The end of enlightenment

By: Beatrice E. Rangel - 25/02/2025

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Henry Kissinger predicted the end of that enlightened period known to humanity as the Enlightenment, a victim of advances in artificial intelligence. According to him, when machines learn to make decisions without placing these decisions within a framework of principles and values, the world would be pushed to the limit in terms of conflicts that could hardly be resolved through reason.

Well, he was wrong. It turns out that humans are getting ahead of the moment when machines will have the capacity to decide for us and we are destroying with pure blows the international order that emerged from the Enlightenment.

And the terrible thing is that the brutal and accurate attack does not come from newly created nations grouped together within a denomination of the Global South. No, the attacks on the foundations of the international order come from the country that emerged from the Enlightenment. Because although the Enlightenment saw the light on European soil, it was incarnated in America. The first true democracy emerged in 1776 on American soil and since then it has done nothing but illuminate the path of freedom for many nations.

But this unique creation of cultured and civilized man is sub judice by his own children who seem to be more interested in adding billions to their bank accounts and showing off their handsome neighborhood men around the world than in subjecting themselves to the norms of the republic described by Benjamin Franklin. And those norms demand adherence to certain procedures that allow for the aggregation of wills, the aggregation of interests, and the resolution of conflicts in order to create a community capable of sustaining a republic.

But for some earthly reason, the path has been taken to modify the institutional framework of a nation, handing out kicks and punches left and right without pausing to explain the reasons behind the behavior displayed. The result is that we watch the evening news with fear and open our computers in the morning with horror to what we fear will be a parade of insults and violent behavior against public servants whose only sin has been to work for the federal government. We witness in horror the total lack of respect for the presidential office by a subject who, although he is a recognized figure in the business world, has no right to undervalue the president of the United States with his brazen attitude; his casual attire and the company of a child who interrupted Donald J Trump in his intervention at the press conference called for his father to explain the logic of the attacks on the federal bureaucracy. In the world we are putting the perpetrator on the same level as the victim by proclaiming that Ukraine started the war and that its president is a dictator. Not to mention the presence of the United States in Munich at the European Security Conference where it abstained from exercising courtesy and greeting the chancellor of the republic in order to go and meet with neo-Nazi groups that deny the Holocaust. At the same time, official rhetoric praises a war criminal like Vladimir Putin and tramples on one of the most heroic leaders of this century, Volodomyr Zelensky.

No one doubts that the size of the federal government must be reduced. Nor is there any doubt that the problem of public debt must be dealt with quickly and urgently because we are liquefying the dollar and compromising the future of our children and grandchildren. But those goals are achievable by building consensus and following the rules. Achieving those goals by destroying the institutional fabric is exactly what the leaders of 21st century socialism have done in their nations located south of the Rio Grande. They began their careers by exploiting the channels that every democracy offers in order to destroy the institutions and perpetuate themselves in power once they are in power. That path seems to be attractive to the current rulers of the United States since Congressman Andy Ogle, Republican of Tennessee, has already introduced a proposal for a constitutional amendment to allow Donald Trump to run for reelection. The company that surrounded the United States in the recent quasi-unanimous vote of the UN General Assembly condemning Russia's invasion of Ukraine seems to reflect a distancing from the liberal democracy created in the 18th century and an approach to the authoritarian temptation. Because Haiti, Palau, Burkina Faso, the Marshall Islands, the Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Palau, Burundi, Niger, Nicaragua, Sudan, Belarus, Russia, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, Eritrea and Mali voted against the resolution. Certainly a company that calls us to reflect on the expiration date of the Enlightenment as a source of inspiration for the largest democracy in the world.

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