User:Al-refaei Abdullah/sandbox

Is Fiction A Waste Of Time?
Posted on April 20, 2013 by ANNA CATHERINE 97 Comments

We live in an era of efficiency. Tedious, time-consuming activities have gradually been and continue being replaced by easier, faster alternatives. This caters to our busy schedules and hectic lifestyles. Because time is money, it is sacred, and we’re becoming more selective with how we spend it.

In such a fast-paced world, one would assume that reading is a dying habit. But I found no data to back that up, and I personally doubt it’s true. The preferred medium for absorbing information has certainly shifted from physical to digital, but that might actually cause the average Joe to read more overall due to the increased accessibility of information through a simple Google search or eBooks. If you want to read up on a topic, you no longer have to spend hours in your local library. You can do research from the convenience of your home. This will likely cause a statistically greater number of people to read on a regular basis.

What can be stated with confidence, though, is that a culture that reveres all things fast and pragmatic discourages us from indulging in escapist hobbies. One of these activities seems particularly endangered, because it is both time-consuming and, from a radically utilitarian point of view, useless: reading fiction.

It’s an all too familiar criticism. Funnily enough, the word that immediately springs to my mind whenever I hear someone discount fiction as a waste of time is “Gradgrindian.” It’s derived from a fictional character by the name of Thomas Gradgrind created by Charles Dickens for his 1854 novel Hard Times. Gradgrind is the parochial headmaster of a model school that teaches only pure, cold facts presented without colour or frills, a system that is designed to leave no room for freedom of thought or any kind of deviation. He thinks that emotions are superfluous and have no place in society. He rejects all forms of sentimental appeal, believing that the term implies irrationality, and aims to eliminate it from his world as much as possible. No gazing at the sky, no writing poetry, no carpets that have pretty pictures of flowers on them.

Seeing as Gradgrind would need to see a compelling business case before he agrees to pick up a book, fiction would surely just be banned from his ideal state altogether. Plato — the Greek dude who actually existed — had similar ideas. He thought that art, specifically narrative art, was untruthful and corrupt. The following quote from The Republic sums up his views in a nutshell: “Poetry, dramatic poetry in particular, has a bad effect on its audiences, who learn to admire and imitate the faults it represents.” Fiction has no practical, measurable purpose, but it can have powerful effects on the human psyche, so he wanted it gone from his perfect sociopolitical state.

While I do understand this position, I am from the opposite end of the spectrum. I am a bit of a sentimentalist. The Merriam-Webster dictionary says that this means I have a “disposition to favour or indulge in sentimentality.” In concrete terms, it means that I let feelings colour my view of the world in a way that can only be described as “crippling.” It’s a part of my personality that I find incredibly hard to suppress or alter. Being conscious of it helps maintain a somewhat healthy balance between emotion and rationality, but I will always gravitate more towards the former.

There is no doubt in my mind that reading fiction from an early age has nurtured this trait and intensified it by a tenfold, and it seems that researchers are finally starting to gain quantifiable scientific evidence for this. I’ve always been interested in stories, absorbing them and telling them, with my favourite medium being the written word. I grew up reading everything I could get my hands on, primarily children’s literature, of course. I was one of the millions of kids obsessed with Harry Potter, a series of books that teaches virtues like courage, altruism and loyalty, and I genuinely believe that they have helped me acquire a sense of empathy that runs deeper than it would otherwise. The pages are crumpled because of the bitter tears I shed over the characters’ struggles and misfortunes, and I was on a high that extended to my real life, sometimes causing me to forget to eat, whenever the tension was unbearable.

Fiction allows the reader to imagine themselves as someone else, sometimes someone completely different from them. David Foster Wallace said that “fiction is about what it means to be a fucking human being”, and say what you will about the guy, but this statement rings true. If you are interested in your fellow human beings, the diversity of our perspectives and experiences, picking up a novel is one of the most sensible things you can do, apart from going out and talking to people from all walks of life. You can acquire an alternative view of the world and expand your mind and tolerance without setting foot outside your front door.

I would even go so far as to say that the lessons these stories taught me made me better-equipped to face challenges in my daily life. Now that I’m older, I realise that what led me to hide under my blankets with a book until the wee hours of the morning was a need to recover from harsh realities that deeply wounded my young, delicate heart. Rather than ignoring them and letting them manifest themselves in my brain as mental illness, I immersed myself in stories that reminded me of the things in life that brought — and still bring — comfort and happiness to me. I know this is true for many of us. Especially for children and grown-ups with heightened sensitivity, fiction is a valuable coping mechanism and way to unwind after a mentally exhausting day.

