Chapter 11 Morality

Chapter 3 Myths

Chapter 3

""Everybody does it" The equation that goodness equals weakness for cynical acceptance of cheating, or "cutting corners" as an understandably human practice at all ages and places..." (Janaro & Altshuler 2017)

The statement is absurd in its logical soundness at times but has a backing in its effectiveness as it uses a group mentality that expands what an individual does based on what is observed of others.
Even if it puts the individual in a bad position it can be used still as observations of others might allow one to learn how to get out the possibility of the negative consequences of the thing that "everyone does"

""It must be fate." Also called destiny, fate plays an important role in Greek mythology and is one of its major legacies" (Janaro & Altshuler 2017)

Fate is a very strange concept as I do believe without Greek mythology it would not be a very prominent and talked about as Greek mythology ingrained the idea of a fate existing rather than a free controlled existence or a predetermined existence without a higher invisible power trying to tie people to real life events. Fate is a force that brings similar events or events that go together well to a single point in space and time. Much is attributed to space when some believe that all is predetermined no matter what we do and all is mere chance, if you believe in that too.

Chapter 15 Nature

"Reading about nature is fine, but if a person walks in the woods, he can learn more than what's in the books" - George Washington Carver (Janaro & Altshuler 2017)

This statement is both true and false at he same time, using a book may allow you to learn a plant's spacial features and uses making the book more of a practical method of become a sort of "practical" naturalist. One as well can not deduce the name of an unknown plant without the assistance of a book therefore. The strengths of exploring nature to learn about it is being able to see the "big picture" and absorb every single detail that nature has to give as well as the smells, textures, tastes, sounds, and most importantly how it truly looks through your eyes. 

"Eating meat is primitive, barbaric, arrogant." - Ingrid Newkirk (Janaro & Altshuler 2017)

Eating meat is in fact not exclusively primitive in all related definitions of the word primitive as eating of plants was initially our first source of food as apes and not primitive as it requires a much higher level of knowledge and societal advancement in order to obtain and prepare, in fact not eating meat is much more of a primitive behavior as it is where we return to when times are tough. It is not barbaric either usually as that would mean causing pain to the animals we eat, the animals that we eat have no understanding of their situation nor have they ever seen a life where they had lived greater therefore their existence is scaled to such environments. Deaths in the slaughter house are usually instant targeting the brains of the creatures preventing them from experience the pain that an action would require to be "barbaric" of which eating meat causes none of. The only part that may be arrogant is the human race "farming" them, but there is no evidence that any other species or animal other than humans is afflicted by arrogance to this degree, especially when the animals involved do not understand their existence. I have seen countless films against eating meat, but I believe it is all propaganda from people who want to be right and attempt to sway the common people by showing gore and acts that people can't take emotionally such as the killing of baby chickens, seems sad but if you think about it with an educated and unemotionally swayed mind you can understand by ones self that for the baby chickens they have no negative emotions or pains about the subject as they know not of their impending death and likely never will.

 

"The Inherent vice of capitalisms is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent value of socialism is equal sharing of miseries" -Winston Churchhill (Page 500)

Having seen both types of system I could say that this is accurate to a degree, my main issue is wording as he is clearly referring to communist countries like Russia which are on the socialist side of the spectrum but the inefficiencies of the system are due to more so the communist aspects rather than the socialist aspects of the system. Other than that the basis is found to be true.


"We don't allow our enemies to have guns. Why should we allow them to have ideas?" - Joseph Stalin (Page 499)

This quote made me laugh as it is so insanely out of touch with modern reality and any aspect of freedom as he would like to completely restrict freedom in everyway possible even the freedom one has in his or her mind. This of course was said to try to give him a better moral standing for what he does on the daily, kill innocent people that don't believe in his cause. "People can die, but ideas never die"

"In Classic Mythology and literature, nothing good every comes from love."

This is a very interesting quote as it invokes many questions more. The main one being how did the

 authors of ancient mythology think about love? Or, did their entire society think of love in this

fashion, was romance dead? Maybe they are trying to get at a twisted version of romance where there

 is a ulterior motive behind each relationship. In one story love is cursed, should it stay that way

 throughout all mythology as they are tied.

"Love without marriage can sometimes be very awkward for all concerned; but marriage without love simply removes that institution from the territory of the human admissible." 

