The Enlightenment era, also referred to as the “Age of Reason,” was a cultural movement that spread throughout Europe. Its goal was set to promote the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It was during this era that many thinkers expressed their social criticism in hopes that the society would agree and start altering to create a better future.
Voltaire was one of the thinkers that raised his concern about the society and its wrongs. He, for one, supported British Deism and had turned against traditional Christianity as well as Pascal’s Christianity. In short, he believed that only rationalistic natural and moral religion can constitute as a religion. However, he did recognize and appreciate the existence of “God,” because without this figure, morality would not exist and people would act as they please without thinking that there was a greater divine force that would punish any sin. He even said that, “If God did not exist, we must invent God!” Basically, Voltaire portrayed Christianity as a weapon that oppressive tyrants use to defend their own luxurious monarchism; the religion was seen as an inexcusable and ridiculous obstacle of the development of scientific progress.
Another philosopher that was against the society at the time was Rousseau. Interestingly, Rousseau actually rejected the Enlightenment movement because he believed that Reason was also tyranny, and only the return to nature and the revitalization of inner feeling was the correct way to live. He advocated that culture in his world tended to distort the genuine human nature because of its complicated external factors. He opted for a “world of internality” which was much simpler to control and therefore fully explore.
Our group agrees with the statement that “The Enlightenment era, also referred to as the “Age of Reason,” was a cultural movement that spread throughout Europe. Its goal was set to promote the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge.” Previous to the enlightenment, people were more emotional and depended extremely towards religion. However after the enlightenment, people became more pragmatic and started to question many things. Another philosopher at that time was Montesquieu. He was very secular and wanted to find reasons for many things. For example, Montesquieu tried to find the causes of the legal system of a given nation in the particular climates, the nature of soil, the largeness of the land, the living conditions of the people.
ReplyDeleteJustin park Diana Kim Ashley Chang Jenny Yu
Ms Wylie
Period 1
We also said that the enlightenment area was a time where people expressed their ideas and social criticism. Voltaire was a great thinker and he wrote literature which we thought was a main way the enlightenment as spread throughout the world. It was a great time when people had a better sense of themselves and could write their ideas to spread to everyone.
ReplyDeleteWe thought that literature was a big part of the way that people expressed themselves and focused on authors and their works. Authors had more time to work because of the dynamics of rich people sponsoring artists and their works. It was a good way to expand the amount of architect, paintings, music and books that were created. People made art for entertainment and that was evident in the books that were written. “Gulliver’s Travels was a book that was written for entertainment and it’s story was one that the rich classes and poor classes could relate to. The gap between the rich and poor classes art had to close a seam between and bind their interests together.
The references to religion was also something that artists represented in their work. Steeples were built to point up to God and it was a time when artists also changed their work to glorify God and people of the Bible. Madonnas were painted to have a golden circle around their head. The baby Jesus had a face and was seen to look like mother and son were happy to be with each other. The enlightenment was a time of increased religious prosperity and literature to grow.
-Team Waka
Lauren Wakabayashi, Sooji Hong, Lillie Moffett, Nicole Lussier