Challenge: Wank the Enlightenment

Now what I'm asking u is to create one or more POD to wank or expand the influence that the Enlightenment had in Europe. I'm especially talking about politics but obviously multiple areas will be affected, from art to culture
I'm also working on a map so stay tuned
 
Catherine the great's reforms go way better, making Russia more progressive as a whole and setting it up to become a constitutional monarchy in the future. Maybe the reign of terror is prevented somehow, leading to a powerful enlightenment-inspired french republic which spreads the ideas of the french enlightenment both inwards and outwards.
 
If you somehow make the Cult of Reason or the Cult of the Supreme Being gain more clout, enlightenment ideas could become a big part of the cultural zeitgeist.
 
There are indeed quite a few possible PoDs involving Paris in the 1790s, some with Robespierre on the right side of history, and some with him on the wrong side.

There could also be some potential in freethinkers of the XVIIIth centruy communicating more and collaborating more between countries so that they can comment and complement each other's work. Something as simple as more people willing to translate "controversial" works, or some publishers (covertly or overtly) being more keen to support and print these works.

Education could have quite an impact as well : if we delve into the specifics, the adoption of the Lepeletier de Saint Fargeau model of education over the Condorcet model after the French Revolution could have quite an impact on the future generations, replacing a highly elitist approach with a highly egalitarian one and thus allowing for a quicker spread of the Enlightment ideals throughout the population... though of course that would remain mostly of domestic scale.
 
If you somehow make the Cult of Reason or the Cult of the Supreme Being gain more clout, enlightenment ideas could become a big part of the cultural zeitgeist.

Conversely, what if the French Revolution doesn’t go quite so far as all that, which, in part, discredited some of the Enlightenment to many?
 
Conversely, what if the French Revolution doesn’t go quite so far as all that, which, in part, discredited some of the Enlightenment to many?
I agree, A more moderated revolution, or I should say a more slow burning revolution would be very effective. If you can trigger home grown revolutions outside of France you cement enlightenment liberalism enough that these groups can try to 'out-enlighten' each other
 

Skallagrim

Banned
I'm with @DominusNovus here, and have in fact argued this many times before. Many people think the way to wein is to ush for more radical developments. The truth is that such things provoke reaction(arie)s. Change the world by slow degrees, and you'll meet far less opposition. It takes a little more time, but it's far more lasting. Evolution, instead of revolution.
 
I'm with @DominusNovus here, and have in fact argued this many times before. Many people think the way to wein is to ush for more radical developments. The truth is that such things provoke reaction(arie)s. Change the world by slow degrees, and you'll meet far less opposition. It takes a little more time, but it's far more lasting. Evolution, instead of revolution.

Its probably tacky of me to agree with you agreeing with me, but you hit the nail on the head. There is a reason the comparatively moderate and conservative American Revolution resulted in a very successful government and society, and the radical French Revolution is a byword for bloody chaos and failure.
 
Its probably tacky of me to agree with you agreeing with me, but you hit the nail on the head. There is a reason the comparatively moderate and conservative American Revolution resulted in a very successful government and society, and the radical French Revolution is a byword for bloody chaos and failure.
Let me then agree with for you to make it less tacky.

Though I would argue that the American revolution was successful because it had more broad support than the french revolution over the nature of the revolution. In America most cities were participating in some shape in form with a lot of cross class support, while the french Revolution received most of it's support came mostly from Paris and the middle class and was imposed on the rest of the country with varying degrees of success.
 
That's delving into the classical debate of whether progress can be achieved within continuity or through a clean break. The debate on the French Revolution is spread across books and centuries, but the reason for the fascination is that a whole lot of political experimentation happened within the course of half a decade, mostly ending in failure, and mostly being circumscribed to the Paris and its direct area, but nevertheless sparking a lot of ideas and carrying a fair amount of influence on the subsequent emergent political ideologies.

As there's been a fair amount of ideas and paradigms clashing with each other during those five years, everyone can kind of take their pick as to their favourite and argue that, had it gone their way, things would have been much better. It's a sort of high concentrate of alternate history.
 
@ OP: Can you give us specific targets? Do you want religion be abolished, or replaced by the Cult of the Highest Being? Something like that?
 
@ OP: Can you give us specific targets? Do you want religion be abolished, or replaced by the Cult of the Highest Being? Something like that?
I mean quicker adoption of some forms of democracy, liberalism and things like the matric system. If you can create a POD that leads to a world where the Cult of the highest being replace Christianity its even better
 
Kind of but not that much, liberalism has always been threatened by socialism and conservative thought

Gonna have to disagree with a point there. Socialist thought is a development from within Enlightenment thinking. While the Liberalism vs. Socialism dichotomy is accurate, one shouldn't boil down the entirety of the Enlightenment (or at least, its legacy) to Liberalism.
 
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