Essay: Does Kant and Twain agree?
The Unthinking Majority
After reading the two articles, I concluded that Twain and Kant agree; both of them are claiming that the majority of human beings don’t think nor reason for their own, instead they subordinate to authorities or to the public opinion. They depend on others approval, they fear to be punished or excluded from society. They rather belong by following the crowd than becoming the outsider. They pursue the path that’s already walked and known instead of questioning it.
When influenced by public opinion or an authority, the unthinking majority conforms because they “ have no occasion to think” as Kant says or “nobody reasons about it” as Twain declares. It’s easier to follow the authorities and the masses than being a pioneer, taking risks are “dangerous”. But why does the thoughtless multitude wouldn’t do anything to wake up their reasoning capacity? Is it that they don’t know any other way? Or is it because they lack courage? I think maybe it is pure routine, in a sense that they are used to follow instead of acting or imposing. Or maybe they haven’t discovered that they can reason, they haven’t wake up. I truly believe that every single human on earth has the capacity and the ability to think, to reason.
I compare this last premise to the “Allegory of the Cave” by Plato, that’s the perfect example of being enlightened or not. People choose to find the light, which is your own reasoning rather than being “educated” or “trained” by the shadows, which is the reasoning of someone else. I’m not saying that being educated by someone else is bad, on the contrary, we all learn from other people but the issue here is that not everyone understands and creates their own judgment about what is being learned, instead they memorize and repeat because it’s been said by an authority or by the masses. That happens everywhere, people just absorb and squeeze the information. They are just like sponges.
I relate the idea of Twain’s “conformity” to Kant’s “laziness”; both imply that there exists a lack of initiative and impetus to understand ourselves. By “ourselves” I mean, our ideas, our thoughts, our reasoning, our passions and our lives. From both articles, I had the impression that a huge amount of people doesn’t understand their own reasoning neither the others’. They just stagnate and obey. As I said before, they aren’t aware of their reasoning and judgment.
Authorities are thought as right, as if they really know what they’re doing. It begins with our parents, then our teachers and finally the government we obey. So as I’m thinking, I realized that since children we obey more than we act. We follow instructions more than we pursue what we want. Why? Because we want to have self-approval from the authorities and we think they are doing it the right way. We have fear of the consequences we have to face if we disobey. We are afraid of failure. We want them to be proud of us. We want to belong in the tribe.
However, as Twain said, if you are born in a catholic family you’ll have the foundation of that religion. You’ll somehow believe that that’s the way because you grew up in that environment, you accept instead of questioning. You don’t know any other way because they aren’t exposed to you and you don’t try to discover what else is out there because you think you already know the truth. We are raised, as others want us to be, to think and to act.
Another thing it should be pointed out is that the “obedient people” are dependent. They wait for people to act, but do they act by themselves? No. They are used to be obedient, not leaders. And what happens nowadays? Well of course authorities rule the “system” in which we live, and those people are supposed to use their own reason and to think for the rest. As Kant would say, they are the “guardians” of the obedient and unthinking majority. But are they really using their reasoning about what they learned or are they repeating what others have done all this time? Why should everybody depend on unreasoning people? Why should anyone be dependent? Wouldn’t be a better world if we all used our own reasoning about everything? But how can we make people enlightened? Spreading the word? Is it an individual experience or you need guidance from another?
When we experience enlightenment and discover that we can think for ourselves is when we decide of quitting nonage or not. Kant defines nonage as the inability to use one's own understanding without another's guidance. So you can choose to quit, to think outside the box and break paradigms. You can be lazy or proactive in your reasoning. By having that decision, quitting nonage, you are the unique person responsible of your life, of your being. Understanding yourself as an individual, knowing what you want to accomplish, learn and pursue, creating your own reasoning about everything and standing for what you believe is true. I think that is enlightenment and the ultimate freedom a human being can experience.
All the enlightened people shared their discovery of finding their own reason, their own light, it begun with Plato later with Kant and several other philosophers. It is proven that humans can reason and we know that because of documentation. Enlightened people found a way, their way, to spread their own ideas, questionings and thinking. I know reason is at the core of our being, it’s there. We just have to own it, to discover it and to share our experience with other humans. I believe that by sharing we awake people’s curiosity and questioning. Enlightenment is out there, in every single head, it just has to be explored by each of them.
