Chapter 15: Nature Review

                        Chapter 15: Nature

Nerstrand-Big Woods State Park-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nerstrand-Big_Woods_State_Park

"Reading about nature is fine, but if a person walks in the woods, he can learn more than what's in books"- George Washington Carver

      Within the humanities, nature has been a subject of romanticism. Nature is described as being free and natural for this is where humans use to roam before structured civilization. Some views on ature are differed ofcourse. Some have a more business insights and take advantage of natural resources with out giving back while there are those who call themselves environmentalist that are trying to support nature and promote protecting it because they believe it's been tampered to a point of no recovery. One person who promoted nature and found romanticism in it was Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emerson believed that we should "  look for nature in ourselves" ( Janero & Altshuler , The Art of Being Human: The Humanities as a technique for living, 2011, p.476) and by doing this we could not only love ourselves but the beautiful natural world around us. Within biblical connotations, some environentalist believe that nature is not only a powerful force but one that god encourages us as humans to take care of.  According to the quote above, to understand nature one should put themselves in it instead of learning from books or other sources. I agree with this quote because I feel as some people don't really understand just how impactful nature is and don't really expose themselves to it as much nowadays. Actually going out and putting yourself in nature is different than seeing photos of it on someone's instagram feed or pinterest board.

illustration from an edition of Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels" -https://www.britannica.com/topic/Gullivers-Travels

   "Study nature , stay close to nature. It will never fail you." -Frank Lloyd Wright

       One theory concerning nature is the ' Decay of Nature Theory' that was heavily pushed by Sir William Temple, distant cousin of the author of 'Gulliver's Travels', Jonathan Swift.  Temple himself had a very pessimistic view on things and saw some truth in deism, the philosphy that believed nature was like a clock that would never run. Instead of believing nature was unchanging , Teple believed the clock was running slowly and eventually nature would decay and life around it would perish. This is what inspired Swift when writing his book but with more of a focus on humans in the sense of his cousin. This focus on nature relates to the quote above talking about nature. If humans tried to understand nature and have a more optimistic approach to it then it wouldn't decay at the rate it is nowadays.

   The urban attitude in nature expresses a somewwhat negligent view. In urban areas, nature isn't really accounted for by the people living in those regions and are usually ignored. Henry David Thoreau was a famous environmentalist who found this urban attitude to be not only toxic but saddening since these people probably have never seen the beauty in nature due to their daily life problems that distract them from it.

Native American Nature Artwork- https://www.tokkoro.com/2926321-native-americans-nature-artwork.html

" The debate over whether or not humanity is contributing to global warming is over" - Ronald Bailey

   In humanities , nature caan be portrayed as an awesome force. It's not just gentle and beautiful but something that can attack at any moment essentially. Native americans specifically somewhat understood nature as an awesome force. They have a deep spiritualrelationship with nature and believed their gods watched over different aspects of it. They used chants and songs to interpret the forces of nature around them and become closer to it. 

 Some incoveniences in nature are the ones caused by human involvement. Works like , 'The Fate of the Earth'  expressed how because of human caused problems like global warning and climate change badly effected nature and endangered the living of humanity. These ideas were popular published during the 1980s but have become a big topic of today aswell for many, spreading awareness of these very real problems. The quote above sums up the idea of incoveniences in nature caused by humans by saying how it's become an obvious fact that humaity has contributed to the global warming problem. By saying this is something undebateable , it makes it more real in a way of how badly humanity has dug itself into a hole because of destructive practices.

Conclusion

   In conclusion that humaities have expressed nature in very different lights. One way of iteroreting nature is through the environmentalist view where nature is the top priority and is fully understod in an almost a romantistic view for some. Another way of interpreting nature is by not associating with it and letting it take it's course which can be devestating , especially if it's just someone taking from natural resources and not giving back to keep nature in balance. No matter if one sees nature as being below humanity or if one sees nature as being superior, there's always different ways of interpreting nature.

