Humanities
The humanities is an academic field that concerns itself with the documented and processed human experience or how the human experience is expressed. Its a field that orients itself around the exploration and explanation of human experience and by studying the humanities, by feeling a sense of connection to those who have come before us, as well as to our contemporaries you’ll gain what it means to be human.
But because the Humanities historically followed the Western tradition showing what it means to be human was exclusive of those who did not follow this tradition, which is especially harmful considering the humanities tends to mediate your experiences.
Revolution
An upheaval of a past system in order to input a new system oriented around social equity. Revolution is result of a change in thought that spreads and builds a following. By amassing support revolutionary ideals gain a platform and with this power they can be enacted. By combining “elements of forcible overthrow of the government, mass mobilization, the pursuit of a vision of social justice, and the creation of new political institutions,”(Goldstone, 1) revolution is not just a shift in power or a subversion of roles within the same system. If it were just up to subversion, revolution could be boiled down to mimicry of the same oppressive systems, like the Tutsi genocide deemed as a People’s Revolution to Hutus. A true revolution builds a new system that aims to uplift life and abolishes aspects of the previous system that allowed for the subordination, it does not reform them.
One revolution that has been central to my definition is the Haitian Revolution, the only successful slave revolt in history. It was a revolution that freed 90 percent of its population from slavery and allowed Haitians to declare independence from French colonial power. Reflecting on the state of Haiti at the moment you can see a trail of events from the Haitian Revolution to the present. studying this revolution independently helped me realize that revolutions involve a lot for sacrifice and change and the ideals of the revolution are not forever especially when foreign powers try to impede progress and that revolutions can involve foreign powers as agitating or hindering force and are not confined to national borders.
