Cultural and Historical Impacts on Individuality

Abby Milner

IGE 121- 05

Mr. Jian

Winter Quarter 2015

17 March 2015

Prompt C Multicultural, historical and social awareness is important for IGE students to grow. You are encouraged to articulate, explore, identify, compare and contrast diverse cultural, social and historical values and perspectives as compared to your ideology and value system. How do they help you expand your critical thinking? As you study some non- Western readings from Asia, Middle East, Africa on Islam, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Jainism, Confucianism and Taoism, what common human experiences, questions/concerns and specificities do they address? What cultural and historical perspectives do they reflect and how has the world been impacted? How have you been influenced?

Cultural and Historical Impacts on Individuality

Throughout the course of Interdisciplinary General Education we as students are encouraged to explore ourselves in relation to the themes that are introduced within our course material. We can assess our own value system by comparing and contrasting diverse culture through religion as well as social and historical values. As discussed in several course readings, religion and historical culture are both guidelines that help shape and create the world we live in today.

The topic of religion was prevalent throughout this quarter in Interdisciplinary General Education. Religion is a topic that dates back to the Ancient World. It can take place in many different forms and is known to idolize and worship higher powers. For example, the religion that is responsible fore giving Christianity some of its basic tenets, Angels on high, Heaven and Hell and even the visit of the three wisemen that seek out the infant Jesus is known as Zoroastrianism. “Buddhism is a living tradition, passed from teacher to student, as a set of pragmatic instructions and techniques for cultivating sanity and brilliance in ourselves and our world. Its ancient wisdom is as relevant and useful today as over the centuries of its long history” (“Shambhala”).

When learning about Confucianism in the Middle East, we watched a video and responded to a reading called “Breathe! You’re Alive: Sutra on the Full Awareness of Breathing” which introduced us to the different notions that are practiced throughout this religion. Meditation is an ancient ritual relevant to Confucianism and Taoism. Society today is influenced by religions that were known to develop and exist in the Ancient World. In China, and some other areas in Asia, the social ethics and moral teachings of Confucius are intermixed with the Taoist appreciation of nature and Buddhist concepts of the afterlife, to form a set of complementary, peacefully co-existent and universal religions.

Ways of the World by Robert Strayer introduces cultural diversity and why it is important. Strayer states that it is difficult to see when one phase of human history ends and another begins. An important theme when discussing the topic of