#3: The Age of Enlightenment.

The Age of Enlightenment changed the way the society functioned completely, and determines the way society still is today. The question I had after reading the article on Wikipedia and watching both RSAnimate videos was “Is this how it should be?”

Now that things are based on science, and the way the world around us works, versus the church, religious views, values etc. we as people tend to adapt to society, instead of having society adapt to us. We roll with the punches, so to speak, instead of being closely knit to those who share the same values as us.

Knowing that the culture today determines many of our daily actions will help us determine our wants from our needs. We need to keep in mind that The Enlightenment did not happen yesterday. Things have changed since then. Culture today does not tell us we need transportation, it tells us we need to look nice while driving a nice BMW or Mercedes. This is a want, not a necessity. By being aware of our cultural surroundings we can better determine our wants from our needs.

In the time period of The Enlightenment, education was as easily accessed as it is in today’s era. Therefore, a stress was put on education. In the RSAnimate video, the cartoonist draws “EDUCATION EDUCATION EDUCATION!” in bold capital letters to emphasize this. But what about empathy? We learn information in school, how to calculate, how to read, but we do not learn how to interact and feel the way another is feeling in the real world. Where is the focus on empathy? This is something that should be more important, however, it is not stressed enough to possess this trait in today’s society.

Since The Enlightenment, our society has stayed almost constant. We still tell our children that they need to grow up and go to college to get a high paying job, we still have our children in schools that group them by age (not by ability), and no one has strived to change it. The world has changed; there have been much technological advancement since then. How can we not change the way society works? That’s when the end of one of the RSAnimate videos pops into my head, where the four founders of the Enlightenment are sitting at a table together. It’s a simple picture really. Which is why I question the reason as to why we have not changed the way society works today, since just a mere four people did before us.