Category Archives: Unit 7

1. Spirituality is the ability for humans to understand their conscious mind. While other animals have the ability for conscious thought, the extreme levels that humans can take that to is our representation of the spirit. I think that the spirit is the human mind, and each mind is different therefore the idea of the spirit comes from the belief that the thoughts we have go beyond the physical form. Some people chose to represent this as religion, being the spirit belonging to a larger group, or it can simple be the belief in the ability of the human conscious mind to extend beyond the physical form.
2. The major difference between spirituality and religion is the set of rules or beliefs. Spirituality simply means the belief in the unique quality of every human to be different from the rest of the species. Each human has their own mind/spirit and how they chose to perceive its existence in the world is up to them. Religion takes that idea of the spirit and then creates rules and boundaries about how the spirit should act. This involves storytelling and other rituals to define the religion.
3. I define creativity as the ability for the spirit to manifest itself through action. What I mean by this is that the human mind, what I classify as the spirit, is capable of many things. When the mind is able to make something, something that is not following the orders of someone else’s mind, then that is the ability to be creative. If the mind is able to create something new or different it is being creative.
4. The source of creativity is the spirit. As I have said in the previous responses the idea of the spirit is simply a title for the human mind. The reality of the mind is that it is a physical system of electrical signals that tell the physical body how to act. We chose to think of the mind as something wholly unique in the world, and because of this we came up with the word spirit. A spirit is the unique identity of each person. It is through this that we get the creative abilities.

This week’s reading was a bit challenging for me because of the way in which the author described the idea of creativity in an artist. As I was going through the sections I thought to myself that this was an odd way of thinking about creativity. Specifically one line really jumped out to me from the reading. The line was, “In order to experience art fully viewers must go through a mini ego death by placing themselves in the inspired minds of the artist, who themselves are out of their minds and only acting as channels of creative spirits” (Grey, 74). There are a few things about this point that made me confused at first. To begin with it seems as if the idea is that artists and audience are not the same type of humans. The word ego here is to signify the idea that when the audience sees the art they must abandon their own ideas. It goes on to say that the artist is only acting as the channel through which creativity can be displayed. As I read this line I think that this is a way of taking away credit from the individual. To me this is almost like saying there is no ability in humans to understand emotion or beauty, which it can only come from an outside influence. Not only that but also somehow humans cannot understand one another as they are, they can only understand them through trying to put themselves in another’s place. I think that this happens to be the opposite of how I feel about art. For me the ability to create comes from the ability to be human, and that art is something that transcends culture or social class and can connect people who know nothing about one another.

The idea of a horror movie seems odd when you think about the components. There is some form of scary entity, whether that be monster or the unusual used to create ideas of terror in the mind. If explaining this idea to a culture that came from a whole new area, such as seeing aliens land and trying to explain to them why we line up for getting into a room where we are terrified for a few hours willingly, it seems like a foolish reality. Yet as humans that drive for fear has turned horror films into a booming section within the movie industry. To try and better understand this I wanted to learn more about what it is that makes the movies so appealing for a large demographic. To do this I found two articles about the psychology of horror movie fans and how the movies target their emotions.

The first article comes from the Atlantic Magazine back on Halloween weekend in 2013. The article entitled “Why Do Some Brains Enjoy Fear?” is a look not only into how brains can enjoy fear, but also how they can react negatively in some situations because of that fear. As the article goes through the pieces it breaks down how fear is received in the mind as well has how it can be dealt with based on age, culture as well as certain circumstances. For example in reference to age, “The chemicals that are released during fight-or-flight can work like glue to build strong memories (“flashbulb memories”) of scary experiences, and if you’re too young to know the monsters are fake, it can be quite traumatic and something you’ll never forget, in a bad way” (Ringo 2013). This event can cause trauma for the viewer if they are not prepared for the event, something that can have lasting effects so making sure that children are not allowed to see these things is often a good piece of advice.

A second article I found expands on this idea of the fear in movies. The article from Halloween weekend 2014, obviously this time of year brings out this debate more than any other, is entitled, “The Psychology of a Horror Movie Fan.” The articles once again tries to explain exactly what it is about horror movies that makes them so appealing while at the same time seemingly so repulsive. One of the interesting points that is made in this article is about a study done that combined a number of peer reviewed journal articles to see over lapping themes. One of those was that people with low levels of empathy will enjoy seeing the suffering of others. This was not entirely true for the study though, “Fantastical horror, it turns out, is different; when heavily violent and torture-based movies were eliminated from these studies, the inverse correlation between empathy and enjoyment dropped” (Heaney 2014). This means that the fantastical horror is possibly tied in well beyond the idea of empathy.

This point reminded me of a statement from the course reading. The way in which violence is presented can also be a factor in the enjoyment of the film. In the reading it was stated, “Thus, it is not the tragic event in itself that imparts pleasure, but rather, the way in which it is worked into the plot” (Carrol pg. 277, 2002). It is possible that it is not the empathy that determines whether or not a person feels for the actors, but it is the way in which it is presented. The trauma discussed in the first article is also represented by the concepts of the reading. In the reading it is stated, “Horror stories, in a significant number of cases, are dramas of proving the existence of the monster and disclosing (most often gradually) the origin, identity, purposes and powers of the monster” (Carroll pg. 279, 2002). This way in shaping the story gives it a more realistic feel. When this occurs it can create a sense of reality that makes the story and the events stick in the mind much easier. When a child or younger adult sees a horror movie that contains monster or evil entity that has a well thought out back story then it can become more real. In this event the story becomes a point where the person can become even more traumatized. This is why making sure that the environment for watching a horror movie is set up so that way it can reduce the potential for harm.

Carroll, N. (2002). Why Horror?. In Neill, A. & Riley, A. (eds.) Arguing About Art: Contemporary Philosophical Debates (2nd ed., Chap. 17). New York, NY: Routledge.

Heaney, Katie. (2014). The Psychology of a Horror Movie Fan. Pacific Standard. Web.

Ringo, Allegra. (2013). Why Do Some Brains Enjoy Fear? The Atlantic. Web.