By Christopher Norris

Enlightenment is man’s release from his self-incurred tutelage. Tutelage is man’s inability to make use of his understanding without direction from another. This tutelage is self-incurred when its cause lies not in lack of reason but in lack of resolution and courage to use it without direction from another. Sapere aude! ‘Have courage to use your own reason!’- that is the motto of enlightenment.

     Immanuel Kant, ‘An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment?’

The worst illiterate is the political illiterate, he doesn’t hear, doesn’t speak, nor participate in political events. He doesn’t know that the price of the bean, of the fish, of the flour, of the rent, of shoes and of medicine, all depend on political decisions . . . . From his political ignorance is born the prostitute, the abandoned child, and the worst thieves of all, the bad politician, corrupt flunky of the national and multinational companies.

                                                                                    Bertolt Brecht

Before it happened you were in no doubt.

    ‘Unthinkable’ you said, and then,

Lest they suspect you’d not quite ruled it out,

    ‘Just inconceivable’, again.

‘Again’, I wrote, but let’s not be too quick:

    Those words ‘think’ and ‘conceive’ don’t mean

The same thing, and we’re apt to miss a trick

    By suturing the gap between.

Of course you’ll say it’s just semantic stuff,

    All this, and the last thing we need

When you’ve real-world catastrophes enough

    For ‘act, then think’ to be your creed.

Yet ask yourself: which line’s the one to take

    When those wise-after-the-event

Types say: ‘It’s happened, so you’d better make

    Think-room for how things really went’.

Well, you can either field it with a flat

    Though feeble apologia: ‘got

Things wrong that time, alas!’, or try to bat

    It back with a semantic shot.

Then you might say: yes, sure enough, ‘conceive’

    Trump president I can and must

Since it’s a claim that’s true, that I believe,

    And that has duly earned my trust.

That’s knowledge as it figures on the view

    Proposed with sundry minor tweaks

From Plato down, though lately just a few

    Have differed with the ancient Greek’s

Account of it. Still, you lot have no choice

    But to conceive the man as now 

Your sworn-in president despite the voice

    Inside you that just won’t allow

The thought. For thinking brings a sharpened sense

    Of that rock-bottom line below

Which politics can’t sink lest it dispense

   With all the semblances that go

To keep the folk on board. That’s why I say

    You needn’t feel the wise-guy’s won

Or pipe down when the hindsight-seers play

    Their cynic games by making fun

Of you for thinking it ‘unthinkable’ that such

    A bunch of rogues and fools should come

To occupy high office. There’s a much

    More hopeful way than acting dumb

And that’s to say that lots of things we thought

    Or think could never happen did

Or do, which means reality falls short

    Or fails to match our starting bid

By throwing up some Bullingdon buffoon

    As Foreign Secretary, or fool

Like Donald Trump as fittest to fine-tune

    The harmony of states. Then you’ll

Do best to keep in mind the point that ‘think’

    And ‘know’ are words that come apart

Most truth-revealingly when any link

    Between them’s always apt to start

A thought-rebellion as it twists and snaps

    Under the strain. If you apply

Yourself you’ll find out the truth-value gaps

    That show up where the facts defy

All presentations that would have them square

    With thought’s demand, or all the best

State-sponsored tricks and ruses to repair

    Those tell-tale cracks. Then every test

For truth that’s thinkable as well as borne

    Out by appealing to some fact

Or other is the surest way to warn

    The populace that what they’ve lacked

Thus far is means or motive to enquire

    Why crooks and fools so often reach

High office. Then they’ll see how things conspire

    So often as if meant to teach

A crash-course in the need for you to steer

    Not only by the guiding lights

Of factual truth but by what first comes clear

    When knowledge of that sort unites

With thought’s refusal ever to accept

    A bad reality as all

There is of truth. It’s by that lie we’re kept

    From seeing how far short they fall,

Those villains of this latter age whose sole

    Distinction is to far surpass

All previous contenders for the role

    Of most corrupt or else outclass

The Borgias and the Krays in every vice

    That flesh is heir to. Still they tend

To fester worst, as Trump and Co. suffice

    To show, most often through the blend

Of those twin motives, greed for power and lust

    For all its cash-back benefits,

That make the turn to politics a must

    For any billionaire whose fortune hits

A satisfaction-ceiling. Then he feels

    A growing need to exercise

The kind of power that brooks no vain appeals

    To business-law but just relies

On getting cronies into place who’ll fix

    The rules through a Supreme Court that’s

Itself so packed with cronies (politics

    And wealth checked out: all plutocrats)

That your incumbent Pres need entertain

    No fear that rule of law might thwart

His family business in its plans to gain

    More wealth with their confirmed support.

