Traditional Society And Modern Society

Traditional society and modern society based upon the movie “The gods must be crazy”

Traditional societies are technologically primitive which is shown as the movie started it presented the extreme difference between the primitive culture of Bushmen and the modern, technologically superior culture of modern world. Traditional society does not believe in the application of technology and science to a great extent. On the other hand, the modern society revels in making the best use of the technology available to it. It also makes use of the advancements made in medicine and science to a great extent. The Kalahari Desert is a foreboding place, the film states, yet the Bushmen who call it home live simple lives without law, violence, or turmoil.

This shows that they were superstitious. Traditional society believes in joint family system of living i.e. they live collectively in a tribe or a clan .Whereas modern society believes in the individual family system of living. From a purely sociological perspective, the film discusses the inherent costs of technological progress, and thus,” modernism. In a society without ample water, what “is” a Coke bottle, if not a musical instrument, pattern maker, or weapon? The film outlines the costs of technology plainly. We see scientists that get stranded by rivers that could easily be waded across, clothing that gets caught in trees when its wearers’ concept of decency denies the ease of temperature-appropriate dress, and predatory, lascivious males made to look like heroes simply because their -ahem- tools work better. What is the price of all these technologies? Do their benefits outweigh the costs? An important theme underlying the entire film is a strong narrative regarding the inherent cultural value of possession. The main protagonist’s tribe lives in the Kalahari desert, an area with scant resources. However, rather than pitying themselves and decrying

The people had never known greed, anger, or aggression. Those are sins of a world that allows its members to “own” things. A society that allows– even encourages– possession is never satisfied with the things it owns because the value of ownership is not in having things, it is in acquiring them– in acquiring an advantage over others. The cultural value of possession has but one name: Power. Throughout the film, whether for good or for ill, there are concentrations of material technological resources. Some characters find themselves in conspicuous positions of authority over others because of their mastery of material technologies. Despite this, we find no acknowledgment of technology’s negative impact on society from the characters. No one seems to notice what Bushman does. Because a culture that values possession also values methods that increase the likelihood of acquiring more possessions, technologies are naturally concentrated into narrower and narrower communities of people. This, of course, brings us to a different, but extremely important way to view the