Enlightenment Essay Sample

The Enlightenment was a very interesting and important period of time. It extended the recent Renaissance of art and the revolution and evolution of science now into cultural ideas as well. It started in the late 1600’s and early 1700’s and ended with the revolution in France and then the Napoleonic Wars. The enlightenment and its thinkers has influenced much of modern culture and government by bringing us the ideals of rights, democracy, and liberty.

To start, I will talk about the works of what I believe to be one of the most culturally and governmentally significant enlightenment writers, Voltaire. He was born right around the start of the enlightenment, and coincidentally, died near the end as well. Many of his ideals were based around individual human rights, and he also criticized some of his fellow enlightenment writers such as Leibniz, Malebranche, and Descartes. Voltaire was a witty man, so of course, he added in some joking and mocking of institutions he disagreed with, including his famous quote, “This agglomeration which was called and which still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.”

Many of his writings dealt with basically anything he viewed as extreme, backwards, or ineffective. “Those who make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” This is one of his most famous quotes as well as one of his most impactful. It is a witty yet insightful response to any sort of political radicals. Many of Voltaire’s ideas fueled the cultural and governmental reimagining of the enlightenment.

Next I will talk about the enlightenment’s effect on culture in that time and also how the scientific revolution tied into starting the enlightenment. After the invention and subsequent mass production of the printing press, books were much cheaper and because of that many more people could read. Then they began reading books that said that not only kings had rights, but the common person did as well, and this made them begin to believe that they shouldn’t be pushed around by other, power holding, people as much. It also made them begin to think about if these monarchs’ “divine right of kings” was infringing on their personal rights as a human being. 

Now I’ll move on to how this cultural shift changed government. People began to believe that their rights extended to choosing who governs them and what choices these rulers make. This caused “enlightened despots” to start using their totalitarian power for good, simply so that they could hold on to that power. The enlightenment was not the death of monarchy, but it was almost the death of absolute monarchy, (with a few notable exceptions) for only one person, the ruler’s, benefit. Some of the governmental rights some people believed they deserved were being able to choose who rules them, that a monarch shouldn’t have absolute power, and a fair and speedy trial.

These ideas of monarchs not having absolute control triggered both the American and French revolutions. Now even though both of these revolutions started for similar (but slightly different) reasons, they ended up wildly different. The American Revolution was won against all odds, and created a lasting (yet sometimes flawed) democracy that has lasted for 245 years since the revolution. France’s revolution caused a power vacuum that made power move from one despot to the next multiple times until the 1870’s, with the occasional French Republic sprinkled in.

In the end the enlightenment had many effects, many of those carrying on until today. The ideals of liberty, rights, and democracy have been burned into our brain as the right way to be due to them valuing everyone individually as opposed to one person being all powerful in government. The important works of Voltaire and other enlightenment thinkers is the reason society exists as it does today, and we should all be grateful for their writings.