【ISSUE 88】by Cherish

kidloveUID: 2814224

by Cherish

TOPIC: ISSUE88 - "Technologies notonly influence but actually determine social customs and ethics."
WORDS: 577
TIME: 00:45:00
DATE: 2011/1/31 20:12:34

What is the essence and modifier of thesociety in which people have lived thousands of years and have established areasonably comprehensive social structure, is the customs that have been passeddown by generations and ethical sense which plays an important role in formingcommon sense in the society? In my perspective, I would stand for the formerone to some extent.

After the Industrial Revolution, thesociety people are living in has experienced great change; the world hasstepped on a road with bright future and endless possibilities. The inventionof car, train, plane and ship has improved people's daily life to a great deal.In ancient times, people tended to stay at one place for almost all his lifeinstead of going out and at lead step on the land on the other side of themountain, since there were no means of convenient and efficient transportationavailable. But now, people can get access to whatever means of communicationvia any channel. We can see people travel to somewhere to see the differenceand colorful world; however, this was beyond imagination of ancient people.When the world entered the Age of Information, it is obvious that telephone,mobile phone and Internet have undoubtedly accelerated the rate of development.Meanwhile, people's lives and customs have been changed. Christmas cards arefading into antiques, we no longer send them to our friends, one possiblereason is that we can find nothing other than their E-mail addresses, instead, wesend them E-cards with regard.

On the other hand, technologies often haveinfluence on the ethical traditions in which people have believed for centuriesand may even continue today. Discoveries of science, geography, physics,chemistry, etc., have demonstrated to people the truths of the nature,including things once believed superstitious since long. One of thesuperstitious traditions of western world is the black cat. People avoidencountering with it for afraid of getting bad luck. One famous Chinese storyin ancient times is about the phenomenon of moon eclipse. People believed thatit was due to bad things people had done to others and to the nature, thus godsent a heavenly black dog down to the earth to punish people by eating up themoon and darken the sky. But today, no one will believe that instead of regardit as a joke.

Admittedly, technologies indeed haveinfluenced people's lives, but there still exist something that will never beaffected, which is the ethical sense of the society formed by certain groups ofpeople and races. Ethics is the essence to distinguish bad and good, black andwhite; is the foundation of society in the process of development stably; andis the modifier of people's common sense and moral determiner. When the technologyof clone first appeared in public, there occurred a heated discussion among theworld, people were debating what kind of effect would bring up to thedevelopment of human beings, what would happen to human if it applied to humanbody, and the possible influence would happen in regard of morality.

No one will deny that it is a fact thattechnologies have given numerous changes and contributions to people and theworld, but it only plays a role of coloring and enriching the material life ofpeople, but the spiritual life, which includes some customs and ethicalperspectives, is exactly derived from people's daily life and generalization oflife experiences instead of technologies.