Humanities Knowledge

In our discussion of how the class theme can be studied using humanities knowledge, perhaps a good starting point would be to ask the question, "what exactly are the humanities all about?"

"The humanities can be described as the study of how people process and document the human experience. Since humans have been able, we have used philosophy, literature, religion, art, music, history and language to understand and record our world. These modes of expression have become some of the subjects that traditionally fall under the humanities umbrella. Knowledge of these records of human experience gives us the opportunity to feel a sense of connection to those who have come before us, as well as to our contemporaries." (Stanford.edu)

Simply put, studying the humanities is how we become interesting people! Besides being the most important core discipline for a Liberal Studies major, the humanities give us insight into everything. By asking questions (and not being afraid to be wrong) humanities scholars learn critical thinking skills and become well-rounded individuals. Humanities also help us to better understand the world around us and to make informed decisions about the future. To sum up why the humanities are important, check out this great Youtube video clip:

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So now we must try to understand what makes humans bad from a humanities perspective. There are two well-known philosophies on the subject; the influential thinker Thomas Hobbes feels that people are born bad while alternatively John Locke believes we are all born with a "blank slate" to be shaped by life's experiences.

Personally, I tend to agree with Locke over Hobbes. I believe that there is a reason behind why people act as they do, good or bad.  Knowledge is rooted in our experiences and those experiences in turn provide the circumstances in which a person chooses to be good or bad. We watched a clip from the movie Pulp Fiction during class in which Sam Jackson's character Jules has an epiphany of a sort and he decides that perhaps it was his bad deeds that got him to where he was that day in the diner:

In this movie, Jules uses profanity almost constantly. This brings up an interesting question: is a person bad if they swear? Bowers and Pleydell-Pearce authored "Swearing, Euphemisms, and Linguistic Relativity," in which there was a study done where the participants would read a curse word aloud while electrodermal devices measured their vitals. The results found that the swear words were far more stimulating than neutral language. I would propose that a given person's choice of language, cursing or neutral, is a reflection of their environment. Jules deals with a very rough subculture in which swearing is both acceptable and widely prevalent. A real-life example of such a place is the state prison system. The inmates and guards swear so much, that they become numb to the effects of the word; curse words begin to lose their power and mystique when overused.

Now let us switch gears and consider a good example of Hobbes' belief that people are born bad: Walter White in the AMC television series Breaking Bad. It can be said that Walter White had that evil inside of him all along; he was always bad and simply needed a way to bring it to the surface. When he decided to cook and sell meth to pay for his cancer treatment, he entered the lifestyle of a badass -- and he liked it.

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Works Cited

Bowers JS, Pleydell-Pearce CW (2011) Swearing, Euphemisms, and Linguistic Relativity. PLoS ONE 6(7): e22341. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0022341

Locke. John. (1689) An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. 38th Edition from William Tegg, London.

Montgomery. M. (1995). An introduction to language and society, 2nd ed. Routledge: London.

Knowledge Inventory and Initial Reflection

When I began this course, I must admit that I felt the topic "what makes humans bad" was quite silly and rather depressing to be honest. But now as I am able to look back, I see that it was very interesting to review all the various faux pas that we as humans undergo, and I was not thinking about the theme the way in which the instructor intended.



Examining this theme does not require us to assume that all people are bad, rather, it is an investigation into how certain characteristics or specific actions can brand a person as "bad."

After my initial post to this blog, I was able to reach out to my instructor for some much-needed guidance to get me back on the right track. I sat down that same evening and wrote out my knowledge inventory so that I was proceeding with a sturdy foundation for the remainder of the blog. The results were rather useful so as to provide a baseline set of existing knowledge:

Part of the challenge is dealing with how the theme of this course is quite subjective and very personal. One may come to believe that humans are generally bad in response to the plethora of unscrupulous events commonly depicted by the modern news media. It can be argued, however, that it is quite unfair to judge all people as being bad based solely on the actions of a few -- correlation does not imply causation (Blackmore 21).

As a general rule of thumb, the news media bolsters viewership by sensationalizing stories and showcasing only the most violent or shocking reports. Suppose, for example, a man had been cryogenically frozen throughout the course of several recent decades. Upon being revived, this man was told to sit down and watch the latest TV news reports on the current state of our nation and on the most newsworthy events of the larger global community. War, genocide, economic depression, and radical jihadism would no doubt be among the primary issues portrayed on the television screen; our recently defrosted friend may very well find himself believing wholeheartedly that the world today has simply gone to hell... and with good reason.

The bottom line -- people are the product of their environments. The line between good and bad is often quite hazy. There exists a dichotomy in this world between good and evil (Blackmore 9); one cannot exist without the other, for if there were nothing which could be described as "good" or "evil" then things would just simply "exist" in a state of moral neutrality.

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Works Cited

Blackmore, Susan. Consciousness: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford UP, 2005. Print.