In 1939, On The Eve Of The Nazi Holocaust, The Great German Playwright

In 1939, on the eve of the Nazi Holocaust, the great German playwright Bertolt Brecht wrote Mother Courage and Her Children. For the setting of his play, he chose the Thirty Years' War, the senseless 17th century European conflict that pitted Protestants against Catholics and laid waste to whole lands and peoples. Spanning the years 1618-1648, it was the most destructive war in European history until modern times. It was a war which seemingly no one wanted but which no one could stop once it had gained its brutal momentum. The play came too late to be of consequence in World War Two, but it has played to great effect on the world stage ever since, becoming Brecht's most popular work after The Threepenny Opera. Mother Courage herself has become a theatre archetype of the indomitable, irrepressible human spirit. For all its epic scope--rolling through Sweden, Poland, Saxony, Bavaria and Alsace--the play is an intensely personal journey. It centers on a woman, Mother Courage, who owns a rolling canteen wagon and who follows the war selling victuals and sundries to its troops. She is an earthy peasant, a hearty cynic who profits from slaughter, and who actually fears that peace may break out. Mother Courage knows no loyalty but to her business and to her family whom she tries to protect from the ravages of the carnage. Eventually, the war exacts its pound of flesh, its payment for her long feeding upon it. One by one, all her children become fodder for the ravenous maw of the conflict, victims of the very virtues which she has instilled in them for survival. This is a deeply human play. Mother Courage embodies the best, and worst, of all of us in similar circumstances. With a single mindedness that produces real heroism, she negotiates the wake of the war. Ruthless, fiercely selfish, clever and conniving in defense of her small moveable turf, she is completely understandable. In her bawdy humor, tenderness and rue, she is utterly human and sympathetic. In the end, like in any tragedy, it is her great will and indomitable spirit which is both her ruin and her triumph.

An instrument That Drives Society

An instrument That Drives Society An instrument That Drives SocietyTechnology over the decade has essentially influenced society. Technology is an instrument of exercise and maintaining a source of power. It is used to enhance symbolic and material position. This is shaped through the ideologies of technology. Ideology is the set of values and beliefs shared by members of a group, culture and nationality. Some of the dominant ideologies that have structured the discourse of technology are measured in determinism, efficiency and technological progress.Technological determinism is a theory that views technology as the principle that drives the development of its cultural values and social structures. It is based on two hypotheses; the technical base of a society is the fundamental condition affecting all patterns of social existence and technological change is the single most important source of change in society. The television was invented as a result of scientific research and development. Its power as a medium of n ews and entertainment has altered all proceeding medias, along with institutions and forms of social relationships.IIT KanpurAccording to Williams (2003) "new technologies are discovered, by essentially internal process of research and development, which sets the conditions for social change and progress" (p. 5); this implicates research and development as self-generating. Williams stated that the invention of television have been incentive and responses within a phase of social evolution. This idea states that the discovery of new technology results in society changing to adapt to a particular technology.Change in technology is equated to new forms of technology; this is known as technological progress. Progress refers to moving forward towards a goal or an endpoint. This typically involves community, leisure, health, wealth, harmony and other values. Progress is associated with two different types of goals; material and moral betterment. This is linked to key values of the...