#3: Impossible Enlightenment...?

Relative to our lifespans, our civilization is old, and our society holds on to some traditions very strongly. Many American laws and rights (and inequalities) are written by followers of a book older then the founding of our continent, which is about the exploits of a man older then that. Our last Age of Enlightenment was caused by science, and irresistible proof that what the general people thought, was wrong and here is why and how. That branched off to more Enlightened thinking and it spread to all of modern (at the time) civilization because people could not refuse the truth, the proof. 

Matthew Taylor believes our next Enlightenment must come from humans changing the way we think, becoming more Empathetic. One part of me things it is Impossible without something dramatic. In our world we choose our facts, what we want to believe. We are manipulated from the beginning of grade school to listen, obey, go to college, work, buy. Our school systems is an archaic system. It does not fit our society and it does not help as much as it should. Ken Robinson talks about what is wrong with the school system and this is why I think it is impossible. School is a factory, a business, it constantly pumps out more mindless drones then intellectuals. The people with the money, and the power to change the system won't because it threatens their power. They manipulate people by waving religion and tradition which hinder us from growing and becoming more empathetic and enlightened. They use the schools to keep us entrenched in this mindset, and the schools can't do anything because they get money from the government which wants us to be mindless.

One part of me thinks the impossible, another can see a possibility no matter how slim. This possibility is because of the previous Enlightenment. These intellectuals a handful that started it, propelled our civilization forward through all the opposition. And most of these people never met, in our world now intellectuals can meet, gather, talk, share, grow and spread the word of enlightenment. They have a much larger army to face to bring this knowledge to people, to people who have been conditioned, controlled. But we did it before. We can do it again.