“ Society never advances.
It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other.” Although written long ago these words by, Ralph Waldo Emerson still hold true today. Everyday in society people are making improvements, however, but these improvements also have equal drawbacks. Today we are using cutting edge technology to improve every aspect of our daily lives.
For instance in today’s society the fields of Communication and Medicine are constantly advancing yet they both create significant losses. Technology has helped increase the speed of communication and decrease its cost. However, at the same time it has caused people to become more impersonal with each other. In earlier times the major form of communication was for people to visit each other and go to public meeting places.
One of the next major advances was the telephone. Due to the telephone people no longer went to the public meeting places as often as they used to. As time goes on, new advances still allow people to contact and communicate with each other more easily. These advances such as faxes, beepers, and electronic mail, although seemingly making life easier, each help to decrease the earlier forms of communication. The field of medicine, like the field communication, also displays what Emerson was trying to say. This field too, which had many advances, has also caused many difficulties. As scientists and doctors try to come up with cures for the many diseases we have today, they are also making new ones.
For example, when scientists went to Africa in search of a cure for a disease, they came back with monkeys that were contaminated with the Emboli virus. Today in Russia there are military bases where Russian scientists are creating thousands of germs and viruses to use in germ warfare. These germs and viruses are capable of killing thousands of people instantly. As technology continues to advance and society moves “ forward”, people continue to use the less personal forms of communication, and create new problems in the field of medicine. The fear of becoming a society, which communicates only through machines, and creates new disease, is becoming greater with time. For all of society gains there are equal drawbacks.
So as in Ralph Waldo Emerson words “ society never advances.”
