The Mindset During the Enlightenment Period

The Enlightenment spread vastly throughout Europe in a surprisingly quick and efficient process. The Enlightenment was the idea that all knowledge should be spread far and wide. This Not only entire cultural groups but also individual people longed to change the world whether this be through innovative change or social practices. This method of thinking spread extremely quickly using the tactics of media and worldly connections. This gave opportunities for more connections between separated cultures. These average individuals were soon considered thinkers and for the more intelligent of these thinkers, they gained the opportunity to see the world in a way that did not focus on futile concepts such as religion, gender, race, and political expression.

Those who saw the world in this way gained admittance into our history books. These are people such as Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz.

This young woman was surprisingly academically advanced for her age. Unfortunately, her status as a woman combined with her non-innovative parents cut off her chance of being accepted into the university in the capital of the provinces of New Spain.

After being denied to enter the university, she entered a convent where she studied science and mathematics and advanced into the history books to be known as a remarkable poet. Unfortunately, Juana’s full potential was not unleased into the world because of not being able to fulfill her dreams of attending the university. People like this had the similarity of tending to focus on natural law as opposed to focusing on other elements such as religion or culture.

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These philosophers denied that they were favoring natural law over other elements. Whether this was a conscious decision or not is difficult to decipher. Whatever the reason was, it is clear to see that the center of attention for these philosophers was natural law. During this time period, the standard academically advanced and intelligent person was a wealthy white male. However, there were those who did not see the world through this ridiculously prejudice filter.

Instead, these outcasts of the normal perspective saw all genders and races as equally capable of becoming advance either academically or intelligently. The destruction of this filter of prejudice perspective was inevitable and eventually found its downfall in most societies as can be seen today. While racism and sexism still exist today, the extent of these ridiculous notions have been abolished in many societies and greatly reduced in many more. Unfortunately, racism and sexism still exist profoundly in a number of societies. This journey to the benefit of unprejudiced thinking began in The Enlightenment where the differences between man and woman began their expedition to no longer existing. One of the individuals who began the construction of the deconstruction of prejudice thinking was John Locke. This greatly enlightened man believed that all man is born with intellectually equal capabilities. He stated that cultural differences were caused by unequal opportunities. Ideas such as these spread across Europe through simple methods such as social gatherings in coffee shops and salons. This kind of mindset was what The Enlightenment was all about.