Ok now we're getting into the meat of my brain. This is something that just randomly pops up in my head every once in a while when I see something that would be strange to previous generations: What would someone in the past think of our present time? And if we could bring someone from the past, who would we bring? How would we explain our present customs and the way things we take for granted as everyday objects work?
To begin with, if we could time travel and bring someone from the past to the present, who would we bring? To me, that would really depend on what time period we are bringing them from. If we're talking about anytime after the 1920s, I don't think it would be much of a problem to bring anyone we wanted, because they would probably be able to grasp our consumerist society and rapid growth in technology no problem. However, before that we would have to be much more selective of who we brought. We would need to bring a very open-minded person, someone who can accept that the world could have advanced far beyond what they're used to. If we're talking, say 200 years ago or earlier, we would have to bring an intellectual. An average person from that far in the past witnessing what our world has become today would probably shock them, and they would be unable to adapt to our society because they do not understand the immense progress we've been through. However, if we brought an intellectual: someone who would sometimes have thought about where society was going in the future, it would be much easier for them to accept our technological changes and learn to adapt to them because they already have accepted that the world won't stay the same forever.
Now the question is, who would we bring? I don't know why, but the person that almost always popped into my head was Benjamin Franklin. I have always wondered what he would have to say about our society today. He is obviously an intellectual--I don't think anyone who's not extremely wise could have written something like Poor Richard's Almanac, which has proverbs in it that not only applied to Franklin's present time, but to all time. I just wonder what he would have to say about what our society has become. Would he approve of our consumerist society? Would he understand why so many people buy so many things they really don't need?
And what about things we take for granted in our everyday lives? If I walked into a room and turned on a light switch for example, he would probably be scared shitless, and wonder what is going on. Could we offer him an explanation of what exactly was happening that satisfied him? Let's take it a step further. Supposed we turned on a computer and showed him the internet. I think the simple fact that we have something that could project thousands of tiny pixels of light would completely surprise and confuse him to no end, never mind the fact that a computer consists of tons and tons of chips that store and read information using electricity and convert it into a visual display for us, or even the fact that every computer in the world is connected together by the internet. I'm sure he wouldn't understand it, but could he grow to accept it? Would it scare him?
And how about our customs? Could we get him to understand our concept of sanitation? Could we explain to him that there are billions of tiny little one celled creatures everywhere called germs that can potentially do us harm if we do not control them by keeping clean? People back then did not take a bath even close to once a day. Washing up was to remove visible dirt, not germs, which is something that wouldn't be discovered until more than a hundred years later. Would he understand our strict concerns for sanitation, or would he just not get it?
And what if we were to get someone from say, a thousand years ago? Two thousand? How much different would that be?
But all this is obviously just food for thought right now--just something that takes my attention every once in a while when I see how quickly our society grows and changes. Let me know what you guys think.
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