Author Archives: Siara Magee

How To: DIY Your Own Society

Posted on by
Reply

I would have to say that agree with the Enlightenment perspective the most because I find it more important to ensure a law that works for everyone using reason than following one person’s individual experience. While I do believe that the things we learn from each perspective are important and should be used in conjunction, I think if we failed to use the logic that arose from the Enlightenment then there would be a lot more issues for us as a species to deal with. I think the way the Enlightenment teaches one to think and make decisions is important for the creation of a functional society, something that we all currently rely on.

It has helped me recognize the purpose of various things in society and how they function together. There are some things that we put into society in order to serve a specific, function and are designed to have one outcome. These things, to me, represent the Enlightenment era where they strived to balance reason/duty with desire in order to serve one common good. Then, there are other things in society whose roll is to evoke thinking or some type of response. These things are representative of Romanticism because they prioritize the emotional and personal aspects to the interactions we have in life. Observing the western society that we have today, I can see where both of these things and ideas have a place and how they have merged together to allow us to appreciate both of their ideology.

To me, the most important thing I took away from this class was how to consider and compare different opinions and ideas. I feel like hum 4 dealt more with differing opinions within the same society and how to handle that, rather than the differences between societies. This is something that is very applicable to us because the United States is home to many different people coming from extremely different backgrounds, so we need to know how to coexist and learn from one another.

Image result for society clipart

Can You Imagine

Posted on by
Reply

This photo I took at the Musée d’Orsay in France. I feel like this photo gave me the aesthetic experience that Schiller describes because when I was looking at this picture I felt as if I was interacting with nature without truly seeing it. I was able to put myself in the setting of this photo and imagine what it would be like. Artists that are able to connect the viewer with their subject matter without ever truly experiencing it is a rare and powerful talent. As a product of their talent one is able to connect the intellectual part of your brain to the emotional. The reason this particular picture gave me this aesthetic experience was because it allowed me to utilize my imagination. If solely based on the art work one is able to imagine themself there and the atmosphere that they would experience, then this could help to create a sense of empathy. This is important to becoming a better human being. This idea of empathy can apply to real life situations that would connect you with other human beings. Thanks to the aesthetic experience induced by this photo I was able to connect an emotional, empathetic experience to a real life skill that takes intellect.

To Serve All ITS People

Posted on by
1

This week’s reading of the Declaration of Independence focused on the idea that the government is an entity that should serve all its people and in the people should maintain their rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. If the government is not fulfilling this requirement, then the people have the right to create a new government that will fulfill these terms.

The picture I chose embodies the costs of securing these promised freedoms. The government we have gives its people a considerable amount of freedom, but we have to consider the non-monetary costs of what it means to be considered one of “its people.” In order to have the rights that are promised in the Declaration of Independence, the citizens may have had to give up a part of their personal identity or culture and conform to what it means to be a United States citizen and the immigrants that want to become a citizen have to consider the same things; this can be considered white-washing its citizens. So the question I have to ask is, do the things one must give up take away from the happiness that they are supposed to be able to pursue?

Morality: We or Worldview?

Posted on by
1

One of the ideas that Kant has is that morality is universal. He comes to this conclusion because he believes that the concept of reason is universal to all men and therefore morality can be derived from just thinking about it. I find this interesting because according to this school of thought everyone should value the same things and have similar if not the same thought processes. If that was true, then there would be nobody to disagree with this process of thinking, which was obviously not the case at the time.

But in today’s western world, we have moved away from the idea that everyone should find value the same things, and moved to a holistic view of morality. Now, we understand the your environment influences your idea from morality. Every culture places an emphasis on different things that are important, therefore different places/cultures would come to have a different set of morals. We have moved away from the idea that morality is a single way of thinking and if they do not follow this universal way then they should be shamed. Instead, we have more understanding for the differences that arise due to cultural differences. The link below explores the idea of how worldview and social groups affect one’s set of morals.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1024625210910

All About Me

Posted on by
Reply

Hey y’all!

My name is Siara, I am a second year, and I’m a molecular and cell biology major. I’m an out of state student from Chicago, Illinois and some of my hobbies include photography, traveling, and painting. My favorite book we have read in the HUM series so far were the Lais of Marie de France. I really enjoyed the how each of the stories had an entirely different subject matter with an underlying lesson to learn from each story.

The picture I included are one of my photographs from my photoshoots. It is performance portraiture representative of feelings experienced by people with anxiety.