Due 03/26

In the first reading, “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For” written by Thoreau, he takes the humanist view of life, the idea that humans have the capacity for choice and growth. He wanted to live without greed and without fighting, which is what mankind has mostly become. He wanted to live like we were made to live, which is to live a simple life. Thoreau made this apparent when he said,  “An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!” He has realized that all the material goods and the work that man does is truly for nothing, it doesn’t make one man any happier than the next. He sees that life should be lived, and to live is to value each day and not be hurrying towards the next one. This next quote demonstrates his outlook on why living simply is far better, “When we are unhurried and wise, we perceive that only great and worthy things have any permanent and absolute existence, that petty fears and petty pleasures are but the shadow of the reality.” Things that mankind desire but do not need do not last, they simply drift away after it loses the users attention.

In the second reading, “Our Picture of the Universe” written by Hawking, he has written from a physical science perspective on life. What is mainly talked about is how scientists are always using theories to classify the universe and life in the universe. Theories are made, then disproved, the built from others, and partial theories are established. Scientists see life through all these little theories, all the while trying to make one theory that will support everything we know. They are methodical, using logic and numbers to depict what is going on in the world. A limitation that a scientist has in their life is that nothing can ever truly be proved, all the work that they do will always just be classified as a theory waiting for another scientist to come and disprove it.  They all search for a complete theory so that civilization can have an understanding of why we’re here and why we were created and to be able to have a complete and unified explanation.

In the final reading, “The Individual and the Pattern of Culture” by Benedict, she writes this story from the perspective of a social scientist. She was a cultural anthropologist, and her main goal was to always study cultures with no bias based on the culture and values that she came from. This was called cultural relativism.  What she found was that human nature is based on the influence of culture. They are not separate entities; individuals are shaped by their surroundings. This is shown in the article when it says, “Individuals and society form an integrated whole,’ meaning that together they are complete.  They are not antagonists; all individuals are given the raw material of their lives and choose what to do with it.