Rebecca Solnits "The Disembodyment of Everyday life"

Essay by Xdeath5College, UndergraduateA+, May 2005

download word file, 2 pages 1.0

Since the Industrial revolution began, technology has been changing at a fast pace. People of the 21st century now rely on technology to stay connected to the world of today. Technology is now used from everything to going to the supermarket to buy groceries, to washing dishes for you. In Rebecca Solnit's, "The Disembodiment of Everyday Life" she talks about how mankind has given up walking and doing things by hand, for technology.

Technology can change our sense of common purpose. For millions of years, mankind has been used to doing everything for themselves. For a long time peoples' main concerns were survival. To survive means to go out into the woods or forests and shoot animals for the food, which the family needs to eat for the day. People of modern society never think about hunting for food or clothes. Now, it is all brought to people instantly through a new standard of survival.

The new standard for survival means making money to go to a mall or supermarket and getting everything a family needs. A family can get food and clothing at these places without ever having to go into a forest or a lake. When a person from modern society goes into a supermarket and buys a pound of fish, he or she doesn't even think of the process that went into the arrival of that piece of fish. He or she didn't need to go to a lake, all that was needed was to drive to your local supermarket and buy it. No fishing or hunting was necessary. As in Solnit's exert mankind is losing its perception of doing everyday chores by hand more rapidly everyday. Humans are losing their sense of common purpose. Humans are getting lazy. Almost everything must be done for them...