1) a. What was the most difficult ism to find an image for? Why?

Surprisingly enough, humanitarianism was the hardest ism to find an image for. Probably because it’s such a difficult concept to accurately portray. How do you show people caring for others? A mother taking care of her child is not necessarily humanitarianism, but an image of hurricane relief isn’t as forward as one would assume, because the volunteers are hardly ever in decent pictures with those they are helping. I hope I found a decent picture, as the one I used was of a logo, which symbolizes the word.

b. Which three images most effectively represent the definition? Why?

The images that most accurately represent their words are probably anthromorphism, gnosticism, and siderism. For anthromorphism, I chose a picture of a centaur, since it has a human torso and does some slightly human things, though it is definitely not human. Gnosticism has a picture of Frederick Douglas because of a quote from his autobiography, “If you give a nigger an inch, he will take an ell”. I think he is a true and literal symbol of how knowledge can lead to freedom. For siderism, I used a picture of the zodiac signs’ symbols, because the whole horoscope thing is based on the belief that certain star signs we are born into influence the way we behave on certain days.


c. What factors came into play as you decided on specific images?

Images that were unique, creative, and clear were mainly what I looked for. I wanted things that were close to me, but that others could possibly relate to; stuff that wouldn’t be boldly understood but could be if you looked for the deeper meaning. The reasons I chose the images I have not yet discussed are listed below.

Atomism- I chose a picture of the earth and pixilzed it to make all the little squares vivid. This made it seem like the world was made up of little particles.

Deism- I chose the album cover to John Lennon’s Imagine because of the lyric in the song that states “imagine…no religion”. It basically implies that without religion, there would be less war and fighting.

Existentialism- Robert Pirsig and his son Chris went on a motorcycle trip in the 1970s, and the best written and most loved philosophy book of our time came out of it. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance speaks a lot of existentialism, and the metaphysics of quality. Very great, yet difficult read. A picture of Thoreau may have better gotten the point across, but this was closer to heart for me.

Optimism- Orphan Annie, simple enough, “The sun will come out tomorrow”. Most respectable optimistic phrase I’ve ever heard.

Totemism- Never have I seen animals represent people more than in politics, or Aesop’s Fables, or maybe Disney movies. I was just sick of the hatred going on between the two major parties, and as I’m an independent, I chose a picture of their two symbols dancing.

Tutiorism- A picture of Blaise Pascal, whose theory is basically that if you do or don’t believe in God, and he doesn’t exist, you lose nothing, and if he does, and you believed, you gain everything, but if you don’t believe, and he does exist, you lose everything.