The unfamiliarity of the Enlightenment: Was the Enlightenment the true bedrock of modernity?

Contemporary public debates on politics always like to use the Enlightenment in their arguments, be it for example in connection with a possible EU membership of Turkey or most recently after the Paris attacks against Charlie Hebdo. Our notions of democracy and human rights, gender equality and self-determination of all peoples are thereby attributed to the struggle of the philosophers of the 18th century, who supposedly argued and fought for these values.

This belief is not only held by journalists and politicians: Enlightenment scholars also search for the emergence of modernity in the era of Voltaire and Kant. To be sure, they argue as to whether the Enlightenment is responsible for the blessings or rather the deficiencies of the present. But there is a broad consensus on the foundational significance of the writings and ideas of the Enlightenment.

But is that true? Have the proponents of the Enlightenment invented and propagated our modern ideals ​​of liberal democracy? Or have they, as others argue, invented modern racism, sexism and colonialism?

"Falsche Freunde" (False Friends) is a polemic book which attempts to do away with the established view that the Enlightenment gave rise to our modern values. With six chapters on the themes of history, tolerance, conceptions of race and gender, and attitudes towards slavery and colonialism, the authors show that the philosophers of the 18th century had other goals and horizons of expectations in mind than those that both the friends and critics of the Enlightenment subsequently assumed. The Enlightenment appears much foreign - and surprising.