Humanities & Classics 1002
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Renaissance Forum
Humanities & Classics 1002 |
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During this class, we were disscussing about the renaissance person, who is it? What are the descriptions? From what I seen, most of the renaissance people are rich and talented. Only 2% of the European population at that time participated in the Renaissance. Most of these people were bankers, business people, soldiers, and artists. Most had well to do upbrings. 2% of the population does not mean that everyone was a renaissance person. Back then, you didn't see any peasents as renaissance people. From that 2% of the population, the world receive much knowledge that improved the lives of many people in years to come. The new and improved knowledge such as astronomy, calculus, physics, and so on contributed to the new knowledge of today like computer science, medicine, aviation and so on.
I think today there are very few people that are "Renaissance people". Someone in an earlier post said the Ben Stein would be considered a renaissance person and I would agree with that person. I might want to add Alex Trebek, he sounds like a renaissance person. There might be a few people out there that are renaissance people, but they are not famous.
What could be considered a renaissance person today? I may have some idea, but it may differ from the "experts". I would have to say a person who may be concentrated on one area of knowledge, but have the time to explore other areas, like a hobby. Today, many people are concentrated on one area of knowledge. These people are far too busy to be expanding their knowledge. You would be lucky if you see these people to take a break or take a vacation. I would even consider people who work in the office and then fix cars as a hobby because they are expanding their knowledge from the office. People may expand their knowledge like watching the news on tv, reading a newspaper or magazine, or taking a vacation to a different place.
The "experts" wouldn't call my parents renaissance people. My father was a farmer and my mother works in a factory making hats. I know my mother likes gourmet cooking, and making crafts like flower arrangements and sewing items. My father likes gardening and is always up to date on the political scene. I would say the my mother is a renaissance person because she has a gift to create art out of fabric or silk flowers and wire.
The renaissance person is a person who can create something from their bare hands into a masterpiece, or a person who can generate knowledge for everyone's use.