Beat the Status Quo? or Not?

"Have the courage to use your own understanding."
This is found among the opening lines of Immanuel Kant’s “What is Enlightentment,” of which is the motto of the Enlightenment as Kant said. Through my understanding of Kant’s principles regarding the enlightenment, he encourages the people during his time to actually step up and speak for their own reasons in the public, while conforming to the law in the private. Such principle is a complete opposite of what is being taught in classic political theory, wherein it is being taught that we should obey and conform to laws in the public, evident with the application of masks as stated through Machiavelli’s political thoughts.
I like the idea of Kant here on having the courage to reason out in the public as it gives the people an opportunity to step up and do greater, hence not being withheld within the sovereign. In his proposal, his justification of the private conforming to the law and the public being not withheld with the law is the fact that through such principle, we can legitimize ourselves internally in the private through speaking out our own reasons with courage so that we then develop what we call self legitimization. Self legitimization, in one aspect, is good as it prevents the abuse of power of the sovereign, of which usually results to tyranny and hence the repression of the public, as in Kant’s proposition, he encourages fair competition and equality within the public, such that it is through the public, the people’s voice and reason that the sovereign is then developed, hence creating an equal society in the process.
Yet, Kant’s proposal of having the courage to reason out to your own understanding does not mean having total freedom but merely just living out freedom. Hence, what Kant is pointing out as an emphasis to his proposal is the fact that having total freedom and living out freedom are distinctly different. In this aspect, I conform to Kant as having total freedom, unlike living out freedom, is of a negative connotation to the human soul such that total freedom will just make the human being end up being consumed by that freedom as he is not governed by any law nor sovereign, hence causing chaos eventually to the human race. As with living out freedom, which gives a more positive connotation as compared to having total freedom, it means that you get to voice out your own understanding and reason to the sovereign without fear of being attacked or repressed by the sovereign. In addition, living out freedom also points out that there should be a conformity within the limits within the sovereign. Hence, Kant here simply elaborates the principle of democracy, wherein there is freedom of reasoning out within the limits of the sovereign.
In agreement with Kant, Karl Marx also proposes a similar idea in “On the Jewish question” wherein he stated that the problem with the Jew’s desire to have a state of their own being free from the hands of the germans is that fact that they are being too particularistic with their demands. In fact, what they were actually demanding to the Germans is to be liberated out of the hands of the Germans, which just as Marx emphasized, became problematic with the Jews because of the Jews desiring for total freedom, not living out freedom.
As both theorists propose equality in society and hence eliminating competition, it eventually becomes a contradiction of the desire to step out of the status quo and uphold equality among the society because in such manner not that it puts an end to the political and a beginning to the social, it also ends up people going back to the status quo principle and not working hard to be the best. In Ateneo terms, the people, following what Kant and Marx proposes, will eventually not desire for magis and instead be tempted by dementors who encourage students to be just contented with a C instead of encouraging a student to aim for an A.