enlightenment

In that conversation, Ginsberg observed that “dehumanization is a funny kind of enlightenment.”

The new setting also gives us plenty of rich themes to explore — like embarrassing Westerners who travel to Asia seeking spiritual enlightenment — and beautiful scenery to look at.

Superficially, this is a story of soul-sick Westerners in the soulful East, like “Lost Horizon” and “The Razor’s Edge” — but apart from Piper, enlightenment is not on any guest’s menu.

But it does, helpfully, move beyond the rigid partisan categories that have clouded our thinking and made shared enlightenment seem completely out of reach.

But Jefferson is an important historical figure because he was a preeminent advocate for enlightenment values like freedom, democracy, and reason — all values that Johnson rejects, preferring a religious authoritarianism that eschews reality-based information.