Tag Archives: Freedom

Improvement for an Improved World

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While I initially thought that the Enlightenment perspective had much more weight, I thought the later readings we did about Romanticism also had a lot of truth. I do feel like Enlightenment goals are fundamental and totally worth going for, from the first impression of it to how it is fully embodied in our culture today. To somebody very familiar with the 21st century, to me, many of the ideals represented are 100% correct and pretty much just how it is nowadays. Beyond the process of how it shaped the world to the way it is today, I feel like at this point in time a lot of Enlightenment agendas are completely standard; to try to dispute many of these Enlightenment ideas is wrong and alien to me, if I’m being honest.

It initially seemed like Romanticism was just to be contrarian to many of these common sense truths of our current world. However, a lot of the readings we did had a lot of substance, especially when they weren’t mostly a rejection of progressive ideals. The text that wasn’t just presented as a contrast to Enlightenment ideas (which was most of what we read, contrary to my first impression) had a lot of truth to it as well, and while Enlightenment ideals seem to have a much more central theme, I definitely notice many Romantic ideals in how the system is dispersed throughout as well as in my personal life. I feel like the Enlightenment mentality definitely dominates the decision-making process, but Romantic ideas pervade many different parts of life. That being said, it may not be the best course of action to strictly adhere to Enlightenment standards when it comes to action, even if that is how it is right now – maybe different moves could make the world a better place.

From the course material I can definitely discern many things in how the system is now originated from these philosophies, back when they only existed as theory. It seems like every government in the world is operated based off these classical models. I also notice the heavy Enlightenment influence in how capitalism is – finance definitely seems to operate with empiricism first and foremost as its foundation. However, the biggest takeaway for me was how sound and accurate Romantic theory is. There is definitely a lot of truth that is missing when strictly pushing for an Enlightened world that is only truly and fully understood when considering things from a humanist perspective. To ignore the human heart of society is foolish and it is something that is often perpetuated nowadays. In spite of things being the way they are, I sensed a way for improvement not in Enlightenment texts, but in Romantic ones. Romanticism considers the human as an individual – in a world where it is easy to think of people as statistics, it makes a lot of sense to reevaluate things in a more Romantic way.

How much freedom?

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The idea of freedom and its many sub-categories is expressed in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. It can be seen that there are many types of freedom: religion, speech, etc. The attached image shows an example of freedom of speech as expressed in article XI which expresses the significance of the freedom to communicate whether it be written, spoken or printed. The images represents freedom of speech through print as newspapers are a platform to communicate and write freely. However, it also states that abuse of the freedom of communication shall be punishable by law. This begs the question of what should be considered abuse of freedom of communication and how harsh should the punishment be?

Broadening Horizons

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The Declaration of Independence is more than a declaration of intent – it was written to symbolize the both the extremely real difficulty of attaining freedom and the massive victory that it was envisioned to be (back when the document was written). Unjust rule was not just a “problem” that people had to deal with as peoples lives are totally jeopardized when there is government corruption. However, for a matter of life and death, until the Declaration was put forth, there simply wasn’t a strong action to combat this global problem. Locke’s Second Treatise similarly targets corruption in the ruling class as the problem to be combated, but it stands as merely philosophy (intellectual ideas). The Declaration was the opening move of a rebellion (or what is now definitively considered to be a revolution) against an unfair system of government that was not looking out for its people.

Before this critical action, there was nothing compelling people to try to make justice happen. People were living through constant wars where the victor got to do whatever they so desired until, once again, something bad happened. However, the DOI stands for much more than that. It specifically marks the corruption that drives this vicious cycle as the problem to be addressed. It details in length how this problem pervades lives, both on a governing level and on a human level. In the end, it declares that this is the problem that the American people freely choose to stand together to fight. Just because they are starting this confrontation does not mean they’ll win. However, this problem is the problem they are choosing to engage in conflict, not because they want power, but because they want what is good for the people.

I chose this picture to represent these ideals because I feel like it represents the sentiment of acting for a better future. I took this picture while on vacation, and I feel like the gorgeous backdrop really represents something to look forward to. Similarly, while the DOI isn’t the victory in and of itself, it so confidently represents freedom that attaining it seemed/seems inevitable. It’s description of attaining freedom as something to aspire and work for is like the flight itself, since you’re never going to get there unless you actually try to do it.

My question is: just because we’ve made many advances towards attaining the level of freedom that we currently have, are we there yet? There still seem to be many problems in terms of human liberty, so how do we stack up right now in terms of actually being independent?

Overpowering Taxes

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A major reason that the colonies fought for independence was for being treated unfairly financially. Britain charged various taxes on the colonies to pay for wars, despite no say from tho colonists themselves. High taxes caused much retaliation from the colonists, including the Boston Tea Party. In the constitution, we see the desire for protection of property. Amendment 5 protects private property, while Amendment 8 prevents excessive fines. Along with this, by declaring there independence from Britain, Americans were freed from paying taxes to the king.