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Life in the Twentieth Century is Characterized by Changing Patterns of Choice The above statement is, indubitably, true. Life is based upon an individual s choices; upon their concept of the world. Beginning with the time of birth to the time of death, everyone spends every minute in life making a choice about one thing or another. One could imagine life as a long, winding road with infinite roads branching off in infinite directions. Robert Frost wrote in The Road Not Taken, I took the one less travelled by. And that has made all the difference.
Allen Jason described it best in his poem Change, saying When the world is changing, why should people say the same? He depicts life as a wave we can not possibly hope to stop. We must learn to go with the flow because those who wont move forward, will perish and are surely doomed. Sure, we may get hurt along the way, but, if we do not continually strive towards perfection, we may as well lay ourselves in the ground.
Through greater knowledge and understanding of our world, its people and how it works, peoples perceptions have changed. We have moved away from the predominant herd mentality, brought about by the subjugation and manipulation of government and religious groups, and sought our own purpose in life. Therefore our choices have become more individual, because we are not following someone else s traditions and beliefs be it learnt from family, teachers, peers or national creed but a doctrine we have made or chosen for ourselves. Since the day we are born, we are bombarded and besieged with information from television, radio, books and magazines.
The world is awash with a vast amount of information and each individual is responsible for obtaining, understanding, and making value judgements on this information. During the last century, we have begun to abandon our conventional values, which are primarily derived from Christian and Greek philosophy. Friedrich Nietzsche, the famous existentialist philosopher, predicted that, during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, our traditional set of beliefs would be questioned and subsequently abandoned. Camus, Dostoyevsky, and Nietszche all seem to believe that it matters little what reason we continue to struggle, so long as we testify mans allegiance to man and not to abstractions and absolutes. Religious fanaticism and fundamentalism deny a mans freedom and individuality. Even our normal lives, that is, our mundane day-to-day routines, have been greatly influenced by this century's change in choice patterns.
We have become more indulgent, yet less satisfied. Our choice to reject traditional values has created in ourselves a void, which we try to occupy with lavish extravagance, and, when this is insufficient, escape from realism. We occupy ourselves with meaningless tasks or seek refuge in mind-altering drugs. We have been cursed with a wealth of advantages and lack of restrictions.
Due to our lives being utterly devoid of any profound suffering, it is subsequently lacking any meaningful happiness, by virtue of man only experiencing these feelings in proportionate connection to one another. The changing pattern of choice in the last century has been influenced mainly by our technological progress, which has made our lives easier and brought, through advanced communication and globalisation, awareness of other choices we may make. We are not stifled by economic disadvantage or bound by an oppressive government, we are free to choose our own religion, and we are blessed with a myriad of conveniences by our technologically advanced society. Probably the greatest recent development has been that of democracy. This relatively new form of government has brought about many new concepts, most importantly a great inclination towards free will, which is, literally, freedom of choice. On account of this newfound free will we, as individuals, are able to form our own choices, just as our choices form who we are.
Because of the abundance of freedom and choice in our lives, we have fallen to overindulgence, arrogance and egotism. We live in a society that has become, to a great extent, nihilistic, founded on mans narcissistic will to pleasure and power, dominated by the all powerful dollar. In the fictional text Maestro, by Peter Goldsworthy, one of the main themes is the maturation of Paul Crabbe. It narrates the story of Paul as he undergoes many changes in himself that reflect who he is and ultimately how he views life, his environment, himself, and those around him. This is strongly reflected in his choices and how they change over time during his education by Herr Keller. Keller tries to teach Paul about life and the terrible mistakes caused by ignorance and egotism, which seem to characterize this century.
It is you who is ignorant responds Keller to Pauls remark of peoples ignorance. Paul comes eventually to see his common infliction that has spread throughout society: that wrongful assumption of knowledge. During the twentieth century there has been two cardinal wars, combatting those that would take away our liberty. In the past, there have been countless wars opposing tyranny and injustice, however, this century we, as a people, were asked to make a choice. We were asked to vote on conscription, which is ironic because the very concept of consumption takes away our right to choose. The government, though not oppressive, tried to manipulate our thoughts on this matter using propaganda.
Recruitment posters were distributed using national icons to influence the people. The campaign was a monumental success; but when conscription was brought to referendum using the same method to persuade the people it was rejected a number of times, Australia becoming the only country to fight in WWI without conscription. If they have to be forced to come over here, they wont be much use became a common sentiment, especially on the front line. Again in the Vietnam War the Australian government, using propaganda, put to referendum, and finally attained, conscription for military service overseas. However, the people, when they discovered the truth with regard to the war, protested that decision until it was abolished. This protesting, made possible by free will, was largely not available to us before the twentieth century as was proven by the Eureka Stockade and religious oppression in the early days of Australia.
Through this extensive exposition, it should now be apparent how life in the twentieth century is characterized by changing patterns of choice. Governments have come and gone due to the peoples choice, most famously East Timor; our copiousness freedom has made us, to an extent, overindulgent and egotistical; we have become more individual, yet lost many traditional values. Life is a choice in itself and we choose our life every day. Freedom of choice has its many good and its many bad; nevertheless, life in the twentieth century is, irrefutably, characterized by changing patterns of choice.
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Research essay sample on Freedom Of Choice Twentieth Century
