There is historical evidence to suggest that there was a dark side to the Enlightenment. This thought might need to be reconciled with in our world today. Foucault helped to unearth this in his histories of the asylum and the prison. I argue that the history department is one of the oldest institutions on the planet, and likely has standards that we cannot even imagine. And I have faith in its integrity.

No.

My professor offered Frankenstein as a living perspective of the time in which it was written in form of a fiction novel. He offered no commentary as to why or what it meant. This week I had an insight that it was assigned as muted way of offering to the student the idea professed in the first sentence.

I'm sorry to hear that. I was encouraged to write on what I thought was important, from whatever perspective I wanted, given I use evidence and create a coherent argument.

I'm sorry to hear that. The history and art history and anthropology classes that had the greatest effect on me were all preoccupied with evidence, with recognizing personal bias, and with preservation of the record - "provenance" in art history, the origin and history of ownership of any particular item.

Why then does the sentence "There is historical evidence to suggest that there was a dark side to the Enlightenment" matter? We are living in a time in which technology has rapidly transformed the way we learn, communicate and live in the world. There is current evidence to suggest that this is not inherently for the best and that there is little to no accountability. We can perhaps see this more plainly with developments and consequences in science and medicine in the form of "Big Pharma."