The Question of Enlightenment - Theory and Practice in Eighteenth ...

The Question of Enlightenment 22
“enlightenment.” 83
His conception of enlightenment, however, diverges markedly from what he
takes to be the notion current among members of the Berlin Aufklärungsynagoge. “Germany’s
true enlightenment,” he insists, “hangs on countless threads, it is the consequence of a multitude
of causes, it does not have an exclusively Berlin origin, it is not at all a Berlin monopoly.” 84
Where, he asks, is there a more enlightened land than England, and what do the members of the
Berlin enlightenment clique really know about conditions in England? Only in a madhouse, he
continues, could it be claimed that the fall of the Bastille (an event which, for the moment at
least, he applaudes) was “the fruit of the Berlin Enlightenment.” 85
He concludes that while there
may be widespread affection for the word Aufklärung in Germany, the respect for the word is
rarely accompanied by much attention to the actual thing. 86
Zimmermann’s work can be read, in part, as yet another contribution to the debate that
had been touched off by Zöllner’s question in the Berlinische Monatsschrift. But in the wake of
the French Revolution, the controversy over the meaning of enlightenment had become much
more charged politically. There is, Zimmermann observes, much confusion about what might
properly be called enlightenment, and the members of the Berlin Aufklärungssynagoge appear to
be speaking a far different language than the one that he – and, one would assume, his implied
audience – speaks. So he translates their terminology back to its mother tongue:
The entire initiative in Berlin is now called Aufklärung
(Illuminatisme); the members of the synagogue are called Aufklärer
(Illuminants); and Aufgeklärte (Illuminés) are the blind slaves of this
sect. Of the true enlightenment (progrès des lumières) nothing is
spoken in the Berlin Aufklärungssynagogue. 87
Aufklärung, in short, has come to mean different things to different groups and the debate over
the question “What is enlightenment?” has increasingly become a struggle in which “true
enlightenment” must be distinguished from various imposters. 88
What makes Zimmermann so puzzling for a modern reader is that he is attacking what we
understand as the Enlightenment in the name of something that he calls enlightenment. To read