Hello everyone! By way of introduction, I’m a sophomore currently studying economics. I spend a lot of time learning as much as I can about the interesting mix of politics and business, and always enjoy hearing people’s perspectives on world issues. I enjoy traveling and have a huge interest in aviation.

Immanuel Kant suggests that enlightenment is achieved when members of society are able to think for themselves and make their own choices. In his ideal world of enlightenment, people are not subject to the thoughts of a certain few, and can enjoy the freedom that comes with living in a way that seems to be most meaningful to them.  In explaining the methods behind his ideas, Kant breaks the idea of enlightenment into two separate worlds- enlightenment on the personal level, and enlightenment on the public level. As the name suggests, for Kant, public enlightenment involves all of the citizens as a group adapting to new, better ways of completing tasks. Unlike in his personal perspective, with regards to public enlightenment, people rely on their human nature when discovering new methods. They don’t explicitly realize that they are advancing, and tend to not be able to avoid the inevitable continuation of human progression. Personal enlightenment on the other hand, is a bit more problematic and is explained to be more difficult to achieve mainly because individuals must make decisions based off of their own thoughts. Doing so can be difficult as they part ways with the comforts associated with following the decisions made by a select few, and must now face the negative consequences of being accountable for their own actions.

Based off of the ideas brought by Kant, I do not feel as if the world we live in is at a point of enlightenment. On the personal level, enlightenment requires people to be comfortable with their own thoughts, and as Kant says: “have courage to use your own understanding!” In today’s world, people are often most concerned with fitting in and being accepted by society and as a result, tend to put their own ideas aside. In doing so, they are not able to live a life of ‘freedom’ and must always subject themselves to the constantly evolving new norms.  When thinking about society at large, while we may be at a closer point to enlightenment when compared to on the personal level, much of our current innovation is often subjected to the approval of some form of a regulator. We are able to extend our knowledge, however we are always forced to do our best to fit our ideas and findings into what will satisfy the requirements of certain institutions. However, the fact that we are indeed allowed to think for ourselves, and come up with updated methods proves that we are at a point of ’emerging’ enlightenment. While we are currently not in an enlightened era, we are most certainly moving in the direction to coming to as close to such a time as ever before.