Oh the Humanities, Part 2

Where were we?  Ah yes, I was about to wet my pants…

I remember it like it was yesterday.  It was a warm, sunny spring morning in East Tennessee when redbuds, cherry blossom and pear trees burst forth in full bloom in defiance of their winter sojourn.  The day had all the makings of a Shelley poem, I think I even saw a cloud in the shape of Ozymandias.  My romantic interlude ended upon entering Hyder Auditorium.   175 of my classmates and I opened our blue books and gasped…

It was the final exam of our sophomore year of Humanities.  We explored the New World, Enlightened the West and brought the world into modernity.  There was only one thing left to do, pass the final exam.  I opened the exam and looked at the first essay question, it was 50% of the entire final.  The question, “What does it mean to be human”?

2,000 years and two years of study brought us to this one simple question.  Are you serious?  Suddenly, I was having a panic attack, I had to excuse myself.  The only place I could go was to the restroom. 

The question seemed simple and yet I had no idea how to answer it.  Being human, and the answer to what it means to be human, may be the second most important question anyone of us can ever ask.  It seems paramount that we actually have a viable answer for it.  So, what I’d like to do is to answer this question correctly this time.  Maybe once we’re done, I can turn this in and increase my Humanities grade. 

What Does it Mean to be Human?

Oh the Humanities, Part 1...

Today marks the end of Finals Week at Milligan College.  Students, at least those that survived, are headed home to enjoy a nice break from the academic grind.  I spoke with one young lady who mentioned scoring a whopping 41 on one exam.  Yikes!  I never did that poorly, though I do remember one specific exam that made me wet my pants…

 It was the end of my sophomore year at Milligan, our class was finally finishing the gauntlet of “Humanities”; a two-year, inter-disciplinary journey designed by Satan himself which studied western civilization from dawn until decadence.  Humanities combined the disciplines of history, art, literature, music, theology, philosophy and architecture into one gigantic tour de force of western culture.  It was both brutal and beautiful. 

We embarked as freshman from the cradle of civilization, Ancient Mesopotamia.  Here, we learned of Ziggurats, Cuneiform and the code of Hammurabi.  From the Tigris and Euphrates, we made our way down to Egypt and the Nile and then back up across the Mediterranean to meet our new friends the Minoans, Mycenaeans and Greeks.  Aristotle, Plato and Socrates taught us that reason and logic could supplant our ancient reliance on god while Protagoras announced that “man was the measure of all things”. 

Alexander and the Greeks paved our Hellenic way from Persia to Rome.  While in Rome, we did as the Romans by copying and stealing from our ancestors, via the Pardee Hall test bank.  And yet, there may not be a Milligan student alive today that cannot tell the difference between Ionic, Doric and Corinthian columns.  Yes, we’re that disturbed.  We sailed through the Pax Romana and landed in Byzantium.   However, the sun soon set on humanity as the Dark Ages closed in with every onslaught of Hun and Ostrogoth.  Civilization hung in the balance as the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse spread famine, war, disease and death throughout Europe during the Middle Ages.  It was left to Charlemagne and the Holy Roman Empire to set the world aright by bringing stability back to Europe.  The thousand year reign of terror came to a close.

As students, our first year of intellectual exploration was coming to an end, but not before Renaissance and rebirth.  Michelangelo, Raphael and Botticelli showed us through paint, oil, canvas and carvings that art expressed truth and beauty.  Our journey ended in Germany, where on the eve of All Saints’ Day in 1517, an Augustinian friar hammered the nail heard round the world on the door of the church at Wittenberg Castle. 

Oh, and the wetting of the pants part?  Well, we’ll leave that part of the story to next time…

Before going, it wouldn't be Humanities without Sir Kenneth Clarke, our old dear friend with the wonderful lisp and the amazing ties! Enjoy Milligan folk!