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Similarities Between The Renaissance And The Enlightenment

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Most people today will probably say the world is mostly free. But this will differ from where and who you ask. The U.S. laws and rights were inspired by Enlightenment ideas such as the John’s Locke, Voltaire, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Although the Enlightenment brought a new way of thinking, the age of Imperialism ripped away the freedom many people had. Throughout the decades, the world has become freer, but many countries are still fighting for their freedom against a government who are hungry for power. Before the start of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, Europe went through a time of depression called the Dark Ages. The Dark ages was a time where the desire to learn and discover was nonexisting. After the Dark Ages, the Renaissance …show more content…

This form of government had a king as the head of the government but claimed that his power came from God. When scientist such as Galileo started to question the church, the people had its own doubts. This became known as the Enlightenment. By questioning the church, people started to also question their government's authority. This became an issue for the government and the church. During the Enlightenment, people were looking for freedom and to part ways from the church. Enlightenment philosophers John Locke and Rousseau were important influences that lead to the French Revolution and the “Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen”. John Locke believed that everyone was born equal and that people can improve. He also believed that the people gave the government that power. He said that if the government ever abused that power, the people had the right to overthrow it. Jean-Jacques Rousseau had a similar idea but it was called the social contract. A social contract is an agreement with someone (in this case the government), that you will do what you are supposed to do if they do their part. These ideas were first used to initiate the American Revolution and are still seen in our modern day government. After the success of the American Revolution, France was inspired to apply these enlightenment ideas for their own …show more content…

The French had three estates or classes. At the top of the estate was the Church; they did not pay any taxes. The second estate had the king which also did not pay any taxes; but 95% of the population was in the third estate, which meant that they had to pay all the taxes. In 1789, the French Revolution began with the breaking the social contract and starting the National Assembly. The National Assembly was formed in a hot and sweaty gym and was called the “Tennis Court Oath”. The National Assembly “believed that the ignorance, neglect, or contempt of the rights of man are the sole cause” of the failure of a government, with this, the “Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizen” was born. This document was the first step to freedom for the French. For example, in the “Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizen”, it says, “Every citizen may, accordingly, speak, write, and print with freedom, but shall be responsible for such abuses of this freedom as shall be defined by law.” It also expressed that all men are born free and with equal rights. Although this document brought freedom to the people, it did not do a good job at protecting its people. This document was only a way for the people to express their rights but it was not a stable government, which meant that people were left unprotected and with no food. Chaos took over France and left its people starving. France experienced three government over the course of five years and ended

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Taxes, which is still a commonly disagreed topic, were a major reason the people of France revolted. The members of the first estate were paying only a fraction of what the members of the third and event the second were. Arthur Young, a man who travelled through France from 1787 to 1789, made the observation that land owned by nobility and people of the upper class was taxed very little compared to the land owned by common citizens (Doc. 1). This injustice took a great toll on members of the third estate and

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Those who were considered as general leaders of the Enlightenment years were thought to be very intellectual and were held by most people in the highest regard throughout the colonial society. Some of the more common names spoken back then were of men such as “John Locke, Voltaire, Adam Smith, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison” (Sage, 2013, para. 3). Jean-Jacques Rousseau was another prominent thinker as well. He believed that all “individuals had natural rights to life, liberty, and property, which even a king or pope could not deny” (Schultz, 2010, p. 69). Rousseau, along with countless others fought for the rights of the people while insisting that each person is afforded the lawful right to live their own life and to cast aside the authoritativeness of others if they saw fit in doing

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For the past decades in Europe, the most common form of government was a monarchy and all the power was in the hands of either one or a couple people. During the time of the monarchies, the Enlightenment period took place and this was when many philosophers would begin to question the government. An enlightenment thinker during this time who challenged the government and suggested better ones was an England born man by the name of John Locke. Locke was interested in a type of government where power was separated and wanted the principles of government to ensure the liberty of the individual. Locke’s beliefs would change the way that people would think a government should be run, and the people wanted rights and freedom.

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The Middle Ages and the Renaissance can be considered one of the two main eras that influenced the world we live in today. The Middle Ages, which lasted from the 5th to the 15th century, was a time of darkness, death, cultural diffusion,no education, art, and literature. The Renaissance, started in the 1350s, stirred a lot of new ideas to the public, and showed what the world really has to offer. Politically, before the Renaissance, people were under the impression that god chose the man in charge. They lived in a world where feudalism was established.

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Throughout the revolutions of the 18th century, the ideas of political philosophers manifested in some of the most pivotal moments of the time. Perspectives from political philosophers like John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Charles Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau largely affected the origins and outcomes of these renowned events, as their ideas reflected religious freedom, sovereign power, equality, and liberty. These influential ideas are displayed in important documents such as the US Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution and Bill of Rights, and the French Declaration of The Rights of Man. The viewpoints of John Locke heavily influenced the American Revolution with his perspectives revolving around individual rights,

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Also, that a government gets its authority from its people. Basically, he believed that a government should protect these rights and, if they fail to do so, the citizens have the right to overthrow it. Furthermore, now that we know John Locke’s beliefs we can better understand what he would have thought about the French Revolution. A lot of the French Revolution was due to the Third Estate.

