From this reading I found the page 36 parts 55 and 56 the most intriguing. It shows how Pope John Paul VI understood that people understand the importance of their actions on the world as a whole. Pope John Paul has a very optimistic view on mankind. He maintains that more and more people are recognizing their importance to the morality and of the human race. John Paul addresses the fact that people are smart and capable of understanding a lot. He highlights that this is both a good and bad thing as people must be able to discern and relate their new ideas to those of old. He talks about how people run into contradictions that they must be able to discern truth from. Another thing that he thinks could hurt humanity is uncontrolled expansion at the hands of science and technology. He ponders how old conventions can be combined with new discoveries and even other cultures to strengthen religion. Do you think this is possible or that other cultures and discoveries in science can only butt heads with religion as it is now.
Nathan Chan
Both 'Gaudium et Spes'and Postman's writing provided excellent analysis about the way technology shapes society. Although the authors make their point in very different ways, the analysis of both gets at the same point. As a girl with a brother who can (and will, if I ask him nicely enough) fix my computer any time it freezes, I like to think of technology as something that I don't understand, that's really not my sphere. But as a future journalist, I'm realizing more and more every day that modern society is inescapably bound up with technology - and, like it or not, I can't get away from it. And when I began college and started taking classes as (what else?) a media major, I realized that the day of the end of my technological illiteracy had finally dawned.
ReplyDeleteModern society is really inescapably bound up with technology. As Postman discusses, technology shapes the way we think, restructuring thought processes through restructuring the symbolism we use to think about a concept. What Gaudium et Spes does is to take this analysis and apply it to morality. If I may, I might add a couple of questions to the ones Nathan posted above:
If we accept the concept that technology helps shape society, what does that mean for us as a culture? What responsibilities do we then have in shaping technology?
When reading through the document, what I found interesting was when Pope Paul VI mentioned about the usage of science in warfare. This part of the document was striking to me because there are good things as well as bad things that can be associated with science and how one uses science is up to them. Therefore, it is a great responsibility to understand science. In regards to the welfare of humanity in the context of science and technology, I think that it is up to the person who understand it to use it properly.
ReplyDeleteTechnology can help shape society by how we are able to communicate with one another. For example, I am obviously using technology to blog right now in order to express how I am feeling about this topic and the document that we have read. To me, our culture rely heavily on the use of technology with our smartphones, iPad, MacBooks, and whatever. I believe that our society would not exist without these items. Like seriously, I would not survive for an entire hour without looking at my phone under normal circumstances.
I agree with Chelsey, if we accept the idea that technology is shaping the world, what does that mean for our culture? It seems that this is something I struggle with and a really great question to ask. I am constantly using technology as a person and a future architect. Yet, I find that the buildings I am drawn to the most don't use much technology. They are simple and subtle. Hopefully as a culture this means that we are using technology to help understand and support ideas from the past, not forget about them.
ReplyDeleteNow I would agree that technology is bound to society as mentioned above, but I fail to find the evil in it. Like anything else it is a tool that can be misused or taken advantage of by any individual. As someone who pays for college by working with technology I am obviously biased but I for one will always support the advances is what tech can do.
ReplyDeleteI would disagree in some ways, while I don't particuarly like the implications of the statement "technology is shaping the world" I don't know that I can refute it. This technology of course has it's root in human intellect, but nonetheless, is certainly a driving force (if not only by proxy) of our society. Is there an evil in it? I'd suppose that would depend on your definition of evil. I love when people say that because of technology we don't communicate anymore. I disagree, we communicate better than any generation, keeping in touch with more people, more quickly.
ReplyDeleteNow where does JPII think we lose it (at least what I can tell)? When we separate ourselves with technology...when we lose the experience of being human because we were too busy mobile uploading. The key to a happy integergration is to allow for the two to always intersect, but allow for the human experience to always supersede.
Just a point of clarification here: Gaudium et Spes is a document from The Second Vatican Council. It is not written by Pope John Paul II.
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