I was reminded of this when I read David Brooks' excellent
column on the two Enlightenments, the British and the French.
Link here. Brooks finds the origin of our current disputes over
the value of individual freedom versus the power of the state in
the conflict between the British and French Enlightenments. The
culture wars have taken on different forms at different times.
And they have involved different issues. Nowadays, of course,
everyone claims the mantle of freedom and everyone claims the
mantle of reason. But one man's freedom is another man's
oppression, and one man's rational choice is often derided if it
does not correspond to what a higher authority believes to be
true. So, I do not want to say that one side favored freedom and
reason while the other did not. The real distinctions are more
complex, and the journey through this intellectual thicket more
difficult than we have been led to believe. For some the culture
wars are simply a continual debate between the followers of
Plato and those of Ari