Author Archives: SALVADOR FRANCO

A Learned Dichotomy of Modern man

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It would simply be impossible to argue that I only agree with one way of thinking showcased in this class. Like everyone else, I also favor one form of thinking more than the other, in my case it would be the Enlightenment thinking. I personally believe that despite the many nuances that people differ in their own beliefs, they all stem from universal beliefs, perhaps a better way of phrasing is primal instincts. Throughout the years of scientific advancement that occurred especially in psychology have shown this to be the case. However, these studies have also led me to believe that Romanticism is also an important aspect to the human condition as they move on from their primal needs. For those unfamiliar, this principle comes from Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, which states that human beings are simple if they lack basic necessities yet evolve to have deeper needs involving more nuanced psychological aspects such as self-actualization.

The process of learning about these separate eras of thinking has resulted in my further understanding of how much of an impact they have on current society, specifically in social movements. Whether it be the environmentalists whose way of thinking can be attributed to both Enlightenment and Romantic thinking. Enlightened as it argues from the perspective of logistics such as the impact of the ecosystem affects humanity as well, while Romantic in that the movement also exists with humanity’s sympathy and aesthetic interest in maintaining the beauty of nature.

The most interesting takeaway from the class as a whole was viewing the different perspectives of these enlightened thinkers as to what they believe is the natural state of mankind. More so how it is that humanity is and should move on from this initial state to a higher form of reasoning that will improve life for all.

Image result for maslow triangle
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

A Rather Touching Song

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Touch is typically depicted as one of the five main human senses, yet in a truer sense one could argue that touch is every sense. Sight is light interacting receptors in the eyes, taste is molecules interacting with taste buds, hearing is sound-waves interacting with bones in the ear, smell is the interaction of olfactory receptors with molecules. To put simply, touch is the only true sense that allows us to experience the senses at all. Without touch, we cannot enjoy the true Beauty that surrounds us.

The song begins with a distorted, almost alien culmination of sounds with a voice remembering the sensation of touch of which it has lost, which without it does not know where it belongs, yet recognizes that even with touch it still asks for something more beyond touch. Why is that? With Schiller’s philosophy, I would argue the individual, despite enjoying its memories of touch, they were only memories of sensual experiences. The voice emphasizes the waves of emotions that came with the sense of touch, more specifically a kiss, which brings with it a sudden upbeat liveliness to the song describing, “hunger like a storm”, which touch satisfies this hunger too well as the song mellows from its climax, stating, “You’ve given me too much to feel”, the individual is overwhelmed by sensual experience. Without intellectual thought to which the individual can answer the questions behind what touch has brought to them and its meaning. They are overwhelmed and still unable to convince themselves of their existence. In other words, there is a meaning to life that goes beyond simply experiencing the aesthetics surrounding us rather as human beings, as our given nature is not to only use our senses but also our intellect to appreciate any type of Beauty.

Stamping Out the Old Order

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Warning about the Stamp Act in the Pennsylvania Journal on October 1765

After the Seven Years War between the European powers, Britain after defending her colonies during the war, including the American colonies, resulted in the empire to go into debt. Understandably, Parliament decided to raise taxes on the colonies it defended as compensation for maintaining their safety. To their surprise the American colonies were enraged by the amount of taxes that were levied on them. Why did these protests occur? To put it simply, despite having been protected by the British during the war, the colonists found it unfair that they had no consent in the making of these tax legislatures, let alone did not have any representation either. As the founding fathers stated in The Declaration of Independence, as they provided evidence of the failure the King was as a Prince for the colonies,”For imposing taxes without our consent”. To the American colonists, failure to allow consent of these tax laws was an infringement to the social contract established between the citizens and the British monarchy. The failure of Parliament to follow their personal will of the island nation instead of the general will of her state AND her colonies is what angered the colonists. This eventually lead to the rise of the Sons of Liberty, whom opposed the taxes levied such as the stamp act, performing multiple actions against the British loyalists, and eventually causing the infamous Boston Tea Party, a major turning point that would remove negotiations off the table and made independence from the empire as the only favorable choice for the founding fathers.

