How often do you hear the phrase: “Time began to fly faster. Before, I had time to do everything, but now once, twice - and the day is over. Surprisingly, scientists have found evidence that the cycle human development really sped up. And the explanation for all this is the law of the acceleration of history. And if we consider not humanity as a whole, but each individual separately, then these rules will be applicable to a short human life.
Definition
Many students fail the exam when they hear the question: "What is the law of acceleration of history?". In social science, this topic is taught in the eighth grade; political science is already studied at the institutes. Let's help the students and figure out how to give the correct answer.
Social society, like a factory, is constantly increasing the pace of production. From the time of primitive people we strive somewhere, discover something and find it. Studying the history of our world, scientists have come to a very funny conclusion. It turns out that each new stage of human development passes much faster than the previous one. This is the law of the acceleration of history.
Remember that in terms of time frame, capitalism was shorter than feudalism, which lasted almost 3 centuries, which in turn was shorter than slavery. This is also confirmed by archaeologists who have studied the structure of earthen layers. They point out that the longest stage of mankind was the primitive system, which conquered people for two million years.
Let us derive a specific concept of what the law of acceleration is: each subsequent stage of humanity is much shorter than the previous one.
Example #1
Consider specific cases of our life. Everywhere we can meet the law of the acceleration of history. Examples are hidden in modern world. Behind the scenes, it is called the Information Age. Here's a trend: how much information was available to a person 20 years ago? Most of us remember this period very well. There was one channel on TV, newspapers were delivered twice a week, and the city's hottest gossip was discussed in the queues at the store.
What has changed today? For some 20 years, which is a small grain of sand in human history, the flow of information has doubled 120 times. Not just twice as much, but 120 times as much! And that is not all. This trend will continue, and every 20 months the amount of information bombarded with us will proportionally double.
Thus, we can assume what will happen in 100 years with us. The amount of all kinds of data entering the human brain will increase 1200 times! He will either explode or turn into a cyborg.
Example #2
With each era, new inventions, tools and weapons appear. So, the tool that exists in the primitive system called a chopper (made from specially processed pebbles) has served for millions of years. And we can improve the shovel several times throughout our lives.
The new world is only one thousandth (0.001) of world history. This is a tiny stage during which an incredible amount of social, cultural, economic and political changes have taken place.
Evidence
Evidence of the real existence of this concept is how the law of acceleration of history manifests itself. Our grandparents, who were born at the beginning of the 20th century, experienced a huge number of events. First World War, the collapse of huge empires, the restructuring of society, the Second World War, the industrial breakthrough, the technological breakthrough, the collapse of society again. Now the world is on the brink, a new large-scale war may unleash. Over the past hundred years, three stages of civilization development have passed on the planet: agrarian, industrial and post-industrial. And this is 4 generations.
What happened before? Cro-Magnons existed for 1600 generations, after them another 1200 lived without leaving the caves. The era of writing has survived 240 generations, and books have been printed for 22.
The time spent between the first invention of an object and its actual use in life is also shortened. So, paper was invented in China, but they began to write on it only 1000 years later. The first was launched in 1868. But it was too small, and for 80 years people could not figure out what to do with it before it became the basis for the movement of cars. The telephone was developed for 50 years, the aircraft - 20, the transistor - 3, and the fax began to be used already 3 months after the first project. Is this not the law of the acceleration of history?
Rebuttal #1
With the past, everything is clear. There is more than enough evidence on how the law of acceleration of history manifests itself. But what awaits humanity in the future? What needs to happen for us to move on to more perfect level? Or is the apocalypse true? These and other questions are difficult to answer, and in connection with this, many controversial points arise.
We are talking about the development of mankind, in terms of the data that science has today. But all this concerns only a small part of the world - Western countries, including North America, and partly some Asian countries. Most of the states on the world map are at the level of primitive concepts about the achievements of scientific progress. They are crammed with technology but not shown how to manage it. They are given money to develop vaccines against deadly diseases, and 80% of the world's population can't even read.
Many scientists insist that the law of the acceleration of history is just a curtain, with the help of which it is easier to express and explain the unknown. The rate of change is a constant, if compared not with short decades, but with centuries of slow evolution.
