Question of the Day
- Thread starter kwilson
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For now it's Star Wars. There are others in my collection that are good. (And by franchise, I'm assuming you mean a minimum of at least 3 movies?)
New Star Wars turned me off, especially when it started to interfere with Old Star Wars. Now I'm lost... though, the new James Bond was pretty neat. And Star Trek hasn't been so bad.
Oh, Lucas, thou hath forsaken me!
Oh, Lucas, thou hath forsaken me!
I don't really associate a number with the term franchise. I consider Spider-Man a viable franchise, although there are only 2 (for now anyway). I think franchise is more anything that could turn into a series. Technically, Daredevil would count as a franchise (although a sequel must be considered a sign of the apocolypse).
It's between Star Wars and Lord of the Rings for me. Can't really choose which one I like better.
Narnia looks like it will be a great series in the future...
Narnia looks like it will be a great series in the future...
Well, these aren't my absolute favorites, but they needed to be mentioned:
Indiana Jones, George Romero's living dead movies, Sergio Leone's Dollar Trilogy, and the Godfather. Fun stuff.
Indiana Jones, George Romero's living dead movies, Sergio Leone's Dollar Trilogy, and the Godfather. Fun stuff.
Biology. It's so much fun to take things that you never though of, put them under a microscope, and realize HOW HORRIBLY GROSS THE LIVING UNIVERSE IS. Flowers? Trees? Constantly having sex. In the air. You breathe it in. Valentine's Day is the Great Castration Harvest for flowers.
That's family entertainment right there.
That's family entertainment right there.
I'd go with chemistry. I had way too much fun in school when my extremely cool teachers would either blow something up or some other chemical reaction.
Biology...or more specifically, epidemiology. I think the study of infectious diseases is endlessly fascinating, especially since plagues continue to afflict humanity every so often throughout history. Now we're waiting on the H5N1 Avian Flu virus to see what it does.
As much as it counts, interactive design. Communicating and enabling while creating something not too simple and not to complicated... and then trying to add aesthetics to that it works and looks good. So tricky, but so satisfying.
History: because so few people appreciate it, nor do they know much about it. However, it's one of the most important things mankind has done...our triumphs and our failures for the benefit of future generations.
A comment on history: I don't like history that much because it's so easily distorted. Details vary so easily from account to account. You have to really sort through that and prejudices of various authors or history brokers. History to me nearly runs parallel to religion--you have to have a great amount of faith just to believe in a lot of it.
So my fav. branch is naturally Philosophy. It is the superclass of humanities. And I think my fav. branch within it is epistemology, the study of knowledge or knowing.
So my fav. branch is naturally Philosophy. It is the superclass of humanities. And I think my fav. branch within it is epistemology, the study of knowledge or knowing.
I find that a little insulting. History is NOT like religion. The study of History requires empirical, cross-disciplinary studies. The scientific method must still be observed for the uncovering of facts along with the sister studies of archaeology and anthropology.
Philosophy, in academia, has always been more closely attached to religion and religious studies. Distortions, like the Nazi preoccupation with Nietszche, can be pretty prevalent in the just as subjective department of Philosophy (these are the humanities...there will be no such thing as the razor sharp objectivity of rational math). Do you support the hard choices of a Jean Paul Sartre? Or is Rousseau's beneficent nature of man more to your liking? Perhaps you are more comfortable with Camus, or Locke, or C.P. Snow, or Voltaire, or Plato, etc....how's that different from your description of History.
Historical study is an invaluable tool as long as people are trained to be openly skeptical at accepted "truths", to verify facts from as many firsthand sources as possible, and to always approach it with the idea that the winners write the history. In fact, the study of Philosophy is itself a tool used in historical study to understand the basic causes of human behavior and understanding in a given time period.
I would say the religious or philosophical orientation of human beings have been the actual screens distorting the factual gleanings of history most often. Like it or not, history is far more empirical and rational than the Greeks thinking everything was made of Air, Water, Fire and Earth or the Marxist paradise of Soviet Russia.
Philosophy, in academia, has always been more closely attached to religion and religious studies. Distortions, like the Nazi preoccupation with Nietszche, can be pretty prevalent in the just as subjective department of Philosophy (these are the humanities...there will be no such thing as the razor sharp objectivity of rational math). Do you support the hard choices of a Jean Paul Sartre? Or is Rousseau's beneficent nature of man more to your liking? Perhaps you are more comfortable with Camus, or Locke, or C.P. Snow, or Voltaire, or Plato, etc....how's that different from your description of History.
Historical study is an invaluable tool as long as people are trained to be openly skeptical at accepted "truths", to verify facts from as many firsthand sources as possible, and to always approach it with the idea that the winners write the history. In fact, the study of Philosophy is itself a tool used in historical study to understand the basic causes of human behavior and understanding in a given time period.
I would say the religious or philosophical orientation of human beings have been the actual screens distorting the factual gleanings of history most often. Like it or not, history is far more empirical and rational than the Greeks thinking everything was made of Air, Water, Fire and Earth or the Marxist paradise of Soviet Russia.
What you said confirms the importance of philosophy. Everything goes back to it, as it is the foundation of human understanding. Without philosophy, you don't know the value of history, you don't know how to study it, you don't know the veracity, you don't know that you know. To me, I get the impression that many disciplines these days have become so abstracted away from the fundamentals, that people studying and contributing to them lose perspective and it is reduced to an exercise. They start to take things for granted.
But what is history? Is history created when you interpret perceived past events, or is history created by the sheer fact that the events happened? I'm not interested in the former case, because to me, the past is too slippery and far-removed from true understanding no matter what evidence it's based on. I'm sure it's useful and valuable to some. But if you're talking about the other view of history--history defined as the existence of events and not the interpretation--then that is where my history as religion comment stems from. If you view history in this way, as a concrete stream of events that just happen without any coloring of perspective through time, then it becomes a whole lot trickier deducing "facts".
