Enlightenment rationalism generated new monsters instead of eradicating them

Evidence

The Enlightenment’s focus on rationalism and science did the opposite of what might be expected, inspiring new legions of monsters in domestic and foreign spaces, rather than eradicating them. … All of this inspired new categories of monsters that emerged as a way for the imagination to express itself in socially acceptable ways that did not offend religious morals. — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 352

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that rationality itself manufactures monsters — that the imagination displaced surplus demonic energy from folk creatures onto human scapegoats once the Church withdrew sanction from the fanciful — is a paradigm-shifting inversion of the Enlightenment’s self-image.
• QUESTION: What exactly is the mechanism by which science ‘inspires’ monsters? Is it that rationalism forecloses folk outlets, or that exploration territory supplies new exotic material?
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 352
• XREF: connects to: Enlightenment thinkers retained older anti-Muslim stereotypes — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 161; Enlightenment reason politics drove attacks on Christianity as irrational — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 158; The Age of Exploration expanded rather than ended European monster-making (+23 more)

Broader Connections

• Modernity’s reflexivity makes its own rational grounds ultimately puzzling #expands (0.78) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 124
• Enlightenment science and Romanticism both renewed medieval Muslim-monster fantasies rather than ending them #corroborates (0.75)
• Enlightenment critique domesticated monsters into pathological human degenerates #expands (0.70)
• Enlightenment and Romanticism both generated new Muslim monsters via different means #expands (0.60)
• Enlightenment fantasies of foreign monsters persisted well into the eighteenth century #corroborates (0.60)
• Monsters reveal the discursive practices defining normative humanity. #expands (0.50)