The word ‘progress’ is often linked with positive ideas – for instance, when we say ‘rapid progress in scientific technology’, it makes people think that the society and their life are in a desirable state, because we tend to think that kind of progress is beneficial to ourselves. However, not every kinds of progresses are socially beneficial or desirable. The reasons behind are that development without enough consideration is likely to put ourselves under a dangerous condition, and too rapid progress also causes several problems which are not resolved easily.
To begin with, blind progress could easily threaten people and earth. One apparent example is nature development. Due to the Industrial Revolution, human could discover and invent much more improved scientific skills and techniques which could be used to cultivate lands, cut trees, take advantage of various natural resources. At the age of Industrial Revolution, almost all people believed that infinite nature development would incessantly improve the quality of people’s lives. That belief has lasted for almost two hundred years, and how is the current situation? The Earth is crying in pain because of all the short-sighted development of nature environment. Reports informing the desperate situations we might have to go through in 15-20 years are consistently on the news and TVs. Human did not think about the disasters this ‘going-to-nowhere technological progress’ was supposed to unleash. Thus, the current dangerous situations we are facing clearly demonstrate how the progress without deep reflection could be dangerous.
Moreover, excessively fast progress also causes some difficult situations. This is obviously exemplified by the hardships my country had to go through since late 60’s. Right after experiencing devastating civil war, our government thought that faster we become westernized, the better my country would be. Consequently, all of a sudden everything was changed – introduce of democracy, western behavioral and thinking mechanisms and heavy-industrial technologies and so on. The results were not bad, but at the same time many conflicts between new system and traditional one arose. Many people hesitated between two systems, so negative tendencies occurred – blind neglecting of traditional culture is one of examples. Our country is still struggling to settle these problems of discrepancy, and this effectively shows that fast progress could also make problematic matters.
To summarize, progress does not always ensure happiness and profits, since sometimes fast and short-sighted progresses could put human and environment in danger. Like an old famous saying, “take a breath and think about what you are about to do”, sufficient, thorough consideration is always necessary. |