Creative Intellect

Re-defining War and the Humanities

         This quarter, my definition of “The Humanities” and “war” has been blown apart. My definition of “war” has evolved, from simply “a bloody, violent type of fight everyone should avoid”, to “an extreme form of resolving disagreements through strategy and battle.” Previous to this class, the main source for my definition of “war” was from the Matthew Reilly thriller novels my uncle recommended to my mom. As the quarter progressed, I realized how much more war was, underneath the blood, guts, swearing, and dead bodies the books depicted.
         War can be an art form, in a way. The strategies and maneuvers war consists of are so carefully thought out, because one false move could mean a lost limb or life. In Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, the thirteen chapter titles already illustrate how intricate a war can be. Chapter VIII, especially, “Variation in Tactics”, details the variables and creativity needed to win a war. Consistently using the same strategies against your opponents makes you predictable and vulnerable. I personally cannot fathom the thought and effort it would require to contrive different strategies for different situations.
         Having lived a relatively sheltered life previous to attending UCI, at the beginning of the quarter, my definition of “The Humanities” was limited to what preceding outside experience I had with the subject, which was nearly none. My faint idea of “The Humanities” consisted of English and Language Arts. I know now that my original definition of “The Humanities” was not complete.
         “The Humanities”, as Stanford Humanities Center states, is “the study of how people process and document the human experience. Since humans have been able, we have used philosophy, literature, religion, art, music, history and language to understand and record our world”. As we studied historical images and examined the different facets of religion in the face of war during the quarter, my definition of “The Humanities” expanded with the knowledge I gained.


Works Cited:
Tzu, Sun. The Art of War. 2013th ed. New York: Barnes & Noble, Inc, 2013. Print.
What are the Humanities?. Stanford Humanities Center, 2014. Web. 30 Nov. 2014. <http://shc.stanford.edu/what-are-the-humanities>.