Absolutism In The 18th Century

The crisis of Absolutism: the Press in the 18th century

Long time ago, press used to be regulated by monarchs until this political regime, called absolutism, lost stability and was altered by the French Enlightenment. The crisis of absolutism brought a social and economical reformation and with it new ideologies based in intellectuality. As to the weakening of absolutism and the arise of Enlightenment, they redefined the press model of the era bringing it closer to what it is nowadays. Almost three centuries later, the change that the Enlightenment produced in the society still have influence in today’s journalism. The several modifications presented in the 18th century directed positively the development of media since it became a way to proliferate freely opinions, facts and knowledges that could be helpful to people.

Prior to explain the consequences of the crisis of absolutism I will present its fundaments and what caused it to have problems in first place. According to ‘The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica’, absolutism is a political doctrine run by the monarchy which has sovereignty or complete power over the state and all of its functions (judicial, legislative, religious, economic, and electoral). Catholicism

was the absolute religion that could not be changed or discredited and it was also the one that controlled the monarchies. There was a theory called “the divine right of the kings” which stated that kings obtained their authority from God. Therefore, people used to justify tyrannical acts that the Crown committed because monarchs had the support of the church. On this period governors did not use critical thinking in order to create rules and establish commands, but used religion according to their necessities and for their own benefit, setting norms that must be followed because the laws of the state were nothing more than expressions of the king´s will.

Then came the Enlightenment; the ideological stream that would bring up an end to absolutism; also known as the “Age of Reason”, that was an European intellectual movement and a scientific revolution presented by scholars and philosophers that brought a new perspective about how to manage government, religion, education and economics.

The idea shared by John Locke was that people had natural skills to manage their issues (their own business) and to look after the society. Lock was against the absolutism regime because according to him all people was born equal and free, and with natural rights that were life, liberty, and property. The central idea of Enlightenment was that the government's power came from the consent of the people they

ruled.

In the absolutistic epoch the class structure had a clear distinction defined by law. It was formed firstly by the king and the royal family, secondly by privileged people, and finally by townspeople and commoners. This third division, known as the “third state”, had an internal division constituted by the peasantry, which was most of the population, commonly enrolled in serfdom or in the lordly regime, and then the bourgeoisie, composed by artisans and merchants, who were those inhabitants of the cities, theoretically free, unlike the peasants who weren’t, and finally the urban populace. With the arrival of Enlightenment this classes were restructured producing and developing the appearance of the middle class. “Life style began to change, as people moved from rural areas to cities, economic reliance shifted from agriculture to non-agriculture products. Ideas of free trade or laissez faire were first propagated in this period, and this transformation led to economic globalization of Europe.” (DiMauro, 2014)