emphasis on the power of independent human thought, and may well be seen
as the precursor of modernliberalismandsocialism, especially in writers like
John StuartMilland others in the tradition of utilitarianism. A later
Enlightenment thinker,Kant, summed up the entire spirit of the movement
with his motto, the title of an article he wrote,Sapere Aude(‘Dare to Know’).
Kant,HegelandMarxfollowed the more continental aspect of the theories
originating in Rousseau that have led to the contemporary European socialist
position, while JamesMill,Benthamand J. S. Mill developed Hume’s British
version of the position intoliberalism. There was, however, an important
reaction to the challenges and threats of the Enlightenment, found in Britain
with the moderateconservatismof Burke, but in Europe in a more sinister,
more reactionary trend of thought among those such as De Maistre, and,
innocently, among social theorists likeDurkheimthat may be seen as a
precursor position tofascism. The modern radical intellectual movement
originating in France, often described as ‘post-modernism’ has in fact taken
the Enlightenment as its great enemy, regarding it as a prime example of
hubris.
Entryism
Entryism was an acquisition into political vocabulary in the 1970s, though it
covered a far from new phenomenon. It referred then to the attempts by
members of extreme political movements to join, and take control of, more
moderate and established political parties. In Britain in the late 1970s and
1980s some people believed that far-left political activists had ‘entered’ con-
stituency Labour Parties, in the hope of winning control of the local party
executives and thus influencing candidate selection and policy formulation at
the annual party conferences. The waves of expulsions from theLabour Party
of members of, for example, the Militant Tendency in the 1980s and early
1990s would seem to support this thesis. The phenomenon is not limited to an
attempted take-over of the moderate left by the extreme left. In the United
Kingdom, allegations have been made that some Conservative, and even some
Liberal, constituency parties have sometimes come under the influence of
‘entryists’ from the far right. As a political tactic it is as old as politics.
Environmentalism
Environmentalism started to emerge as a distinct political concern in Western
politics during the 1960s and 1970s; since then the movement has developed
considerably towards the establishment of a coherent political force, and is
Entryism