World Civilisation

Westerners accepted advances in science and technology, whereas most non-Western attitudes were resistant towards the changes.

The words of Victor Hugo and Henri Frederic Amiel reveal a sense of fear of change. They fear that change will take the place of the things that are important to them, such as art and religion. Hugo feels that the invention of the printing press will destroy the church, and also the art of architecture. According to Amiel, through the changes in technology morals will be replaced by politics, and everything he finds beautiful will be destroyed. Gandhi also indicates the destruction of society under the evil of material comforts that have come with the advancing technologies.

Ali Akbar Davar seems to believe that without the changes that a technological revolution would bring they will remain suffering as a nation of beggars and nothing will change until then. He sees the changes to come to be good and prosperous to his nation, in the same ways Charlotte Bronte viewed the changes of her nation to be great. She marveled at what human industry and technology had created and brought to her world.

Along with Amiel's beliefs that the changes to come will replace art and religion, William Blake views religion to be most important in life. Blake wants to show the importance of having religion in our lives. He doesn't want the advances in technology to take over and destroy what he finds beautiful. He wants to break away from the scientific and technological changes, referring to them as satanic. He will not cease to fight the changes until he brings religion back into the world.

Ito Hirobumi writes that his country has been ignorant to the changes going on around them in the western nations, but they are now becoming aware. Matteo Ricci writes how the Chinese have also been ignorant to the new scientific advances in the world. They did not accept or comprehend the changes that were presented to them. Each show how scientific and technological changes can interfere with tradition, and some may not know what to do with new tradition.

A document with known facts of the major technological and scientific changes and how they affected the world may have helped in assessing Western and non-Western actions and reactions. The effects of different nations from the changes in technology could back up the feelings a person or nation may have toward the changes. If the document showed how technology might have interfered with a nation's peace it would help in understanding resistant attitudes toward any changes. It could also help us understand why nations accepted the advances in science and technology.

...