ARTS 1100

COURSE PORTFOLIO

APOORV ARORA

100360470
Why we shouldn’t let our feelings dictate how we feel

Stoicism has its roots tracing back to the Romans who gave a set of principles

that would help anyone life a peaceful and happy life by controlling their feelings and

emotions by focusing on their internal self and having discipline. Stoics understood

that fate could control the world around them but they could control themselves and

that is their power. They concluded that we do irrational things because we build

vicious habits on false beliefs. They focused on the development of character and

extreme resilience in tough times. The main stoics that have contributed a vast

majority of principles are Cicero, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus.Some of the

main principles they provided were as follows

1.Acknowledge all emotions come from within.

2.Find someone you respect, and use them to stay honest

3.Failure is a learning opportunity.

4.Reflect on what you spend your time as life is short and over in the blink of

an eye.

5. Remember to never procrastinate.

6. Time is the most important resource as money cannot buy more of it.

7. Always be honest to yourself and hold yourself accountable.

The concept of stoicism is new to me but this lecture gave me a clear overview.

This lecture was of immense value to me personally as no single person can avoid or

escape tough times and stoic principles help us through adversity and pain. Life is a

journey that takes us through a roller coaster ride and it is very important to keep our
calm and peaceful state of mind. This relates to the course as it helps us reflect on our

life and surroundings and look at things objectively. Developing some of these

principles can enrich our life. It relates to the lectures of psychology of conspiracy

theory and fake news as our emotions cloud your judgement and we drift towards

things that seem more interesting rather than likely. One might question if following

stoic principles in all situations detaches us from our loved ones and surroundings to

an extent that does not improve the quality of our life. For example - If a loved one

passes away and we are emotionless then we lack sympathy and care for the very

person we loved.
FAKE NEWS.

This is one of the most interesting topics I found. So fake news can be

somewhat described as a hoax and it is increasing day by day in the society.

Counterfeit news is a type of news comprising of conscious disinformation or lies

spread through internet based life or online media. Nowadays, priming press or Tu

satellite don’t require to disseminate information. False stories spread faster than truth

ones. This is so true. Here I would like to explain a little bit about confirmation bias.

This can be described as seeking and believing information that strengthens your

world view. It is a sort of psychological predisposition that includes favouring data

that affirms your already existing convictions or predispositions. One instance of this

bias could be a person holding a belief that left handed people are more lucky and can

perform better and can achieve much success in comparison to the right hand people.

Additionally, when someone hold a belief that men are more talented in life than

women. It’s basically a false belief that people hold without even knowing its

evidence or proper knowledge that whether these kinds of statements do support any

kind of reality or not. This topic also gives us a brief knowledge about how to spot

fake news. Firstly, we should consider the source with full attention and concern. We

should try to read beyond the information provided. As in we should do critical

thinking and think of all the positives as well as the negatives. This is such an

important tip, we should always check the author and learn about the author as in even

the source is true or not. We should never give a false credit to any author. This is not

doing justice to the real author of the source. Also, we should check the date as well as
year of publication. This way we would get the better idea. We should make sure we

check the biases as its very crucial part when we are getting to know about something

fake or real. If something goes out of the mind as in we are not able to understand

anything, we should always take the help of the experts as in our professors. Bill

Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel helped to distinguish between Journalism and other

media. Journalists has 10 elements. First obligation is to the truth. Second is the

loyalty to the citizens. Third is discipline to verify information. Journalists are

independent. Next is watching over those in power. They should provide a forum for

public discussion. Next they should keep significant interesting and relevant.

Journalists should keep news in proportion. They should involve moral compass.

Beyond all of this, citizens also have their rights and responsibilities towards

themselves, when it comes to news. By critically evaluating this topic, I believe that

fake news or stories are almost everywhere, almost around us most of the time. Also,

fake news is growing day by day in all over the world. Mostly people spread fake

news for publicity. It can also be used to cover any scandal. Some of the examples

could be celebrities these days as they don’t want all of the world to intervene their

lives so they use this method. Moreover, companies can also use fake news for stock

prices. Some companies can develop fake news and give that to the media so that to

make their rivals or competition partners to suffer. But not everything we hear is fake.

