Onwards_and_Upwards

“Onwards and Upwards” is a very thought provoking, tough to read article. I must admit I spent a lot of time looking up words in the dictionary, however I’ve had great conversations with my peers about the article and the issue of progress. While reading the intriguing work, I sat there debating whether the Homo sapiens are truly making progress, and if so is the progress benefiting us as a society or is that same progress partially harming us, and the world we live in. Man has transformed it’s destiny from slavery to democracy, which originated in Greece. The sense of independence, literacy, commerce, politics and anarchy is truly a great feeling. Yes we had advanced in all of the above as well as medicine, technology, and of course wealth. Fact is that we are advancing, but are we advancing morally and intellectually' It is a wonderful feeling being able to type this paper up on my computer, its great being able to listen to my Ipod on the train, its astonishing being able to contact my relatives through skype and be able to actually see them without traveling. Nonetheless is society loosing the sense and value of morals, family, privacy, and most of all the value of true education because of the so called progress' With the availability of computers, calculators, E-books, Kindles Ipods and internet access on our cell phones, rarely anyone reads the actual books anymore. Majority of College students can’t make simple percentage calculations using pen and paper; students are unable to find actual books in the library in order to use them as references because they always used the Internet as a source instead. Yes technology is great, but today’s society, especially people in their 20 and 30 lack the essential survival skills due to always having computerized sources available. It seems to me that in today’s society progress is mainly viewed in terms of wealth, and whom you know, where you shop, as well as which expensive restaurant you eat dinner in. People have lost the sense of happiness over small things that used to matter so much. No one pays any attention to the fact that for every silly magazine that comes out on the newsstands there are trees being destroyed, for every piece of clothing there are unprivileged people still being abused and forced into low income labors, for every piece of fur there are millions of animals killed, for every ride we take in our car there is the outcome of pollution, and for every piece of meat we put in our mouth there are cows, pigs, and chickens are being abused and slaughtered. I truly wish that society would change the course of the so-called progress because with every action there is a reaction. There is no doubt in my mind that world wide progress is a wonderful thing that opens up many doors for society, however we should also question what the cost of that progress is.