'Lost' Enlightenment

Last week’s episode of ‘Lost’ was a doozy! It seems that the writers are really trying their best to confuse us with their mumbo jumbo direction of the show. With Jacob (shown here), as an allegorical ghost from the Old Testament, or the suddenly new revelation that Richard might be immortal, the writers never seem to leave us without scratching our heads. I was recently reading one article on the not-so-subtle interjection of famous Enlightenment philosophers’ names as main characters and their connections. “They include: John Locke (blank slate; social contract), David Hume (cause and effect; skepticism), Rousseau (general will), Anthony Cooper (harmony of character), Edmund Burke (conservatism), and the Russian oddball of the bunch, Bakunin (anarchy).” Doc Jensen goes on to discuss it further:

Here's the Big Idea — the curious unifying link — that we've failed to recognize in our narrow application of these philosophers: with the exception of Bakunin, the philosophers of Lost all lived during the Age of Enlightenment, a movement that flowed out of the Age of Reason in the 17th Century. (See: René Descartes, ''I think, therefore I am.'') The Enlightenment belief was that the human mind alone could fathom the mysteries of the world and tame its unruly nature with logic and ideas. It was the Enlightenment that provided the ideological spark for a series of scientific, political, and economic revolutions that would reshape the world and bring forth the utopian-obsessed Modern age. The founding fathers of the United States, for example, were rooted in the ideas of what commentators refer to as ''The Enlightenment Project.'' But perhaps more pertinent to Lost is this: The Enlightenment neutered God. To be clear, many Enlightenment thinkers actually believed in the Big Guy. Nonetheless, their exultation of reason and empiricism precipitated the gradual expunging of religion, mysticism, and magic from any foundational understanding of existence. Thanks to the Enlightenment, God was rendered hazy and driven underground — you know, kinda like a certain crankypants smoke monster that dwells in the bowels of the Island. Coincidence?
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