Some things can be true also.

As every coin has 2 sides, therefore this too. We should always use our brain

whenever we make judgements or assumptions about anything. It can either be fake or

not. We should always be very careful and alert about all of these things happening

around us. Mostly we do mistakes in analysing fake news but we should we try to be

expert at this as by this we can become fool easily, which can be our loss and other

people profit. So we should take every step accordingly and with alert. This is all

which I think and needed to be known to all of us as this information can be quite

helpful while evaluating the fake news. This relates to the topic of stoicism as we need

to establish principles to check our biases and know that the most interesting thing is

seldom true. The things more worthy of discussion is the impact of fake news on

world events such as the US elections.

NATURE OF HUMAN BEING AND THEIR ORIGIN.

This topic comes from a debate at Oxford which discusses this topic briefly

about the nature of human beings and their ultimate origin. This debate involved 4

stages. First, the nature of individual human beings now of all of us. Secondly, the or

origin of the human species as a whole. Thirdly the origin of life on earth and finally

the origin of the universe. They started from the explanation human beings are the

only bits of universe that talks about the universe and makes claims about truth-telling

and we as part of universe are able to affect the ongoing life of the universe in certain

ways some of which we understand clearly and some of which we do not understand

clearly. They stressed on what kinds of differences human beings make the nature of

freedom we exercise or independence within that universal order. Human beings are

language users and have the central powerful role about the relation of language as

why and how we use language. They talked about the difference in the environment

we share. They addressed calling the universe anthropogenic, it’s the kind of universe

that produce conscious language using subjects. Julian Huxleu talked about evolution

has become conscious of itself, in the form of inhumanity. They lead their views about

the planet and the laws of physics that conspired to make the collisions of atoms get

together to produce nothing that any physicist would dream of to produce plants, trees,

insects, animals and human beings. It’s wonderful to believe that the law of physics

working through this very remarkable process that Darwin called natural selection.

Universe has produced this gigantic collection of apparently purposeful beings. They

carry an illusion of design that fooled humanity till the middle of the 19th century.
Then this debate carried on this discussion of the laws of physics created us and they

are being regularly broken. It’s been opposed that it is not broken by laws of physics

alone, supported by the example of the game of chess that nobody breaks the rules but

the rules of chess do not dictate the game. This lead to the non-random process of

natural selection to support the argument. The random input from mutation which

ultimately creates a living thing. They talked about complexity as the same sort of

complexity when a computer plays chess or you do it by your own self. Then the

debate lead to Darwin’s saying who offers a complete explanation of how we are here

and why we are here, but he didn’t say nothing about consciousness or that helps with

the problem of consciousness, which scientifically remains an enormous area.

Through this emerged the question of consciousness, what is it that runs the first

person perspective which we are sharing currently. Consciousness is something that

emerges from the brains but how? This is a big question and a mystery. This is one of

the problems of the future as the generation wants to know a clear and brief

explanation of this part. This could be solved and there are chances that it could be

solved by a combination of neuroscience or computer science probably. This is an

interesting part of the conversation as humans have often the tendency to be confused

and therefore if they don’t understand it, they think this has something to do with God.

The universe has this consciousness and it will happen and coordinates.

Consciousness is shared by animals too, and human beings have a specific and

different souls from that of the animals. We human beings ask questions about

ourselves and this talks about self-consciousness here. For instance- we joke, we
fantasize, we pray and all of these can be called the activities of self reflective

consciousness. Then this question raised up that either this communicative capacity

for self consciousness, is that created by God in each individual or is that inherited

from individuals parents. The answer came out that it’s something that emerges in the

material life of theologians which one of the theologist, Gregory of Nyssa says some

evolutionary things, that the soul doesn’t come in separate, it gathers all it together

when material processes developed. Some philosophers see consciousness as a kind

of illusions to bring together all the different aspects of the mind. Lastly, they

discussed about material death.

