In the beginning of the Humanities Honors course we were taught about the left and right hemispheres of the brain, metaphors, symbolism, written and oral language, forms of storytelling, and how different cultures experience time. Throughout this introductory unit, as a class, we used many references to help comprehend the concepts. There were three texts in particular that stood out and related the most to the concepts in this unit; the Genesis, Australia's Aborigines, and Native American Myths. The Genesis is the story of the creation of the world, every kind of living creature, and lastly the creation of man and woman. This story is a large part of the human experience, it gives us a "truth" of how everything came about on this Earth and how we experience and understand it all. Another text that helped in the comprehension of the world was Australia's Aborigines. The film and the readings explored their relationship with the natural world, the meaning behind their process of making art and the actual art pieces themselves, their traditions, as well as their experience of dream time. The Aborigines dream time experiences teach them the history of creation (time of Genesis). It also explores the connection between humans and the natural world. Native American myths are similar in making connections to the natural world through symbolism. A good example of this would be from a text read during class called "Earthdivers and Creators". The purpose of this myth is to learn how Earth was created and also how humans came to exist on it. These myths show the closer connection to the natural world than humans have today. The introductory unit was very important in the comprehension of the human experience because we learned how various cultures interpret different ways of the creation of Earth and human beings.
The second unit our class explored was all about humans, nature (the natural world), and what humans consider a sacred space to be. A connection was made between these three subjects as well as our knowledge of the greater meaning of this holy connection. In this unit, there was one film in particular that made a unique connection between a human, the natural world (specifically bears and the Alaskan wilderness), and how this Alaskan space was a space this man considered to be sacred; that film was Grizzly Man. Timothy Treadwell, as we learned from this movie, believed that the role of human beings in the natural world is being caretakers for animals. He would travel and camp all over Alaska to care and watch over the bears that inhabited this space. Treadwell's peace of mind and happiness both stemmed from beings in Alaska and being one with the bears native to that space. He considered this part of Alaska his sacred space; a place where he could escape from the modern world, relax and enjoy his life. Although Timothy Treadwell was attacked and killed by a grizzly bear, he raised a lot of awareness to the natural world. The text and play, The Tempest also brings up an interesting awareness to that same connection, although just opposite. A recurring theme in this play is how the human culture is the theory that humans are not one with the natural world, but in fact above it. The idea of nature is a monstrosity because it is unknown and unusual. The definition of "monstrosity" is also a major recurring theme throughout this play; the difficulty the humans have distinguishing men from monsters. The theory that humans are above nature is a complete opposite theory than that of Treadwell's, but in the text, Toward Climax (written by Gary Synder) we see the evolution of this theory. Snyder writes of the decline of human's close connection to nature. Humans slowly started losing that connection when we made our first sounds, then later our first words. Next, written language made the biggest gap between humans and the natural world. This unit really gave us a good glimpse at what humans relationship should be like with the natural world and what it unfortunately looks like today.
Out of all the units, the love and beauty one is by far my favorite. We discussed the role that beauty plays in a person's feeling of love for another. In class we studied quite a number of philosophers that have their own themes of aesthetics, but one in particular stood apart from the rest to me and that philosopher was Kant. Kant has a very interesting and understandable theory about aesthetics. He believes that beauty is a judgment that is based on feeling, and specifically, the feeling of pleasure or displeasure. In his "Critique of Aesthetic Judgment" he discusses topics such as "fine art" or "beautiful art" and "genius". The most distinctive part of Kant's aesthetic theory is his account of pure judgments of beauty; which is his belief that the natural world has aesthetic appeal. This theory was very interesting to me, especially after reading the novel, Dorian Gray. Dorian Gray is a story of a beautiful, innocent, young man's seduction, moral corruption, and eventual downfall. A beautiful portrait was painted of him before meeting Lord Henry. By the end of the novel, Lord Henry has negatively influenced Dorian so much that when Dorian again faces his portrait, he is no longer able to see a beautiful man, but instead an evil and distorted one. Dorian becomes so incredibly distraught that he stabs the portrait and then himself. The movie, The Shape of Things, has a similar story to that of Dorian Gray. Adam, a not so beautiful, innocent man becomes negatively influenced upon meeting Evelyn. She convinces him to change his appearance, from his clothing and hairstyle to his drastic nose surgery. After his aesthetics improvements, Adam's attitude changes from shy to outgoing and not confident to self-absorbed. In the end of the film, Evelyn reveals that Adam was nothing more than a thesis project. After the heartbreaking news, Adam is left alone in the gallery that showcases the bits and pieces of his ruined life. Both Dorian Gray and Adam's beauty becomes their weakness; the weakness that led them both to their life ending or life changing downfall. In relation to the experience of humans, aesthetics should not play such a large role in our society. Almost everything nowadays is a fake beautiful, enhanced either by photo shop or makeup. Natural beauty is what aesthetic beauty should really be judged by.
