【Flyer杀G作文组】7.11-Issue88-By 但我

师大菜菜UID: 2838404

88"Technologies not only influence but actually determine social customs and ethics."

I agree with the speaker’s broad assertion that technologies influence social customs and ethics. However, the speaker unnecessarily extends this broad assertion to the extent that technologies can determine social customs and ethics.

I concede that the speaker is on the correct philosophical side of this issue. After all, technologies affect social customs and ethics in some ways. Take the Industrial Revolution for example. Before the Industrial Revolution, products were made by hand, thus the labor capacity
was low. Besides, the only way to reach a distant destination is to ride a horse, go in a carriage or travel by sailing ship. As steamer appeared in the Industrial Revolution，products could be manufactured by machines in large quantity and at a high speed. At the same time, the occurrence of train offered people a new method of traveling fast.

Another example can illustrate this point involves the invention of phones. The fact that people respond socially to phones has significant implications for persuasion. Since making a call has become an easier and faster to convey messages, people don’t write letters as often as before. Telephones as a cultural phenomenon nowdays has produced great influence on communication, which is involved in social customs and ethics.

As for the statement’s second claim, in my observation it magnifies the effect of technologies and overlooks essential factors that determine social customs and ethics. Admittedly, as discussed above technologies play an important role in the formation and development of social custom and ethics.
Although technologies have made the world a global village, the internal nature of a nation has not changed. For example, the Eastern Asians are not so straightforward as Americans. In a typical Chinese family, when parents are old, they live with their children. However, in the Western countries, parents don’t live with their children. Besides, Chinese treat children as kids while Westerners call their children ladies and gentlemen. Chinese is deeply influenced by the doctrine of the Confucianists, their social customs and ethics are determined by their surroundings since they are born. These customs didn’t alter with time and the development of technology.

Take an extreme example ---the Muslims to illustrate. We all know that in the Arab world, they enjoy the convenience brought about by technologies, such as cellphones and computers .But in their religious system, they obey the rules of Quran strictly. It influences Muslims’ behaviors greatly and even dominates their political lives. Allah is the only and permanent man who created the universe and mankind. Islam has a history of more than one thousand and four hundred years, and it doesn’t decompose.


All in all, technologies have an effect on the development of social customs and ethics. Nevertheless, the speaker’s assertion that it is the technologies that determine social customs and ethics is too reckless. For the time being, although technologies play an important role on social customs and ethics, they have not reached the point that can determine social customs and ethics.


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