Humanities Literature First Essay Assignment

Due: _______________

Assignment Prompts

For your first Humanities essay, you will discuss some of your own beliefs. Your assignment is to choose one of the prompts below that particularly resonates with you, and articulate your beliefs on that question. You might respond as a member of a particular culture (like Western or American) or subculture (for example, Protestant or Buddhist), or as an individual. Throughout Humanities, we will be reading works by others that explore precisely these questions, and many of them will arrive at different conclusions from yours – why do your particular beliefs make sense to you? The essay should communicate what your belief is, and why.

The prompt is in boldface. Questions thereafter are meant to challenge and prompt your thinking, but do not need to all be answered in your essay. You are also welcome to take a prompt in a different direction. If you feel another topic might fulfill the spirit of this assignment, please ask your teacher, and we will probably encourage you to pursue it!

1. How should we ideally conduct ourselves on this earth? What is the ideal life? What does it mean to be a “good person”?

2. What is the best way to order our society? Will competition naturally bring about an ideal society? Is there an alternative? What is the role of government? How should we decide who does what?

3. What is justice? How do we know? How should it be exacted?

4. How do we access truth? Through reason? Through intuition? Is it even possible? Does truth with a capital “T” even exist? Is truth absolute or relative?

5. What is our relationship to the material world? Is the material world fundamentally good, evil, or neutral? Is it the ultimate reality? Is it the means to access a higher reality, or is it merely a distraction from an ultimate truth invisible to the senses?

6. What is the role of art/the artist? And what is art, anyway?

Warning: This assignment may be harder than you think! Don’t wait until the last moment. Many of us think we know what we believe, but stall when we actually set out to articulate a consistent set of beliefs. Please think hard about this. Take a long, quiet walk, meditate on these matters, and write something that will enlighten and delight your teacher.

Essay Requirements

1. Although this is a personal essay (yes, you may use “I”), it must be presented as an argument. You need to have a clear thesis that argues something. Remember that the word essay actually means “attempt” – it is the trying out of an idea, the testing of a hypothesis. It is okay if you are not yet quite sure about the position you are arguing, but do not write an essay with no position. For example, avoid an essay that says, in essence, something like, “Maybe art is this, maybe it’s that, who really knows? But one thing’s for sure, art sure is an interesting topic to think about!”
2. Make use of examples to both support and enliven your argument.
3. Be sure your essay is consistent, well-reasoned, well-structured, and well-written – this is not a stream-of-consciousness journal entry.
4. Toward that end, please observe conventions of grammar, spelling, and punctuation.
5. The essay should be approximately three pages in length, typed, double-spaced, standard margins and 12 point font.
6. Please include a cover page with an original title (not “Humanities Essay,” and please do not underline or put in quotes!!), your name, your seminar number, your email address (if you have one), and the date.

I have spent time wondering about the reality of what I touch. The actual matter of the world could be compressed into the size of the head of the pin, I’ve heard. Objects seem solid; they are not. Our world is mostly nothingness. It is energy alone that turns those miniscule particles into chairs and floors and planets that prevent us from falling endlessly into the abyss.

I used to struggle with getting out of bed, because what was the point? It was a cliché existential crisis, I know, but no one ever experiences it as such. I surely didn’t. I thought myself into circles, spiraled into emptiness, all arguments canceled each other – I was left with nothing. The head of a pin.

But now I know that energy is what keeps us from the abyss. Doing. Action. At some point, activity is all. I learn, I teach, I love, I drive, I cook, I give. Love is an action. Risk is an action. Building is action. There is no destination, there is only journey. If we struggle too hard to define those solid objects in our world, sooner or later we will stumble on the reality that they are nothingness. So we can’t seek too hard to define, because while we are seeking, we cannot be acting.

Intuitively, many of us know this. What happens so often when we win the object of our desire? We loose our desire. Striving is all. It is that trait that Mephisto tried to drain from Faust, and could not. It is human.