What is Enlightenment?

 What does it mean to be enlightened? I feel like enlightenment is a term that we just understand by its definition, rather than what it means as it pertains to our lives individually. What is my definition of enlightenment and how does it relate to life and the values I hold to be true? It was really when this question was posed in Neiman's Why Grow Up? that made me really take this into consideration. And since he is often quoted in this section of the text, and I agree with his statements on the matter, I figure Immanuel Kant's definition of enlightenment would suffice.

"Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed nonage. Nonage is the inability to use one's own understanding without another's guidance. This nonage is self-imposed if its cause lies not in lack of understanding but in indecision and lack of courage to use one's own mind without another's guidance. Dare to know! (Sapere aude.) "Have the courage to use your own understanding," is therefore the motto of the enlightenment."

This is the first statement made in the 1784 essay written by Kant titled "What Is Enlightenment?". I like this definition of enlightenment as it insinuates that we have to take our understanding and our knowledge into our own hands. As humans we are capable to be independent thinkers, and it comes to a point where we have to hold ourselves accountable for what we do and don't know. As a matter of fact, Kant even states in a 1786 essay titled, "Conjectural Beginning of Human History", the first step to human realization is the understanding that human beings are capable of deciding their own life's journey, which is a luxury other animals aren't afforded. Understanding this concept and applying it to our lives and taking advantage of it plays a major role in how our lives unfold. For example in the perspective of Emmanuel Kant, centuries ago it would be unthinkable for a son of an illiterate saddle-maker to go on to become a professor and at that, one to be considered one of the world's most brilliant thinkers.

But even though to be considered enlightened by Kant's standards we should be held accountable for our own understanding, education is important for an individual. As humans we are often faced with difficult choices that we have to make, which we sometimes lack the experience or judgement that would suit our best interest. And for a good part of our lives, someone else makes these choices for us. Hence why people need education, for we can only understand so much on our own. Kant states that, "the human being can only become human through education". To which in her writing, Neiman brings up a fair point, what about the educators? Do our educators have our best interest in mind? Are educators teaching us to live a life best suited for us, or them?

I believe the period in which people are being educated to be a very frail stage in their life. I mean more particularly when kids first going to school. When we first start going to school, we learn very basic concepts; colors, shapes, numbers and letters for example. However these concepts lead on to be more advanced the more that is added to them. For example a math student could not understand what 3 times 2 equals 6 means without first a basic understanding of what the numbers 3, 2, and 6 mean on their own. And when we are learning these simple concepts, we have no objection as to their meaning because we have no other preconceived notion as to what they are supposed to mean. So hear lies a heavy responsibility on our educators during this part of our development, and I would like to think that they carry our best interest at heart. However this section in Why Grow Up? makes me tend to believe otherwise. Neiman points out that Kant understands that governments prefer immature subjects to independent citizens. She makes the example that current expressions of that preference are shown in the practice of keeping all of us under electronic surveillance and keeping us entertained with the innumerable options of cars that come out each year or breakfast cereals. 

That would lead me to question the efficiency and/or purpose of our school systems. If our school systems are meant to educate us and enable us to lead purposeful lives to our own standards and be the the best we can be, I would say that our schools systems are incredibly inefficient. However if the purpose of our school systems is to be provide us with skills that can possibly, emphasis on possibly, obtain a mediocre job, which likely consists of a sedentary lifestyle and crunching numbers throughout most of the day, then I would consider our school systems to be efficient. Even with that being said, depending on the funding for education in certain areas, that's not even always guaranteed.

So to conclude, enlightenment to me is being able to think and pursue knowledge without the help of others. Education is key in becoming enlightened, however we must transcend past merely what we are taught and use what we are taught as it pertains to our own circumstances and to make our own decisions to become truly enlightened.

-Dominick Dial

http://www.columbia.edu/acis/ets/CCREAD/etscc/kant.html

https://pages.uoregon.edu/uophil/files/Kant_Conjectural_Beginning_of_Human_History.pdf

Why Grow Up?: Subversive Thoughts For an Infantile Age by Susan Neiman