Humanities Final Blog Post: Why Humanities Exists in the First Place

Humans by their nature are social beings.  Indeed it is their ability to share their experiences in a constructive way that sets them apart from other species of animals.  While other species can communicate with one another, they cannot share their experiences in a way that builds off the knowledge of one another.  Matt Ridley argues in The Rational Optimist that what makes man unique is its ability to make “ideas have sex”.  Not only this, but man’s search to find meaning in what it experiences adds another dimension to what it means to be human.   Much of what it means to be human is to share both personal and collective experiences with others and to try to find meaning in these experiences, and this idea of being human is largely what the topics studied in humanities attempts to examine.  

Within the introductory unit, the basis for how humans examine the world and communicate with one another is examined.  One of the main ideas that drove much of the course was how the right and left brain impact how humans examine the world around us.  Much of what this principle examines is the difference between rational and emotional responses to different experiences.  The left brain, for example is largely responsible for number and language comprehension as well as other “rational” components of the mind.  Conversely, the right brain is the “creativity” center of the brain.  Through this principle, the means through which humans process the world around us was laid out.  Another central idea laid out in this unit was how human beings percieve time.  On a scientific level as humans look at it today, time is constant.  It isn’t cyclical in any sense.  Yesterday is in the past and always will be in the past.  Humans haven’t always perceived it this way, and commonly have viewed it as being cyclical.  Cultures from the past have viewed time as being a massive cycle and everything repeats itself.  This is relevant in that time is how humans measure their experiences.  Measurement provides meaning to experiences in that humans naturally find experiences that they can relate to more powerful.  Perhaps the most important idea that stemmed out of this unit was studying human myths.  While time provides a measurement of human experiences that can lend power to them, it is through myths that these experiences were first shared.  Storytelling is a central component of how humans share their life experiences and pass along wisdom.  The power in storytelling is that each human being holds a personal model of the world shaped by what they’ve seen, heard, felt and done.  Myths were one of the first means of storytelling, and in doing so, they shaped the minds and world models that each listener had.  Wisdom was passed along, history was told and tribe heritage formed bonds between each member.  Each of these layers of time perception, human cognition and storytelling lay the foundation for how man experiences the world and shares these experiences.  Through examining man’s origins, it is clear that from an early point, man sought to find meaning in its existence.

Throughout the that covered man’s relationship with nature and how spirituality originated, it becomes obvious from an early point in man’s existence, man looked to find meaning in life.  One of the aspects of human nature that became apparent through Nigel Spivey’s film “The Day Pictures Were Born” was that art is not a new invention.  Human beings naturally express emotions and as a result, they attempt to capture and share these emotions through their artwork.  Early artwork seemed to baffle many historians and archaelogists for centuries because of its obscure nature.  It has recently been revealed that this cave artwork portrayed images seen in trace states by humans.  Seeing remarkable images in their traces, they would attempt to share these images through their artwork.  This aspect of human nature as also apparent through the National Geographic documentary “Australia’s Aborigones”.  Aborigones would enter a trance state and then depict this trance state with their cave paintings and their artwork in other medians (however little of this artwork survives to this day).   Man’s relationship with nature also greatly influenced its emotional development, as revealing in the “Second Nature” packet.  Many of the stories and myths that it told initially were attached geographically to the location in which the tribes originated.  While this shifted over time, many of these stories continued on through generations.  These stories often explained the mysteries of the universe and brought meaning to human life.  The very connection man had with the land it originated from helped to shape their search for meaning for millennia.  When all of this is coupled together, it becomes obvious that man’s connection with nature helped to influence its search for meaning, and man’s spiritual nature was the means through which man searched for this meaning.  

