Formulation of the claim
The author holds that the Enlightenment did not succeed in leading to a final transcendence of religion, and that modernity likewise did not prevent the violence, colonialism, and despotism that accompanied it.
Explanation
This statement comes as a double critique: the Enlightenment, when it assumed the possibility of finally dispensing with religion, ran up against what history revealed about the return of the religious question and the complexity of its presence. By contrast, modernity itself did not prevent the production of forms of violence, domination, colonialism, and despotism, which makes its promises open to scrutiny.
Its place in the book’s argument
This idea serves a broader line of argument that links criticism of modern thought to a reconsideration of the assumptions governing the relationship between reason and religion, and of the political and historical outcomes of modernity. It is not presented as an isolated judgment, but as part of a critical construction that tests the limits of grand conceptions when read in light of historical experience.
What the atom does not say
The atom does not separate the Enlightenment and modernity as independent trajectories, nor does it settle the details of each one’s failure separately. Nor does it provide a detailed historical account of forms of violence or colonialism; it merely points to their presence as general critical outcomes.