Love without marriage I believe is a relatively new thing to those within the United States as it is a 

solid tradition that has been the standard for hundreds of thousands of years due to religion. Although

 I do believe that it can be a good thing in certain relationships to the current day as if they part the 

legal bindings they had are not destroyed and the way items are split changes. It is also to say in the 

least strange to have to bring the government or an outside party into your love for one another.

 

Chapter 12

"Aristotle believed the function of government was to provide happiness of each citizen" (Janaro & Altshuler 2017)

Everything we do in life is focused towards making us happy, it can either be to be happy in the moment or happy later, government run by the people are successful in the aspect of happiness usually as people vote towards causes that change their lives in a positive way and make them happier than they were before. This quote is interesting as maybe it is the reason "the pursuit of happiness" is one of the inalienable rights mentioned in the Declaration of Independence. Bringing up incarceration is in fact a contradicting idea as people loose their freedom and that is directly correlated to one's happiness.

"If you want to be happy, be." -Leo Tolstoy (Janaro & Altshuler 2017)

To first make my point I must explain my theory of happiness. In short, all happiness relative, for the same event the happiness that it provides deteriorates with repeated exposure to the entertaining feeling. Its the reason that challenges are so fun, it keeps you stimulated by providing more difficult events that leads the pursuer to think or do things that he or she has never done before or do it in a different way, a way that has not had its repetitiveness drained yet. The closest exception I would make is the mind of a collected individual as I believe one can form the outline for what being "happy" is to them. As for myself, I have found myself in a ever consuming void of happiness, mostly due the fact that my mind has decided itself that it is happy, most of the time."

Chapter 6

"Rap enthusiasts insist that much of the material is sheer poetry" (Janaro & Altshuler 2017)

I do believe this to be true as there is no differences in the final result other than the fact that one is sung with inflections and the other is simply read, but both produce rhythms that form an auditory aesthetic when read. Most of the time they both form a story that allows the reader or listener to  sink into the world of the song or poem evoking feelings that would arise if you were in the situation or allow you to make your own story out of the lyrics or text given.

"Blues are songs of despair, but gospel songs are songs of hope." (Janaro & Altshuler 2017)

I feel as if this is an inaccurate statement and it is clear why such a statement was said, Mahalia Jackson, the speaker of the quote, was in fact a gospel singer and may have had an ulterior motive for saying such a thing, likely to promote her music. She may still believe it truly but I feel as if it isn't true, the blues makes up its own mood, although its tone is associated with more negative emotions such as sadness and such it isn't the core of blues I feel, it is more of a calming music. It is great for a listening when your sad as it does not counteract your feelings, this would be the only relation to negative emotions it has, but never will it relate directly to the loss of  hope, despair.

Chapter 7

"The aim is to stimulate an emotional response not for the sake of the emotion, but for the aftermath of emotion: the feeling of calm that follows it."  (Janaro & Altshuler 2017)

They later state that the calm is called "catharsis", I feel like catharsis is a very important aspect in horror movies in the current day, after one experiences a frightening scene in a horror film they often times skip to a calm scene after the frightening incident or a calm scene in another setting that allows the viewer to enjoy the rush they achieved from the scene as well as allows them to recover their heart rate to a resting heart rate. A viewer is also given time to mentally and emotionally recover. The aspect is to temporarily bring the viewer out of the feel of the film and into reality is as I would describe catharsis. 

"They walked up and down the real stairs, opened a door and exited through it, presumably to go outside. The actor was only going backstage, but this was the era of verisimilitude, the convention of making everything look and sound like the real world."

This is the premise of non-fictional movies and of course theater productions. They bring a special appeal to audiences that fictional movies and theater productions can not, for one theater production is limited to the realism of making fictional productions feel really real as one can not simply make supernatural incidences occur in real life, this is why they are supernatural. The attempt to do such in a theater setting will usually appear quite unreal. Although this can be done in movies with CGI and a multitude of other resources, the audience clearly has their minds set on a distant or non-existent world giving them a feeling of distance. This is unlike a play of verisimilitudal standards that brings the setting of the play much closer to home allowing people to relate to daily life and feel more of a familiar setting and immerse themselves into these similar environment that they are seeing.

Chapter 4

"We are storytelling animals- who we are, what we are, and why. When we die we become part of other stories. This residue is our immortality" - Salman Rushdie (Janaro & Altshuler 2017)

This is an interesting way to think about stories and metaphysical immortality. I believe this form of metaphysical immortality is flawed as stories are no longer created and are being retold and exponentially slower rates as modern stories take their place and their inclusion in society is limited therefore the memories of these people die with them.