Throughout the law and ethics unit, our class did a lot of work on universal moral law and social control. Ethics is a system of moral principles and morality is knowing the difference between what is right and what is wrong. Human beings use various references when figuring out their own set of personal morals. They may be influenced from the parents' morals (how the person was raised), religious morals or they may be decided through society's view of what is right or wrong. As a class, we viewed and studied the ten commandments, Sermon on the Mount, and the Eightfold Path. Each of those text examples are religious, but back in the early decades, religious morals was what societies were based off of. The ten commandments are simply; do not kill, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness against your neighbor, do not covet your neighbor's property, keep the sabbath, always honor your parents, do not use the lord's name in vain, do not worship other Gods, and lastly do not make any idols. The Eightfold Path is very similar, but goes into further detail than the ten commandments do. The Eightfold Path consists of the concepts; right understanding, right thought, right speech, right actions, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration (single-mindedness). In Buddhism, life means suffering, the origin of suffering is attachment, the cessation of suffering is attainable, and the path to the cessation of suffering. Most of these concepts are the law, such as do not kill, and do not steal. Those concepts as well as the others are principle, depending on if they are within your personal morals. Morals are crucial to the experience of human beings. If humans did not feel remorse or guilt for a wrong doing, nothing would separate us from animals. Human beings distinctive quality is that feeling of emotion, without it we are no different from any other creature on this Earth.
Some humans do not feel remorse and others are very connected to the natural world. In The Stranger Meursault feels no remorse for his actions. From your last paragraph it sounds as though Meursault would not be human. Animals do also have emotion as they lash out in anger or cry in pain and sadness. I believe the difference may be how humans express the emotion. Once old enough a human can use words to express emotion this does not however make them any less connected to nature as sounds are part of nature. In your second paragraph you noted that “Humans slowly started losing that connection when we made our first sounds…” which seems to me to be debatable as nature is full of sounds and even animals make sounds. Animals do not have a written language which seems more to be the cause of the gap between humans and nature.
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ReplyDeleteThis post makes some very pointed statements, which I found very interesting and gripping because they are brought up in such a way that you have elevated them from simple opinion. In your paragraph about humankind and our connection to nature, it seems like there is a rather unsettling connection being made, or rather it may be the lack of connection that you describe that makes it so interesting. The stance you take is that nature is an opposing force, that even when we "agree" with nature, it is opposed to us. Your example of Timothy Treadwell was the embodiment of this notion: "Although Timothy Treadwell was attacked and killed by a grizzly bear, he raised a lot of awareness to the natural world." You state that even though he was a bastion of the wilderness, the wilderness he adored destroyed him. You conclude with "This unit really gave us a good glimpse at what humans relationship should be like with the natural world and what it unfortunately looks like today", which to me implies that our relationship with nature is now wrong and must somehow be altered. However, the reason that is given for this disconnection, our language, more specifically our written language, is one that would be hard to remove from society for the sake of our natural connection, simply because language is now a part of us and the human condition. It is a thought provoking stance, but it is hard to imagine how our relationship with nature could be drastically altered with any sort of ease.
ReplyDeleteWhen love and beauty was discussed in this piece, one of the aspects that I most appreciated was the interpretation/overview of Kant and his aesthetic philosophy. Kant is, in my opinion, rather difficult to sum up, but you have done a wonderful job of wrapping up his philosophy in just a few lines, stating his core belief that "beauty is a judgment that is based on feeling, and specifically, the feeling of pleasure or displeasure." You go on to allude to an interesting connection between Kant's philosophy and the book The Picture of Dorian Gray, but you don't appeaar to go into much depth beyond stating "This [Kant's] theory was very interesting to me, especially after reading the novel, Dorian Gray." You go on to describe the plot and connection to how beauty and such impulses as lust were Dorian's downfall, but I would very much like to see the Kant and Dorian Gray connection expanded.
In all, a wonderful post. His Feline Cave Highness wishes you wonderful luck in your post-humanities endeavors. Take care meow.