The reality of the mind

Listening to lecture this past Wednesday, I was interested in hearing the contrasts between the Enlightenment and Romantic movements of the past centuries. To me, it seems almost comical to see how many writers went from one end of the spectrum to the other in terms of what they valued in their literature. The Enlightenment featured writers who focused on reason, the sciences, rules, and the nature of rational expression. The Romantic period included many writers who responded to these views by focusing on intuition, emotion, and the nature of free expression almost to the point of celebrating irrationalism. I find the contrasts between these two movements to be interesting in how they view the human mind. The mind has the amazing ability to be both rational and emotional. Depending on the situation, we may employ both modes of thought to weigh different options or even to come to the same solution. I find beauty in the balance of the two, while writers from both movements reacted in contrast to each other’s modes of thought. Both movements tried to capture the reality of human life by focusing on one mode of thought over the other, but to me, the reality of human life is the balance of the two. It is true that some people employ reason over emotion more of the time and vice versa, but I think in the end we can all agree that one without the other is simply failing to capture the totality of the human mind.

On a quick note, I am not trying to criticize either movement. I fully enjoy the aspects of both movements because they focus on certain characteristics of the human experience. By highlighting these certain characteristics a few at a time, we can come to better understand the different experiences that affect most of us using both modes of thought.