Spring Break
Social change is possible in small steps
Matt Schirano
Issue date: 10/19/07 Section: Ed-Op
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How far have humans really progressed? Technologically speaking, there is no doubt we are exponentially more advanced than the days of stone arrowheads and crude wheels. If the discussion is about our understanding of the world around us, one could argue that we have come a long way from, for example, the Dark Ages.
Even though our lives are drastically different from our ancestors, I wonder if we really are that different when it comes down to who we are and how we act toward our fellow human beings.
Thomas Hobbes believed that prior to the organization of the state, man was a savage, primitive beast. While the manifestation of concepts such as the state has unquestioningly organized and set a certain order to our lives, maybe it missed the larger point of civilizing us so we don't need external rules to tell us how to act.
We do live in a time where changes really can happen; it's just an issue of whether or not we will utilize the options at hand. Did humans suffering in the Dark Ages have an online social network in which they could meet like-minded people to discuss ideas? Did any of those people know how to read or write for that matter? The answer is no; the only literate people belonged to the often corrupt Church.
We have abilities now to disseminate messages to people never before accessible; isn't it our responsibility to use those abilities to make the world a better place? The problem is that the same technologies capable of uniting people to a common cause can be used to fragment as well.
There are those people who, in an attempt to maintain power, want to keep the masses from uniting to fix the problems in their world. That is because if the masses were to do so, they would realize that the problem is with those people who have the power.
I won't even go into the details, but just rehash for yourself the usual argument/case of the media conglomerates and their extremely intimate relationship with our government. Those who have control of the means of communication use their control to influence what is communicated.
Even though our lives are drastically different from our ancestors, I wonder if we really are that different when it comes down to who we are and how we act toward our fellow human beings.
Thomas Hobbes believed that prior to the organization of the state, man was a savage, primitive beast. While the manifestation of concepts such as the state has unquestioningly organized and set a certain order to our lives, maybe it missed the larger point of civilizing us so we don't need external rules to tell us how to act.
We do live in a time where changes really can happen; it's just an issue of whether or not we will utilize the options at hand. Did humans suffering in the Dark Ages have an online social network in which they could meet like-minded people to discuss ideas? Did any of those people know how to read or write for that matter? The answer is no; the only literate people belonged to the often corrupt Church.
We have abilities now to disseminate messages to people never before accessible; isn't it our responsibility to use those abilities to make the world a better place? The problem is that the same technologies capable of uniting people to a common cause can be used to fragment as well.
There are those people who, in an attempt to maintain power, want to keep the masses from uniting to fix the problems in their world. That is because if the masses were to do so, they would realize that the problem is with those people who have the power.
I won't even go into the details, but just rehash for yourself the usual argument/case of the media conglomerates and their extremely intimate relationship with our government. Those who have control of the means of communication use their control to influence what is communicated.
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