Modern Man Has Become Enslaved by Time
In no characteristic is existing society in the West so sharply distinguished from the earlier societies, whether of Europe or the East, than in its conception of time. To the ancient Chinese or Greek, to the Arab herdsman or Mexican peon of today, time is represented by the cyclic processes of nature, the alternation of day and night, the passage from season to season. The nomads and farmers measured and still measure their day from sunrise to sunset, and their year in terms of seedtime and harvest, of the falling leaf and the ice thawing on the lakes and rivers. The farmer worked according to the elements, the craftsman for as long as he felt it necessary to perfect his product. Time was seen as a process of natural change, and men were not concerned in its exact measurement. For this reason civilizations highly developed in other respects had the most primitive means of measuring time: the hour glass with its trickling sand or dripping water, the sun dial, useless on a dull day, and the candle or lamp whose unburnt remnant of oil or wax indicated the hours. All these devices were approximate and inexact, and were often rendered unreliable by the weather or the personal laziness of the tender. Nowhere in the ancient or mediaeval world were more than a tiny minority of men concerned with time in the terms of mathematical exactitude.
Modern, western man, however, lives in a world that runs according to the mechanical and mathematical symbols of clock time. The clock dictates his movements and inhibits his actions. The clock turns time from a process of nature into a commodity that can be measured and bought and sold like soap or sultanas. And because, without some means of exact time keeping, industrial capitalism could never have developed and could not continue to exploit the workers, the clock represents an element of mechanical tyranny in the lives of modern men more potent than any individual exploiter or than any other machine. It is therefore valuable to trace the historical process by which the clock influenced the social development of modern European civilization.
It is a frequent circumstance of history that a culture or civilization develops the device that will later be used for its destruction.
Since the beginning of time, mankind began to expand on traditions of life out of which family and societal life surfaced. These traditions of life have been passed down over generations and centuries. Some of these kin and their interdependent ways of life have been upheld among particular people, and are known to contain key pieces of some civilizations.
I was in complete and utter shock when I began to read Disposable People. The heart-wrenching tale of Seba, a newly freed slave, shook my understanding of people in today’s society, as well as their interactions between each other. I sat in silence as I read Seba’s story. “There they [Seba’s French mistress and husband] stripped me naked, tied my hands behind my back, and began to whip me with a wire attached to a broomstick (Bales 2).” I tried to grasp the magnitude of the situation. I tried unsuccessfully to tell myself that this couldn’t happen in modern times, especially in a city such as Paris. How could this be happening? In the following pages of Kevin Bale’s shocking account of the rampant problem of modern day slavery, I learned of more gruesome details of this horrific crime against humanity, such as the different types of slavery, as well as his best estimate of the number of people still enslaved throughout the world, an appalling 27 million.
Throughout the day we are constantly checking the time, preparing for the upcoming months, and keeping track of the year. Clocks tell us the time we use as a measurement. It’s how we keep track of those important months and events, such as holidays and birthdays. Although there are many investigations and research being done on the nature of time, many unresolved issues remain.
2,880. That’s how many children are taken away from their families each day. That’s 2,880 eighty children who should be playing outside and enjoying childhood. Instead they are torn from everything they know and forced into slavery, sometimes to never come out. Slavery was not fully abolished in 1865. Over 27 million men, women, and children are enslaved at this very moment (“The Cost of Coercion”). That number is close to the population of Florida and Georgia combined who would be enslaved today. What most people today call “modern-day slavery” is the illegal trade of human beings for forced labor and exploitation; referring to using others for sexual exploitation, organ trafficking, and forced labor. This international crime is happening all around us and little to nothing is being done by governments. “Roughly two hundred thousand slaves are working here in America” (Madox). So the land of the free, well, it might not be so free after all. Coming in second after drug trafficking, “human trafficking generates about 35 billion dollars annually” (“The Covering House”). 35 billion is more than Google makes in a year. In order to better understand human trafficking, it is imperative we look at the history. Then, exploit the underlying problems of this crime that are happening today, at this moment. Finally, find solutions to this global epidemic in order to help the hopeless.
Do you think professional athletes are overpaid? You might think they earn more than what they are worth for playing half a year, but athletes have many things which contribute to their salary. Some of these things include their earnings from endorsements, ticket sales, performance, merchandise, their social contributions, and TV ratings. Although there are many factors that contribute to their salary, professional athletes may be overpaid because as a society, we contribute to their success. So, in the end, part of the athlete’s salary comes from the people who support the sports in the first place. These are just some of the reasons why athletes are paid so much money.
Plagiarism is “Either accidentally or intentionally failing to give proper credit for someone else’s IDEAS (not just their words)” (Smithson) There are many ways that people can plagiarize. In this paper we will discuss plagiarism and how to avoid it, we will also discuss how to reference properly according to Heidi Smithson.
Do athletes get overpaid? Is it fair that the average NFL player gets paid 1.9 million dollars a year while the average heart surgeon gets paid 533 thousand dollars annually? I think that professional athletes don’t get paid too much. There are multiple reasons that proves that their pay is not excessive. Their careers are short, they risk their body for our entertainment, and they motivate children.
culture rather than nature . . . [they] are neither timeless or transcendent” (264). In other words,
Should professional athletes earn millions of dollars for playing a game? Athletes should not be making millions and millions of dollars while more important jobs earn significantly less. There are doctors who save lives daily and they do not even make a tenth of what some athletes make. It is crazy to believe that someone is really worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and all they have to do is play a sport; a sport that millions of people would play for free if given the chance.
When watching the film, Star Wars, it is impossible not to be aware of the technology that is represented in the film, partly because it is so much more advanced than our own is now, but also because we can imagine how we might someday acquire such technology. The central theme in Star Wars is good versus evil, clearly demonstrated by the technology in the film. While the Rebels (the good guys) use technology primarily to fight for freedom and quality of life for all, the Empire (the bad guys) use technology to develop weapons of destruction and war in an attempt to rule the galaxy. In addition to these two opposing sides, there is another group that doesn’t use technology for war. This group gets technology as it filters down from the other two groups at war. Consequently, in the film technology is used for good, for bad, and for everyday use. This mirrors our own society in many ways, and therefore, Star Wars is a great artifact to study to get a better understanding of our own technological advancements. In this report, we focus specifically on how the Empire, the Rebels, and the Non-Warring people of the film acquired, developed, and used technology and how that relates to our society today.
McKay, J/P/, Hill, B.D., Buckler, J., Ebrey, P.B., Beck, R.B., Crowston, C.H., & Wiesner-Hanks, M.E. (2008). A History of World Societies, Volume A: From Antiquity to 1500. New York, NY: Bedford/St. Martin's
Damrosch, David, and David Pike. The Longman Anthology of World Literature. The Ancient World. Volume A. Second Edition. New York: Pearson/Longman, 2009. Pgs. .656-691. Print.
The ancient period had been of a great interest to today’s scientists, mathematicians, and even archaeologists. What we use or see now: the formulas in sciences and mathematics, some structures such as the pyramids, and even the calendar may be the products of the olden time. To find the birth of these, let us trace back time starting from 3000 BC:
For as long as I can remember, I have heard people complaining about how much money professional athletes make. They say that these athletes don't deserve to make that much money for simply playing a game. People even get angry when they hear how much professional athletes are making in new contracts.The athletes are not being paid public money. An athlete's entire career could end in a split second. Some people believe that athletes are overpaid because they are just playing a game, however the truth is professional athletes are not overpaid.
Another way to correct plagiarism is to quote and give credit where credit is due. If the student takes someone’s own words and uses them in a paper he or she better put quotation marks around the quote and disclose to whom the quote belonged to.