Just think of this, then think how much it hurts,

    That sense of a reality at odds

Not only with what counts as ‘just deserts’

    Or once was deemed to please the gods

But with each latest thought-affront that tells

    Us, in reflective mode, that there’s

More to reality than that which spells

    Out what’s the case yet hardly bears

Such dwelling on. For if it once became

    Your habit to keep well in mind

And each time thinkingly review what shame

    Those home-truths of a factual kind

Had brought upon you citizens who let

    The perpetrators bring it off,

That veritable coup d’état, and get

    Themselves safely in place to scoff

At you poor suckers then the chances are

    The thought would either drive you mad

With the injustice of it all or jar

    On any remnant faith you had

In their ‘democracy’. Then you’d resolve

    To pass from thought to act and strive

To square the two, although this might involve

    No end of failures to arrive

At other life-goals that required no loss

    Of those life-chances premised on

Your up-to-now unwillingness to cross

    A certain line. So you’d have gone

Along with conscience and its sudden urge

    To strive at last against the old

Conformist drive that recommends we merge

    Our purposes with what we’re sold

As virtue by some gang of thieves installed

    In the White House or other seats

Of power world-wide.  Time, then, to do what’s called

    Thought-crime by them and say it meets

The needs of truth and justice only if

    Its counter-push against the pull

Of habit and self-interest’s not a tiff

    In thought alone but takes the bull

Straight by the horns and vows to overturn

    All those unthinkably bad states

Of factual circumstance. From which you learn

    What kind of action best translates

Your outrage into something Marx would count

    As truly setting out to change

The world, not spinning ideas that amount

    To just one tick-box in the range

Of world-interpretations. These then serve

    Most usefully to help deflect

More thought-brigades from working up the nerve

    To think with practical effect,

Reject the given, emphasize the rift

    Between plain fact and thought’s demand,

And so bring better times within the gift

    Of you who seek to understand

More adequately how you’ve all been screwed

    By those in power. It’s this that made

So many give up fighting and conclude

    That there’s too high a price that’s paid,

By their sort mostly, when the facts confront

    A counterfactual realm of hope

Renewed. Let’s grant, you’d better make a blunt

    Assessment of how far its scope

For action’s always subject to the check

    Of a shrewd reckoning that takes

Due stock of stubborn facts that might just wreck

    Its long-term project. Where the stakes

Are highest is where commonsense insists

    Most loudly, since with all the force

Of thought repressed, that only fabulists

    Or crazed ideologues endorse

The notion that mere mindfulness might bring

    A switch of some world-aspect as

It strikes the thinker, then new hopes that spring

    In quick response, and then what has

The power of energizing thought and will

    To act in their pursuit. So don’t

Give up that word ‘unthinkable’, or drill

    Yourself in fact-routines that won’t,

Since close-patrolled, allow for thought’s revolt

    Against contingent evils. Keep

In mind how thinkers sometimes need a jolt

    To wake them from the placid sleep

Of reason or of propositions framed

    In forms that perfectly accord

With logic’s rule. Thus Aristotle named

    Them ‘practical’, those smorgasbord-

Type syllogisms that were rightly classed

    Among the licit kinds despite

Their purely formal defects since they passed,

    In rational if not in tight-

Linked logical array, from certain facts

    About the world to certain ways

In which to view and justify such acts

    As follow when we reappraise

The case more thoughtfully. Again, this goes

    To make my point: that facts which rank

Below what’s thinkable – concerning those,

    Let’s say, who ultimately bank

On moneyed interest and on sheer extent

    Of public ignorance to hide

Their guilt – are facts that amplify dissent,

    Or should, until the rising tide

Of outrage brings the barrage to a head

    Of pressure fit to blow the top

Clean off their lie-machine. If what I’ve said

    Strikes you as misconceived, just stop

And think: what might it take to power the jump

    Of thought that comes to find it down-

Right flat unthinkable, the fact of Trump

    As president, or such a clown,

Crook, liar, narcissist, and imbecile

    As placed to launch the nukes and wipe

Us all out should he some day wake and feel

    That way inclined. If you’re the type

Who says ‘That’s how things are – just learn to live

    With it’, then I’ve no further bone

To pick with you or argument to give,

    Beyond what I’ve already shown,

As ample grounds for rising up against

    This monster and his entourage

Of conspecifics. But if you’re incensed

    To think of it, then let this charge

Your anger-levels up until the stress

    Arrives at breaking-point and thus

Makes way for actions that alone express

    Thoughts once too painful to discuss.