"What is Enlightenment?" Kant - Hailey Morgan

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By beginning this year's Honors course with Immanuel Kant's short essay, What is Enlightenment, I feel as though we have now officailly been awakened to the world of higher learning.

Many times throughout his essay, Kant implores his readers to think for themselves, and break away from the popular opinion. When Kant mentions how, in some areas, freedom of speech and thought is prohibited; I was reminded of how fundamental these two rights are in both the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights.

With such absolute freedom in these two highly important areas, why aren't hundreds of thousands of Americans as enlightened, or as energetically seeking knowledge as they should be?

It's because many of us have become complacent and content. We have grown to be zombies, mindlessly following the pack.

But, God designed all of us with wonderful minds! Brains that never want to stop learning new things, because they are led by hearts that crave the truth. So live by the saying, sapere aude, and never be afraid to dare to know more. Because the God who designed both our minds and our hearts, is the same God who gives us the strength to do all things. Philippians 4:13

Edit - I replied to Joshua Evers and Madison Flowers.  

Comments

Drew Hedden said…
I am so glad that I read this post because I am a government/law major. I say that because of your mention of the US literature and questioning why more Americans aren't concerned with MEANINGFUL freedom of speech through enlightened thinking and learning. I had thought for years that people just weren't educated well enough when it came to politics and that now we were reaping the results (IE, ugly fights on social media about elections, racial discrimination, and other horrible politically charged happenings). It started to dawn on me when reading your post that while many people could benefit from learning proper debate skills and how to address difficult issues without offense, what American political culture is specifically missing is enlightened reasoning. That is why there's such a great split between our government parties, that's why people are rioting, etc etc. American society is driven by faceless mobs on social media, when it could be so much more.
August 25, 2019 at 1:48 PM
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