Rebuttal #2
The law of the acceleration of history is a great topic for philosophers. Reflecting on the past, one can predict or assume what humanity will come to in the future. Academician Sergei Kapitsa in one of his last articles raises the question of why it seems to us that time is starting to move faster.
In his opinion, everything depends on So, during the Paleolithic period, about 100 thousand people lived on Earth. The era lasted for a million years. How many of those thousands of people were geniuses? 2, 3 or 10 that could come up with something completely new? And how many people live now? Seven billion! One hundred thousand is just the population of a small town. What is the percentage of gifted people in our century? Therefore, it seems to us that the development process is going faster.
Waiting for new
History stubbornly tells us that something is about to change. Once the transition time to new level, therefore, it is logically necessary to assume that it will come very soon. Curious to know what will happen in 100 years? Will the planet change?
Sometime in the 70s of the last century, one scientist deduced a formula for the demographic increase in the population on Earth. According to these data, we should have been 10 billion by 2010. But epidemics and pandemics take hundreds of lives in order to somehow equalize the precarious balance of nature. Perhaps we are already on the way to something new, to a new life and new problems. As you know, population growth is no longer as sharp as 10 years ago, it has stabilized, which means that a certain stage of transition has already taken place.
Question 01. Define the content of the concept of "information society". Why is it also called "post-industrial"?
Answer. According to its theorists, the information society is the next stage of development after the industrial one, therefore its other name is post-industrial. This is a society in which the majority of workers are engaged in the production, storage, processing and sale of information, especially its highest form - knowledge.
Question 02. What is the knowledge (information) market? Why has knowledge production become a profitable area for capital investment?
Answer. In the information society, knowledge (first of all, new technologies) becomes a commodity (that is, it has its price), moreover, it becomes the most valuable commodity. And any product is quoted in a certain market. Investing in the most valuable commodity is profitable. In this case, such attachments allow the former to have access to new technology and get super profits until the technology becomes public.
Question 03. Why is the pace of scientific and technological progress constantly accelerating in a society that has reached the information stage of development?
Answer. Each scientific and technological revolution in the twentieth century is basically not a negation of the previous ones. scientific theories, but a sharp increase in the amount of knowledge. An increase in the amount of knowledge leads to an acceleration in the pace of research and an acceleration in the accumulation of knowledge. Soon, as they say, quantity turns into quality: the accumulation of knowledge leads to a new scientific and technological revolution.
Question 04. How did the emergence of the Internet affect the development of world civilization, man?
Answer. The emergence of the Internet leads to the gradual emergence of a single information space (today it is divided by language, but not by states, whose borders play practically no role on the Internet).
Question 05. Describe the process of changing the social structure of society developed countries by the end of the 20th century.
Answer. In the process of transition to information society the number of the poor is declining, as is the number of the super-rich. The so-called middle class begins to make up a large part of society. The poor and even the homeless are present in society, but their numbers are not large enough to become a source of social tension. In general, this is a society where the basic human needs of the vast majority of its members are satisfied.
Question 06. Expand the concept of "middle class". What role does he play in social and political life?
Answer. The middle class is made up of wealthy people with more necessary minimum but not living in luxury people. Usually most of the middle class works in the service sector. In modern developed countries, he is the main source of tax collections, the main electorate, as a whole is the face of society.
What is the world? This word has several meanings: peace is when there is no war, peace is everything that exists, peace is people, their life, relations between them, i.e. society.
Has the world always been one?
Is it possible to say that society is one and, thus, one world?
The answer to this question has long interested philosophical minds. Yet ancient Greek philosopher Plato saw the world as a whole. All phenomena of the world, including social ones, are in mutual connection, in continuous movement and development. From a religious point of view, everything in the world is also interconnected - God created the Universe and man, all phenomena occurring on Earth occur according to God's plan.
In ancient times, when a few groups of hunters and gatherers lived on Earth, meeting each other once every few years, it was impossible to talk about the unity of the world of people. And in the Middle Ages, the world was fragmented into many principalities at war with each other, which then disintegrated, then united into larger states.
Trade relations were quite rare, roads, railways, the Internet, uniting different countries today, did not exist then. People traveled very little, living all their lives in their city or village.