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In the Enlightenment, people had new ideas about government. This gave the French the perfect way to have their country work well. John Locke, an Enlightenment thinker, said that no king should have absolute power. He believed in a constitutional monarchy, which basically meant he thought that any ruler should have rules to follow too. He also believed in a social contract: people give a little of their freedom to their ruler, but he/she cannot take away their natural rights, the rights that they are born with, and they have the right to get rid of him/her if he/

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The lack of political weight the Third-Estate carried during the Estates-General elicited anger amongst it’s members. The Third Estate contained 96% of the population of France, yet had the same representation as the two smaller bodies (cite). Cries of nationalism and the legitimacy of the Third Estate as the true governing body of the French spread across the nation. The dissolution of the Estates-General was inevitable and was met with the Storming of the Bastille in July of 1789, marking the beginning of the French Revolution. When the Third Estate declared themselves the National Assembly and formulated a constitution they sought to eliminate the immediate bodies and privileges of the current French government.

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Before the French revolted, the citizens of France were residing in poor circumstances; there were class systems in place, there were no rights or freedoms for man and there was monarchical regime. Even, post-French Revolution, the condition for the citizens weren’t favourable because the king was executed by the Guillotine, leaving no form of government in power. Either way, the French Revolution was an era of chaos because no political or economic system was maintained and concretely established. However, one of the advantageous aspects of the French Revolution was the emergence of the Rights of Man, which was a step towards freedom of the common man, demolishment of the class system and lead to power distribution among the citizens. Therefore, as mentioned in the source, a strong leader must be fully conscious of their country’s political, economic and social systems, in order to run their nation.

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Sparked by the increased Enlightenment rhetoric of equality and liberty, horrible economic losses after the Seven Years War, and the closing monetary gap between the privileged Nobility and heavily taxed upper middle, bourgeoisie class, the people of France began to revolt against the Absolute monarch’s tyranny. The Third Estate, the vastly larger legislative body out of the Clergy’s First Estate and the Nobility’s Second Estate, started this crusade for rights with a cry for one unified assembly and tax changes. However, the initial, orderly change through the political elite by constitutional law quickly evolved into the urban poor and working class’ more radical call for democracy and true equality. Once they killed the king and obtained

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The Age of Enlightenment The Age of Enlightenment was a time when the scientific method was used to answer questions and education was more common. Until the 1600’s people would turn to the church to answer any questions about how things came to be but with the new scientific method people started using science to answer questions. After the height of the Roman Empire when education and knowledge was important, the Dark Ages was a time when people were uneducated and society moved backwards.

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In France, before the revolution, commoners were taxed by the 1st and 2nd estates, making them poor and unable to buy necessities. In Document 2 there are two people labeled “1st Estate” and “2nd Estate” standing on an object, labeled “taxes”, that is weighing down the “3rd Estate” and crushing them(The Political and Social System of France) . This shows that the first and second estates were not only more powerful than the third estate, but they also were only on top because of the taxes they enforced on the third estate. The over-taxation of the third estate was the most important economic cause of the French

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In the 18th century, France was headed towards a serious revolution as it had been governed by a series of monarchs who exploited the middle and working classes greatly, almost drove the country into bankruptcy, and practically let thousands of citizens become unemployed and nearly starve. Louis XVI and his predecessors led highly extravagant lifestyles, which meant that they needed lots of money to fund their purchases. Unfortunately they thought that in order to get more spending money, they should increase taxes on lower and middle class citizens and use the extra money for personal purchases. A great deal of people lost even more of their already low incomes, which made them upset and led them to start wondering what was going on in the

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This occurred when the Estates General became the National Assembly. Then, divided in to three estates. “The first estate was the clergy, the Second Estate the nobility, and the Third Estate was, theoretically, all other adult men in the kingdom, although its representatives were drawn primarily from wealthy members of the commercial and professional middle classes” (Page 553). Next, the event that came about was the Reconstruction of France. During this, the National Constituent Assembly was, in all methods, determined to defend property.

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The Age of Enlightenment, also known as the Age of Reason, was a time period between the late 1600’s and early 1800s in which Western Europe opened its mind about individualism. It challenged the old institutions in society, such as the Catholic Church. There was an emphasis on reason, analysis, toleration, science, and skepticism that was taking over in waves of intellectuals. It is known that Europeans’ willingness to learn from others and to try new things is the main cause of the West’s rise (Daly). This era of reform helped shape the modern West.

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