before

By separating the natural and supernatural lights, Pierre Bayle lays the groundwork for the replacement of the divine by the human. In this day and age, the desecration of the world is viewed by most as a sign of progress and liberation of the individual. However, now in the Holocene epoch, in the time of climate change and the sharp decline in biodiversity, one could question how relevant this idea of progress still is. The natural light of Pierre Bayle, the lights of reason and later the lights of science and knowledge have cast away superstitions and obscurantism; and nowadays in the western world, it is still by these lights that we make our decisions. How then do we come to reason with the fact that in spite of thousands of alarming scientific studies and numerous reports of the IPCC that these natural light still doesn’t shine to the blind eye of our leaders that fail against climate change, pollution, and the extinction event the world is currently going through ?

I have imagined a votive altar for the return of the comet like a critique at Bayle’s philosophy. An altar to light a candle upon which we could pray that our leaders may open their eye to the natural lights of reason.

2018