Interesting Facts
In the Middle Ages in Western Europe average speed movement in horse-drawn carts was a maximum of 50 kilometers per day. Nowadays, by car, such a distance can be covered in 30-40 minutes, unless, of course, there are traffic jams.
Think about how different vehicles in different eras contributed to the unity of the world.
The modern world as a whole
Nowadays, we constantly feel how the inhabitants of different parts of the Earth have become dependent on each other. Explosion nuclear reactor in Chernobyl, recent problems at nuclear power plant Fukushima (Japan) has created a threat to many countries and hundreds of millions of people. Climate warming, caused, among other things, by the industrial activity of people, threatens all life on the planet. And we can solve these problems only by joining the efforts of all countries and continents.
However, it is not only troubles that unite us. Technical inventions made in one country instantly become the property of all mankind. Airplanes, mobile communications, computers and the Internet are now used by almost every inhabitant of the Earth, although they have authors and a country of invention. In the historical past, technical innovations have kept deep secret. For example, in China, for many centuries, they kept the secret of making porcelain. Today, all inventions are the subject of international trade.
Thus, generations of people on planet Earth at the end of XX - early XXI centuries are becoming more and more aware of the commonality of mankind. The entire collection is now existing societies in the world is called the world community. It is characterized by close economic, political and cultural ties between countries and peoples.
In the modern world, there are global international organizations (UN - United Nations), continental associations (Council of Europe), the role of multinational corporations, such as Toyota, McDonald's, Pepsi-Cola, whose enterprises operate all over the world, is growing. .
Additional reading
The Council of Europe is the oldest international organization in Europe. Its main goal is to promote the establishment of the principles of freedom, democracy, protection of human rights, and the rule of law on the continent.
The Council of Europe was created to unify Europe after World War II. This happened on May 5, 1949. On this day in London, ten states (Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Great Britain, France, Sweden) signed the Charter of this organization. The headquarters of the Council of Europe is located in Strasbourg - a city on the border of France and Germany, as a symbol of reconciliation between the two countries. Today the Council of Europe includes 49 states, including Russia.
Explain why the Council of Europe was created? Why was it at that time that the question of creating such an organization became acute?
Unite our planet and means mass media(MEDIA). Thanks to them, millions of people simultaneously become witnesses of the events that took place in different places. Special Role this is for television.
Only a few decades separate us from the time when in the 1930s in different countries began regular television broadcasting. Since then, television has been actively influencing people's lives, shaping lifestyles and human relationships. It makes it possible to feel at the center of events and, oddly enough, achieves the goal: the invisible presence of millions of viewers gives any event a special scope and significance. Thus, television has become a powerful factor in the globalization of society.
Globalization opens up new opportunities for educated people, as works of culture and art become available to everyone. Knowledge of the culture and religion of other peoples leads to the disappearance of the ground for religious and national conflicts. A person begins to understand that there are other people who think differently than he does. People of different nations, beliefs and religions become tolerant; tolerant of each other.
Acceleration of world social development
After tracing the history of mankind, scientists have identified an important pattern - the acceleration of the development of society.
Its essence lies in the fact that each subsequent historical stage in the development of society takes less time than the previous one. So, pre-industrial society longer than the industrial one. The primitive communal system existed for the longest time - several hundred thousand years.
The life of primitive society changed very slowly. Archaeologists who study the history of society from the monuments of material culture have scientifically proven this. It turned out that the Stone Age, consisting of the Paleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic, is longer than the Metal Age, consisting of the Bronze and Iron Ages. The closer to the present, the society develops faster and more dynamically.
In each successive era, more technical inventions and scientific discoveries tools and technology are improving faster. In primitive society, one type of tool, such as a stone axe, underwent minor changes throughout the life of tens and hundreds of generations of people. On the contrary, in the modern world, during the lifetime of one generation, several types of tools, equipment and technology are replaced.
Interesting Facts
The time between the appearance of an invention and its practical use was: for paper - 1000 years; steam engine- 80 years; phone - 50 years; aircraft - 20 years; transistor technology - 3 years; lasers - six months; faxes - only 3 months. A person does not have time not only to get used to the new, but simply to keep track of the replacement of the new by the new.
