David Peat

188 From Certainty to Uncertaintysun would never set on its boundaries. How could such an empire,based on trade and paternalistic administration, ever falter?Americans and Europeans alike were inheritors of the great Enlightenmentdream whereby people could be improved and society betteredthrough knowledge and education. The eighteenth century Enlightenmentphilosophers had expressed their confidence in the powerof reason and the value of progress. They believed it would be possibleto eliminate extremes of poverty and inequality. Cities would be orderly,rational places. And, once they had been freed from want, humanbeings could be counted on to act in the best interests of thosearound them and treat others as they would wish to be treated themselves.If crime and antisocial behavior were the result of poor housingand faulty social conditions then such ills would be eradicated by rationalsocial planning. With a well-educated and properly informedpublic, true democracy would be possible.This dream was based on a set of collectively held certainties, valuesthat everyone espoused—the common good, maximum happiness,reason, free will, good government, and the rule of order. It had itsseeds in the city-states of the past, from Athens of classical Greece, toFlorence and Venice of the Renaissance. 1City-states were small enough, and sufficiently compact, for a vibrantdemocracy to be practiced (although suffrage was by no meansuniversal). A small group of elected officials, responsible to the wholesociety, could act in an enlightened and responsible way and make wiseand sensible decisions to give society its internal stability and protectionfrom outside disturbance. The citizens of such states were bothcontent and creative. Not only did they practice trade, but they alsohad a love for art, music, literature, and beautiful public buildings. Theartist Piero della Francesca, for example, drew up plans for an IdealCity, for, after all, rational people should live in rational spaces. In turn,a city founded on mathematical principles would induce harmoniousand orderly behavior in its citizens.1This is not to say that other peoples, from the Shang of Ancient China to theBlackfoot and Iroquois confederations in North America, did not also organize themselveswisely.