Obscurans - Restricting Knowledge

Restricting Knowledge

In restricting knowledge to an élite ruling class of "the few", obscurantism is fundamentally anti-democratic, because its component anti-intellectualism and elitism exclude the people as intellectually unworthy of knowing the facts and truth about the government of their City-State. In 18th-century monarchic France, the Marquis de Condorcet, as a political scientist, documented the aristocracy's obscurantism about the social problems that provoked the French Revolution (1789–99) that deposed them and their King, Louis XVI of France.

In the 19th century, the mathematician William Kingdon Clifford, an early proponent of Darwinism, devoted some writings to uprooting obscurantism in England, after hearing clerics — who privately agreed with him about evolution — publicly denounce evolution as un–Christian. Moreover, in the realm of organized religion, obscurantism usually is associated with religious fundamentalism, but is a distinct strain of thought independent of theologic allegiance. The distinction is that fundamentalism presupposes sincere religious belief, whereas obscurantism is based upon minority manipulation of the popular faith as political praxis, (cf. Censorship).

The obscurantist can be personally a scientist, a philosopher, a truly faithful person, a naturalist, a mischievous student, or just agnostic, but, as one member of the society, believes that religion among the populace serves the aim of social control. To that effect, the obscurant limits the publication, extension, and dissemination of knowledge, of evidence countering the common-belief status quo with which the nation are ruled — the local variety of the necessary Noble Lie, introduced to political discourse by the Classical Greek philosopher Plato in 380 BC. Hence the "stable-status quo restriction of knowledge" denotation of obscurantism applied by pro-science reformers within religious movements, and by skeptics such as H.L. Mencken in critiquing religion.