Interestingly enough, despite agreeing with most if not all the arguments that the American colonists, including the founding fathers, yet there seems to be some outliers at play. What reasons do you believe that other British colonies such as those in Canada didn’t have such harsh opinions about the taxes as their American brethren? Were the American colonies simply selfish or are there are reasons?

A Progressive Split, Grave Echoes of 2016

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With the passing of the 7th Democratic debate for the Iowa caucus, certain issues have begun to arise that give me grave reminders from the previous election cycle. The people of interest in this debate, in particular, are senator Warren and senator Sanders. As observed in previous debates the two Progressives seemed to never debate against the other seeming as they had previously agreed to ceasefire both on and off the debate stage. Yet with recent allegations from the media stating that Bernie does not believe that a woman could not win the presidential election, tensions between the two rose. Due to the biased form of the platform, as CNN treated the allegations as the truth when asking the senators about the issue, in which the 7th debate took place the tensions quickly escalated forming a rift between the previously amicable candidates and their respective voter base. With this split between the two leading progressive candidates, the Democratic party finds itself at an impasse as the general will of the people that support the party was split between the establishment democrats such as Biden and the progressives. This new split further divides the will of the party shifting from the general will of the people to a more niche collective will of private individuals. I find it improbable that with this further division in the party that the will of one of these increasingly niche candidates will resonate amongst the general will of the nation.“But the whole less a part is not the whole, and as long as this relationship is the case, there is no longer a whole but rather two unequal parts. Whence it follows that the will of the one is certainly not general in relation to the other.” (On the Social Contract, 179). It seems that the cycle of division that started with the 2016 election is bound to happen once more to the Democratic party as it continues to hold to different pieces of the puzzle which unless united cannot fulfill the general will of the people, and therefore cannot hope to win the presidential election.

Sorry about the disgustingly long URL.
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/elizabeth-warren-bernie-sanders-dispute_n_5e23a957c5b673621f77228b?ri18n=true&guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9jb25zZW50LnlhaG9vLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAIfiBImstee9npyNM0fnFvyceat-XWQ7vYpkp9Gj7l_ESA98zXw8JSL3s_9VcYdjt2vo_Vql4VxlgsLCWwyMYchnzCpOlHraa1IoLFJd7tuwdILP0d2oS8Cb03PjmL3Sy8dAhckWh1E-sj22d6pQEhzfIIhm3iIlmkAnnLjE0Dyo

Aeneas, that kills people.

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Hello, everyone. My name is Salvador Franco, just call me Sal though, it’ll make easier for all of us. I’m just another STEM major at UCSD if you’re interested, specifically I’m a sophomore, microbiology major whose area of focus in immunology. I come from the local LA county gas stop city known as Azusa, no seriously I have never met anyone in Azusa who isn’t a local and if they aren’t their just here for gas before heading back to the 210. I guess my hobbies would include reading scientific articles on any subject really, playing video games: I enjoy platformers and indie titles the most in recent years. One of my personal favorite series recently that I played was the Nonary games, an escape room based game with pseudo-science thrown in the mix.

Personally, my favorite title that I had to read in the Humanities series is The Aeneid. What made this a personal favorite of mine was the ending. Throughout the epic, Virgil builds Aeneas’ character as the perfect personification of the Roman idealism that Virgil wanted to see within Present-day Rome, well I guess ancient by our standards. Yet at the end despite his lack of emotion throughout the poem Aeneas in a fit of anger for his fallen comrade murders Turnus in a dishonorable manner. This loss of control of his emotions symbolizes Virgil’s critique of the current emperor Augustus to be unfit to lead Rome to prosperity due to allowing his emotions specifically vengeance to get the best of him.

Here’s a song from the soundtrack from the first game in Nonary Game series