For this reason, the Gradgrindian mindset both terrifies and depresses me. I can’t imagine living in a fiction-free environment and I think the prospect is dystopian. In between enlightenment and technological advancement — which are wonderful, and I consider myself lucky to be able to witness all of this incredible progress — it gets so easy to lose our humanity. Imagination, empathy and a refined sensitivity may not yield economic benefits, but they unquestionably make for a brighter, richer, more pleasant world.

Feelings and romanticism aside, fiction has also affected the more tangible aspects of our lives. It’s inspired scientists, doctors and engineers to bring to life elements of the stories they grew up on. Science fiction writer Jules Verne’s inventions were responsible for the creation of, among others, electric submarines, newscasts, solar sails, lunar modules and tasers. It’s not just literature, either. I recently watched a documentary called How William Shatner Changed the World that I highly recommend (though I dislike the title — “William Shatner” should be replaced with “Star Trek” or “Gene Roddenberry.”) I will briefly reiterate some of the most interesting facts for you:

Star Trek helped revolutionise technology. Martin Cooper tuned in on an episode while he was the chief engineer at Motorola in the 70s and saw Captain Kirk talking on a wireless communicator — today, we know him as the inventor of the cell phone. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak created the first Apple computer after playing with the Altair computer kit, which was named after a solar system the Enterprise crew explored. In 1987, another scientist at Apple, Steve Perlman, created QuickTime after watching Data the Android accessing his favourite songs on the computer (and QuickTime has since led to MP3 music, iPods and YouTube.) As is widely known, a great number of NASA scientists were inspired by the series, as well. One of them, Mark D. Rayman, developed ion propulsion after seeing the episode “Spock’s Brain.” And Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, has created a company — named “Vulcan Inc.” after the intelligent alien species in the Star Trek universe — which successfully launched the first privately funded spaceship. Even the medical field appears to have been touched by Star Trek. The character Leonard or Bones McCoy was the first to apply non-invasive medical technologies in the series, which means that he could scan people’s insides without cutting them up. John Adler, American neurosurgeon, claimed that this inspired him to create the CyberKnife, a robotic device that uses lasers to deliver radiation directly and noninvasively to tumours. Thus, many claim that Star Trek inspired the non-invasive imaging techniques that are used in today’s medicine. Those are integral parts of our lives today, and part of the credit goes to a fictional story. It’s fascinating. And it suggests that without the people who use their imagination to experiment and think about the future — like science fiction writers — progress would be much slower, or possibly even stagnant.

Maybe it’s also worth considering that the nature of what we call “truth” is more complex than we like to think. Some stories that are sold as fiction might have more truth to them than a news story — sadly, many of today’s media outlets aren’t exactly renowned for their unbiased coverage of events. Memoirs, biographies and other nonfiction works have contained significant factual errors and will continue to be misleading. It pays to question the accuracy of anything we read, no matter the label.

To be clear, though, I don’t believe that all fiction is equal. There are so-called ‘made-up’ stories out there that provoke just as much thought, questions and desire for action as their non-fictional counterparts. On the other hand, a Nicholas Sparks novel is the fast food of books: you bolt it down in a sort of frenzy, enjoy it while it lasts (though it’s never quite as good as you thought you remembered), but it ultimately provides nothing of substance for your body. It’s empty calories for your brain. And I also kind of agree with Plato’s philosophy in certain cases. Stories like Twilight, which push some serious subliminal agendas, can be harmful because they give impressionable teenagers fucked-up ideas about relationship dynamics, for instance. (I feel like I have to mention 50 Shades of Grey here for the sake of completeness, but that one’s hardly evil, just lamentably bad.)

The upside is that in the Internet age, people have a platform to call pop culture phenomena out on their bullshit rather quickly, so even trashy, morally corrosive fiction has its benefits: it invariably sparks public debate. It makes people think and engage in conversation. And we desperately need as much of this as we can get, that’s for sure.

Finally, even though I mentioned that fiction has and will continue to influence reality in some ways, I don’t subscribe to the notion that everything must have economic value or real life applicability in order to justify its existence and dissemination within society. The flaw in the Gradgrindian principle is that if our only goal is to ensure the conditions necessary for life and enjoyment, we neglect the value of the life that we seek to protect. If we stripped the world of fiction and, as a direct consequence, everything that it stands for — whether through neglect or premeditation — wouldn’t it come at the expense of a rich, fully-lived life? What’s the point of making sure that the means for our civilisation to thrive are secure all the while ignoring the things which add quality to that existence, such as pure, frivolous entertainment?

