issue88technology determinist 表示很纠结

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ISSUE88 - "Technologies not only influence but actually determine social customs and ethics."
When interacting with technologies, as technologies always provide with us convenience and enhance our strength, we human beings tend to be influenced by them gradually and unconsciously. In retrospect, since ancient time, technologies have exerted great influence on social customs and ethics. For example, cultivation technique brings about man-domination; Industrial Revolution, triggered by the invention of steam- engine, emancipated millions of housewives and ultimately leads to the feminist movement; and the clone technology challenges our ethical principle and may lead to redefinition of life, as cloning life no longer begins at conception. However, up to now, we cannot have hastily generalized that our customs and ethics are dominated by technologies single-handedly.

Admittedly, the application of technologies plays an important role in shaping our social customs. Customs amount to a traditional and widely accepted way of behaving or doing something that is special in a certain society. Whereby, to study the influence of technologies on customs, we can just turn to the alteration of wedding. Before industrialization a bridegroom traditionally rode a horse to bring bride home, while, after the cars become mass productions, horses are replaced by a fleet of cars. It illustrates that once a technology is accepted by groups of people and widely used in certain aspects, it has successfully influence social customs. Moreover, technologies challenge traditional ethical norms and raise several dilemmas. Because technology impacts relationships among individuals, it challenges how individuals deal with each others, even in ways regarded as ethical before. As in the case of capital punishment, decapitation, used to be a mainstream way of capital punishment, is abolished because of its crudity. Clearly, it is the development of technologies, namely the invention of guns and injections that lead to a more humanistic way of punishment. Another example, we are bogged in the ethical dilemma of abortion due to the technological development.

However, some traditional customs remain invariable through the industrial revolution and subsequent innovations. In essence, those customs are related to human nature, which remains permanent throughout history. To exemplify this, we need look no further than Chinese convention of family reunion in spring festival. With the popularity of mobile phone and use of video technology, family members could communicate with each other any time in different districts. However, when spring festival comes near, they all tried to go back home to stay with their family, no matter how distant they work.

In fact, technology and the society are co-dependent and co-affective with each other. It is true that technology is an important factor in determine social customs and ethics, but social customs and ethics influence the development of technologies in turn. It is not a simple issue of causes and results. Actually, we cannot isolated the causes and results; in other words, causes and results are intertwined. As a fact, technologies come in being within our society; if they determine the social customs and ethics, "it perceived as being outside the society and there is a loss of human involvement that shape technology and society".