When influenced by public opinion or an authority, the unthinking majority conforms because they “ have no occasion to think” as Kant says or “nobody reasons about it” as Twain declares. It’s easier to follow the authorities and the masses than being a pioneer, taking risks are “dangerous”. But why does the thoughtless multitude wouldn’t do anything to wake up their reasoning capacity? Is it that they don’t know any other way? Or is it because they lack courage? I think maybe it is pure routine, in a sense that they are used to follow instead of acting or imposing. Or maybe they haven’t discovered that they can reason, they haven’t wake up. I truly believe that every single human on earth has the capacity and the ability to think, to reason.
I compare this last premise to the “Allegory of the Cave” by Plato, that’s the perfect example of being enlightened or not. People choose to find the light, which is your own reasoning rather than being “educated” or “trained” by the shadows, which is the reasoning of someone else. I’m not saying that being educated by someone else is bad, on the contrary, we all learn from other people but the issue here is that not everyone understands and creates their own judgment about what is being learned, instead they memorize and repeat because it’s been said by an authority or by the masses. That happens everywhere, people just absorb and squeeze the information. They are just like sponges.
I relate the idea of Twain’s “conformity” to Kant’s “laziness”; both imply that there exists a lack of initiative and impetus to understand ourselves. By “ourselves” I mean, our ideas, our thoughts, our reasoning, our passions and our lives. From both articles, I had the impression that a huge amount of people doesn’t understand their own reasoning neither the others’. They just stagnate and obey. As I said before, they aren’t aware of their reasoning and judgment.
Authorities are thought as right, as if they really know what they’re doing. It begins with our parents, then our teachers and finally the government we obey. So as I’m thinking, I realized that since children we obey more than we act. We follow instructions more than we pursue what we want. Why? Because we want to have self-approval from the authorities and we think they are doing it the right way. We have fear of the consequences we have to face if we disobey. We are afraid of failure. We want them to be proud of us. We want to belong in the tribe.
However, as Twain said, if you are born in a catholic family you’ll have the foundation of that religion. You’ll somehow believe that that’s the way because you grew up in that environment, you accept instead of questioning. You don’t know any other way because they aren’t exposed to you and you don’t try to discover what else is out there because you think you already know the truth. We are raised, as others want us to be, to think and to act.
Another thing it should be pointed out is that the “obedient people” are dependent. They wait for people to act, but do they act by themselves? No. They are used to be obedient, not leaders. And what happens nowadays? Well of course authorities rule the “system” in which we live, and those people are supposed to use their own reason and to think for the rest. As Kant would say, they are the “guardians” of the obedient and unthinking majority. But are they really using their reasoning about what they learned or are they repeating what others have done all this time? Why should everybody depend on unreasoning people? Why should anyone be dependent? Wouldn’t be a better world if we all used our own reasoning about everything? But how can we make people enlightened? Spreading the word? Is it an individual experience or you need guidance from another?
When we experience enlightenment and discover that we can think for ourselves is when we decide of quitting nonage or not. Kant defines nonage as the inability to use one's own understanding without another's guidance. So you can choose to quit, to think outside the box and break paradigms. You can be lazy or proactive in your reasoning. By having that decision, quitting nonage, you are the unique person responsible of your life, of your being. Understanding yourself as an individual, knowing what you want to accomplish, learn and pursue, creating your own reasoning about everything and standing for what you believe is true. I think that is enlightenment and the ultimate freedom a human being can experience.
All the enlightened people shared their discovery of finding their own reason, their own light, it begun with Plato later with Kant and several other philosophers. It is proven that humans can reason and we know that because of documentation. Enlightened people found a way, their way, to spread their own ideas, questionings and thinking. I know reason is at the core of our being, it’s there. We just have to own it, to discover it and to share our experience with other humans. I believe that by sharing we awake people’s curiosity and questioning. Enlightenment is out there, in every single head, it just has to be explored by each of them.