From the general movements we find in history where an event serves as a division between before and after, a new era of constancy is born. For example, after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolving of the Soviet Union, we termed our era the "Post Cold War Era," where relations with Russia normalized and our ascendancy in international relations formed a unipolar world. After this event, there was a shift in political power that, like a rubber ball being dropped, creating some bouncing back and forth no doubt, but ultimately ended in a new status quo.

With this in mind, I am searching for a more general era with which to term our present paradigm here in the West. We could, of course, argue from a teleological viewpoint and claim that it is the Roman Empire, or even the cromagnons. However, the best choice must be tempered with a sort of immediacy also; as the previous example of the "Post Cold War Era" was barely twenty years ago, it exemplifies a great deal of immediacy.

Overall, if we are to balance the two, generality and immediacy, the Enlightenment serves as a demarcating event better than any other. In terms of generality, this event, or intellectual movement, serves as the backbone of our current society. It was the springboard of many scientific achievements such as the steam engine and saw the formation of our current scientific method in Francis Bacon. Our modern model for democracy issued from the ideas of the social contract, natural rights of man, and liberal economics formulated by David Hume, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, John Locke, and Adam Smith. It is by the ideas of the Enlightenment that the French Revolution was made possible, spreading democracy throughout Europe.

The Enlightenment is also an immediate reality in our everyday lives. Even today we fight the old battles amongst the great thinkers of the age, asking ourselves: Is reason universal or popular? If the people unanimously vote for a certain policy, does that make it reasonable or efficient? Do the arts and sciences serve to sophisticate and educate or to weaken and enslave? Is religion necessary for the maintenance of law and order, or just a hindrance and a barbaric institution? Does the individual exist to serve the society, or the society for the individual? Our current language and the terms we use in everyday life, which are the variables used to formulate our various paradigms, were first introduced during the Enlightenment: public opinion, laissez faire, and natural rights to name a few.

If we are to understand our society historically, we must see ourselves as an effect, or, more openly and less teleologically, as a progression issuing from an ultimate cause. This is the question of generality: what all is it that constitutes us historically? However, as this is near impossible to encompass within one hundred lifetimes, much less just one, we must balance this with a certain immediacy: what, within the grand scope of historical constitution, has immediate enough value to hold a statistically significant effect upon our consciousness and philosophical values? The answer I have found is in the Enlightenment. It is in the Enlightenment that we find the beginnings of most ideologies being promulgated nowadays and the very language by which to express those ideologies.

I am curious to hear what everyone thinks about the historical significance of the Enlightenment, if anyone thinks there is a better solution to the problem, and whether or not the "generality and immediacy" method is adequate to tackling the problem of historical progression and constitution.