Delving into the impact of the Enlightenment on the American and the “incomparably more radical” French Revolutions, this lecture by David North, delivered on the eve of the election of Bill Clinton, pointed to the accelerating growth in social inequality as a causal factor in the rise of political and ideological currents that promote inequality.
North discusses the concepts of equality as understood by the towering figures of the American and French Revolutions. North remarks, “Upon reviewing these extraordinary chapters in the history of human action and thought, one is both inspired and ashamed—Inspired by the grandeur, universality, and timelessness of the ideas and sentiments that animated the great liberating struggles of the eighteenth century, ideals that contributed to the founding of this country; and ashamed by the intellectual poverty and selfish insignificance of what passes for political life nowadays.”
