Hi everyone! My name is Maybe and I’m a junior majoring in Digital Marketing. I was born in Panama, raised in Brooklyn, and currently reside in Staten Island. Even though I’m ethnically Chinese, I can’t carry a conversation of any kind in Cantonese. At home I speak Spanish with my parents, and they usually reply in their own language. We get each other 90% of the time. The other 10% I Google Translate.
Kant believes enlightenment is “man’s emergence from his self-incurred immaturity”. In other words, having the courage to use one’s own understanding and think for one’s self. Enlightenment is difficult to achieve because of laziness and cowardice. By blindly relying on “guardians” such as spiritual advisers and doctors, people are doing themselves a disservice. Knowing that these experts have the knowledge to help us in different areas of our lives, we don’t put any effort on our part. Like “domesticated animals” we wait for guardians to lead the way and follow along.
At present, I don’t think we live in an enlightened age. We live in the Google Age that is exacerbated by the fast pace of modern society, rising costs, and falling wages. With many college students juggling school, work, and a social life – they look for shortcuts. While I think it’s human nature to do so, it’s become worse with the advent of the internet.
Answers are just one click away.
Why go through the process of figuring out why or how something works when you can just Google it? I’m sure everyone at some point has copied and pasted a homework question (for whatever reason) in the hopes that Google would provide a quick answer. This immaturity is second nature to this generation since we’ve grown up with these tools.
It’s not just the internet though. Because societies have become more complex and specialized, many people solely focus on their domain. More often than not a person majoring in a certain field, will prioritize those classes over those which are non-related. Coupled with Googling, this makes us dependent on “expert others.”