题目  rogress should be the aim of any great society. Peopleoften cling unnecessarily to obsolete ways of thinking and acting because ofboth a high comfort level and a fear of the unknown.
------------------------------
Progress is desirable in any given society. People accuse theold way of thinking for hampering our chances of moving forward, as societyoften benefits from new inventions. Those who cling to the obsolete would findthemselves left behind.
A society develops towards a better future by making newinventions to make production more efficient, technology more available, andthe scope of human knowledge more expensive. Without the willingness toalleviate heavy labor work and improve transportation, we would never haveinvented wheels, automobiles, not to speak of airplanes and rockets. Withoutthe desire to enable the broadest possible use of computer, people would stillhave been using DOS system and there would never have been windows or iOS.
Further, discarding obsolete ideas help the society movesforward. The history is replete with examples where a superpower wanes becauseit clings to the old ideology.China has been the world most populated andaffluent country for more than a thousand of years. Through thousand years ofprosperity, it has developed a China-centered ideology. For this reason, China refused to embrace new technologies developed by westerncountries in the industrial revolution, nor did it find attractive the conceptof international relationship on equal terms. As a result, the process of socialand economical development were fatally delayed, and when imperialist countriesstarted invasion and colonization, Chinese found themselves fighting againstmodern fire arms with swords and axes. The Chinese emperor eventually collapsedout of its ignorant and arrogant. The Japan Emperor, on the other hand, was shockedby the speed of industrialization as well. Instead of trying to isolatethemselves from the western world, it anxiously learned new technologies andmodern ideologies. While its neighbor was waning, Japan seized the time andbecame a new world power.
Nevertheless, not everything in the past is detrimental toprogress. It is the lessons we learned from the past that instruct us how toproceed in the future. Frustration with what we have is often a main impetusfor new inventions. In the patent field, rarely do inventions be made in thevacuum: many significant inventions are improvements or modifications toexisting devices. Furthermore, some new ideas and developments are brought intoplace by absorbing our cultural and societal roots. Products that appeal to theunique cultural and historical characteristics of a society are often found tobe more successful.
To sum up, new ideas are essential to making progress,especially in the era of information explosion. However, to purport that oldthings as well as ways of thinking are not valuable is also too absolute, aspeople will never cease to learn from the past to make a better future.
| 
京公网安备11010202008513号 京ICP证101109号 京ICP备12012021号
发表于 2013-5-20 09:28:27
收藏
收藏
