The biggest issue in our country today is the upcoming
election. Many of us having just turned 18 are eager to get out and exercise
our new right to vote. Maybe you are registered absentee, or are from Ann
Arbor, or like me, have plans to make the trek home to vote next Tuesday. The
concepts of enlightenment and immaturity can be related to voting. We are
supposed to make our own decision as to who we cast our educated vote for. The
point is that every citizen gets the chance to voice his or her opinion through
a vote. This involves thinking for ourselves. We must make a good analysis of
each candidate, evaluate the situations at hand in our country, and then decide
from there.
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| Picture found at this web address |
BUT, it is truly impossible to follow Kant’s
idea of enlightenment and independent thinking when it comes to voting. Kant blatantly states “Enlightenment is man's emergence from his
self-imposed immaturity,” meaning that they have changed from dependent
thinking to independent thinking. As much as we should become independent thinkers to
vote, there are many outside forces in our everyday lives. These factors put us
at a disadvantage to make our own decisions. Examples of this are school,parents, friends, and media.
In lecture this week when discussing Kant’s
views of enlightenment, Professor Manty discussed paternalism as something that
hinders independent thinking. In our case of voting, the five factors listed
above (school, parents, friends, and media) are paternalistic and work against
our own thoughts. Kant says that- “Have
courage to use your own understanding!” is the motto of
enlightenment. It could also be considered the motto of voting. Have courage to
use your own understanding…to vote the way YOU believe is
best.
Paternalism is the greatest obstacle in this voting
situation.
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| Deciding which way to vote can be confusing when there are so many outside factors, click here for more explanation. |
But when we have classes that influence our views through their liberal or conservative ways teachings it can subconsciously affect the way we think. This happens also if you have been raised by parents who have strong political views. They may or may not have attempted to impose them on you. When having a conversation about the election with a friend the other day, I expressed my concern about the uncertainty of my vote. She then replied “when in doubt, vote the way your parents do.” This is a good example of how many people don’t think for themselves, and use the ideas of someone else to form their own vote.
Moving on the next example of paternalism, people tend to
flock together when they have something in common which forms friendships. So
we are likely to agree with the views of our friends, even if it is not on
purpose. The last subconscious influence
I’m going to discuss is the news media. We watch the news
for information about the election, right? But at the same time every news
station is somewhat biased towards one side. This can influence our bias to
that side as well.
Media such as facebook and twitter also affects how people
vote. Social networks have become extremely popular in our culture and simply
reading your news feed can influence how you vote. This connects the idea of
your friends and the media as problems of paternalism. Engaging in social
networking sites puts us at a disadvantage to make an independent decision on
who to vote for.
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| Influences that are obstacles that keep us from reaching enlightened voting. Resource for this image |
School, parents, friends, and media all affect us
paternalistically and it is for this reason we are put at a disadvantage to
vote. “Immaturity is the inability to use one’s
understanding without guidance form another,” says Kant. We are in a constant state of immaturity and
can’t reach a state of enlightenment because of the outside
factors that affect our ability to vote. It would be ideal for us to be able to
vote based of our own personal reasoning, but because we can’t
control paternalism in our lives it has
become impossible.
“Nothing is required for this
enlightenment, however, except freedom; and the freedom in question is the
least harmful of all, namely, the freedom to use reason publicly in all
matters.” This is another direct quote from Kant in “What
is Enlightenment?” that illustrates the necessity
of freedom. We are essentially free right? We have the freedom of speech,
press, petition, assembly, and religion. This allows us to voice and endorse
our views publicly. But this type of freedom does not allow us to escape the
immaturity. We are not free from the subconscious affects of paternalistic
factors in our lives.
As much as we think our opinion on the election is our own,
it is not. It has become second nature for us to listen to others when it comes
to the election. Whether it’s your school, parents, friends,
or the media. It’s our only source of information
to vote. If we can’t be freed from the immaturity,
when will we ever be given the change to think for ourselves? Will we ever be able
to vote SOLELY based on our own reason?
I agree with you largely on your explanation of paternalism through voting and think you bring up some good points. I also believe that news, ad campaigns, and especially parents play a large part on your preferences. My parents' strong influence on me to be in favor of the republican candidate placed a bias in my head without me completely knowing why i think that way. The idea of Kant's paternalism here is that I cannot reach enlightenment because I am still immature and rely on the guidance or influence of my parents to think. However, recently I have done research of each candidate's policies separately in order to not get a biased view. I found out that i was much more moderate and in between the two candidates than I had thought before when I relied on my parent's views. Because of this, I would disagree with you that we all are not capable of escaping immaturity through voting. We just have to put forth an effort to discover an unbiased truth, and then use this to enlighten ourselves with what we truly believe.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing your opinion! I definitely think that what you did to find out more about the candidates is very responsible. I actually was in the same situation. Their republican views were unintentionally influencing my decisions which then made me immature when it came to voting. But I also did research to find out more about the candidates and found myself in the same boat, middle of the road. (Which definitely made voting that much more of a challenge).