"If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are gone, either write things worth reading or do things worth writing." - Carson McCullers (Janaro & Altshuler 2017)

This is a much more accurate/precise statement than that of the one before, likely due to its broad range in definition, but in this case it is a good thing. Almost all modernly read stories are about things that people did that were worth writing. Its not that we simply included yourself in a story but we are truly part of the story for the story is about said person doing things worth writing. 

Chapter 3

"Heroes are people who rise to the occasion and slip quietly away" -Tom Brokaw (Janaro & Altshuler 2017)

I think that this is an interesting statement as it provides an idea on how others feel about terms with broad definitions such as the term of "Hero" and what one must be to become one. In this case he believes that such a person is one that only arises when its his time then once the deed is done he returns to the shadows among the regular people where rather stays hidden to not draw attention or bring attention to his heroic acts as this man's definition of hero describes.




"When the best leader's work is done, the people say,"We did it ourselves."- Lao-tsu (Janaro & Altshuler 2017)

This method of leadership I have heard and seen in action and it really brings a group together towards a common cause and due to this cooperation the total power of the group led this way is much stronger than if it was led by regular means.

Chapter 1
"The pleasure that beauty inspires in us is called aesthetic" (Janaro & Altshuler 2017)

This quote is quite interesting as I had been using the word aesthetic wrong in a grammatical sense as I have been using it as a adjective instead of it as a feeling, a noun. This feeling I feel is more specific truly than what they try to attribute it to, everything. The use of this very important word is too freely used in my opinion as I believe it should only be attributed to visual aesthetics, auditory aesthetics, possibly movement, and methodology of thought. Attributing aesthetics to other senses I feel is a stretch.
"Through language we make ourselves understood to others, and we are able to understand what we read and what others are saying."(Janaro & Altshuler 2017)

This is interesting as I have previously researched languages influence on how we think and that it definitely existence. In fact I feel as if I am a different person when I speak Spanish or Russian. I have read articles into which they describe some languages with many more words that result in more descriptive speach and how it allows them to communicate better.
"Your view of the humanities and the world will continue to expand, and you will be on your way to becoming an infinite person" (Janaro & Altshuler 2017)

I had previously not understood what it meant to be an infinite person but now I have somewhat of an idea. But from what I understand, doing so in our time contained world is truly impossible, no matter how hard one tries, but one may become the most infinite person uniquely.

Works Cited:


Janaro, R. P., & Altshuler, T. C. (2017). The art of being human: The humanities as a technique for living. Boston: Pearson.

Chapter 2
"The gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing knowledge" - Albert Einstein

   Although this isn't exactly within the lines of actual textbook, but rather a side quote, I found this very interesting. I, for one, have a single question that likely will never be answered, was Albert Einstein a dreamer? This question is important to me as I would definitely consider myself a dreamer. Some may not exactly understand what it is to be a dreamer, or falsely identify what a dreamer is, there is likely only one type of person that may understand what it is to be a dreamer, a dreamer. "The gift of fantasy", could he be referring to the feeling of "dreaming" rather than what the text relates it to being a sort of entertainment. From the standpoint of a dreamer, sounds like something another dreamer would say.


"He then made a famous distinction between two ways of responding not only to drama but to events in real life."  (Janaro & Altshuler 2017)

   Apollonian and Dionysian, I feel as if this could be a way to identify personality factors of an individual and would like to know how often these terms are used in the real world. One may record and transcribe conversations with people and identify their responses to the same questions and see how much of their response is logical and rational, Apollonian, and how much of it stems from emotional roots, Dionysian. This data could be used to understand people to a higher degree. This response itself is a very Apollonian response.



Assumptions... "Often these are buried; that is, they lie underneath what people are saying without being acknowledged as assumptions, and often they are the real message that is being communicated. The critical thinker listens carefully, always seeking what is actually being said." (Janaro & Altshuler 2017)

I feel like assuming assumptions to be as are initially to be important when reading most types of text as it is part of the natural human experience to assume assumptions and adds a new level of depth to fictional stories as well as real ones as the reader may assume his or her own assumptions to the story. Fiction and non-fiction will never be the same for two people, no matter how specific you describe things, people will assume things as they please to fill the gaps that will always appear in fiction and understanding.

Works Cited:

Janaro, R. P., & Altshuler, T. C. (2017). The art of being human: The humanities as a technique for living. Boston: Pearson.