Author Archives: AMELIA SPERRY

The Museums

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I agree with both Romanticism and the Enlightenment. Through a perspective of purely unsentimental and will to live an effective life, the Enlightenment ideals has some really strong points. Sometimes as humans we really do need to think with our heads. Put our emotions aside so that we can do what is best for all people rather than perhaps what is most appealing in the emotionally gratifying sense. We sometimes have to give up what would make us feel good to make a decision that is better in the long run. That is part of life. This kind of thinking and reasoning comes from the Enlightenment. However, I do also agree that if life was pure reason and a mechanical rationale, then life would be dull. The ideas of the Romantics allow us to be more than a “machine”. They allow us to feel and to look at a beautiful picture of a mountain. When staring at that image, we can say to ourselves, “Wow isn’t that beautiful.” Then you feel good and happy even if just for a moment. Maybe, it would make you even want to visit that mountain and you save up and work hard so you can afford to travel and one day you final get to see that mountain in real life. This kind of thinking of the romantics allows us to get in touch with the beauty of the world. But just as travelling is fun, you must also have the reasoning and the drive to say that you are willing to work hard to afford a trip to a beautiful place. That is the Enlightenment, putting aside the unpleasant emotions that you get from having to work so that in the end you can discover something great. I believe that we need both Enlightenment and Romanticism in our lives to have a fulfilled and happy life.

Learning about these two movements impacted the way that I view our contemporary western culture because I see how much of both of these movements impact this culture. As a native San Diegan, I have been going to the museums that are in Balboa Park for my whole life. The Fleet Science Center, in Balboa Park, is a museum that shows the impact of the Enlightenment on our culture. In the Science Center, there are many examples of great discoveries that were found using the scientific method and it even emphasizes how important that method is. However, in the same park is the Museum of Art, which is completely opposite of the Science Center. Everything is focused on how beautiful and aesthetically pleasing art is. There is no explanation on the exact method and reasoning that the artists did to come up with their art. Rather, it shows how perspectives and color and paints and oils all come together to do one thing, make someone feel. Feel happy, feel sad, feel strong or feel weak. We as a culture have both museums, one on discovery and reason and another on feeling and emotions.

The most important take away from this class for me is really what I said above. I realizes that as someone who loves science and reason, I also need emotions and feelings in order to have a happy life. I actually decided to start getting into film photography as a way to get my mind off all the “school” and work stuff I do all the time. This allows me to have an outlet of creativity that makes me happy. (Even if my photos look terrible ha ha) This class really helped me put in perspective how important it is to have that balance.

Haystacks at Chailly by Claude Monet, at the San Diego Museum of Art

Music Feeds the Soul

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My favorite music artist right now is a band called LANY. My friend introduced me to them 3 weeks ago and I haven’t been able to stop listening to their music.

The aesthetic experience that I choose to explore is the song “Malibu Nights.” It is about a breakup and all the good memories that are always on your mind after you have your heart broken. Music is something that is a part of life. Music can put sound to complex emotions like love, heartbreak, revenge, loss or to something as simple as taking a walk in nature. Perhaps the most powerful aspect of music is that it allows a person to delve into the feelings of others. In “Malibu Nights”, the listener can feel the sadness of heartbreak even if they have never had their heart broken before. Or if their heart has been broken before, the song brings them back to that time and everything they felt. The ability to feel these harsh and real emotions through music allow listeners to have a sensory experience.

In addition, the fact that music gives insight into others emotions it allows humans to gain intellectual knowledge about another human’s emotional experience. Though, you may have never felt heartbreak or gone through a breakup, you can feel how devastating it is through music. You can learn about another person’s life and really begin to understand the trails and tribulations that life throws at all people. This would allow us to expand our knowledge of how to treat others and what morals we should have as a society. If through music, we can understand each other, than there is hope that with that understanding comes the ability to treat everyone with respect and kindness all people deserve because we all feel the same emotions.

Music can bring forth your own emotions and also give you a window into another person’s emotions. This can help all people to learn how even at the most basic level, all people are human because of our shared emotions.

A Light from the Dark

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I took this picture at the Museum of Dream Spaces in LA.

This picture is something that I really thought represented the ideas of the Declaration of Independence. The background is dark and represents the shadowy past that the authors of the Declaration were trying to bring the USA out of. The lanterns that are coming towards the observer are softly lit, showing how there is this hope for the future.

To me — the lanterns, the hope for the future — really encase the ideas that are so central to the Declaration of Independence: “that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Since, there is this hope that with the Declaration, that people would be able to come out of the darkness and have the right to life and liberty. The variety of colors of the lanterns overarching shows how the future Americans have the freedom to pursue their happiness. All people in America, whether it was 1777 or now in 2020, all have a different definition of what happiness means to them and the Declaration leaved the meaning ambiguous.

In modern times in America, we are still working on making sure all people have access to the right to pursuit of happiness because it is still being hindered because of societal issues with race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, and many others. The ability to find happiness is something that I believe the authors of the Declaration wanted to for all people, but as the world changes, do you thing the meaning of “happiness” has changed? Do you think that the definition of happiness the authors used is still applicable now? Does it need to be updated to fit the modern world?

$500 or $5 million: What is the bigger donation?

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Kant’s perspective that consequences of an action are not what matters, but rather the “moral worth” of the action is important really resonated with me. Kant argues that if a person is doing something because they have the motivation to do good rather than bad, then how the action actually results is irrelevant. The most significant part of the action was the motivation itself and the attempt to try to do good.

When thinking about an action’s moral worth rather than the action’s consequence, I immediately thought about charities. We always see things on the news where large charities that get donated millions of dollars. You think how much good work they can do with all that money. I am part of an organization where we do fundraising so that we can donate to charities around San Diego. At a recent fundraiser, we only raised $300 and a lot of the members felt upset that we wouldn’t be making a big enough impact. However, once I read Kant’s philosophy on this, I felt better that though my organization couldn’t donate millions of dollars, we still were trying to do our little part to help out the community.

Through this, I realized that not everyone can donate huge amount of money to charity, but, if we all look at doing an action with moral worth, it doesn’t matter how much money you are able to donate, whether it is $1 or $1 million. It is the fact that people are trying, help even in the smallest way, to make the world a better place.

Below is an infographic on charitable donations in the US in 2018. As you can see, 70% of charitable donations was by individuals rather than the 5% by corporations.

Hello!!!

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Hi ! My name is Amelia Sperry. I am a second year General Biology major and I plan on minoring in Psychology. I was born and raised here in San Diego and I didn’t leave San Diego because I love it so much here 🙂 I work part time as a receptionist and I love it because people bring me their dogs to pet. Some of my favorite things are baby sloths, going to the beach, and trying new food places around school with my friends.

My favorite book from the HUM sequence was Shakespeare’s The Tempest. I really enjoyed the story and the multilayered meaning behind what Shakespeare was saying. I was having trouble reading it in “script” format so I ended up watching a production of the play on YouTube. It really helped me understand the material better and I enjoyed seeing the work “come to life.”

Enjoy the picture of the baby sloth at the San Diego Zoo!