      

Chapter 14: Life-Affirmation Review

                               An Overview of Chapter 14

Human skull-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death

"We mask our fears about our own mortality in the importance we place on the death of celebrities"- ( Janero & Altshuler , The Art of Being Human: The Humanities as a technique for living, 2011, p.448)

     Death has been portrayed in a variety of ways. Some popular ways is the grim reaper, skulls, or an unexpected serial killer. These images of death can be viewed as terrifying to exciting and thrilling. Death can also be seen in more mild terms and honourable. An example of honourable ways of portraying death is holidays like  Day of the Dead , or Dias de los Muertos, in hispanic cultures. 

   As stated before, death can also be portrayed as thrilling and even as entertainment. Pulp fiction is one example of death being portayed in an heart-pumping action. Things that would be considered as morbid by the general public is seen as entertainment in terms of fiction with horror tales and terrifying scenes. Disaster movies about a catostrophe are popular for the exact reason that it's about people trying to overcome the seemingly unavoidable death looming on the actors. Spectacles bring about a similiar feeling of excitement. Rodeos, circuses, and performers alike that relish in being involved in dangerous acts brings about a crowd that are fascinated by it. The thought of impending doom is glamorized in a way that excites an audience and brings about an illusion of fearlessness to some.

   How some people deal or react with death can differ greatly. Avoidance of the talk of death is one of these ways. Death being spoken openly can be a bit off to some, expecially if it's not in exaggerated terms. Some people want to avoid the serious talk of death until it's eventually unavoidable. Younger audiences are often the ones who the general public avoid to bring death up around, hence why certain movies that contain death in adult ways are 18+ in nature. Another way of dealing with death is humor. This is one I feel like identify with the most. Humor is a way to turn a bad situation into a slightly more bearable one and in these terms, the talk of death. Yes, there is always a time and place for humor in the talk of death though. The magnifying and beautifying of death is one I find the most fascinating becuase I find it to be one relevant in this generation. Many of us want to be recognized and remembered for our achievements after death-we want our exitence to mean something in this greater world. The quote above from the text describes how we identify ourselves in place of celebrities or notable figures deaths. We see their deaths as a homage and our even moved by it. Their death can give some hope in having a similiar death where we are beloved. This helps us mask our momentary fear of it if only for a bit.

The Death of Socrates,Jacques-Louis David, 1787 -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_Socrates

The Death of Socrates,Jacques-Louis David, 1787 -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_Socrates

" I covered my face and wept, not for him, but at the thought of my own calamity in having to part from such a friend"- Plato (on the death of Socrates)

    A few humanities death has been expressed in is literature, music, and philosophy. Death in literature explores characters and how they react to death- related scenarios. Although just being words on paper compared to actors, literature can bring a detailed insight into human nature in death and how people react to it in interesting ways. Death in music can express mourning nature. Examples of this are the accompanying music at funerals that are composed of organs and slow hymns. Death in music can also be a composer expressing their views on death and with their views with coming to accept death. Death in philosophy can be with how individuals come in terms of their views on death aswell. It also includes how people around the loss one reacts and whether this feeling of loss is drowned in own self-interest or selflessness. The quote above is how Plato feels about the death of his friend Socrates. Interestingly enough about the quote is how it's almost selfish in a way. Plato cries because he lost a good friend no because of Socrates demise persay. This can be debated that his selfishness in Socrates death is because Socrate died not really having any regrets so there would be no point in crying  for Plato to cry for Socrates since he gladly accepted death. It was Plato who could ot come to terms with the loss and was ultimately the most hurt by it.

Joshua Blake / Vetta / Getty Images- https://www.verywellmind.com/symptoms-of-bipolar-depression-379840

"You only live once, and usually not even then"- Michael O'Donoghue

    One way of interpreting death is in symbolic terms rather than biological. What I refer to by this is death on a mental basis. A few ways of symbolic death is unworth, symbolic suicide, and symbolic death. With unworth, a person feels an overwhelming lack of self worth and questions their use, This can effect a person's body and appearance and deteriorate them. This symbolic death is usually experienced due to envy of others and paranoia. Symbolic suicide is one who punish themselves in harmful ways and even long for social or physical death. This is likely the cause of unworth due to the quality of a person's life. As the quote above states, one only lives once but the quality of life isn't same for everyone. This sentiment relates to symbolic suicide since those who fall under symbolic suicide quality of life is usually poor and they don't believe or want to fix it. They beautify the thought of death in a way.The last one, symbolic murder,is verbally harming others emotionally. Unlike symbolic suicide, symbolic murder is how one goes about harming others or 'killing' them with their actions and words. They take the roll as a killer to knock people down.

