World Civilizations: The Global Experience - Essay Example

This is only one example of a single new technology changing society and civilization forever. Discussion 2 - Inequality. Certainly, when viewed from today's perspective, the institutionalized social and gender inequality during this time is repugnant. Man's inhumanity to man has always been a shocking part of history, and the socialized stigma of being a woman, or a Jew, or a slave certainly recognized no individual human right in the modern sense. That said, however, I want to note that it was upon these unequal foundations that civilization was built.

Accepting the status quo was the very mindset that allowed those enslaved by the Romans to build the empire. Without the technological development of the Romans, built on the backs of those slaves, we wouldn't have running water. As difficult as it may be to accept, social stratification and disparity in status was a stabilizing factor in many cultures.Discussion 3 - Human Agency. Of all the various technological impacts upon society and the advancement of civilization in general, human agency lies at the core.

After all, history really is about us as a species; how we developed from simple, agrarian societies into the complex social orders seen in the Post-Classical Period. The decisions made by leaders and individuals alike that, if we're not for the one little thing that did or didn't happen, would have re-shaped history. The social order accepted by societies would advance the individual rights cherished in later eras. These are all the result of human agency and it could never be any other way: We are the stuff of which history is made.

It's our story.