The Downfall of Modern Tourism: Disney World Suppresses Individuality

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The Downfall of Modern Tourism: Disney World Suppresses Individuality

The progression of technology and its presence in society has strongly molded the way people live their lives today, and the way they will continue to live their lives years from now. But with this advancement of science and increased order, there is a consequence that seems to be a heavy price to pay: the loss of human emotion and freewill, and the submission to organization and commands. The tourist industry is one such manufactured machine, so to speak, that influences people's views in certain aspects. One of these aspects, culture, is a main focus of post-modernist writer Bryan Turner, who believes that "tourism invents and demands empathy...makes cultures into museums...[creates] the illusion of authenticity, [and therefore] reinforces the experience of social and cultural simulation" (qtd. in Burns 33). One only needs to take a look at the verbs used in this quote--invents, demands, makes, reinforces-- to see how mechanized tourism sounds. In addition to these verbs that would be associated with something mechanical, the key word simulation further supports the notion that when man created the tourist industry, he in fact invented a machine. Man appears to be forgetting, however, that he created the machine, but he is not the machine; he gave life to the mechanism, but he should not give his life to the mechanism. He is, however, falling to the pattern of the latter in each case; man is becoming the product he makes, following orders and decreasing his choices, and in the process, losing his costly traits of humanity. A great example of this phenomenon is man's creation of Disney World. What seems to be a land of fun and innocent childlike enjoyment...

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