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“Machines as the measure of men: Science, technology, and ideologies of western dominance” written by Michael Adas in 1989 revealed the Europeans’ perceptions on non-western people and cultures as well as how Europeans interacted towards Asians and Africans by making a comparison with their superiority in scientific and technological knowledge. The author discussed the key indicator of human progress in Chapter 3: “Global Hegemony and the Rise of Technology as the Main Measure of Human Achievement”, by representing the experiences of European explores and observers in Africa, India and China. I would like to discuss Michael Adas’s demonstration on the key indicator of human progress and how his argument affects the international development projects.
First and foremost, the author indicated that the achievements in material culture related to technology and science influenced European perceptions of non-Western people as these became a significant measurement on non-Western developments. Advance in Technology was regarded as “Ordering and Creating God” and “Superiority of Western C...
Coffin, Judith G., and Robert C. Stacey. "CHAPTER 18 PAGES 668-669." Western Civilizations: Their History & Their Culture. 16TH ed. Vol. 2. New York, NY: W. W. Norton &, 2008. N. pag. Print.
“Our Future Selves” by Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen construct views on countries’ technologies that changes the world on a daily basis. Conversely, technologies reconstruct countries in various simpler ways to live throughout economic trends. Furthermore, the quality of life is massively changing with new technologies. Consequently, wealthy countries are viewed differently from poor countries towards technological advantages. Ordinarily, technologies have made the difficult obstacles so much easier than just by hand. Industries have utilized the advanced technologies to provide huge manufacturing productivity. Moreover, Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen have some very compelling reservations within their article, “Our Future Selves”, on the trends
European views of non European people reflect the intellectual changes from 1760s to the 1910s. European views of non-European people in the 1760s through 1910s were largely based off of the idea of survival of the fittest, the education of the non-europeans to Europeans, and the thought of Europeans as being superior. These three factors show how intellectual changes in Europe shape the way Europeans viewed non-europeans.
Western Europe was more concerned with their Maker and the redemption of their souls than with their individual lives on earth. This meant that the development of their own philosophies and schools of thought would occur later than many other postclassical civilizations. However, the time period was not without achievement. It laid the ground for discoveries of tremendous importance that would change the known world forever.
...nd expansion. History has proven this time and time again. One of the reasons that the European empire was so successful was due to its great advanced in the realm of technology. But, what one must keep in mind is that with this technology comes the factor of time. As time ticks, technology may advance but also, people find ways around this technology or the technology fails you. For example, in Vietnam air power failed due to adaptation. Much like in Kosovo, technological use of air power failed due to other circumstances. While Serbians were driven out of Kosovo, murders went up and fighting increased due to people’s frustrations and will power ti fight for what they believe in. Therefore, while technology can gain a great edge over your opponents, it can never replace the will and desire for one nation to achieve its goals and in time, that technology can fail.
The Han and Roman empires both feel strongly about the advancement of technology during their time. Though both China and Rome favor technology, they have varying reasons for doing so such as seeing different advantages and disadvantages . Some political leaders and philosophers care and pay attention to different technologies while others’ have a more indifferent attitude towards it. The use of technology is seen in several ways, such as degrading or superior. The effects of technology were often preferred but they were not always positive and beneficial. A helpful document to be included and used to analyze this topic would be a source from the point of view of a common citizen from each society. A peasant’s voice would have shown what the people felt about the technologies that were used and invented.
Back when there were not rapid advances in technology, people were living agreeably amongst each other. They used candles, wrote letters, and invested their time in reading and gaining more knowledge. They did not have all the luxuries people have today, but they were content. They valued education, the arts, and hard work. In Europe, people such as Leonardo Da Vinci, Galileo, Copernicus, Monet, Einstein, and others strove to depict the beauty of their world and find explanations to natural phenomena. Richard Eckersley wrote, “It doesn’t make evolutionary sense to believe humans lived in misery until we discovered technological progress.” When people did not realize the potential of technology, they lived their life in contentment. Once people became aware of the fact that they could perform tasks quicker with the newer technology, they began wanting more of it. Scientists began researching and conducting experiments to enhance the new inventions. As they found ways to produce items...
