Thread by @SylvieGelinet

1 - What are "Lights", what does it mean to be "enlightened", what is "obscurantism"?

When the mind reaches an understanding of the nature of things, it means that it has understood and that it can see clearly what it is looking at.

-thread-

The enlightened man can lead his life but the ignorant, like the superstitious, is lost in the night because he is a slave to his errors & illusions. He is ready to believe tyrants and to renounce his own freedom.

The enlightened man is freed from obscurantism,it is free thought

Reason and freedom are one and the same thing, political oppression is based on man's illusions.

To accede to the Enlightenment consists for a man to leave the minority where he finds himself through his own fault.

To be a minor is to be unable to use one's own understanding without the guidance of another.

Welfarism keeps people in the minority, they no longer even know what effort is.

To remain in the minority is to be put under collective guardianship.

The legal majority, acquired on paper, does not give understanding, nor the strength of decision, nor the courage.

And the minor waits to be assisted. And the routine settles down until forgetting that he could act in another way.

And all the social policies that push you to excess, make you stupid and park you in safe places.

They show you the dangers, they dissuade you from doing them, you no longer live.

People need freedom to come back to reason : they must throw themselves into the water, take risks, make mistakes, start again, persevere, dare and never give up... and they will enjoy it because there is satisfaction to do something by yourself.

A group in a minority state, will only be able to progress very slowly towards the Enlightenment and regain its autonomy. It needs training.

The greatest freedom is to make public use of one's reason in all fields, but the deterrent is strong and permanent.

You will be given a semblance of freedom because it is limited, hence there is no freedom but "liberty"

You have already heard such words as "Reason & question as much as you want BUT your thinking will have to be limited to three pages".

In each sentence of this type, you will find the "but" hiding the threat, the forbidden...

A group, or even an entire population, under guardianship is easy to control. A set of Lights cannot be controlled, which does not mean that it is uncontrollable.

And what is Kant's point of view (1784) ?

A contract that would be concluded to keep the human race forever away from any Enlightenment progress is null and void, even if it was ratified by laws or solemn peace treaties...

One period of history cannot join together and plot to put the next one in a state of impossibility for it to extend its knowledge, to get rid of errors, and generally speaking, to advance the Enlightenment.

It would be a crime against human nature, whose original destination consists in this very progress.

And it would be legitimate that the following generations rejected such decisions and rebelled against them