How the Second Enlightenment Concept Emerged

By Rick Smyre

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 Second Enlightenment used at the report phase of a national Scenarios 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, Second 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."

In April 2000, two leaders of the Scottish Council Foundation visited me in North Carolina and we began to talk about how to develop an idea that would link the work of the Foundation and our Communities of the Future effort in the US. We discussed the potential of developing an international dialogue group of thinkers as one idea for developing a Second Enlightenment conceptual framework. The director thought this could be a part of the work of the Scottish Council Foundation. Due to my background in textiles, the three of us talked about how there could be three strands developed in parallel to one another as a part of a Tartan Twinning Project. The first strand would be a dialogue among a group of world class thinkers, a second could be a strand to develop "capacities for transformation" in Scotland, and a third strand could be people with Scottish heritage in the US networked to spread the ideas of a Second Enlightenment.

Although this particular collaboration did not come together, I was always struck by the validity of the concept and looked for ways to use the ideas of a Second Enlightenment in conjunction with a parallel process three strand project. In 2001, I began a dialogue with a colleague in South Carolina, Fred Monk, who is Director of the Columbia World Affairs Council. We talked about the Community of the Future ideas and how they might play a role in his organization's work. My background in business and Fred's interest in history and culture provided a natural garden for connecting ideas. I mentioned the concept of the original Tartan Twinning Project that had been developed previously and we began to talk about how to build economic and cultural connections between South Carolina and Scotland that would benefit the Columbia World Affairs Council's objective for increased trade with other countries. As we talked about the potential of an increased economic relationship between Scotland and South Carolina, we began to explore the other ideas of the original project as well as the ongoing community transformation work of the Center for Communities of the Future.

As Fred Monk and I continued to talk, we began to collaborate on an idea that we now call our Second Enlightenment Project. This project is now composed of two key elements, the Second Enlightenment Conference and a new and emerging network of Second Enlightenment Clubs. It is expected that as the overall project evolves, university connections will be made. They will have three objectives:

1) to be a central focus for the cultural component of the Second Enlightenment Project ( to include COTF concepts as well as other ideas appropriate to the development of a Second Enlightenment framework ), and

2) to work with other people and organizations in the US and other countries to develop new ways of thinking within a futures context, and

3) to build "21st Century" COTF capacities in support of community transformation for communities.