Issue88 [shining sep作文组] 8.15

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TOPIC: ISSUE88 - "Technologies not only influence but actually determine social customs and ethics."
WORDS: 507          TIME: 1:17:48          DATE: 2006-8-15

Technology is becoming more and more important in our society today. No matter what field, different technologies can help people to solve different problems easily and efficiently. Even more, some of our social customs and ethics are also being influenced or determined by technologies, but admittedly technologies can not change all social customs and ethics.

In the aspect of social customs, techologies undoubtedly influence human strongly. Because of lacking knowledge of science, people in the past attributed many natural phenomena to the effect of the deities. Flood is considered as rage of Achelous; Earthquake is thinked as wrath of Gaia. And then some customs came out, such as totem adoration, livestock sacrifice. These behaviors have the same aim that is to appease deities and impetrate deities' bless. With the development of technology, people recognized the essence of those phenomena, and can forecast when and where the natural hazard will happen, how about their scale. The detailed information can help people to defense and reduce the loss. Otherwise, it can brake people's superstition and change social customs. So, the customs of livestock sacrifice and the totem adoration is nearly extinct.

Technologies can also influence social ethics. The very example is the technology of clone. When the first clone sheep was born, the whole world is shocked and excited. This new technology is amazing and useful, but whether scientists should clone human is a challenge to human's ethics. Another technology which impacted social ethics deeply is in the biology field as well. It is transgene technology. Depending on this unimaginable technology, human have the ability which only belongs to god , creating new species. But, do people really have the right of changing other species and creating new ones? The question is also related with human's ethics standards, and should be considered carefully. So the influence of technologies is acting on social ethics.

However, there is still a lot of customs and ethics which can not be determined by technologies, especially some festive customs. For instance, most people do not believe the existence of Santa Claus, even a five years old child, but people still like enjoying Christmas Day. Having a nice dinner with whole family, singing Christmas song, and receiving Christmas gifts are the most essential customs which have existed for several hundreds years. Technologies are not able to influence or change them a little. Some ethics could not be determined by technologies too. No matter how technology progress, honesty, braveness, hard-working, and fairness, these basic ethics are eternal. Forrest Gump is a good example. In the high-technology time, a person with low IQ can get success in many fields, only because of his hard-working, honesty and braveness. Technology can not shake the importance of human's good ethics.

In sum, technologies bring people both positive and negative effects in some aspects. But the most important virtues and ethics can not be changed. The best way to face the influence of technologies is to insist on the human's good traditional customs and ethics and to deal with the new technologies rationally.