This debate could go on forever as there is no concrete evidence but ignorance

is not the answer to the question. This relates to the lecture of reason and passion as

some people are fanatic and reject any statement that is different than their beliefs.

This also relates to stoicism as we need to have principles that enable us to find the

truth and face the reality of life. Things that are more worthy of discussion are how

ignorance is blinding and those who challenge established beliefs are called rebels.
Reason and Passion in Art

This lecture was given by professor Dianna who specializes in art history and

begins the lecture by telling how one billion euros were raised for the renovation of

the church which was motivated by passion rather than reason. Then pictures were

shown of ancient Greek statues and the meaning behind these was explained. These

statues were calm, composed and showed no emotions in the pictures. Beauty is the

moral purity for greeks and hence these statues had curly hair. Nudity was intentional

while creating statues and for men, nudity was perceived to be heroic and compared to

divinity whereas for women it denoted low moral character, vulnerability and had a

negative connotation to it. The standard unit of measurement was “canon” and bodies

conveyed better messages than faces. For Romans, enemies were not weak and victory

wasn’t impressive. Their first emperor was Augustus and they portrayed straight hair

in statues. The unit of measurement was 3:1 canon and doubt and uncertainty were

reflected in statues. There was a balance between reason and passion, although there

were some 30 feet tall statues. Moving onto Christianity, it was legalized in 313 CE

and was careful about depiction of subjects such as heaven, salvation etc. In 1100s, an

approach of fear was used which was termed as “angry christ” and jesus was

portrayed as judgemental and harsh in pics and stories such as adam and eve were

narrated. In painting Jesus is shown as having strength to die for his beliefs that none

of his followers has. They have an idealized body of Jesus. Art is a tool for the

illiterate as they can learn by seeing and has a sense of passion and reason. There is a

famous image of Spain which dates back to 3 May, 1808 as French invaded Spain.
 This lecture provided with an in depth knowledge of art history that I was

unaware of. This relates to the lectures of stoicism as there were different periods of

human suffering and their need to cope and thrive with their surroundings. This also

greatly relates to lecture of passion and risk as 30 feet tall statues were erected and a

lot of hard work and resources were put to use to make these paintings and statues. It

also relates to lecture on conjuring demons as it believes in non human entities. I think

the things worthy of discussion are how religions and conceit/ego persuades us and

sometimes leads us to choose passion over reason.

Addictions and Society

This lecture is given by Michael Ma, who is a professor at KPU and a

criminologist. This lecture starts of with the question that should we help drug addicts

and leads to a complicated discussion but ends with what if that addict was someone

close to us and everyone agrees that we should. This lecture focuses on how addiction

is a disease and how at the core of problematic substance use is unresolved trauma and

pain which requires social support, counselling and emotional care. Then it proceeds

to depict how Vancouver is leading the way for harm reduction as it was the first place

in 2007 to decriminalise drugs and open sites that have received exemptions from

supreme court such as Insite where addicts can come and inject drugs while receiving

supplies such as distilled water, arm ties, needles and assistance and revival incase

they overdose. The main aim of harm reduction is death prevention and is the first step

towards detox that chemically get rid of drugs in the body within and week while

suboxone fight with withdrawal symptoms. This also highlights how the system is

underfunded as there is little help if an addict wants to detox as public beds are few

and private treatment is very expensive. The lecture also highlights how we need to

meet people where they currently are in their situation and therapy such as

HAT(heroin assisted therapy) can have shockingly high levels of abstinence. There

are also various sites such as Onsite, DTES overdose prevention, spikes on bikes,

sisterspace, Vandu which provide similar services. The question remains as to who is

to be blamed as there are excess prescriptions which are written and have opioids as

treatment.
 This lecture was very well rounded and changed my opinion from we shouldn’t

help addicts to we should take action. It explained the epidemic and the situations

under which some people resort to taking drugs. This relates to lecture of passion as it

meant to suffer and drug users indeed suffer. It also relates to lecture of stoicism as a

person who has set principles is less likely to resort to things such as drugs that

provide temporary pain alleviation.