and in the Nazi Holocaust and the Soviet Gulag. The Enlightenment philosophers had believed that the more educated people became, the more rational and tolerant they would be. This hope proved to be as utopian as any of the old messianic fantasies. Finally, modern society was committed to democracy, and this had, in general, made life more just and equitable for more people in Europe and America. But the people of the West had had centuries to prepare for the democratic experiment. It would be a very different matter when modern parliamentary systems would be imposed upon societies that were still predominantly agrarian or imperfectly modernized, and where the vast majority of the population found modern political discourse incomprehensible. Politics had never been central to the Christian religious experience. Jesus had, after all, said that his Kingdom was not of this world. For centuries, the Jews...
(Note: The provided text seems to mix philosophical/historical commentary with what appears to be promotional content for luxury brands. I focused on translating the coherent historical/philosophical portion while omitting the seemingly unrelated product references.)