HACKER Q&A
📣 kite_and_code

How to Call the Opposite of Enlightenment?


How to call the opposite of enlightenment?


  👤 retrac Accepted Answer ✓
If you just want an antonym for the word, I would suggest that "ignorance" is the closest equivalent, in nearly all of the senses of the word. If this is about enlightenment, as in the Buddhist concept, then "unawareness" or even "unconsciousness" might be a bit closer. To be enlightened (bodhi) in Sanskrit/Pali is to be awoken ("woke"? heh); it is related to the verb for "to wake up".

👤 adyashakti
Illusion, māyā: literally, ‘that which does not exist’. In spiritual culture, real existence has 3 main properties: sat (eternality, timelessness); chit (unconditioned consciousness, life); ānanda (bliss, causeless happiness). Enlightenment is personal realization of saccidānanda; the opposite is māyā.

👤 nabla9
Enlightenment has multiple meanings. To get the right antonym you need to be more precise.

The opposite of "the Enlightenment" is counter-enlightenment, encompassing romanticism, relativism, anti-rationalism, and vitalism. Also anti-enlightenment movement (associated with Friederich Nietzsche).


👤 muzani
Worldly, Temporal. As in preoccupied with that directly in front of them and missihg the big picture.

👤 rurban
Postmodern times

👤 h2odragon
What's the other side of a circle?

👤 a_techwriter_00
Ignorance

👤 cc101
naïveté

👤 leet_thow
Declension

👤 Temporarily21
Decadence