Author Archives: SHANGSHU SHI

When The Revolution Begins

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Throughout this entire semester. We learned the historical process from enlightenment to romanticism. Over the less-than-200-years period, people at that time witness a dramatic turn of ideology from favor of absolutism to support of liberty, from favor of rational thinking to desire of emotion. It is a time period that permanently changed the perspective of the world much more than any period could do before.

To me, I consider my agreement lies on the period of Romanticism where the freedom of subjectivity is more embraced. To me, I am always touched by Werther’s desire and pain, Wordsworth’s embrace of the freedom, Mary Shelly’s personal touch on the development of scientific movement. It feels to me that humanity’s freedom reached to a new level in the romanticism movement.

However, this love towards romanticism does not erase my respect of Enlightenment and my acknowledgement of its contribution. I rather believes, after a deep study in HUM 4, that Enlightenment deeply confirms the idea that history is a chronological pattern that will not be dramatically changed by a particular event. The absolute world will not suddenly change into democracy without the gradual effort by philosophers like Hobbs, Locke, Rousseau, who gradually embellishes each other’s work further to firmly construct the path of democracy.

What’s my biggest takeaway from this class? That probably comes from every single art contest where every time I like a paint, that paint will lose. It kinda discourages me for a bit but I definitely have my realization that people’s opinion are vary and you can’t use your own opinion to substitute everyone elses’

But anyway, here is the Beethoven’s Movement 4 of the 9th Symphony. This symphony were generally considered as the piece that opens the world of romantic music. I hope that it brings you joy.

We Escape, When We Are Trapped Inside This Octavarium

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It’s a long song. I know. It’s a metal song that is about almost half an hour long. I know that as well. However, when you treat it as a short film that tells a story. Every minute you spend with this song makes sense. It almost drag you into the story, technically stories about different people who are experiences similar problems and how they come to a same answer.

The story talks about three person: A man who experience the pain of being “normal” but realized he just want that when he becomes an exceptional person, a man who wakes from 30 years of catatonic sleep only realizing that he will soon back to sleep with no ways to help him out, a man who cannot escape his dream that is haunting him like a roller coaster.

Suddenly, the song leads into a flashback of our experiences in life. A story line that talks about how we conquer problems in life but suddenly dies over someone’s madness and impulsive design. We experience our guilt, self-enclosure, panic while having our friends, family, enemies. However, at the end, we are trapped inside the Octavarium that will eternally enclose us from breaking through because we are parts of someone’s impulsive design.

Until this point, everything sounds depressing and painful. Isn’t it? Well, the song itself admits that sense of pain at the end of the song and talks about how the only thing we can do is bravely walk towards such trap. To me, that moment brings me the catharsis that I have not feel for a long time. It feels like admitting the desperate things in your life suddenly brings you to an understanding that you should bravely admits it and face it.

That is exactly Schiller’s idea. By bringing you into a sonic experience, you gradually understand the pain and sorrow it tells that reflect your life. However, at the end of song, that catharsis brings you to another level that you are able to handle such sense of pain and bravely face your life. That is when you are morally better. That is when you are able to face positively about your life no matter how painful it is.

Is Constitution Designed for a Federal or Anti-Federal Government?

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This picture, in my opinion, represents the whole sense of conflict that you are able to see in the constitution itself and the process of making the constitution. In one way the formation of Untied States of America is to defend the people against the power of the tyranny and to provide people with necessary freedom. However, the formation of the constitution comes from the fact that the original article of confederation does not provide enough power for the government. Therefore, even though most people tend to argue that constitution is the model of modern political philosophy. Many other people nowadays are raising the question, that the liberalism that America declared at the time, is not coherent with the ideology of liberty.

My question then is: If the constitution does not fully reflect the political liberalism rising at that time. What does?

A Little Dramatic Turn of Events

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It is pretty fun to see someone who are not as “rational” or “realistic” as people from past hundred years. Especially people like Hume, Locke, even Machiavelli. These people are more realistic. Their focus of the world, the society, or the way people should interact with each other are much more based on a realism perspective. This means that their opinions are more established with consequences and foundation principle.

Then Kant appears with his idea of morality and metaphysics. These ideas are not totally novel. When churches are still dominating the European land, seeing ideas and studies of the metaphysics and morality are very common. However, Kant appears in the time period where people are gradually becoming secular and more interested in consequence rather than the intention behind the consequence. One can argue that this recurrence in the study of metaphysics and morality represents a sign, a sign that marks the inner division of the Enlightenment movement.

But coming into a modern perspective, I do believe that Kant’s idea of “intention is more important than the result” is much more applicable to today’s world and there are indeed enough space for us to think about out intention that prompts us to make our decision.

Finally, here is a meme picture I found on internet that I find to be unexpectedly inspirational. Hope this picture can make your day.

Self Introduction

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Hi everyone! My name is Shangshu Shi. I usually use the name “mint” and you can call me mint if you want. I am a second year ICAM music major student and I have been playing and making music for many years. I love metal, progressive rock/metal and lots of orchestra stuff. I also love digging into different kinds of history stuff, especially Chinese’s Three Kingdom era and Japanese Sengoku Era. I can tell you lots of things if you are interested!

My favorite book in Hum series till now might be King Lear. I wasn’t really interested in the language of the book due to the technical difficulties but I definitely love the plot and the way how Shakespeare conveys his message through the plot. I am always fascinated by awesome plots and stories.

I put an old piece I wrote half year ago below, just to show you what kinds of music I am into and I truly hope you’ll like it!