On one of the blogs I read, a user named “The Professor” recently posted a comment titled “No one seems to remember the Enlightenment.”

It struck me as both funny and profoundly true. Far from remembering it, I wonder how many people even know what the Enlightenment was.

The Enlightenment, also sometimes referred to as the Age of Reason, was a period in Western history where philosophers, predominantly in France but also in other countries, cast aside old notions of superstition and governance, and promoted instead concepts of reason, natural rights, democracy, freedom and equality. The ideas caught on and the result was a blooming of reason and scientific thought the likes of which the world had never experienced. It also gave birth to many new republics, the first of which was the United States of America, whose founders were greatly influenced by Enlightenment philosophy.

The topic is not something I was taught much about in school, so I imagine that many Americans, who owe their country to Enlightenment philosophies and ideals, don’t know much about it either. The way I was taught, the American Revolution was entirely homegrown, and other nations followed by the colonies’ example. But that’s not how it went. The discussions and writings in Europe at the time strongly influenced the founders. Prior to this period, the mere notion of a nation governed democratically, with the power vested in the people instead of the church or monarchy, was unimaginable.

It would do us some good to look back a few hundred years and remember where we came from.