The Effects on Civilization essays

The Effects on Civilization essays Michael Adas points out in his book Machines as the Measure of Men, that eighteenth century French bourgeois definition of civilized grew to become the standard for Western culture. He argued this to be right due to European expansionist efforts growing further toward a globalize ideal. Societys attitudes toward time, work and nature had transformed due to the changing technology. Similarly, James Gleick focuses on our contemporary culture, in Faster, as being defined by particular experiences of time and work. The argument, that the Enlightenment thinkers predicted and or hoped for this type of society, and the argument that we are suffering with the consequences of revenge effect of the efforts initiated by the European authors of the philosophy of progress are two debates that could be easily argued. In my opinion I believe that we are suffering from the revenge effect. There is one thing about history that is always right, it will never change. Through textbooks, videos, magazines, etc., society has learned about our past cultures; the way they worked, slept, ate, and how they carried out day to day projects and controversies. Back in the 1800s society had no concept of time. People were just aware of night and day. They didnt have the advances in technology such as medicine that we have today. They didnt wake up in the morning, look at their clock and say to themselves, I just wasted the last hour of my life laying in bed. Most of them didnt have a wish list such as wanting to travel the world or buy a new car before they died. Most of them didnt even have a education to know what any of these luxuries were. I believe as new technology developed, enlightenment thinkers predicted that between our attitudes, work, beliefs, technology, etc. that society would put a greater burden on time, but would do it in ...