Conclusion

     In conclusion, life-affirmation is how we as humans go about expressing what makes life worth living and deals with the concepts of death while doing so. This ideal of life-affirmation in terms of death is expressed in a variety of ways whether philosphically, emotionally, symbolically, etc.

Chapter 13: Love Review

                                      Chapter 13: Love

Painting of Cupid,Venus, and Adonis by Annibale Carracci -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus,_Adonis_and_Cupid

"If love is often cruel or destructive, the reason lies not in love itself, but in the inequality between people."- Anton Chekhov

    There are many different ways of expressing love.One type of love derived by the Greeks is eros or "love as physical lust"  ( Janero & Altshuler , The Art of Being Human: The Humanities as a technique for living, 2011, p.410). Eros throughout a lot of early literature and myths were set up as a warning sign or as a tragedy. An example of eros is the myth on VeNus and Adonis. Venus is the god of love who fell in deep attraction to Adonis, a mortal, after being hit by her son Cupid's arrow. Adonis is eventually killed by a wild boar after disregarding Venus's advice to him and in despair Venus transforms his blood into an anemone that eventually loses all of it's petals to a gust of wind. There are different versions of this myth in forms of other arts such as poems. All these versions work to deepen the tragedy of lust in the myth and give new perspectives. Another note on eros is how it was disparaged in earlier society. During the medieval ages , christianity was prevelant  so chastity was often pedaled in adversion to lust as lust was considered sinful. Adultery was a form of eros not openly welcomed by earlier society ( especicially in women) but was pivoted greatly underground. The idea of adultry can be related to the quote above by Chekhov. Love can be destructive and hard but that's not the fault of the idea of love but the people that got it to that point and in this case, adultry can be the cause of a destructive love.

   In contrast to Eros was Agape. Agape refered to a more intellectual and platonic form of love. The difference between Eros and Agape was that while Eros mostly relied on lust and physical love in interpretation, Agape expressed more of a platonic view of love that didn't only rely on physical lust but also mutual feeling. Platonic love, as described by Plato, showed how someone can find something or someone appeasing for non physical motives. Examples of this is liking someone's thought process or ideas to liking how someone's presence can remind you of things. Platnic love can also extend to art in terms of paintings , sculptures, etc.  Being physically attractive to someone is natural and is apart of our evolutionary make up but even this can lead to platoic love in it's own way.

Poster of  Romeo and Juliet-https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romeo_and_Juliet

" Cynics believe the language of romance is all a facade and that lust is aways the reality" ( Janero & Altshuler , The Art of Being Human: The Humanities as a technique for living, 2011, p.425)

    One love that is overlooked and even taken for granted is family love. Family love is the love between familial members like with siblings, parents, cousins, etc. Media and the humanities has many examples of family love and the conflicts in it. Family portrayal in media and the humanities can often be twisted and loveless.  Some portrayals of family other than wholesome and abusive is in religin settings. Biblically, family is seen as important. Children are to follow their mothers and fathers and respect them and their decisions. It's a relationship that doesn't allow disobedience. Other than religious wise, a family can be set up in two different ways;matriarchy and patriarchy. Some families run under the head and support of their mother and others there fathers essentially.

      Although not really expressed in the traditional terms of love, friendship is a form of it. Aristotle was actually more of a supporter of friendship than love. He thought individuals that were able to form a friendship from common interests was a strong reationship and closely related to Plato's ideal of Platonic love.

 Romantic love is the typical love we see in media and the humanities. An example of this romantic love is Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet". This is a great example of romantic love because of the strong love between the two and the strong presence of the "right" person archetype. As the quote above says, cynics believe romance is actually lust in disguise but I disagree. Although the right archetype is overdramatized at times, it is true that romance , specifically the language of it, still thrives and does exist in lustless terms. This language of romance is all around us in form of songs to artworks, it's strong. Chivalry which refers to a knightly gesture, is also considered to be dead in terms of love. Although not as strong as it was back then, chivary as well does exist still in similiar forms as the language of love.