It seems since that dawn of the era of man we have always been in competition with one another. We have fought countless wars over every issue imaginable, with many great civilizations being founded and destroyed by war. Though with each new conflict comes newer and better technology. Technology is what drives civilizations forward, but it can also lead to its downfall. It is fascinating see how much technology has evolved over history, and how we have incorporated these innovations into newer technology. In past century technology has seen its greatest leap forward. This is in large part due to the two major World Wars that plagued the early part of the 20th century. (Koch p.122)
The Western culture has evolved over a span of several years with various civilizations specializing in specific aspects of life or nature. In essence, Western civilization dates back to the BCE periods when Ancient Greece, Mesopotamia, and Ancient Rome reigned. Each of the Western civilizations came with a clear lineage that portrayed such attributes as property rights, free market economy, competition, personal freedoms, and innovation (Perry, 2013). Besides, the western civilizations came at different periods with some of the attributes evolving or remaining unchanged throughout the lineage. However, the non-western civilizations contributed towards such attributes to a given extent, primarily because of the interactions among
The term, progress, is synonymous with phrases that denote moving forward, growth, and advancement. It seems unorthodox then that Ronald Wright asserts the world has fallen into a progress trap, a paradox to how progress is typically portrayed as it contradicts the conventional way life is viewed: as being a natural progression from the outdated and tried towards the new and improved. Wright posits that it is the world’s relentless creation of innovative methods that ironically contributes to the progress trap rather than to progress itself, the intended objective. Wright’s coinage of the term “progress trap” refers to the phenomenon of innovations that create new complications that are typically left without resolve which exacerbate current conditions; unwittingly then, matters would have been much better if the innovation had never been implemented. In his book, “A Short History of Progress,” he alludes to history by citing examples of past civilizations that collapsed after prospering, and ones that had longevity because they avoided the perilous progress trap. Wright recommends that societies of today should use indispensable resources, such as history, to learn and apply the reasons as to why certain societies succeeded, while also avoiding falling into the pitfalls of those that failed, the ones that experienced the progress trap. This can easily be interrelated with Godrej’s concept of “the overheated engine of human progress,” since humans for centuries have been risking environmental degradation for progress through ceaseless industrialization and manufacturing. This exchange is doomed to prevent improved progress and will lead to society’s inevitable decline since it is unquestionable that in the unforeseeable future, cl...
The Great Divergence is term used to portray the gradual shift of dominance that Europe gained by establishing itself as the most powerful world civilization by the 19th century. While a case could be made that the Great Divergence occurred because of the pre-eminence of Europe and Britain, as well as their supposed superiority in invention and innovation above anywhere else in the world, this argument is flawed. A more compelling argument would be to state that it was rather through the geographical advantages that Europe obtained that lead it into eventually becoming the most powerful civilization after 1500 A.D., as this essay will strive to demonstrate.
Having understood that the world has taken the form it has through the domination or imperialism of Western countries, it is said that they are the agents that have greatly influenced the world; their ideologies in addition to their political as well as economic influences have spread across the globe through time (Headrick, 1981).
In the past society was able to advance because of science. science has played a major role in discovery. The product of these major discoveries was technology. Technology mankind would use to assist in the search for answers. Used most commonly as an extension of the human biology. The Hubble telescope is a great representation of this phenomenon because it extends our biological sense of sight. But now, in the twenty first century the idea that technology is assisting mankind, has long been abandoned by most people of the twenty first century. Due to ignorance and laziness of humankind, the role of technology as shifted from assisting people in problems, to providing answers to problems. For instance, people depend on google.com for everyday problems instead of solving the issue. In comparison to the society of “The Machine Stops” where technology...
Gradually, despite their many internal differences, the countries of Western Europe began to conceive of themselves as a single civilization, known as the West (Hall and Gieben 1992:289). The challenge from Islam was an important factor in shaping Europe and developing the idea of the West. Europe’s cultural identity was originally characterized by religion and civilisation, eventually, Europe developed a sharper geographical, political and economic definition; closer to the modern secular concept of the West (Hall and Gieb...
Rodney’s argument is broken down into six chapters each consisting of several subdivisions and case studies supporting his principle argument. The first chapter works towards defining the terms of development and underdevelopment and argues the comparative nature of these terms; a country is only ‘underdeveloped’ by European standards. This chapter begins by tracing European development from its early stages of communalism through feudalism and finally capitalism. Then, he works towards developing an understanding of the term ‘underdevelopment’ and through an analysis of a variety of development indices what it constitutes in present day society: “In Niger, one doctor must do for 56, 140 people; in Tunisia one doctor for every 8,320 Tunisians”(18). The Marxist concept of inherent inequalities within the international capitalist system un...