The flow of information is increasing. The time interval between noticeable changes in society is sharply reduced. Thus, people born in our country at the beginning of the 20th century experienced practically three types of society (agrarian, industrial and post-industrial).
So, social progress in the Stone Age crawled at a snail's pace. Why? Yes, because the rate of change of generations of tools lagged behind the rate of change of generations of people. As we approached our days, its speed constantly increased.
The population of the Earth and the unity of the world
The Russian scientist Sergey Petrovich Kapitsa established that there is a connection between the acceleration of the development of society and population growth. The closer to our time, the faster the population grows.
In the era of the early Stone Age, only 100 thousand people lived on our planet. After 1.5 million years, the population growth rate was already 10 thousand times greater than at the beginning of the Stone Age, and the population already amounted to 10 million.
Over the 20th century, the number of people has almost quadrupled, and over the next 50 years it will grow by another third. According to experts, by 2050, about 9 billion people will live on Earth.
The more people on the planet, the more people communicate with each other, exchange information. This means that the higher the population, the more united our world should be considered.
Summing up
The world community is the totality of all existing countries. The unity of the world does not negate its diversity. Humanity is evolving at a constant pace.
Basic terms and concepts
World community, globalization.
Test your knowledge
- What's happened global community, globalization? Give examples of globalization.
- What is the meaning of accelerating the development of society?
- How has the population of our planet changed over time? When answering, use the data in the table.
- Consider why the world's population is growing at such a rapid pace today. Why was there no such growth in the ancient world and in the Middle Ages?
- Explain how the population of the Earth affects the unity of the world.
Workshop
- Complete the sentences.
Medieval society cannot be considered unified, because ...
The modern world can be considered one, because ... - How do you personally feel the unity of the world in your life? Write 5-6 sentences.
- Prepare a report on the activities of any international organization. Use materials from newspapers, magazines, the Internet.
Subject: social science
Class, profile: Grade 8, social studies
FULL NAME. teacher, No. OU: Grigorkina G.S., MOU gymnasium No. 19 named after Popovicheva N.Z.
Software and methodological support:
Program (basic level)
Used textbooks: A.I. Kravchenko
Theme of the lesson: "Social progress and development of society"
Target:
To acquaint students with the trends in the development of society, including the law of acceleration of history, the uneven development of various peoples and nations, explain the essence of social progress and its types.
After studying the topic, students should:
explain the essence of the law of acceleration of history, argue your answer with specific examples;
to know that peoples and nations are developing at different speeds, to be able to explain this trend on the example of the development of countries;
explain the essence of social progress, which includes economic, technical and cultural progress;
be able to determine in which cases society develops in a reformist way, and in which - in a revolutionary way;
know the definitions of the following concepts: the law of acceleration of history, progress, regression, reform, revolution, historical epoch.
Lesson plan:
The main laws of the development of human society: why is history accelerating?
The law of uneven development of peoples and nations of the world.
whether society always develops progressively. What is social progress?
Reforms and revolutions.
Starting to consider the first question, the teacher needs to emphasize that, studying the evolution of societies, scientists have come to the conclusion that there are patterns in their development.
Having considered the chronological framework of each historical epoch, students come to the conclusion that historical time has become denser.
The figure to the paragraph shows the essence of the law of acceleration of historical time. Considering the drawing (p. 33 of the textbook), students should explain:
a) How do the level of development of society and historical time relate to each other?
b) Why is this relationship called the law of acceleration of history?
The teacher draws the attention of the children to the additional text of the paragraph "Acceleration of history" (p. 34 of the textbook). Have students explain the statistics presented in the text.
Having completed such work, students come to the conclusion that each subsequent stage covers a much smaller period of time than the previous one. However, the level of development of society, on the contrary, becomes higher.
Quite impressive are the data of sociologists that each subsequent social formation is 34 times shorter than the previous one. However, tools and technologies will improve much faster.
A certain period of human development is called historical era. Drawing the attention of students to this concept, and explaining its meaning, the teacher gives the task to groups of students to select the facts known to them, indicating that technical inventions, scientific discoveries have improved from era to era. To this end, students can be offered books as an assistant - history textbooks. ancient world, Middle Ages, modern and modern times. You can compare the level of development of each era by the following parameters:
a) the development of tools, technology and science;
b) the development of human intelligence;
c) the social organization of society.
