136 The absence of choice is a circumstance that is very, very rare."
Really, the absence of choice is a circumstance that is very rare,
because it is the inevitable trend of the development of our world. Throughout the whole history, with the progressing of technology which is the propeller of society, human being is
passing by from no choice to the various choices.
At the beginning, with low level of technology, people have very little choices in their life. For example, in the ancient, the space people can move about is limited. They just can live by the river.
The four old civilizations in our world all originated from the places where rivers flow along.
Mesopotamia,
just the Greek name for the land between the two rivers,
is the cradle of human civilization,
where the Sumerian,
Babylonian and Assyrian cultures flourished.
The reason is that water is the necessity to support life. While the technology of transport and the means of graining water during that time cannot meet the way of life which is living far away from water.
Therefore,
they had no choice but to live by rivers .When the rivers is in flood every year, they moved away. And when the flood went off, they came back again.
The civilization of Nile is the right example,
and Egyptian survived there, generation after generation, with the rising and falling of the Nile River.
At the same time, the less developed technology leads to a low development level of productive forces, so that the social system matching with that level of productive forces also restrained the people's choices,
especially the choice about the role of societySlaves’ children would be slaves forever. They have no respects, no social positions,
not mention to the right of choice.
They just can be driven by slaveholders.
And thus is completely different from today’s people who can choose their careers,
or job-hopping.
Then, with the progress on science and technology,
people can be free from the limitation of the natural condition increasingly,
and have more choices.
At
night,
the whole city can be lit up brightly,
due to the electricity and lights. No longer kill time in long night, people can have many choices to spend it,
such as enjoying the night landscape of streets, drinking and reveling in the bars and so on.
On the other hand, the reason why people have time to choose to entertain is that the technology's developing, too. The automatic control and the mechanized productivity relieve people's hard
work.Besides,the improvement of the transportation and communication also save the time for people to arrange and choose a colorful life.
Nowadays,
even if people do the same things,
for instance,
go shopping,
there exist many choices too.
For the technology brings highly effective producing,
undoubtedly, the huge profits are brought in.In a free and fair competitive environment of economy ,there will be more and more people or companies joining in and investing to the same production.
In the end, the products with the same function and supplied by different manufactures will be increasing markedly.
Take the sportswear for example.
The same sports shoes
from companies of Nike,
Adidas,
Reebok and so on,
all can be the choices for people.
Besides,
the products also include many services,
rather than material products only.
So there will be no worry about the rare choice in our life.
On the other hand, in terms of people' beliefs, the space for choice is also larger than before.
In the less developed feudal times,
people's consciousness cannot be free from the Pope or the emperor's controlling. No choice in belief goes without saying.
Even if people want to rebel,
the consequence will be the two:
being burnt at the stake,
like Bruno, the scientist in Italian;
or getting away,
like the pilgrims on the Mayflower. As the technology develops, peoples material life can be greatly met, so that they have enough time and energy to pursue mental satisfaction which is about
fairness, justice and so forth. As a result, the society becomes more democratic.
And lots of religious denomination and parties with different politics are all permitted and compatible in the same society, so that lots of choices in beliefs can be chosen by people today.
Of course, choosing nothing is also a kind of choice in a society of thought diversity.
All in all, no matter in materiality or in the mentality, the choice for people is greatly increasing.
That is the logical result of the progress of the technology.作者: yhwz 时间: 2009-4-20 12:52:35