American Beauty Description
Watch the movie, American Beauty. Viewing this movie and reflecting on it will show how aesthetics differs from ethics and morals. American Beauty is an R-rated movie. Please contact your instructor if you have issues completing this activity. After you have watched the film, read Analysis of the film, American Beauty for instructions to complete the activity. In this discussion posting, answer the following questions:
1.Write your response to this movie. Do you agree with the interpretation given in the analysis? Explain yourself by citing concrete scenes from the film.
2.Give other examples from the film where the neighborhood boy expresses his aesthetic view of reality.
3.Why do you think this boy does this? He obviously was abused by his father, as was his mother. Do you think adopting this aesthetic approach to life had some relation to his recovering of mental health so he could leave the mental institution?
4.Do you think that morality and ethics can always be set aside where beauty is concerned? Can you think of specific examples where these two might not be separable (such as a dictator embezzling money from his people in order to purchase rare pieces of art for his private collection)?
5.Do you think that this characteristic the boy has is something to want to achieve? What can you take away from this film and apply to your own life?
Response Guidelines Review the responses from your classmates and respond to at least two of them. Look for learners who took a different angle than you did in their postings and discuss what you learned from their interpretations. If you disagree with the interpretation, what specifically do you take issue with?
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u02d2 I-Thou, I-It
For this discussion, review the essay, “Intrinsic and Instrumental Goods.” You will bring to the discussion what the essay has to say about the thoughts of Jewish philosopher Martin Buber and his distinction between I-thou and I-it. In your initial discussion post, write about the following:
- In this unit’s introduction, you had an image of a person standing before a pile of lumber next to a house with a caption reading I-it over it. When you rolled over that image, it changed to a caption of I-thou, and the image became simply a person seated in contemplation in front of the tree. How does this image illustrate the difference between intrinsic and instrumental?
- Once you have seen how the aesthetic view of things differs from the practical view in our discussion, how would you distinguish science from art?
- Apply this principle to yourself. Where do I-it (instrumental) relationships exist for you? How about I-Thou (intrinsic) relationships?
Use relevant evidence from the essay to support your answers.
Response Guidelines
Respond to at least two other learners. In each response, focus on the application of the intrinsic/instrumental (I-it and I-thou) concepts. Extend each of the other learners’ initial postings by identifying how your response compared to theirs.
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