For the most part, oral history originates from witnesses, who are often emotionally involved with the events in question. These emotions can easily influence the interpretation and understanding of an event/moment in history, leading us to form biases or gain an inaccurate understanding of the event. While this emotional involvement adds interest and engagement, it is however not entirely beneficial to historians who need more objective accounts in order to ‘balance different perspectives’. Emotion has sometimes been viewed as an unreliable way of knowing. Emotions have, such as, been criticized as being illogical obstacles to knowledge that alter and falsify our image of reality (History as an AOK, Mendes).
History is an area of knowledge that may not prove the truth but, if we examine the evidence thoroughly, and use our own empirical knowledge impartially, we can go some way towards providing a correct account of what happened in the past. Similarly, there are some very present downsides to using history knowledge as the only source. Nationalism and the emotional aspect of it plays a large part in skewing the past of a county or culture through commemoration and holidays that glorify and promote a specific event. When in fact, many might not realize the true reason of celebration because of the level of patriotism and loyalty to the Nation. It becomes hard to stay completely objective during all the celebration because of the emotions felt.
However, using emotions is not all bad and misleading. Some consider that not only do emotions help make sense of social and cultural experiences and behaviors, but they are also the source of specific ethical and political knowledge by helping us form an understanding of the world arou...
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...tion. Known as empiricism, when all knowledge is ultimately based on perceptual experience. The problem is that each of our senses are somewhat limited, because each sense has a threshold beyond which we cannot perceive. Even with instruments and devices such as the telescope and x-rays that we extend our field of perception with, there will always be something that we lack. When only using perception, we have to remember to be cautious about what the senses tell us because perception is selective and interpretations can be misled. Each of us has been mistaken about something we thought we saw or heard. Although we often treat facts as if they were infallibly certain, they aren’t. When perception cannot give us certainty, if the evidence of our senses is consistent with what reason and intuition tell us, it can still offer a good foundation for reliable knowledge.
The study of past events have been a common practice of mankind since the verbal telling of stories by our ancestors. William Cronon, in his article “Why the Past Matters,” asserts that the remembrance of the past “keeps us in place.” Our individual memories and experiences shape how we act in our daily lives. In addition to influencing us at an individual level, our collective history binds us together as a society. Without knowing where we have been or what we have experienced, it is nearly impossible to judge progress or know which courses of action to pursue. The goal of the historian is to analyze and explain past events, of which they rarely have firsthand memory of, and apply the gained knowledge to make connections with current and future events.
To begin, I will give a brief overview on the effect emotions have on our media viewing experience. In particular, I will be examining the work of Noem Carroll and Carl Plantinga. Second, I will give a brief overview of the research that connects political humor viewing to positive outcomes including increased political knowledge, and the ability to learn various view points as well as greater understanding of one’s own viewpoint. Though, I understand that their is a raging debate between cognitivist and non-cognitivist. My goal is not to take a position on the debate, but I am merely going to give a brief overview of the literature on film and emotion. On one hand, Carl Plantinga argues that emotions can be defined as "Concern Based Construals.” To highlight this meaning, let us imagine that as I am writing this paper, I hear loud noises, as this is going on, unconsciously, my heart rate increases and respiration increase and I begin to develop the emotion of fear. This is similar to Noel Carroll’s theory of emotion, if not complimentary to Plantinga’s view. Carroll would say that emotions act as searchlights to help us focus on the perceptions necessary to deal with the current experience. Plantinga would concede that many of the affects associated with emotions occur in the cognitive unconscious. So, Plantinga is not saying that, “Emotions are mere judgements,” As Robert Solomon would claim, but emotions are driven by experience based on one’s personal perception. In other words, Plantinga is saying the these construals are based on one’s personal experiences, whether conscious or not. However, something should be said about Construals in of itself, th...
