Define enlightened. I think people might be more informed in certain cases, but not more enlightened.
Not the definition but an historical definition.
A philosophical movement of the 1700s that emphasized the use of reason to scrutinize previously accepted doctrines and traditions and that brought about many humanitarian reforms.
Then the answer is absolutely not.
I disagree. We’ve had many political revolutions overthrowing leaders, religion has been on a heavy decline, and most people accept that science or basic logic is the most important element in an argument, not authority.
We just see so many people NOT doing that, and we hate it. We live in a world where the person doing the stupidest thing that day makes the front page, and we’re enlightened enough to critique it.
Stupid people will always exist. The idea that we hear about them more now and we hate them for it actually proves we’ve become more enlightened.
Counterpoint: Trump was president.
Of America, not of the world. Believe it or not, there are so many other people in the world outside of America.
Also, look at the presidents of the past. America has had many pro-slavery Presidents. Trump was awful, but he wasn’t even the worst President. The fact that so many people felt he was awful also shows that America has progressed.
But back to my first point, you’re looking at a country of 350m out of 8 billion people in the world. The world has moved on from so many of the things that the US continues to struggle with. As a people, we’ve advanced much further than we’ve been in the past.
Edit: wrote a “k” not an “m” for America’s population.
The fact that you don’t think Trump was the worst president makes me doubt your knowledge of US history.
“Other people were worse” has never been a good argument, much leas for presidents.
350k?
The far right is on the rise all across the world, not just the US.
He was voted in by the people, ergo, the majority is not enlightened.
Not the majority.
who lost the poplar vote
What about the oak vote?
I know I am. I wasn’t even born 100 years ago.
See, I didn’t even know that about you. I’m more enlightened than I was 10 seconds ago!
Looking at widespread corruption and material worship, I’d say they are about the same.
things are way better for women and minorities than they ever were… which is saying something as things are still comparatively bad
I feel like answering this would give different answers for pretty much every category you could define.
No they’re obese.
3 comedy points.
In general, probably.
Locally, depends on the locality
People have access to more information, but less access to tough life lessons, and therefore less experience (ranging from survival skills, to applied political science, etc.).
Is being “enlightened” mean you have more (possibly fake) information, or does it mean having more life experience? You decide…
define enlightened using your own words not via a google search
Me, I’m specifically referring to the enlightenment. Now I would say that some of their ideas haven’t aged well but that is kind of a hat on a hat. The following summarizes it better then my dopey ass ever could:
Use of reason to scrutinize previously accepted doctrines and traditions and to bring about humanitarian reforms
in regards to that definition then: yeah, I’d say people are, on the whole, more enlightened than they were a century ago. the scientific method is more thoroughly accepted/baked in at a societal level, and the mass adoption of digital communication facilitates a greater sense of community… though the resulting communities are often at odds with each other.
I doubt it.
The fact we all interact with cyberspace, using more high level functions to navigate rather than interacting with the physical world, means we are less integrated and present than before.
No no no no no no no. I can’t say no enough.
Religions were created for many reasons, but one of them was dealing with constant war and conflict. And humans are still fighting and in conflict. We’re not more enlightened than any other point in recorded history.
Well, we may know how to kill each other more effectively.
Sorry I don’t understand your point. The question was about enlightenment. One doesn’t necessarily need religion to walk towards it.
Also religion is a terrible way to deal with war. It’s simply a form of groupism that just brews more conflict. But that’s a separate discussion and off topic to the question I feel.
I interpreted your question as are we more morally advanced than 100 years ago. Moral advancement is enlightenment. Many religions are about moral advancement. We’ve had religion for thousands of years. And one reason was to mitigate wars in some cases (the ones I listed). But we still have war. So, we have not advanced morally, we’re not enlightened, anymore than we were thousands of years ago, let alone 100.
Ok. I understand what you mean now, but I disagree on the correlation.
If someone is not religious, they could still be morally advanced. In the modern world people are tending to prefer reason over faith. I would even argue it is way better now that people are directly discussing philosophies rather than following the constructs of religion around it.
If someone is religious in the true sense, their way of life following faith in God also advances them morally. How this works depends on the religion of course. But as I mentioned earlier this tends to create a form of groupism.
So a person being religious or not doesn’t directly mean they are morally advanced or not. I’d say lack of moral advancements are due to other factors, like the evolution of society on top of technology.
They are educated more. The opposite of enlightenment.
Why the downvoting?
People of today know a lot about everything. Yet we still have wars, pointless diseases born out of ignorance, discrimination beyond belief, causing people to even want to undergo surgery to escape, so much hate.
We know so many things, and we ignore it all. The opposite of enlightenment. We live in ignorance. And we celebrate ignorance.
Healthy at any weight, right? Fuck evidence to the contrary.