I didn't define them there. This I Believe puts pretty severe limitations on space. I primarily think of the ideals that served as a foundation to advance what we understand today as tentative, open, pluralistic, continuously evolving - but nonetheless - commitments to human rights.
That's on a very broad scale. In the context of courses and that sentence about the connection between ideals and institutions that we know today, I'm talking about Locke, Montesquieu, Rousseau and others and their influence on US founders in terms of setting up institutions that we appeal to today as guarantors of individual rights and liberties (albeit contested, albeit imperfect, but a significant human achievement nonetheless!).
Actually - and only slightly related - today I was reading "Academic Repression: Reflections from the Academic Industrial Complex" and enjoyed the authors' articulation of enlightenment legacy as they wrote about culture clash and academic freedom today, "The political forces that etched such a deep imprint on American life from the 60s onward pitted these progressive ideals - the product of eighteenth century enlightenment, revolution, and armed struggle - against the odious ideologies and systems of prejudice, discrimination, bigotry, homogeneity, and domination."
What is meant by "Enlightenment Ideals?"
ReplyDeleteHi Joseph,
ReplyDeleteI didn't define them there. This I Believe puts pretty severe limitations on space. I primarily think of the ideals that served as a foundation to advance what we understand today as tentative, open, pluralistic, continuously evolving - but nonetheless - commitments to human rights.
That's on a very broad scale. In the context of courses and that sentence about the connection between ideals and institutions that we know today, I'm talking about Locke, Montesquieu, Rousseau and others and their influence on US founders in terms of setting up institutions that we appeal to today as guarantors of individual rights and liberties (albeit contested, albeit imperfect, but a significant human achievement nonetheless!).
Actually - and only slightly related - today I was reading "Academic Repression: Reflections from the Academic Industrial Complex" and enjoyed the authors' articulation of enlightenment legacy as they wrote about culture clash and academic freedom today, "The political forces that etched such a deep imprint on American life from the 60s onward pitted these progressive ideals - the product of eighteenth century enlightenment, revolution, and armed struggle - against the odious ideologies and systems of prejudice, discrimination, bigotry, homogeneity, and domination."