Rings Photography by Beatriz Perez Moya-https://unsplash.com/photos/M2T1j-6Fn8w

      " Love is merely a madness"- William Shakespeare

    Love as an amusement is a way for individuals, mostly royals and the rich, to use love as an entertainment. One way of doing this is through courtship which is a man pursuing a women to have her hand in marriage or a relationship. This can be as sortof a game in a way with the back and forth between individuals in the process. The quote above compares love to being mad. This quote ispretty accurate in it's saying, especially in terms of courtship where it is treated like a game for fun.

    The set up of marriage in love is a unique one compared to a standard relationship. Traditionally, the man in the marriage is the breadwinner and supports his wife and children. The wife is usually the one at home that cleans, cooks, and cares for possible children. Nowadays this dynamic has changed alot to a more equal one. Sometimes the roles are even switched. There were some stigmas in marriage back then such as women not staying virgins until marriage being bad but not vice versa for men.

Conclusion

   In conclusion, love has alot of interpretations and forms. It's a universal topic discussed by a variety of individuals, from poets to philosphers to singers. Everyone has their own meanings and connections to love as well as expression of it, positive or negative.

 

   

    

    

    

  

    

Chapter 12 : Happiness Review

                              Chapter 12: Happiness

Head staue of  Epicurus -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicurus

"Success is getting what you want; happiness is wanting what you get."-Anonymous

            Happiness can be expressed and defined in a variety of ways. Aristippus is a Greek Philosopher that "declared happiness to be the sum total of pleasures experienced during one's lifetime"   ( Janero & Altshuler , The Art of Being Human: The Humanities as a technique for living, 2011, p.386).  He describes humans expressing happiness in a selfish way, only carig for their own comforts in the end.  He also makes a connection between how happiness only exists within the moment of pleasure. This concept of happiness with pleasure is known as Hedonism. With believing in the philosophy Hedonism comes with assumptions. One of these Hedonist assumptions is that "no amount of pleasure is ever too much" ( Janero & Altshuler , The Art of Being Human: The Humanities as a technique for living, 2011, p.388). This assumption refers to pleasure not being harmful or ever not enough in the idea of Hedonism. The truth behind this is that Hedonist actually can recognize that overindulgence in pleasure can be unhealthy in large amounts. An example of this can be seen in things like food where eating can bring one pleasure but eating too much isn't neccessarily good because of health risks. These health risks can and would most likely lead to unhappiness. Hedonism isn't neccessarily an agreed upon philosophy on happiness. Philosophers such as Aristotle and Plato saw criticism within the correlation of happiness and pleasure . Another perspective and conflict on Hedonism is with the religion where pleasure being denied actually brings happiness to an individual.

          Another philosophy on happiness is known as epicureanism. Epicureanism is the philosophy that feeling of no pain is where happiness stems from. Epicurus is the Greek Philopher who came up wih the idea of epicureanism. Epicurus views on happiness initially aligned with Hedonism and that pleasure brings about happiness but added that that more pleasure doesn't actually make us happier. He saw many criticisms in Hedonism and how it seemed temporary and almost insecure in nature for it's overreliance in wanting long periods of pleasure. Epicurus didn't want to feel restricted in pleasure only being happiness so he proposed that humans should control how much pleasure something could give us so pain can be reduced with the pleasure. Compared to Hedonist, epicureans follow more nonphysical forms of pleasure and has more of a focus on the arts , settling for smaller things in life often. An example of an epicurean outlook is a character from Ernest Hemingway's story "In Another Country" who comes to the conclusion that one should not marry after the lost of his wife and their falling out in marriage. This character feels trap within the marriage bacause of this lost and wished to hold something he could't be able to lose in the first place. This also illustrates the epicurean outlook on not wanting to hold physical things for pleasure.

   Stoicism is a similiar philosophy on Epicurean but instead of gaining happiness from avoiding things that cause pain, stoicism focuses on coping in order to achieve it. Stoicism is more thought based and builds up a plan to how to deal with pain and things that cause displeasure to individuals. Stoics look at the roots of unhappiness and comes up with methods and ways one should go about them in there daily life. One teacher of the stoic idea is Epicetus who was a man that grew up in war ad was tortured in his lifetime. Epictetus is a great example of a stoic who has gone through pain in life but instead of dissociating with it and accepting his despair, he faced it head on and pushed through. This resistance to pain is what brought him happiness later on in life after he was liberated. The quote above follows the philosophy of stoicism.It states clearly how success and happiness isn't the same thing. The quote defines happiness as the decisions and process an individual made to achieve happiness.

