Hello Euro
friends,
Today we
discussed Mr. Yarnall’s favorite author, Immanuel Kant.
· First, let’s brush up on our previous
Enlightenment knowledge:
o
The Enlightenment
submitted everything to the methods of natural science: people began to look at
everything with a rational, critical mindset.
o
This was the
first time that rationalism and science
really battled religious thought.
§ They were only awkwardly hugging and
pretending to get along during the Renaissance, when religion still maintained
the upper hand and science developed exclusively in support of religion.
o
The idea of progress also emerged: not only that
human beings were capable of getting somewhere in life, but also that we could
improve ourselves and our societies.
o
John Locke’s
Essay Concerning Human Understanding
discussed his idea that the human mind is a blank slate, tabula rasa, at birth,
on which the environment writes an individual’s understandings and beliefs.
§ Human development is determined by education
and social institutions: this realization (along with many other factors)
caused people to question authority and the institutions that dictated the way
they thought; people began to think for
themselves.
(throwback
to high school musical in 3rd grade)
Pre-Enlightenment
Stick to the stuff you know
If you wanna be cool
Follow one simple rule
Don't
mess with the flow, no no
Stick
to the status quo
Philosophes
during the Enlightenment
Look at me
And what do you see
Intelligence beyond compare
But inside I am stirring
Something strange is occuring
It's a secret I need to share
Reason &
Thinking were hard, people weren’t used to it
Open up, dig way down deep
And It wasn’t
always accepted
Is that even legal?
The
status quo was: Doing your given job in society, not questioning
authority.
Society was very compartmentalized: the doctors treated
people, the clergymen taught the Bible, and the boxes never expanded, doctors
didn’t try to advance medicine, and religion was seemingly impossible to
change. People never thought or stepped outside their boxes.
· allegory
of the cave:
· The prisoners were told what each shadow was…
· If the prisoners were freed from their
chains, they would not know when they looked at the real cat that it was a cat,
they would only think that the shadow was a cat.
o
People were
fed all of their knowledge by authorities
o
The shadow
idea sheds light on how ancient and limited knowledge was. The people didn’t
think, what they knew was only a shadow of the knowledge they were capable of.
Here are
some quotes from class that I attempted to translate:
· “Enlightenment is man’s release from his self incurred tutelage”
o
Our tutelage is the status quo from which we are scared to deviate.
· “tutelage is man’s inability to make use of his understanding
without direction from another”
o
The status
quo held man back, instead of using his head and creating his own ideas, he
just copied everyone else.
 |
| the status quo at the time was quite outdated and impractical |
· “ ‘Have courage to use your own reason!’—that is the motto of
the Enlightenment”
o
Be daring like Nicole! Wear a scarf!
At the risk of punishment from some
of our less enlightened authorities, think for yourself. If you have reasoned that a
wool scarf is warmer than the cotton uniform sweater, wear it (it is rational and makes sense, right?).
o
The thing
is, everyone else is wearing the uniform sweater, and its easier to wear the
uniform sweater, you won’t get in trouble and it is what you know as right.
· “I need not think, if I can only pay—others will readily
undertake the irksome work for me”
o
(As in, some
authority figure will joyfully make your fashion choices for you)
o
Adhering to
the status quo by doing nothing for yourself and going to the clergyman for
spiritual aid, the doctor for medical aid…is mindless and prevents each person from thinking for himself, it
also prevents change because no one feels the need to deviate from the status
quo.
· “After the guardians have first made their domestic cattle dumb
and have made sure that these placid creatures will not dare take a single step
without the harness of the cart to which they are confined, the guardians then
show them the danger which threatens if they try to go alone.”
o
By raising a
society in which people just follow a prescribed list of what to do, it is
almost against the nature of the people of society to rebel, they only know
life as guided by the religious and governmental authorities.
 |
| Nothing NEW! nothing in the brain, either |
o
Mankind
essentially lost his tool of reason, society had bred him to live without it.
· “He has come to be fond of this state (of tutelage), and he is
for the present really incapable of making use of his reason. For no one ever
let him try it out.”
o
It is easy
to just live the same life as everyone else and people are lazy.
o
Reason was
lost tool-like a leg and people evolved over time so that this leg was almost lost,
so when some started using reason during the Enlightenment, no one was
comfortable or knew how to use this leg because it had been so long.
§ They had to learn how to walk again (or think
again)!
· “For there will always be some independent thinkers, who…will
disseminate the spirit of the rational appreciation of both their own worth and
every man’s vocation for thinking for himself.”
o
…Nicole will
always break the dress code to remind us that we are capable of doing so, just
as philosophers of the time reminded the people that they do possess reason and
rationality, they had just been raised not to use it.
· “Thus the public can only slowly attain enlightenment. Perhaps a
fall of personal despotism or of avaricious or tyrannical oppression may be
accomplished by revolution, but never a true reform in ways of thinking.”
o
…So maybe
we’ll find a lay leader who will not stop us in the hall for our sock height,
but most of us will still abide by the uniform, because everyone else is.
o
Even today
with all these hippy liberal arts colleges that try to train people to think
instead of only how to do their job, in the end, society will still only value the job we hold. Also, man’s
tendency to conform will never change.
· “Nothing is required but freedom…it is the freedom to make use
of one’s reason at every point…But I hear on all sides ‘Do not
argue’…everywhere freedom is restricted.”
o
The status
quo restricted freedom, and the compartmentalization of society, that each man
had a specific job to fulfill and that was it…prevented people from thinking
outside the box.
§ People didn’t know how to deal with such
change, it had been so restricted
· Aside from writing the lovely peace we read
today, Kant argued that if serious thinkers were granted the freedom to exercise their reason publicly
in print, the Enlightenment would follow.
o
Freedom of
the press was important because it spread ideas, reason and the idea of humans using their heads so maybe more people would start to use theirs.
o
The
enlightenment established the belief that everything
is to be studied, analyzed, and questioned. Ideas should be shared and
exchanged, not cemented for eternity in a dusty Bible.
· Immanuel Kant is often associated with the reading revolution, which witnessed the
transformation of reading from a communal, patriarchal, and spiritual learning
experience to a more individual, silent, rapid, scientific, critical experience.
 |
· For
Tomorrow: think of “renaissance backwards /enlightenment forwards”
o
The
Renaissance glorified religion and established power, while science involved
the re-awakening of ancient Greek and Roman beliefs.
o
The
Enlightenment questioned religion, established social science, people went all
Locke on the world and questioned government, some people were transformed
from numbskulled yes-men to thought provoking radicals, science and
technology established many new beliefs and created new tools.
o
But could
the Enlightenment have occurred without the Renaissance?
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