“Oral history is a maddeningly, imprecise term: it is used to refer to the formal, rehearsed accounts of the past presented by a culturally sanctioned tradition-bearers... informal conversations about “the old days” among friends, neighbors, family members… to recorded interviews deemed to have an important story to
Carl Roger’s article “Empathetic: An Underappreciated Way of Being,” examines the rhetoric of emotions. On the surface level, rhetoric is simply persuasion, thus implying some degree of written or verbal communication. In reality, however, this is equally apparent in non-verbal situations because body language and tone creates an unspoken language that is potentially more powerful than the written and spoken word. Therefore, being empathetic towards others helps understand the underlying meaning behind their words. By “locat[ing] power in the person, not the expert,” the listener is able to understand others’ as they see themselves (Rogers 104). Furthermore, Rogers notes that frequently, the most powerful dialogue is within the unspoken word. He encourages others to listen for feelings rather than just for
Traditionally Empiricists claim that all knowledge and all basic concepts are derived from experience. At the same time they argue that all experience is reducible to private entities, the so-called 'sense data'. Phenomenologists claim that there is nothing in experience itself to suggest that it is reducible to sense data, and that this doctrine is derived from metaphysical prejudices, the so-called 'assumptions of the natural attitude'. They argue that if we could in some way 'bracket' these assumptions and reflect only on our experience of perceiving and on the results of scientific measurements of our perceptual powers, we would discover that perception, rather than presenting us with private entities or 'data', 'opens up' to the world itself. (1)
Our emotions greatly influence how we process information and make moral judgments. We take these emotional feelings and turn them into information about our situatio...
Over the past decade, historians have gained a new respect for the value of oral
Cultural based explanations posit that emotions are acquired via socialisation and recognise that cultural beliefs play an important role since research has indicated cultural variations amongst individualistic (USA) and collectivists (Japan) cultures. Studies have also focused on recognition rates of emotions and in relation to age.
Emotional experiences underlie society and provide the sustenance necessary to maintain social cohesion. The social feelings of reverence create the group bonds that tie the individual to society. Now that the relationship between emotions and society has been explicated, it begs the question as to how this relationship applies to life today. Can society function even without the primitive rites of corroborees? Have corroborees faded out of modern times, or have they simply manifested themselves in new forms, such as sporting events and raves? Whatever the case may be, the emotional aspect of humanity cannot be neglected, for it represents the glue that holds society together.
First given as a speech, this article is written as an attack on human emotion.
...oes for most of the emotions that people feel. I never really noticed any of this before I started writing this paper. I shared this information with my best friend and she was amazed that the way people interact is generally the same within groups in society. She now has a better understanding of the communication patterns and behaviors of people and she is not even in the class.
Perception at most times is a credible way to assess the world around us. Without perception, we would not know what to do with all the incoming information from our environment. Perception is constructed of our senses and the unconscious interpretations of those sensations. Our senses bring in information from our environment, and our brain interprets what those sensations mean. The five most commonly accepted senses -- taste, smell, hearing, sight, and touch -- all help create the world around us as we know it. One philosophical school of thought called “common sense realism” or direct realism argues that perception is a passive and relatively straightforward process which gives us an accurate picture of reality, and that to deal with practical demands of everyday life, our senses must be generally reliable, or we would probably not have survived as a species (vdL 87). We gain knowledge from our perceptions every moment we are conscious. Whenever I walk outside in the morning, and I feel a chill on my face, I gain the knowledge that it is cold outside. Sometimes I do not even have to walk outside to tell if it is cold or not. Somedays I can look out the window and see
Empiricism is the belief that all knowledge and ideas come from the senses and that the only way we can know anything about the world is through those senses. This has a tendency to be true in the fact that people learn from their mistakes. Growing u...
The ability to experience and express emotions can be a long process. Everyone starts experiencing emotions pretty much from the day of birth; as a person grows up with their family every single day they become more experienced and have more emotions that can help create and form their lifestyle. The decisions a person makes is always influenced by the emotions they have at the current time and the emotions they have experienced before. Experiencing emotions are easier than expressing them. Emotions may be easier to express at a younger age, but as anyone grows older it becomes more difficult. Both experiencing and expressing emotions are different for everyone. The ability to express emotions can be influenced by a person 's culture, personality,
Emotion has a major role that it plays in the learning environment (Cleveland-Innes & Campbell, 2012). Educational psychologists believe the motivation, achievements, and the overall educational performance has a direct correlation to the human emotion (Cleveland-Innes & Campbell, 2012). That statement alone reflects the significant role that emotion plays in education. There is a major need for human emotion to be displayed in the educational environment and it really does not matter whether it is a brick and mortar class or an online learning environment; emotion must and in fact does play a role.