Joey T Finale

This time last year I was being called down to my house office to fix an issue with my next years classes, I had to rearrange my classes because there was conflicting schedules and my advisor recommended humanities for my english. I had no idea what to expect coming into this class. Now here I sit, writing my final exam. Over the semester I discovered so much about the philosophies and things I really had no idea about. So many ideas and concepts about fundamental questions that I had never even considered. The humanities have opened my eyes to an entirely different thought process from what I was used to. The year started off, as I’m sure you all remember, with the First thought's assignment. I didn’t think much about that assignment at the time but as the year drew to a close I realized how connected every unit we did was. Every text we read and every film we watched was connected by these topics. The unity of all the topics was unlike what I’ve seen in any other class.

The first unit involved many different topics, more than the others I believe. On of the topics we discussed was the difference between left brain and right brain in an article by David Abram. The left brain is the logical and analytical side and the right brain is the one that handles emotions and things like music and art. In a Documentary we watched about Australian Aborigines it talked about how before written languages stories were passed down orally. Reading a story is primarily left brained, but hearing one and experiencing it that way is ultimately right brained. When oral stories are told the teller often uses the natural landmarks to immerse the listener in the story more. The final piece I will talk about from the introductory unit Is “What is a Myth” by Karen Armstrong. She talks too about the use of oral storytelling from ancient myths that were passed down. Myths are used to explain things that we as humans cannot comprehend for one reason or another, they help us understand why we're here and what we are meant to do

In unit two we dove deep into the wilderness to explore Nature, both human and literal, and sacred spaces. The first piece, and winner of the award for my favorite of this unit was the Wernor Herzog documentary “Grizzly Man.” Grizzly man documented both the real world and human nature by way of following Timothy Treadwell throughout the alaskan wilderness. Timothy found himself at home with the bears, it was comfortable and he felt safe amongst his friends of nature. Out with the bears is where Timothy’s sacred space was, free and connected with those he respected. Another work from this unit was Montaigne’s “Of Cannibals.” Of Cannibals talks about human nature, but more specifically human savagery. Montaigne does not use the term savagery in the normal way, he claims that those who still live in tribes, living out if instinct and true human nature, are the normal humans, Montaigne goes so far as to call the civilized world savage and barbaric, not to say that is incorrect, honestly it seems a litte more accurate than I’d like to admit. The final piece I’ve chosen is Genesis. Weird to end the paragraph with a story of the beginning but oh well. Genesis tells the origin story of humankind from the ideas of the bible. Genesis explains how humans were created from the dirt of the planet and how nature itself is a part of all of us.  

Our third unit was Love, Art and Beauty. This unit talked about what the connection between these three topics is. What makes art beautiful, or even what makes art, art? One film we watched was this unit was “The Shape of Things.” This film touches on all three of this unit's overarching themes. This movie follows Evelyn and Adam’s relationship as evelyn changes and molds him into her own personal art project. It portrays how strong love can be, it can drive someone to totally change themselves in order to make the other person happy. The book assignment for this unit was “The Picture of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde. Dorian Gray is a dashingly handsome young lad who wants to take advantage of his beauty and youth to live a fuller life. However on his search for pleasure he crosses the bounds of morality showing that beauty is not everything. For the final piece(s) I'm going to lump together the aesthetic philosophers into one topic. We studied the philosophies of countless different people, people like Plato who believe in the realm of Ideals, a place where the perfect version of everything exists

The penultimate unit was the law, ethics, and human frailty. This unit had a lot of discussion about what is right, and what is wrong. During this unit we had a class discussion on our own ethics which was arguably my favorite activity we did. I got a lot out of hearing everyone's opinions and was opened up to some really interesting ideas that I otherwise would not have heard. One piece of work we viewed was the Woody Allen film “Crimes and Misdemeanors”. The film had many concurrent stories but the main arc that connected with the unit was Judah’s inner conflict about the murder he sanctioned. He struggled with moral relativism and moral objectivism. Most of us can agree that murder is wrong, even Judah thinks so. But through his eyes, in that specific circumstance, that was the right thing to do. Judah’s morals are relative to his opinions. Another piece we read was Frank O’Connors “Guest of a Nation.” This was the story of Noble and Bonaparte, two Irish soldiers stationed in England in World War I. The two of them are ordered by their commander to kill two hostages they had been watching over. Noble and Bonaparte want nothing more than to let their hostages live but they can’t disobey direct orders. This story also has that aspect of moral relativism vs. objectivism. Would Noble and Bonaparte be morally wrong because they killed the hostages or is it acceptable because they were only following orders. A story with a similar theme to “Guest of a Nation” is “The Sacrifice of Isaac.” In this biblical story Abraham is ordered by god to kill his own son. Abraham agrees to do so and before he strikes the knife through Isaac god intervenes and says you have proved to me your loyalty, you don't actually have to kill your son. This scenario begs a question similar to Guest of a Nation, is it wrong for abraham to kill his son in God’s name.

On to the fifth and final unit of the semester, the inner journey and human reality. This was the unit that really went into what it was like to be on the path of a human. One of this units multiple books was William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.” Hamlet is the prince of denmark in a time of political turmoil. Hamlet believes that not only certain aspects of life cause suffering, but life itself  is pain and suffering. Another book in the arsenal of this unit was “Siddhartha” by Hermann Hesse.The book follows Siddhartha's path on the search for total spiritual enlightenment and the suffering he goes through in life. Unlike Hamlet, who is driven by sorrow, siddhartha’s driving force is the desire to better oneself. Siddhartha teaches the importance of suffering as a learning experience into self actualization. Siddhartha wants to explore the true meaning of reality and to be one with himself. In his search for true enlightenment he comes into many things that cause him suffering, be it his kid or even his friend, Govinda. Siddhartha takes the ultimate vacation on the journey of self to find out what it means to be human. The last of the books read was ‘The Epic of Gilgamesh.” Gilgamesh was a demigod king who searched for recognition and honor as a great king and warrior. The death Gilgamesh experiences of his great friend Enkidu crushes his soul and causes one of the ultimate forms of suffering, death.

The humanities cover a lot of content that is very unique to the subject. Unlike the math and sciences there are no correct answers. In summary the humanities are all about humans and their experiences, so if each person experiences life differently, people will interpret what crucial parts of existence are differently. That doesn’t make them wrong it just means they have varying opinions, and if there's one thing that stuck with me over the course of the semester it is the uncountable number of perspectives on life. As much as this class made me think, and trust me during the semester I wanted nothing to do with thinking about these larger than life questions. but once again, here I sit, writing my final exam and I think I’m closer to my personal answers than ever before