A. Dagli Orti/©De Agostini Editore/age fotostock (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Aristotle/images-videos)

" A person who lives a totally virtuous life may in the end regret that all goals have not been reached..."- ( Janero & Altshuler , The Art of Being Human: The Humanities as a technique for living, 2011, p.397)

      Aristotle's view on happiness in humans is that things could provide happiness but not exactly be happiness. He seperated the feeling from the thing essentially.Since humans strive for greater goods for happiness, Aristotle defines happiness as goods we achieve over time to achieve the 'final good'.Aristotle's goal on his implications of happiness always followed that the idea that in the end good prevails with reason ad virtue. Living with reason and virtue allows for an inidividual to feel happiness in life because of the fact they were able to make the right decisions in life with a fullfiling purpose to it.  The quote above sums up how being virtuous in life may ot complete all goals one has set up and can lead to regret. Although true, Aristotle believed that this regret doesn't take away from the happiess in life and being reminded of this regret can actually encourage one to strive for different forms of happiness. This relates back to the idea of having goals over time being achieved being happiness. 

     Another factor of happiness in Aristotle's philosophy was the purpose of governement in it. Aristotle believed the goverment's main focus should be on it's citizes path of happiness under it. This include how the government handled law and order in the favor of the citizens. Since happiness comes up through reason and virtue, Aristotle believed the government had to be the model of said reason and virtue.

Photo of publication of " The Diary Of A Young Girl", 1993 (https://www.worldcat.org/title/anne-frank-the-diary-of-a-young-girl/oclc/28445944)

" Whosoever is happy will make others happy too"- Anne Frank

        There are many theories on happiness but not all of them relate to everyone and their experiences with happiness and in other cases unhappiness. In our world, there are those who lived a life of hardship and have unrightfully suffered so theories like Aristotle's on happiness doesn't correlate well since these experiences didn't often occur because of how good one's values are in order to achieve happiness. These experiences can also often be in the way of happiness altogether.

The humanities have expressed this side of human misery with works like Les Miserables by Victor Hugh which was a story all on the poor in France.

     

        Despite there being suffering that causes a bock on the road to happiness, there are those who have achieved happiness nonetheless despite the suffering. One example of a model of happy life is Anne Frank. Anne Frank was a young jewish girl during the holocaust that hid from Nazis with her family and others in an attic. Her diary , which was published across the world, showed insight on her thoughts and feelings during her time spent. Despite her unfortunate circumstances her diary was light hearted yet mature. She wrote about a variety of things like going against the norms of her time and doing her own thing and believing that one is bad. The quote above is by Anne and sums up her resolve on happiness.  She believed happiness can be gained by others happiness which is a mature mindset that followed Aristotle's theory of happiness. Even though she was captured and died in a concentration camp, she was still able to achieve her version of happiness in a bittersweet way through her diary.

Conclusion

     In conclusion, happiness can be defined in a variety of ways. There are many theories of what happiness is and how to gain it but there is no one truth on happiness. Happiness can depend on an individual's experiences and values but sometimes achieving happiness can't be done by everyone due to circumstances out of there hand. Within humanities, happiness can also be expressed in a variety of ways like art and music.

        

Chapter 11: Morality Review

                                Chapter 11: Morality

Pablo's Picasso's Guernica 1937-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guernica_(Picasso)

" Conscience is the inner voice that tells us someone may be looking"- H.L. Mencken

    The arts have had a significant influence over challenging moral ideas and attitudes of certain time periodsover generations. One work that challenged this was Edouard Manet's Olympia which was a simple painting  of a nude women. It was criticized for being scandolous ad innapropiate to the public and critics. Along with challenging moral ideas,there is also showing moral wrongs of sensitive subjects. Picasso's Guernica is an example of expressing moral wrongs. Guernica showed off murder and genocide of war. This caused controversy within christian and muslim communities for offensive content and references to actual war.

