Adverse impact of civilization - FROM APE TO HOMO SAPIENS It has been inherently taught to us, since our primary

school days that humans represent the epitome of progress. The humongous amount of progress made by human beings has made life much easier & simpler. Due to the advancement in the technology, newer & better inventions we have become more progressive as a society. Various avenues hitherto unknown to mankind have ignited a revolution in the social media space viz. Facebook et al. Whilst there is no denying the fact that, we have made significant progress as a species but do they really make us more civilized than our ancestors Neolithic age to present day. Human beings through the sands of time, have made progress in leaps & bounds & given rise to the concept of society. One of the popular knowledge sites on www viz. Wikipedia defines society as A society, or
a human society, is a group of people related to each other through persistent relations, or a large social grouping sharing the same geographical or virtual territory, subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Human societies are characterized by patterns of relationships (social relations) between individuals who share a distinctive culture and institutions; a given society may be described as the sum total of such relationships among its constituent members. In the social sciences, a larger society often evinces stratification and/or dominance patterns in subgroups.

Purely from the perspective of advancement it is clear that we have become better off than earlier in many ways but at the same time we are worse off in others. The fabric called society to which we as individuals are always eager to show the better side has had its effect on us by showing its devious side time & again. The same can be seen from the various acts of regionalism, casteism, imperfections of the political class which gets covered up by endless rounds of enquiries which nobody can keep track off et al. So are we actually better off. The answer is both a yes & no. Yes because, as a result of advancement, longevity of human lives has increased many folds, diseases which were thought to be incurable have been eradicated. Advancement in general has made the world more civilized. Interestingly the more civilized we become (or so we claim), competition to outdo the other is apparent. Starting from the Byazantine Empire which saw the origination of the civilian laws to the Egyptian Pharaohs who built the pyramids which was & still is the epitome of engineering in terms of building super structures, civilization has really made progress. However, at the same time, these very entities were the ones which actively pursued the concept slave system which encouraged comfortable living based on the extraction of wretched labour of others, social divisions are more apparent than ever. Lets have a material aspect of things. To have a better pragmatic view lets concentrate on some of the verbs & adjectives which have been mentioned in the initial para & undelined. Easier & Simpler: Lets take the simple example of travel. Earlier, people used to travel mainly by bullock carts, horses or walking as illustrated by the timeless tales of Xuanzang the Chinese traveller who has described & left vivid illustrations of the trade between India & China whose journey from China to India &

within India took more than 15 years of walking to modern day Vasco Da Gama whose journey was made in a time frame which can be expressed in terms of month to the more recent Yuri Gagarin who was the first person in space & covered the distance in a matter of few hours. Although Air travel has given rise to a new industry, which has many takers it has opened up an avenue to wage a highly advanced war by predominantly a section of countries which call themselves advanced. The destruction of human life can be gauged by going through the pages of history viz. Japanese bombing of the pearl harbour & the use of the Atomic Bomb by USA.

Newer & better inventions: By far the greatest discovery has been that of electricity & the invention of machines which could produce the same. The irony is almost more than 60% of electricity is produced by usage of nonrenewable sources there by depleting the earth of natural resources & at the same time, polluting the environment to such an extent that the future generations have now started developing newer disease attributed to pollution. Not only is it affecting humans but also the earth by way of depletion of the ozone layer & rising level of water year on year.

More progressive as a society: In the present day there is no greater social media than Facebook. It is estimated in various news media that Facebook has an estimated user base in excess of 900 million users. The trend is only going northwards. For normal day to day interactions are being done by way of the click of button. What happened to the old world ways of meeting up your near & dear ones in person? What happened to the earlier way of seeking support from dear ones at the time of mental duress? The support system is nearly gone, instead one is left grappling with status messages posted on ones walls culminating in a more materialistic world where my pic is better than yours or I have more friends than yours prevail. Is that how we measure the value of human relationships? Is it the basic premise with which the societal norms were set up for? Its time to think for an answer.