Western Countries Setting Priorities On Personal Freedom example essay topic

Both the development of technological tools and the uses to which humanity has put them have created modern civilizations in which loneliness is ever increasing. Humans during their history have always been social animals - in order to survive they lived in groups and for a long time it was an economical necessity. Today technological development made it possible for many people to live alone. More and more people in developed countries are choosing personal freedom and put their personal interests and needs over collective. Does it necessarily mean that all these people are lonely and unhappy? Can we blame technological revolution for that?

What is the real cause of increasing loneliness in the world? Since a lot of people are choosing to live alone, the traditional family pattern has changed dramatically during the last couple decades. As a result people are becoming less and less connected to each other, and even some of those who made their own decision to live alone might feel isolated, unhappy and long for contacts with other people. An interesting question arises in this connection: are all technologically developed countries demonstrating this tendency in an equal measure? After closer consideration we can see that all these processes take place mostly in Western societies where personal interests are prevailing over collective values, where individualism is one of the most powerful basic concepts. The modern civilizations which still set their priorities on collective values - for example, Japan don't experience such dramatic changes in people's ways of life.

As a result people there feel more connected to each other and less lonely than people in Western countries. In some countries - for example, in Russia the word "individualism" itself has pronounced negative meaning. The word "individualist" sounds almost like an "egoist" or a "selfish person". Since all these different countries at the same time are technologically advanced, we can assert that technological tools and the uses to which humanity has put them have nothing to do with increasing loneliness in the world. The Western countries setting priorities on personal freedom provide people with enumerate opportunities for self-development and personal grow, but at the same time people can easily go to extremes loosing connection between them.

In this case loneliness is a price people are paying for their personal freedom. Does it always have to be such a painful process? No, there are a lot of people in Western societies who live happy lives and don't consider contacts with other people a threat to their personal freedom. Humanity had to put group interests over personal needs thousands and thousands years and today some people in Western countries remind a teenager who just left parents home and desperately wants to do only what he wants to do, truly believes that he can do everything alone and he doesn't need anyone. It might take some time for modern people to go through this "adolescent" stage of their development and learn to find a right balance between personal and collective interests. What about Technological progress?

What role could it play in this process? I believe all the new technological tools actually can help to find the balance! Look at the modern youth: they are talking on cell phones, they are chatting using their computers, and they send and receive tons of emails. Someone can say that all of these aren't real contacts and emails aren't real letters, but I'd rather call them "the new forms of communicating" that can give much more privacy and personal freedom than traditional ways.

I'm sure we are going to see more new ways of communicating in the future, because people have always wanted to be free and at the same time they desperately needed each other to be happy.