Fiction, in many people’s eyes, is one of the things that make life worth living. And if that isn’t the best damn reason to preserve and respect its place in our world, then I don’t know what is.

Social impact of industrialization

Social change due to industrialization occurs parallel to development arising from the commercialization .This arising in hand leads to alter the trends of life and thought .It makes a social shift between people's statute within the society or among regions of the world according to the adaptation of the new age and the needs of people in each regime. Although ,the coming of the industrialization is just to provide more and more of the goods and the good things of life that help people to coexist with the change and development of life at that time ,it creates a striking transformation in the society that differ from pre-industrialized society .What's more ,this changes are not merely changes in the quantities but also in people themselves. It is not only a change in economic states but also in no-economic one. people start to have different values since their condition of live completely alter. During the Industrial Revolution, There was a complete shift in Conditions in City Life, social structure, and Changing family .This shift was dramatically change in the structure of the society that was not before. Before the Revolution most people lived in small villages, working in agriculture. Their working and the way of life were often as a family where everyone helped each other. Also, they did everything by hand .Moreover ,the majority of people was lived in the countryside, and farming was the predominant occupation, but with the advent of industrialization everything changed .This change can be noted in the new enclosure laws which required that all grazing grounds be fenced in at the owner's expense lead to leave many poor farmers bankrupt and unemployed, and machines capable of huge outputs made small hand weavers redundant. This required them to move to towns and cities to find new jobs. Also,in the number of people living permanently in an area other than the area in which they were born .when people moved from countryside to cities ,they completely shocked by the style of life in cities and the individuality states of people in cities .Therefore, this was not possible to attach quantities to new modes of thought or toward the family .The idea of the one family changes because people become far from their origin and they are effected by the individualism of city life .Therefore, many families' resources would be extremely .Thus, according to desperately needed money of the family, women and children were sent out to work.This came in the benefit of factory owners  who were happy to employ women and children because they could be paid very little, and children could be controlled more easily than adults. They can force them to work more hours as well as children were more malleable. Accordingly ,Social status began to be determined more by wealth than by family position in society. The social impact is that industrialization led to a new way of life.it changed the way people lived and worked .since people could earn higher wages in factories than on forms ,they started to heat their homes seeking for better life .unforitionetly, their movement to cities comes against their expectation .It leads to changes several values and ideas as well as change thier working condition from inside to outside. Also ,the time of work increases from 6 to 16 hours as result of the increasing of the production of factory .The average worker spent 14 hours a day at the job without changing with the seasons as it does on the farm. On other hand ,it leads to class tension grow .it brought about the new social classes .It created enormous amounts of wealth in the nationand. Rich man of commerce sought a high position, and he can insist on in a share of political power and can provoke crises around the world. At the same time led to the exploitation of the weaker sections of the society. In the past, landowners and aristocrats had occupied the top position in British society. With most of the wealth, they wielded the social and political power. Now some factory owners, merchants, and bankers grew wealthier than the landowners and aristocrats. Yet important social distinctions divided the two wealthy classes. Landowners looked down on those who had made their fortunes in the business world. Not until late in the 1800s were rich entrepreneurs considered the social equals of the lords of the countryside .For others people how was skillfull in their work on land ,They watched their livelihoods disappear as machines replaced them. In frustration, some smashed the machines they thought were putting them out of work. Those who affected by industrialization and attacked the factories was called the Luddite. Therefore, there was a change in the condition of people either for beater or for wares In term of sates and countries, It shifted the world palace of power. This shifting occurred because of the different states of development amonges country .This in hand created economic inequalities and inequalities of wealth.in its role ,it wide the wealth gap between industrialized and non-industrialized countries .This led to exploitation of others either in term of goods ,lands ,or the freedom of people.since, industrialized countries required a steady supply of raw materials from less-developed lands and to keep factories running and workers fed In turn, industrialized countries viewed poor countries as markets for their manufactured products. Britain led in exploiting its overseas colonies for resources and markets. Soon other European countries, the United States, Russia, and Japan followed Britain’s lead, seizing colonies for their eco- nomic resources. Imperialism, the policy of extending one country’s rule over many other lands, gave even more power and wealth to these already wealthy nations. Imperialism was born out of the cycle of industrialization, the need for resources to supply the factories of Europe, and the development of new markets around the world. Industrialization gave Europe tremendous economic power.