts in one of our local parks that were billed as a combination of soul, rhythm and blues and blues. The musicians were all white.

Introduction

The post-modern project is not complete. The fundamental meta-narrative of capitalism continues to persist and bewitch a vast sum of humanity. If the post-modern condition is defined by “an incredulity towards meta-narratives”,1, then, the meta-narrative of capitalism is the last great bastion of the Enlightenment and its two-faced ideal of human equality and civic emancipation.