What are the Constants of an EverEvolving Society
thank you
good evening everyone and i hope you’re
all doing well my name is kira fernandes
and today we will be discussing the
constants of an ever-evolving society
as we’re plunged into this way of life
completely unlike anything we have
ever experienced before this thought may
have crossed your mind
what can we be sure of in a world like
this
or rather what are the constants of an
ever
evolving society it’s a heavy question
weighted by years of reconstructions of
social norms values and beliefs
the values held by our society in the
1800s have drastically shifted to become
what they are today
for that matter even the values held by
our society in the 1990s
have undergone dramatic transformations
to become the standard set before us
at present and even though it may seem
like bell bottoms are making a comeback
the values held by our society in the
70s don’t seem to be tagging along
so this essentially tells us that
depending on the era
in which we exist we are presented with
a different set of norms values and
beliefs
from those that came before us and since
these components form the very fabric of
our civilization
their evolution results in an equally
evolving
society as a sociology student i learned
about this
reshaping i learned that some of the
things we believe
are such rudimentary and foundational
parts of our lives are simply notions
that we have constructed for ourselves
by
ourselves and as our view of the world
shifts these notions do too
as an example let me reintroduce you to
the familiar concept
of childhood a period of time that forms
a foundation of who we are
as people today and who we will become a
period of time
where we are sheltered from the
viciousness of the outside world
a period of time characterized by
innocence vulnerability
an experience and in my case so much
fast food
but also a period of time deemed
completely
unnatural and a recent invention by
french historian
philippe aries aries believed that
childhood didn’t exist before the middle
ages
of course children still existed but the
things that made them children
the things that distinguished them from
adults that did not
children were virtually the same as
adults they harbored the same priorities
to earn a wage and feed their families
children worked as chimney sweeps or in
sweatshops as soon as they were able to
and weren’t sheltered from some of the
more demerit aspects of society such as
crime and deviance but in contrast
they took part in these activities as
well and just like adults
children faced the same repercussions
for their actions
even though children of the upper class
did have the luxury of indulging in
their whims every now and then
they were still expected to get married
at ages as young as 14 years old
and drafted as soldiers during war times
but after the 13th century these ideals
shifted
dramatically to morph into childhood as
we see it
in the modern day today we view
childhood as a time to instead
socialize and educate our young members
of society in preparation for their
eventual debut
into the real world and this
transformation
is but one example amongst a myriad of
other ideologies that have mutated into
completely different beliefs
suited for modern society and the people
living in it
and these transformations as a whole
reveal to us our very
first constant change
change is a permanent factor in our
lives it is everywhere between space
and time it starts from the very minute
you are born and then follows you
throughout the rest
of your life you are constantly growing
you are constantly evolving you
are constantly changing change is always
happening but the way in which
it happens that is up to us
and in our society we observe a pattern
of these changes moving towards the
better
over the last millennium human beings
have ushered in the age of the internet
and technology diversity and methods of
communication
and more advanced healthcare and
educational institutions
amongst a plethora of other developments
these are the ways in which our society
has changed
or rather the ways in which our society
has improved
and this introduces a new question
what motivates human beings so
deeply to improve their societies
well after peeling back the layers of
surface rationales like money
patriotism or public recognition we are
left with a deep
rooted instinct and our second constant
survival just like any other animals
humans too we
we strive to survive but the way in
which we do this is what distinguishes
us from other animals
instead of learning to camouflage and
sharpening our claws
we opted for a different approach to
construct
communities within the wild completely
safe
from predators and over the years these
communities have continuously progressed
through accumulating more sophisticated
technology and increasingly efficient
methods of satisfying people’s
material needs and wants nevertheless
humans have also recognized that this
sort of development alone
isn’t all we need to survive we
also need each other
according to the functionalist
sociological perspective which is one of
the three perspectives of observing
society
it states that a society functions in a
very similar way to that of a machine
just as a machine has cogs and wheels
that must work cohesively
in order for the machine to function
society we have human beings that need
to work cohesively
in order for the society to survive we
need to establish
harmony in order for our society to
survive
therefore disorder isn’t an option
we require what is called a value
consensus
simply put a value consensus is a
general agreement across the society
on a set of values or morals or ethics
to live by
it essentially dictates whether an
action carried out by an individual
is morally good or bad and whether to be
punished
or not and this brings up
another question a deeper question
what does it mean to be good
while i’m sure aristotle would be very
interested in having his life’s work
outshined by an 11th grader
unfortunately unlike gravity and the
conservation of mass there are certain
phenomena that exist in our society
that simply don’t have definitive rules
like what it means to be good however
over the years different people have
developed different moral philosophies
attempting to explain
exactly what this means these include
the theory of moral subjectivism
which states that the morality of an
action or whether it is good
or bad is decided by the individual who
carries it out
or the theory of cultural relativism
which states that
the morality of an action is decided
based on the relevant culture of the
society
in question or the theory of
utilitarianism
big word i know but it simply means that
the morality of an action is decided
based upon how much happiness
it evokes from others and these theories
simply form
a handful of the multitude that exists
but it is also through this
persistence over generations to uncover
one of society’s
greatest enigmas that we truly see
the human instinct to survive so our
constants amidst
an ever-evolving society remain change
and the determination to survive but
why should this matter to us what is our
role
in all of this well
we need to remind ourselves of these
constants
and use them together change alongside
our want to establish harmony to survive
earlier i spoke to you about childhood i
told you of its inexistence merely
a millennium ago and although it is more
accessible today
in certain parts of the world in less
developed parts of the world
it remains a luxury some are still
unable to afford
and this is but one aspect of our
society that still
requires reshaping and that still
requires change
however today in this conference is
everything we need to
invoke this change which is you
because just as i said earlier change is
uncontrollable it is always happening
but the way in which it happens that
is up to us which leads me to our final
constant people you
and me we make up our society without us
society wouldn’t exist
we are the very building blocks of our
global community all 7.8 billion of us
and that ladies and gentlemen are the
constants of an ever-evolving society
thank you