Issue 88

even207UID: 2998418

88"Technologies not only influence but actually determine social customs（社会风俗） and ethics（道德准则，伦理标准）."

2011/1/31

The speaker must be either a faithful disciple or a captive victim of modern technologies. In my opinion, technology inevitably occupies a crucial status in modern society, which means it can influence people’s behaviors, thinking models and way of communication. However, it is not and will not be the decisive element for social customs and ethics. Otherwise, human being will become what Leonard Huxley had described in his science fiction Brave New World, falling love with the suppressions from machines, desperately adoring technologies which actually make them lost the ability of thinking.

Unquestionably, technology does improve modern lives. Printing makes it possible to spread news and knowledge in large scale, greatly reducing illiteracy; telephone makes it possible to inform latest and emergency message from one side of the planet to the other, preventing tragedies from untimely information; most recently, space craft even has made it possible to narrow the universe, tightening the world into one village. Human beings are proud of their newly inventions for they seem to be the only creature in the nature to modify the surrounding while the other animals have to spend generations to adjust it. However, could it be the capitalization for human being’s boasting and arrogance? Does technology really play one-side role alone in human society?

I disagree with the assertion: “technology actually determines social customs and ethics”. Firstly, both customs and ethics belong to the field of culture. Social customs contain all ways of human manners, which is a magnificent conception including various fields. Ethics, on the other hand, is determined more by the systems concerning with minds, such as estimation of morality, virtue, character and conscience. In fine, culture is associated with minds and it is human brains, not machines, to conduct what to do and what not to do. Similarly, it is how people perceive the world, either depending on religion or a certain belief, that tells good from wrong, not technology.

Secondly, we deny the assertion not only because it’s out of human spirit, but also because the confession of the speaker’s statement is an equivalence of surrender. Neil Postman has once contended: “Technology can never substitute for human values”. As a media theorist, cultural critic as well as humanist, Postman declared his position against modern technology, especially mass media through three books: Amusing to Death, The Disappearance of Childhood and Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology. In his theory, accompanied with the rapid growth in technology, the way of communication has altered greatly. For that matter, newly-invented technology replaces the conventional way of communication, pushing conservative written words, which represents rational and independent thoughts, to the edge of culture, at the same time making people amuse themselves to death. Thus, if we continue to be so dependent on technology, can we still identify ourselves without it? What do we have without technology?

In sum, I don’t think any of us do much about the explosive development of new technology; however, it is possible for us to learn how to control our own uses of technology instead of being used by it. Therefore, technology, as a tool, can never determine social customs and ethics.