Besides, I never said I subscribe to any philosophical views or doctrines. And my opinion is that a lot of those philosophers you named--though I am definitely no expert on them or the subject of philosphy--went on to develop their own ideas about things that strayed from established philosophical principles (which were probably colored too heavily by their own worldviews). Philosophy seems to be a delicate balance, but I believe it gives you great tools in life.
I don't really want to get into a full-blown discussion here in a QotD topic, so I'll just leave it at that. The argument WILL boil down to a philosophical discussion, and everyone has his/her own philosophy.
But what is history? Is history created when you interpret perceived past events, or is history created by the sheer fact that the events happened? I'm not interested in the former case, because to me, the past is too slippery and far-removed from true understanding no matter what evidence it's based on. I'm sure it's useful and valuable to some. But if you're talking about the other view of history--history defined as the existence of events and not the interpretation--then that is where my history as religion comment stems from. If you view history in this way, as a concrete stream of events that just happen without any coloring of perspective through time, then it becomes a whole lot trickier deducing "facts".
Besides, I never said I subscribe to any philosophical views or doctrines. And my opinion is that a lot of those philosophers you named--though I am definitely no expert on them or the subject of philosphy--went on to develop their own ideas about things that strayed from established philosophical principles (which were probably colored too heavily by their own worldviews). Philosophy seems to be a delicate balance, but I believe it gives you great tools in life.
I don't really want to get into a full-blown discussion here in a QotD topic, so I'll just leave it at that. The argument WILL boil down to a philosophical discussion, and everyone has his/her own philosophy.
I'm sorry, but that still doesn't make sense to me. All the disciplines of the humanities are tools that are utilized across the fields of study. Specialists like to focus on one branch as opposed to another, but nothing exists within a vacuum. Philosophy requires the study of History to understand the context of the modalities of human thought within a given time, and History uses Philosophy to understand the evolution and changes taking place. That's why even I had to exposed to Simone De Beauvoir, Kant, etc., while philosophy students I know had to be exposed to Daniel Boorstin, Alexander de Tocqueville (historiographers of note) in their studies.
None of these branches are more important than the other, nor are any of them any less subject to distortions and opinions that are the core of the very diversity that is humanity. Those philosophers I named read and digested the historically significant philosophers of their past and would read and argue vigorously with their intellectual contemporaries. Their thoughts didn't appear in a vacuum, and the social, economic and political events eddying about them contributed greatly to their discoveries. Try writing philosophical tracts without knowing what came before, or what's going on around you right now, and, unless you happen to be a savant of some kind, your words and thoughts will most likely seem derivative and primitive.
I'm not trying to change your opinion of history -- whether you like the field or not --, but rather to state how there is no way of extricating these disciplines, whether it be history, literature or philosophy, from each other without missing out on for that which the humanities stand...the understanding of ourselves. As for tools for life, history provides the background to make educated decisions on such simple acts as voting, and to communicate with the cultures of the global community. Perhaps things would be different if more of the voting public understood the historic difficulties that entail occupying a foreign land...maybe if they received a greater education in the various interpretations of those events, things possibly could have been different on the world stage now. Thus, will I end my part of this discussion, not to say it isn't cool discussing these things with you, Roach.
None of these branches are more important than the other, nor are any of them any less subject to distortions and opinions that are the core of the very diversity that is humanity. Those philosophers I named read and digested the historically significant philosophers of their past and would read and argue vigorously with their intellectual contemporaries. Their thoughts didn't appear in a vacuum, and the social, economic and political events eddying about them contributed greatly to their discoveries. Try writing philosophical tracts without knowing what came before, or what's going on around you right now, and, unless you happen to be a savant of some kind, your words and thoughts will most likely seem derivative and primitive.
I'm not trying to change your opinion of history -- whether you like the field or not --, but rather to state how there is no way of extricating these disciplines, whether it be history, literature or philosophy, from each other without missing out on for that which the humanities stand...the understanding of ourselves. As for tools for life, history provides the background to make educated decisions on such simple acts as voting, and to communicate with the cultures of the global community. Perhaps things would be different if more of the voting public understood the historic difficulties that entail occupying a foreign land...maybe if they received a greater education in the various interpretations of those events, things possibly could have been different on the world stage now. Thus, will I end my part of this discussion, not to say it isn't cool discussing these things with you, Roach.
We have effectively come to an impasse. 
Instead of systematically responding, I'm just gonna bite my tongue for the time being and save this discussion for a future journal entry--so as not to drag unwitting browsers of this topic into a dense jungle of text (when it might only require a thin forest). Need time to collect and organize my thoughts. I haven't so far been able to adequately express them. But, I'll sum up my feelings about history: philosophical distrust in determining veracity of details of past events. As for the utility of history, I'm not arguing against it. As for ideas or thoughts not appearing in vacuums, I agree and have asserted that in other threads.
As for it being cold... yes, it's really cold right now. Time to get warm.
Instead of systematically responding, I'm just gonna bite my tongue for the time being and save this discussion for a future journal entry--so as not to drag unwitting browsers of this topic into a dense jungle of text (when it might only require a thin forest). Need time to collect and organize my thoughts. I haven't so far been able to adequately express them. But, I'll sum up my feelings about history: philosophical distrust in determining veracity of details of past events. As for the utility of history, I'm not arguing against it. As for ideas or thoughts not appearing in vacuums, I agree and have asserted that in other threads.
As for it being cold... yes, it's really cold right now. Time to get warm.
Oh, so THAT's how an internet argument between intelligent people goes. It'd been so long since I'd seen one, I'd forgotten that it was possible.