Are Enlightenment values universal - Essay Example

For this ground, Enlightenment values have by far, to this point, been inevitably embedded on culture under several aspects of living. The post-Renaissance curiosity in an in-depth study of man and the world after the rebirth of learning and rigorous inquisitions herein designate emphasis on humanities and the quest for means to put knowledge to practical use. Such movement toward intellectual revolution, which was mostly regarded as secularistic by nature, causing progressive changes to humanity proceeded out of several factors.

For one, increase in the number of academic institutions across the 18th century Europe and North America generated more intellectual people and scholars capable of questioning the prevailing ideologies of the time based upon prominent fields as science, politics, and religion. Enlightenment was also promoted via the extensive publication of printed texts either as periodicals or books where the bulk of information read prompted and encouraged the general public to express various opinions or insights on the subject matter of worldwide interest.

People of middle-class society augmented in number as well and favored being financial supporters of scientists, inventors, and humanism artists. Moreover, men became further inclined to adopt materialism in the form of industries, objects of scientific innovation, and ideas the trade for prosperity of which had been made feasible by the pioneering geniuses of the socio-political, economic, and scientific disciplines. These causes primarily developed the foundations of Enlightenment along with its associated values found through the process of rationalization.

At this crucial stage, 18th-century life and beyond was bound to experience and appreciate a profound sense of critical and creative mode of thinking in seeking to be stimulated by the beauty of reason. Eventually, there emerged a growing individual advocacy for human freedom upon discovery of the universal impact of reasoning according to the basic principles of Enlightenment as perceived in rationalism, naturalism, materialism, optimism, and humanitarianism. By considering reason and science in the systematic process of acquiring knowledge and solving problems of humanity within diverse culture, Enlightenment is claimed to free humanity from the darkness of ignorance.

With this end came departure from the burden of false beliefs and the destructive influence of illogical prejudices and superstition on the argument that secular society where liberty, equality, and democracy exist with scholastic endeavor potentially transforms human condition in which the miserable state of poverty and sickness is addressed. Universal ethical norms proposed by the 18th-century intellectuals thereafter transcend the narrow confines of race, color, sex, religion, and ethnicity for instance and such would not have been possible in the absence of Enlightenment values which altogether illumined Europe and brought the Western World to the heights of drastic progress and advanced rate of modern civilization (Igwe).

On the basis of one of the seven core ideals, ‘all human beings possess the ability to be enlightened’. Therefore, ‘enlightenment is universal’