This week we had the opportunity to see how the 19th century used technology in more of a negative way. Topsy the elephant was executed by electrocution in public just because they had the technology and it would have been a public spectacle in which they could make money. Upon doing more research I found that at the time it was believed that death by electrocution was more human. People were for the most part unaware of the actual effects of electricity on a living being. This I think this shows that technology is neither good nor bad but rather it’s how well people understand its effects and what people chose to do with it. Electricity can be very useful in everyday life however it can also be deadly depending on how people use it.
In A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court Hank uses the technology of the era to electrocute everyone but those he has changed because he believes the church was undermining what he was doing while he was away. He believes that have gone back to their old ways of life and instead of trying to fix the system he decides to just destroy it. This is interesting not just because it is cruel and unnecessary because it hints to consumerism in which we just throw something away when it breaks and buy another rather than try to fix it .
We look at these two examples and have a hard time imagining how people could do such things. Today’s society have more understanding of electricity than that of 19th century but that doesn’t mean we have full understanding of technology in our own era. The way society thinks is constantly changing with the change of information and technology. Things that we do now people 100 years from now may find inhuman and cruel using information that is unknown to us now.