Class Discussion

On Wednesday we briefly went over art and the change of art throughout the centuries. It has in a sense evolved but has repeated itself as well. I think it is interesting how art tends to repeat itself going from idealized to not idealized. We also talked about the mantic and sophic and how the pattern between these two types rotated as well. There have been so many great artists but what I started to realize and I’m not sure if I’m correct but the great artists were the ones that started or changed the art of that time period. Although I’m not a fan of memorization the different artists do intrigue me and I think I will enjoy learning about them.

Do we know culture?

The class discussion that we had on Wednesday evening about our reading intrigued me greatly. The main topic of the reading was our curriculum at Universities. Are we receiving enough culture in our education? This has been a topic for decades and I have thought about this before, especially with BYU’s general education courses. My opinion is that we are in one of the greatest times of human civilization. People might argue that on average people are less cultured than they were 50 years ago but I would argue contrarily. How many college graduates were there 50 years ago compared to now? The number of high school graduates has increased as well.
Our society has boomed because of specialization. The first factories thrived on this concept and though the first factories were not all bright and cheery places they spawned the industrial revolution which is why we are so successful today. Specialization in universities is happening because there is so much more to learn. In sciences it is impossible to know every little thing about the fields of chemistry, biology, and physics. There is just too much knowledge out there, ask any professor here on campus. That is why specialization has been developed in these fields and specialists to relate these fields. Here at BYU we have chemist, biochemists, and biologists. The beauty is that there is knowledge shared between them and more questions can be answered to advance our society even more. I use science as my example because I am studying for a BS and not a BA but I’m sure someone can relate the same way to the liberal arts.
Now I am not proposing that we specialize everything and do away with the general requirements. What I am proposing is that the university should teach a student what he needs to know for his career and also teach the student the value of learning. The most intelligent people that I have met have a thirst for knowledge, they have an appreciation for the arts and normally it isn’t because they took a class in college. That is what needs to change, students need to be taught how to learn and why to learn it. The thirst for knowledge has gotten us this far and will continue to make our society great, we increase the desire and knowledge follows.

Oquirrh Mountain

This week as I was thinking about what cultural event to go to my friend called me up and invited me to go to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple open house. I wanted to attend a cultural event that I enjoyed and so this was the perfect opportunity. When we got up to West Jordan I was surprised at the building, I could really tell that it was different than most temples, it was taller and bigger than I expected. One of my friend pointed out that the Angel Moroni had recently been hit by lightning, which explained his black arm and trumpet. We first watched a video that described the temple ceremonies and how they relate to LDS culture. The video explained how these temples help accomplish certain tasks and how important they are to members of the church. It also went into a brief history of West Jordan and how the Jordan River here was named after the Jordan River in Israel because they both flow from a fresh water lake to a salt water lake.
After the video we could go in and take a tour of the building. Inside there was plenty of art on the walls and murals that we could admire. The symbolism that was explained was interesting as well. Most of the interior stone work was from Egypt or Morocco and was very intricate in some places. Even though there were hundreds of people walking around the atmosphere didn’t feel like it. There were so many things to admire and so many things I didn’t understand. Everything was so interesting and it was put together so well. This was my first temple open house that I have ever been to and it was amazing.