ISSUE88

九微火UID: 2343684

TOPIC: ISSUE88 - "Technologies not only influence but actually determine social customs and ethics."
WORDS: 469          TIME: 00:45:00          DATE: 2008-4-3 17:26:15

Technologies, which provide us with the increasing changes of the world, in material and mental aspects, affect the minds and thoughts of general people in a significant way. I agree with the speaker insofar as that customs and ethics experience a tremendous transformation by the influence of technologies. However, when it comes to the decisive factors of social customs and ethics, I think, technologies are far away from that.

I concede that technologies play a pivotal role in influencing the social customs and ethics. Firstly, technologies bring us complete new concepts of the increasing changed world. Accompanying with these new concepts, our primary knowledge and understandings about customs and ethics are certain to change, which sometimes would upgrade to be revolutionary ones. For example, when the Internet becomes to dominant daily intercourses of people, numerous new issues about ethics occur. When you chat with a stranger, without any information about him/her, for instance, you cheat him by waving an affecting story to command his sympathy; can it be accepted according to ethics? At the same time, when it comes to individual secrets, internet securities and many other aspects, the appearance of Internet requires new regulations and concepts of ethics.

Secondly, technologies bring about profound meanings about our life style. With a personal computer, one can learn the information even from an unconspicuous corner of the world. With the packaged foods becoming popular, one would like to save the cooking time for doing other things. With the convenient connection to our friends, we intend to forget them for such a long period of time yet not feel far away from them. These influences in social customs are crucial. They change our characters little by little. Perhaps when our offspring face to the history of our life time, they can not image why the parties can bring us excitement and enjoyment.

However, that is not to say the social customs and ethics are actually determined by technologies. Technologies are nothing but measures. We learn the existing technologies and create more new technologies to utilize them for creating a better world for us--human beings. It is the development level of civilization of human beings determines the technologies rather than the contrary. The counteractive of technologies result from our progress in various aspects, including social customs and ethics. Besides, the process that forms social customs is spontaneous. For instance, many rituals and ceremonies are memorized for respect our ancestors. Although their external forms have experienced a huge change, their spirit and meaning remain to be the same as the past. Even the extension and connotation of ethics are extended to a large extent, the essence of them remain to be the same as the past.

In sum, technologies influence social customs and ethics in a profound way. However, the social customs and ethics are determined by a spontaneous process of the evolution of human being rather than technologies.