Communities of the future

Rise of a Second Enlightenment

My first visit to Edinburgh , Scotland in December 1999 was more than enjoyable. It combined my love of history with exposure to wonderful people, and a country that was one of the birthplaces of the ideas on which our US institutions are based.

I also had the pleasure of staying with and talking to a Scottish friend and colleague. Yet, in retrospect, maybe the most important aspect of my trip to Scotland came when I heard the term 2nd Enlightenment used at the report phase of a national Scenario for Scotland Project at St. Andrews University .

One of the recommendations of the project team that had interviewed six hundred Scottish leaders at all levels was the need for Scotland to do things differently in the future to be a vital and sustainable society. This term, 2nd Enlightenment immediately struck a cord with me. My Scottish associate and I had talked the previous night in his apartment about the need for a new framework of ideas that would support and be aligned with a new type of society that seemed to be emerging in different places in the world from the cracks of the Industrial Age …..in fact, we used the term “a Second Enlightenment.”

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Second Enlightment Clubs - pdf