>There's also the critical theory about how the Enlightenment is only the Enlightenment in retrospect. During that time, it would have been a miserable existenc

>There's also the critical theory about how the Enlightenment is only the Enlightenment in retrospect. During that time, it would have been a miserable existence full of broken and exploited people, and people believing in totally different realities and agendas. That's not a theory, that's the obvious interpretation of what everyone knows about the time period, including the people who were living in it. Even the texts of the enlightenment are often about how bad they think their society is.