The Search for Enlightenment

Freedom!!!! .. can we really achieve equality? 

After reading the chapters, all I can think of is how humans ended up giving freedom a price?.  The beginning of our existence, described by Strayer, talks about humans belonging to small groups, being nomads, not really knowing why, when, what was that they were doing at the time.  As years passed, tools were made, groups were established and territories started to be claimed.  

In the last chapters we read about Colonialism and how Europeans came to America looking Glory, God and Gold.  We read about how unfair was that they treated Natives as slaves, exploited the lands, and committed genocide against natives.  The reading ends with the imposition and the emerging of different religions as well as science.

Then, our view of the world in the new readings starts with the Atlantic Revolution and its Echoes, and the key word “enlightenment”, which refers to the “inspired efforts in many countries to abolish slavery, to extend the right to vote and to secure greater equality for women” (Strayer 500); hence the title of my blog for this post. Humans started being free and throughout time, instead of taking advantage of that freedom, they constricted themselves by stepping over each other and using the term Civilization to think they were better than the rest of the people. For example, the creation of slavery and the way slaves were seen just as a workforce and were given the worse accommodations, if we can call it that, and have such a short life expectancy, which was just for working purposes.    

To be honest the fact that humans saw other humans just for production made me really angry, especially after looking at the picture of the two children who have experience hand mutilation because they did not produce as much as it was expected. I also was very annoyed at the fact of how women were treated and not being able to speak up or participate in society. However, I was happy to have been born during an Era were the ideals of past Eras, specifically Enlightenment, are getting closer to becoming a reality.  We still have a lot of work to do to become EQUALS, but we a moving forward to accomplish it.

I really wonder if we’re really transitioning into the new Era. So many things are happening… for example, a big one, the election of a president of color in the United States, which definitely broke the mold for the European ideals in here. Are we really going to finally reach the point of freedom where we all are equal and will be treated as equals? I hope so… but it will still take a long time to see it really happen.