issue88 Ares站队第二次作业 (by victor)

victorduguUID: 2176422

88. "Technologies not only influence but actually determine social customs and ethics."
  
技术不仅仅影响而且实际上是决定了社会传统和道德规范。

1)        技术影响着我们的生活，一方面带来了便利，另一方面也带来了危胁。
2)        技术也确实在影响着我们的习惯与道德(如即时聊天工具的出现)。
3)        但是，这并不代表技术就能决定道德和习惯。道德与习惯是社会长期发展的产物。

I admit that technology has indeed influenced our society in numerous aspects, including social customs and ethics. However, the speaker's claim that technology in effect determines the social customs and ethics is inappropriate because the factors that affect them can range from history to law, from politics to education, not just limited to technology.

To begin with, it is true that modern technology have deeply transformed our life pattern and propelled the prosperity of our society. In education, the introduction of computer technology has increased the efficiency of teaching. Teachers can given lectures with slides organized before classes, sparing more time for explaining the content at class. Students can also benefit from the computer through receiving distance-education provided by international educational programs and organizations. In industry, high technology can free us from simple, repetitious physical work, making us have more time to do the creative part and raise the productivity. In daily life, technology has made our living more comfortable than ever before--We can drive our cars to enjoy our holidays, amuse and relax ourselves by watching TV shows, live in a comfortable house of which the temperature is adjusted to the optimum by air condition. Besides, technological innovations in medical science have eliminated and prevented some fatal epidemics and have caused a better public sanitation in the society. After all, the contribution of technology is far more than those mentioned above and it is still playing a key role in advance the development of society.

Secondly, technology has in some degree influenced the social customs and ethics both positively and negatively. On the one hand, it is a contributor to make a more liberal and ethnically better society. For example, the industrial revolution gives women the chance to walk out of home and participate in it. This change of the women's role in society definitely has improved the status of women and is significant for women to strive for equality. Due to the advancement of genetics, people gradually came to realize that consanguineous marriage could be harmful and the offspring were more likely to suffer from genetic diseases than those who were not born in such family. Therefore, the rate of consanguineous marriage has decreased dramatically, as well as the incidence of genetic diseases. On the other hand, because of the widely used telecommunication, people now increasingly communicate with each other through mobile phones, instead of talking face-to-face. As a result, the distance between people is enlarged and the mental connection is loosed. Even worse, technology can also pose ethnic problems. Public attention was drawn to reported abuses of human subjects in biomedical experiments, especially during the Second World War. The physicians and scientists who had conducted experiments on concentration camp prisoners were judged on trials.

However, notwithstanding the influence created by technology on the society customs and ethnics, the factors that can shape them are not limited to technology. In effect, history, law, politics and education can also server to affect the society customs and ethnics. For example, history, of all past events, provided the basic principles of how its people should behave. Law, created by the rulers of the nation, aiming at confining its citizens in order to maintain the ruling, can have profound influence on the customs and ethnics. Politics, on behalf a common set of interests, concerns and goals, can affect the society by formulating political and policy agendas, selecting candidates, conducting election campaigns. And education, with its purpose of cultivating the children with the sense of equality, responsibility, fidelity to task, love of country, tolerance and respect for other people's viewpoints, can help shape the ethnics in the future. Therefore, technology is not the only ingredient in determining the society customs and ethnics.

In sum, technology can make profound influence on our society in multiple aspects, making it better and our life more comfortable. And it is true that technology is able to affect the society customs and ethnics. Nevertheless, the factors that influence on the society can be a variety of items, not just limited to technology.

Time: 2 hours

baihe1988UID: 2203505

由于word不能看到好多字体什么的原因，我上传附件了！
呵呵~

[ 本帖最后由 baihe1988 于 2006-7-2 17:35 编辑 ]