  Moral systems refer to having a set of moral values and these systems can be based on a numerous of things. Faith is one that can be a what guides someone to a certain set of values but people can also solely rely on things like reason, intuition , and self reason. Some may also rely on moral relativism or a way way of saying "who's to say there's only one truth". Just as Mecken says in his quote above, how we go about doing certain things and building our moral system can be based off of social pressure and how we think society would react to certain actions, whether good or bad.

Image of Frank O'Connor-https://irishamerica.com/2016/03/frank-oconnor-remembered-at-university-college-cork/

"To the good I would be good; to the not good I would also be good in order to make them good"-   Lao-tzu

  From childhood, we are taught that doing things based off of self interest is selfish and greedy but this thought process isn't always bad neccessarily. One idea of self interest is between government and self interest. Plato, during his time, suggested that the government and governed needed to be ruled by a singular ruler  who is "motivated solely by what reason advises in every instance; a man not out for himself but rather who rules because he has a clear vision of a state in which justice prevails"   ( Janero & Altshuler , The Art of Being Human: The Humanities as a technique for living, 2011, p.362).  This idea does has problems to it, specifically with who would fit such a specific and difficult job based off a society's standard and even then, who chooses this philosopher king?

   Rebllions against self interest is one that can have an interesting effect. For self interest to rebel again a different set of values is one that can be unpredictable. An example of this is in Frank O'Connor's The Idealist where the protagonist is a cathiolic child who believe lying to be a sin so wheever he is late to school, tells the truth of his lateness to the headmaster. All the boys lie to get out of beatings while the boy is punished for telling the truth. The boy eventually give up his self interest and goes along with lying like the others to avoid beatings. 

   Enlightened self interest is one that is mostly against the idea of self interest. Thomas hobbes believed self interest was a natural thing as a society and was pessimistic in his description on humanity. He believed the only way for society to work as a union, individuals had to give up some rights for protection and security.

Beyond self interest is the idea of altruism. Altruism is the idea of the welfare of others being more important than one's own self. The quote above by Lao-tzu refers to this idea. As it states, being good to good people is natural but beig good to people that aren't good to make them good can be seen as altruism since one is caring for another over there self interest to avoid such people.

Picture of Bible-https://www.crosswalk.com/faith/bible-study/8-reasons-we-don-t-read-the-bible.html

"Everybody always did our thinking for us" -Winifred Jourdain

  Religion is another form of having a set of morals. There are many different religions with different backgrounds and setups but they all share moral precepts. They follow the idea of a god being the supreme power and that there god's word is what is law. An examle of these moral relgious laws is the ten commadments that include forbid killing, forbid killing, and forbid the taking of the lord's name in vain. These religious rules can have parallels to already preset laws of a society without neccessarily being there because of religion but because for societies sake.

  Work, although not minded much in a philosohpical view, can also be seen as a reason behind moral reasonings. Working allows us to follow a certain set of rules and learn from them to apply to other situations. It can also be argued the work can also inspire a self interest part of us since it gives us economic gain which then inspires us to continue to follow rules set to continue gaining.

   Moral relativism is how one or more view a certain moral judgement being truly more or false. This judgement can be different from person to person and suggests that morality is flexible and subjective . It does not believe what is popularly right is neccessarily moral to everyone. A global view of reletavism of moral reletavism is believing that every culture isn't better than other because of certain rules or standards they have compared to others. Those with this mindset believe that pushing beliefs that others believe to be better is just imposing and just works to disrupt what is working for others. Jourdain's quote above follows the reasoning for why moral reletavism exists. He's basically saying how we as humans think in a group thought rather than an individualistic way so our morals isn't always or own but what was imposed on us. We are told to think this way so we follow. An example is like how we treat murder. We are told not to murder but if someone murders another is that morally considered bad for everything. Moral reletavism kindof challenges what is preset as moral in group think.

Conclusion

  In conclusion, morality refers to the good and bad of others. This standard of morality can be seen from a variety of viewpoints with a variety of reasons of having certain moral systems to back them up in their reasoning. These systems can be based off of things like religion or even self interest. The humaities and arts in terms of morality works to challenge notions and express the ideas expressed within the mental process.