If you ever watched the movie WALL-E from Disney/Pixar, you can see the supposed fate of humans. People lived on a spaceship controlled by an all-knowing tyrannical computer system. The people, themselves, were fat people on floating chairs who were only concerned with getting pampered and getting fatter and fatter. Everyone was uniform and there was no educated elite. Robots, under the computer's control, did all of the work. Disney's WALL-E is a syncretic mixture of Postman and Huxley's theories of future human fate. This statement is satisfied by Postman's concern that humans will have no concern in any educational matters, while it satisfies Huxley's over-controlling government.
I believe that as long as money is involved, humans will always strive to do their best. In pursuit of money, humans looks to better and sustain their living conditions. In our capitalist, American society, we are given a clean slate (along with other factors) to do what we want with our lives. Education is the key to success; if you think success means a lot of money. Money makes the world go 'round. Money puts food on the table. Money buys nice things. If our lives were completely out of our control and we had nothing to do but entertain ourselves as they were in WALL-E, then human ambition will cease to exist. Without ambition, one cannot educate themself. As long as there is a capitalistic push, intelligence will remain.
I actually disagree. Capitalism and the hoarding of money does not necessarily cause the continuation of intelligence. The growth of any society depends on the individual intelligence of the people. So in other words, if a monarchy started to evenly distribute wealth, they would gradually lose intelligence? Probably not. Also, you don't have to be ambitious to become educated. This probably won't apply to any of the students on this blog, but if someone didn't care in school, would they learn nothing? Many people DON'T care, but they'll pick up information along the way
ReplyDeleteOf course there are jobs that don't "require" intelligence, which are many blue collar jobs. I'm not saying that all of these people are uneducated, cause chances are that they have potential to earn higher wages through education. But it's not like your doctor is a complete idiot who didn't go through more than a decade to get their degree. From a warmhearted standpoint, they do work hard to be educated and to help people... But really, they're in it for the money and comfortable living. What my point was, was that what if we weren't required to go to school and we always lived in leisure? We wouldn't need or WANT to work, and technology would cease to develop. Why exercise your dendrites if you lived in a floating chair like in WALL-E where everything was done for you. Maybe the world will come to that point where technology is SO great that it will level-off and we will become mindless drones with machines doing all of the manual labor.
ReplyDeleteI understand your view point Mark, but I feel that perhaps capitalism does not need to exist in order for intelligence to remain. It is true that many of us have a strong drive to do well in order to obtain a better life. But as for the future, I don't think that we will not have problems needing to be fixed, even with all the technology in the world. I believe that as long as we have problems, intelligence is necessary. Even if capitalism somehow disappears in the future, human imperfections and the human need for change won't; no matter how great technology will be.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the input Kylie! Your perspective is very realistic. I guess there will always be a hand pushing humans in the direction to fix their problems, whether that hand is capitalism, the good in people, or by force.
ReplyDeleteYou make a very good point in saying that we may do nothing if we have what we want but I don't think the pursuit for money is the reason why we seek intelligence or be the best. I think that people people want to seek intelligence or try to be the best at something because they just to like to. Some try to get knowledge about a certain field so they can get a job as a doctor or lawyer not for the money but maybe because they like their jobs. There will always be those who want to be the the best and learn.
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