A630.2.4.RB_21st Century Enlightenment_Wathen_Sandra

A630.2.4.RB_21^st Century Enlightenment_Wathen_Sandra

The world is changing fast and we must adapt by how we think and see things from a cultural psychotherapy – values, norms and lifestyles; modern people.  Core ideas have shaped culture and we must live differently in 21^st century.  We now must see things from different a perspective as we clarify our new meaning while we culturally transform.  The scientific disciplines and social sciences have provided us with these powerful new insights into human nature. We are now responding to the world around us instead of conscious decision making and out integrity are based on a social interactive world.  As such to be happier we must now seek happier friends rather than being educated on how to be happy.  We are better at understanding relative than absolute values as we are animal spirits; we also not good at making long-term decisions.  We also do not do well at predicting what will make us happy and are not even sure what made us happy in the past.  The 21^st Century enlightenment should foster a more self-awareness with respect to recognizing our weaknesses and limitations.  We must understanding that conscious thought is only part of what drives our behavior and that we need to control and distinguish our needs from our wants – find our self-awareness of potential.  Our success at functioning in society with its diverse values, traditions, and lifestyles require us to understand own reactions so that we are not controlled by them.    To resist our tendencies to make right or true that which is merely familiar and wrong or false that which is only strange is why we have to be open minded in our thinking. 

The 21^st Century Enlightenment provides us with opportunities to put ourselves in other people’s shoes and to expand empathy’s reach despite all the distractions. Although there are challenges, such as the tensions between ethnic groups that persist and have taken on new dimensions, as well as the levels of inequality have risen.   Policy makers have failed to balance imperatives of globalization and the ideal of universalism to include the empathic capacity of the communities most affected by change.  Global empathy needs grow if we are to reach agreements which put the long-term needs of all people ahead of short term national concerns. Empathic capacity is just as important as education.  However, universal empathy is complex – fostering emphatic capacity is equally important to achieving a world of citizens at peace with each other and with themselves. Progress includes addressing substantive and ethical questions that the world should recognize and be willing to debate.  The utilitarian answer is maximizing human happiness and we have done well since the enlightenment.  The poor are better off now than centuries ago.  The idea that progress should be designed to increase human happiness has turned into the assumption that pursuing progress is the same as improving human welfare.  Our society is dominated by three logics – science & technological progress, markets, and bureaucracy.  The limits lie in their indifference to a substantive concern for the general good; if it can be sold it should be sold; rationality of rules above rationality of ends.

The 21^st century enlightenment focuses on the fundamentally ethically dimension of humanism in determining what is right.  For example, our life is dictated by social convention and economic circumstance – and how do we find balance without having some feeling of neglect in our lives. 

In the 21st century way of thinking, what we aim for can be as important to our well being as what we have already achieved.  This concept is based on “our attitude and it is a philosophical life in which the critique of what we are is at one and the same time the historical analysis of the limits that are imposed on us and an experiment of possibility of going beyond them”.

To be responsible, to create a big society, to live sustainably, it is not a matter of will –

The 21^st century enlightenment is not giving us the choice; rather it is requiring us to see past simplistic and inadequate ideals of freedom, of justice, and of progress.  In fact, we need to stop focusing on those and reconnect ourselves with a strong understanding of who we are as human beings and who we want to be. We have the opportunities in front of us to be creative people and make a difference; by not focus on negativity but rather stay true to the spirit of the enlightenment –   a small group of people can change the world as it has been proven before.

So what does this all mean to me?  It means that in theory that I must have an open mind to what is before me; thinking in terms of the 21^st century enlightenment.  I need to think outside the box more now than ever before; putting empathy in a global perspective – starting with my daily personal life and expanded to my professional life.  I also need to develop a stronger and more conscious self-awareness to include understanding and controls of wants versus needs.  I must also learn how to foster the new ideals of the 21^st enlightenment so that as a leader, I can be making positive change for the world of tomorrow.