By examining man’s connection with art, love and its perception of beauty, it became clear that man captures its emotional experiences in order to share these experiences with others.  One of the focal points of the unit was in reading Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray.  Dorian Gray was the subject of great emotional attachment for Basil Hallward.  Despite Gray’s lack of interest in Hallward, Hallward still poured his heart and soul into his piece out of pure passion for Dorian.  He captured his emotions and feelings for him in his famous painting.  Another piece examined was Neal LaBute’s film “The Shape of Things”, which seemed to take an extremist’s viewpoint of art.  Adam begins the film as a quiet, awkward individual who meets an artist Evelyn.  Over the next several months, the two get into a “relationship” and Adam undergoes a transformation.  Seemingly, on the exterior, he becomes significantly more attractive, however on the interior, he becomes more corrupt.  At the end of the film, Evelyn reveals that her project was that she had been manipulating Adam the entire time and attempting to shape him into someone entirely different.  From all of this, it’s central message is clear: All power art has a central message, something that the audience can take away from it.  This also means that all art captures a message or a set of emotions.  Through these sources, one thing was obvious.  Humans share their experiences and emotions and one of the ways in which they do this is through art.  This makes sense.  After all, human’s are social beings, and they have a tendency to want to share their experiences with others.  Art provides a highly robust and diverse medium to capture experiences, emotions, or messages.  While other mediums exist, the power of art lies in its universal nature.  Anyone can see into the symbolism of a great piece of art. Another aspect examined in this unit was aesthetic philosophy.  Examining Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas and several others, it became apparent that art is more than simply a means of expressing emotions.  It is much of what an entire area of philosophy revolves around.  As many of these philosophers sought to describe the aesthetic world, they also sought to find their own way of describing life’s meaning.  

As time progressed, man sought to find more complex meaning within life beyond religion, and this search for meaning took the form of philosophy, where law and ethics took center stage.  Since before Plato, philosophers have attempted to explain human nature by creating universal laws.  One of the central texts examined in this unit was Albert Camus’ The Stranger.  After his mother dies in a nursing home, an indifferent Meursault becomes involved in the murder of an Arab after he seemingly was attempting to kill him.  During his trial, his character rather than his actions become the center of the battle, and he is eventually sentenced to death.  This book reflects Camus’ philosophy that whatever we do matters very little if anything after we die.  Meursault’s indifference is similar to Camus’ philosophy.  Camus’ philosophy is just one of many that seeks to explain man’s place within the universe.  The film “Crimes and Misdemeanors” also is a philosophical work that brings together several different lines of thinking.  This piece demonstrated the wide array of philosophical thinking within our society.  While the unit brought together many tracks of thinking, one that stands out is Nel Nodding’s philosophy of caring.  She believed that humans naturally care and nurture one another because we were cared for growing up.  Clearly, philosophy takes a different approach than religion to explaining man’s meaning in the world.  Instead of relying on myths to explain the world, philosophy seeks to create universal laws.  

Through studying the inner journey, several of the previous units were merged to examine how humans perceive truth in their models of the world and how they can internally find meaning within this reality.  Perhaps a part of this picture that we hardly examine is what it is that humans don’t share with others.  Humans are naturally social beings and have a tendency to share their experiences with others.  However, what all of these texts reveal is that there is a side to each human that isn’t shared with others.  This could be emotions that they are too insecure to share or it could be pain that they don’t want to bring upon others.  The texts studied in this unit each tell a story of a figure who goes on an internal struggles.  One of these pieces was Siddhartha, which tells the story of a man who is in constant search of the meaning of life.  Throughout his life, he completely immerses himself in this search for knowledge, going as far as to nearly starve himself to death.  Eventually, he is satisfied with the peace he has made with this journey and settles into a life of serenity.  Siddhartha’s struggle is internal.  Another piece that was examined within this unit was The Epic of Gilgamesh.  After losing a dear friend, the ruthless Gilgamesh sets out in search of immortality.  After much struggle, he finds inner peace and returns to his people as a better and wiser king.  While much of Gilgamesh’s struggle is external, his growth internally is what makes his story powerful.  His story tells a very similar story to Siddhartha’s.  Yet another text studied in this unit was The Story of Job.  Job was at one point a wealthy man who was thrown into the wrath of god for seemingly no reason.  He was tortured relentlessly and lost everything that he once had.  Despite this torture, Job endures it because of his faith in a higher being.  Internally, Job was already at peace when his punishment fell upon him.  Because of this, he was able to endure immense external hardship.  All of these pieces coupled together show that man is in a constant search for meaning, however this search isn’t always shared with others.  While yes, humans are naturally social beings, the internal search for happiness and fulfillment is as important to being human as anything else.  To share, to search is to be human.

Throughout the class, one thing that has become apparent is that humans are constantly in search of meaning within their existence.  This, coupled with their naturally social nature has lead rise to many of the components that are covered within humanities.  Art is a medium through which emotions and experiences can be conveyed.  Philosophy explains the meaning of life through laws while spirituality seeks it through myths.  All of these things come back to man’s naturally social nature.  Inevitably, man will continue to explore its reason for existing as long as it lives on.