What inspires us as human beings to create a piece of art, a composition, or an amazing piece of literature? As human beings in the modern world we are expected to behave in a logical more cognitive way than an affective or emotional way. We are expected to hold our feelings inside, contribute equally in specific careers in society, and view the world through a closed perspective. The world is lacking the affective influence it once had through belief and emotion. what happened to the sophisticated, poetic language of the romantic movement, or the great painters of renaissance Italy? Our world has drifted into being so advanced in technology that we no longer need to think for ourselves. With the invention of cell phones and the internet our english language has become more of a brief, logical selection of words than the vibrant collection of emotion that it once was.
As Danny said, I also agree that cognitive knowledge is an essential part of being human, but I believe cognitive and affective knowledge are like the yin and the yang. It is essential for humanity to embrace both the cognitive and affective side of knowledge in order to be fully human. Without emotion in the world there would be no love, no great works and no passion. The point of writing or creating a piece of art should be emotional and not only based on a logical perspective. The Sporre and Witt readings refer to a time when art first began to appear. It was emotion and belief that drove prehistoric humans to first create art. Through dream time, the first beliefs, and dance human beings first began to embrace the studies of humanities. We as human beings are not meant to function completely logically like a computer, without affective knowledge there would be no empathy, no creativity, no joy, and no feeling at all. The thing that makes human life so beautiful is the very frailty of it, both the tradgedies and the joys that come our way; So why does the modern world shy away from talking about natural elements of our lives like life and death? Our lives are a cycle, we must experience both life and death, love and fear, and both emotional and logical ways of being. Without both cognitive and affective knowledge in balance we are like rocks stuck on the edge of a stream, never making progress, forever frozen in place.
I really like the line " The thing that makes human life so beautiful is the very frailty of it." I think that this is true. We will all die, true, and we try to use things like art and emotions such as love and happiness to make it bareable. With the new tech. we have I think we can share that love easier but like you said, the emotion or beauty of the words is lost.
ReplyDelete“…I believe cognitive and affective knowledge are like the yin and the yang.” I agree whole-heartedly with this line. I think many people focus too much on one side of the spectrum over the other, ignoring the necessary balance between the two of them. In a lot of ways, you have views a lot like mine. We are losing one side of our thinking, having it dominated by the other side. Logic seems to be overriding our creativity and the emotions behind what we create and what we do. It’s sad that we’re losing the creative processes in our lives, having them instead replaced by sheer logical thinking.
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