During today’s lecture, Prof Evengelos has discussed about Greek Sophists, Philosophers and their differences. After describing Sophists Thrasymachus’ ideas about Just and Unjust, our session has end up by asking us a question “Can we say humanity is progressing?” The scenarios which Thrasymachus described over twenty-five centuries ago are still in line with most of the scenarios of today’s practices. As an example, people who prefer just pay more income tax than those who are unjust despite they are earning the same amount of money. That is what he mentioned during his time, but quite a great number of people can still be found nowadays. But are we in a position to argue that humanity does not progress or is not progressing by providing a person’s idea on Justice? I must skeptically disagree with the statement that humanity has not progressed. Humanity has certainly developed and progressed by many ways. The world has been a different place compared to the time of Sophist Thrasymachus because of the development in technology and advancement of sciences. People become more practical by not being stuck in imaginary and assumption world as ancient people did. We are now able to bridge among every corner of the world which ancient people could not even imagine. Now, people have even started to examine other creatures which ancient people worshiped as their gods like sun, moon, and other planets. We can see many organizations where we can find different types of people working together as a whole for the good will of everyone. In contrast, ancient people were so isolated that they lived by their own tribes and groups with less corporation and collaboration of other groups. In fact, they saw others as dangers. This shows human being become more human. Nevertheless, claiming a society as a perfect environment with mischief will make no sense. No one can describe any particular society of any time as one full of humanistic values. Good and bad live together at every time and anywhere. It would be ultimately illogical and unacceptable to argue our world today as a perfect one. We can obviously find people practicing the same unacceptable behaviors committed by our fore-generations. It would be absolutely incorrect to determine today age as morally or ethically disadvantaged society by looking at people committing injustice to the society. In fact, we have to be optimistic rather than being pessimistic on the developments and progressions of the world.
Kyaw Khant
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