Editing Age of Enlightenment (section)

====American Revolution and French Revolution====
The Enlightenment has been frequently linked to the [[American Revolution]] of 1776<ref>"Enlightenment ideals of rationalism and intellectual and religious freedom pervaded the American colonial religious landscape, and these values were instrumental in the American Revolution and the creation of a nation without an established religion." [https://pluralism.org/enlightenment-and-revolution Enlightenment and Revolution], Pluralism Project, [[Harvard University]].</ref> and the [[French Revolution]] of 1789—both had some intellectual influence from Thomas Jefferson.<ref>{{cite book |first=Gregory |last=Fremont-Barnes |title=Encyclopedia of the Age of Political Revolutions and New Ideologies, 1760–1815 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6_2wkP4j-EsC&pg=PA190 |year=2007 |publisher=Greenwood |page=190 |isbn=978-0-313-04951-4}}</ref><ref>"Recognized in Europe as the author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson quickly became a focal point or lightning rod for revolutionaries in Europe and the Americas. As United States minister to France when revolutionary fervor was rising toward the storming of the Bastille in 1789, Jefferson became an ardent supporter of the French Revolution, even allowing his residence to be used as a meeting place for the rebels led by Lafayette." [https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/jefferson/jeffworld.html Thomas Jefferson. A Revolutionary World.] [[Library of Congress]].</ref> One view of the political changes that occurred during the Enlightenment is that the "[[consent of the governed]]" philosophy as delineated by Locke in ''Two Treatises of Government'' (1689) represented a paradigm shift from the old governance paradigm under [[feudalism]] known as the "[[divine right of kings]]." In this view, the revolutions were caused by the fact that this governance paradigm shift often could not be resolved peacefully and therefore violent revolution was the result. A governance philosophy where the king was never wrong would be in direct conflict with one whereby citizens by natural law had to consent to the acts and rulings of their government.

[[Alexis de Tocqueville]] proposed the French Revolution as the inevitable result of the radical opposition created in the 18th century between the monarchy and the men of letters of the Enlightenment. These men of letters constituted a sort of "substitute aristocracy that was both all-powerful and without real power." This illusory power came from the rise of "public opinion," born when absolutist centralization removed the nobility and the [[bourgeoisie]] from the political sphere. The "literary politics" that resulted promoted a discourse of equality and was hence in fundamental opposition to the monarchical regime.<ref>Chartier, 8. See also Alexis de Tocqueville, ''L'Ancien Régime et la Révolution,'' 1850, Book Three, Chapter One.</ref> De Tocqueville "clearly designates... the cultural effects of transformation in the forms of the exercise of power."<ref>Chartier, 13.</ref>