(Such work should be done in a prepared class.)
In the previous lesson, the students, completing the task on the cards, learned that the Russian scientist N.N. Miklukho-Maclay studied in the 19th century. relic societies of the Papuans living at the level of primitive society. Why does history "slow down" the evolution of individual peoples, people? Let the children make their guesses.
Why doesn't social time flow the same way everywhere?
Students are invited to consider whether it is possible to consider the expansion of capitalistically developed countries into the territory of underdeveloped regions as a progressive phenomenon? (On the one hand, an artificial attempt to accelerate the process of peoples' development (importation of equipment, etc.), on the other, the destruction of identity).
It is desirable that during the discussion the guys argued their point of view. To keep track of bipolar judgments, one student should be invited to the board (to a sheet of drawing paper attached to the wall), who should fix these positions of the speakers. (Yes, it's progressive because...; No, it's violent and dangerous because...)
Consideration of the third question should be centered around the notion "social progress". It is explained by our science as a global progress in the development of human society from less perfect to more perfect, from a state of savagery to the heights of civilization.
Explaining the essence of social progress, the teacher involves children in the dialogue, who, with the help of specific facts, prove what characterized social progress and its components in certain historical eras.
Studying the question completes the problem task:
Think about whether society can develop backwards, regressively?
Explaining this problem, the teacher must reinforce in the students' understanding that progress is global in nature, while regression is local and covers individual societies and periods of time.
Students are asked to complete the following task.
“History of mankind knows numerous wars. It was in their state for a much longer period of time than in the state of the world. Think about how wars affected the development of society? What function did they fulfill: progressive or regressive?
You can offer students to divide into two groups with bipolar opinions and try to answer the question posed with a pre-proposed installation (students try to prove the proposed position by arguing with their opponents):
Yes, wars had a progressive influence on the development of society, because:
during the period of hostilities, there is a rapid improvement in technology, including military equipment, and the military-industrial complex of the country develops.
Enterprises, firms for the production of weapons receive government orders, their profits are growing rapidly. There is an enrichment of many structures.
IN war time the people manifest special feelings of patriotism, unity, which contributes to the unity of the nation, the growth of its intellectual capabilities.
During the war, many unique talented works of science, art (songs, music, painting ...)
War exterminates part of the population, thereby regulating the solution of demographic problems.
War promotes new discoveries in the field of medicine.
No, wars have a negative impact on society, because:
war is numerous human sacrifice, grief and tears.
During the war, numerous cultural values were destroyed, including buildings, structures
War leads to colossal material losses: the destruction and devastation of cities and villages.
The stressful state of people leads to a violation of the psyche, people's health
Society is destabilizing, losing able-bodied citizens and increasing the ranks of those who need social support.
There is a redistribution of the world, new conflicts are generated.
Social progress can be gradual or abrupt. In the first case, reformist changes take place in society, and in the second, revolutionary ones. When considering this issue, attention should be paid to the difference in these concepts.
Students are invited to analyze the events below and group them into 2 columns of the table, explaining orally:
a) Why this event can be attributed to this species social progress?
b) How did the changes take place, who became the initiator and “guide” of changes in life?
Privatization of housing, legally permitted in Russia.
Introduction of tax incentives by domestic entrepreneurs.
Legal abolition of serfdom in 1861 in Russia.
change in the judicial system in the 60s. XIX century, in accordance with which the jury trial, adversarial process, etc. were introduced.
The events of 1917 in Russia that led to changes political system(monarchy - republic), the liquidation of the bourgeoisie, the destruction of private property.
The technological, industrial rise of the Western European states of the 18th-19th centuries, as a result of which machine production replaced the old manufactory.
Thus, students independently, with the organizing role of the teacher, begin to understand that:
Reform- improvement in a certain area of \u200b\u200blife, which is gradual in nature, not affecting the foundations of the existing system.
Revolution - a complex change in most aspects of life, bringing society to a qualitatively new level of development.
At the end of the topic, the teacher can work with the concepts discussed in the lesson. To do this, it is necessary to offer to build a terminological model of their relationship on the board and ask them to explain individual concepts orally.
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