ReplyDeleteBut I disagree with what you said about putting enough effort forth to enlighten ourselves with what we truly believe. I do believe that we can all have our own views about the election, but they are never enlightened views. The reason for this is that unbiased information isn't exactly attainable. Most news and articles you read will be somewhat biased. For example if you go on the candidate's websites, the information may not seem biased, but it most likely is. It's very hard for an author to exclude bias, it might be the slightest amount. And when you do research on the candidates you're learning other people's interpretation and how they describe things. Which would then be listening to someone else, being another paternalistic factor preventing us from reaching an enlightened vote. Another example of paternalistic factors that are apparent when researching the election is ads on the websites. A site that describes each party's platform might be very basic without a lot of opinion, but the ads on the sides of the page very well could be political ads. This would influence the reader subconsciously. I respect your opinion but find it almost impossible to find an unbiased view for the elections.
Sloane,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your post; it’s obviously very relevant to the present. I completely agree with your sentiment that “it’s almost impossible to find an unbiased view” of the elections; in my opinion, college students’ political opinions are most influenced by outside factors. It’s ironic in a way -- we’re attending college to become “enlightened” and yet we are thoroughly unenlightened because of college!
This presidential election season, I definitely believe that most Michigan students’ political opinions were swayed by a few of the paternalistic influences you listed, if not all of them. One example of this is the influence of the campus political environment; the University of Michigan is an extremely liberal-leaning campus, and this definitely plays a part in deciding students’ votes. Although I don’t generally vote for Republican candidates, I can understand the pressure that some Republican students must face to conform to the liberal ideals that many of their peers hold. In addition, I’m sure some Romney supporters on campus felt embarrassed or nervous to voice their political opinions, so as not to be looked down upon or ostracized by their fellow students.
However, I completely believe that parental opinions factor most in college students’ decisions to vote; after discussing Michigan’s statewide ballot proposals with my parents, I was definitely swayed by their opinions on whether to vote “yes” or “no”. I like to think that I made an informed opinion based only on my own research and views, but I was definitely influenced a great deal by my mother and father.
To finally express “enlightened” opinions while voting we must fully disregard the pressure put on us every day by these “paternalistic” influences; however, I believe that this, as you stated, is “truly impossible”.
Great post! It was very in depth and I got a better understanding of enlightenment and how it can relate to modern politics. It also made me realize that I am biased myself due to my parents, peers, and the media I use and watch. I completely agree that an unbiased opinion is almost impossible to form, because we are constantly battered from all directions with outside effects. But is this always wrong? Kant writes that society can, “Never truly reform a manner of thinking.” I do not think these outside pressures in society are always necessarily negative. I feel as though they are aspects of society that cannot be avoided and therefore can also help us to see different opinions in a public forum. From this, we can compare views and help ourselves to decide using the media or peers. Kant writes that, “The public use of one’s reason must always be free, and it alone can bring about enlightenment among mankind.” I think it also can be used as a tool to see what our effect would be on society with the political views we hold. If we did not have influence, pressure, or the ability to accept or deny certain ideas and view around us, how would we form our own opinions and learn decision-making?
ReplyDeleteI also believe that one of the biggest factors holding us back from complete enlightenment is something that also varies in society, which is age. As teenagers, immaturity comes from our age, which prevents us from truly understanding politics. This is not because we are incapable of deciphering politics and deciding what is best for us personally, but because we have not experienced enough political problems and events to have a rounded view of society. We lack in life experiences and know less about our own society than someone who is older may. We hear ups and downs in our country pertaining to past politics, presidents, wars, and economic crisis, but it is not the same because we have not experienced it firsthand. I feel that this also contributes to the struggle of reaching true enlightenment and maturity.
Overall, I thought you did a great job of addressing Kant’s message in a modern view of politics. The media will only continue to have more of an effect on society as we make advancements. I agree too that our parents, friends, and peers will always hold a sense of control as well on what we think. This is because we tend to stick to what we think we know, or what seems the most familiar or comfortable. True enlightenment can come when we make a collective effort to stop ourselves from being convinced immediately by what we hear or see around us.