Barbarism and Technological advancement

On the 7th of January @EWNupdates posted an interesting question on Twitter which got an even more interesting reply:

The statement that we have become more barbaric with technological advancement surprised me. I wondered if this was a consensus view so I threw it out on Facebook.  The responses to the question indicated some agreement with this view but certainly not by all.

This is probably one of those issues that needs an in depth study and it won’t be satisfactorily dealt with in a short blog post but since it’s my blog I’ll indulge myself and give my opinion.

Before dealing with the issue of technological advancement there is the question: Is modern society more barbaric than it has been? While I concede there are far too many issues of barbarism that we see every day, I disagree that we are “more barbaric”. We have come a long way since medeval practices where death  was a way of life, where social advacement was impossible and life was generally awful.

As for advancement, every major advance is met with suspicion and scorn. We know what happened to poor Galileo for suggesting the sun, not the earth, was the centre of the solar system and the idea that blood circulated around the body was met with scorn when first proposed. Despite all efforts to dampen human curiosity we have progressed.

I contend that the reason so many people are uncomfortable with modern technology is simply the rate of advancement.  We had a few hundred years to get used to the idea that we orbit the sun. However it seems we have just days or weeks or get used to new ideas before there is a further leap.  Just 14 years ago there was no proof that planets existed outside our solar system. In just 2 years over 2000 planets have been discovered with scientific knowledge informing us that there are probably over 200 billion just in our galaxy.

It’s a breathtaking ride to be alive today with so much change. We human’s seem to strive for  progress and resist change in equal measure so when we so much change it can be overwhelming.

And, of course when it comes to confronting barbarism we must acknowledge the roll that technology plays in exposing such abuse. Two months ago pictures circulated Facebook showing a man abusing his dog. He was scorned the world over within just days. I believe he lived in Brazil. His bararism was exposed the world over. Never made the greater impact of regime change in Egypt ignited and coordinated through Facebook.

We certainly not moving toward a utopia where the world is all glitter and cupcakes but I would argue that technology is a necessary civilizing influence.