Oraux anglais: "spaces and exchanges"

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Despire these examples, it must be reminded than most of the time, the artist will speak out against oppresion, will do their best to underline the reality of injustice, abuse of human rights. The work or Art will not reflect beauty or harmony, but violence and depair. The effect on the audience may be one of rejection, fear. But such works contribute to raise awarness and may gradually move people into action. An artist, by his art, have the possibility of fighting against weapons, he can contribute to improve the world, to fight against the dictatorships and to fall of the freedom.

The art can be also used to protest. It is an effective way of provocation, transgression and confrontation of the reality of the dictatorships and the war. It is possible to reach the emancipation in particular by the Protestant art. We can take as example the Picasso's paint Guernica painted in 1937, which denounces the war and in particular the bombardment of the city of Guernica in Spain in 1937 by the nationalist, fascist and Nazi armies. It's the symbol of the denunciation of the violence and the methods of the dictatorial regimes, it's a engaged work.

→ The artist feels it is his job to push for social reform. Artists can denounce abuse of humain rights and the injustice with his art. If he thinks that there is a great need to raise awareness, he uses his talent to inform, denounce and help to change the society positively.

→ Art is often prophetic and transgressive. Transgressive art is not meant to be aesthetically pleasant, it's there to shock, to provoke, so it helps change the mentalities.

→ When used as a weapon Art is very powerful, it has educational value, and it's available to all, it cannot be limited to specific places or languages.

→ Art can give hope too : an artist can also show society as it should be, not as it is, he is there to show us the way to a better and brighter future.

To conclude, we can say that the art is an effective way to denounce the injustices, the dictatorship and the war.

I'm going to talk about the notion of « Idea of progress ». The Idea of Progress is the theory that the different advances in technology, science, and social organization can produce an improvement in the human condition. That is, people can become happier in terms of quality of life (social progress) through economic development (modernization), and the application of science and technology (scientific progress).

Progress implies change and evolution and throughout history most of the advances have been positive. However the rhythm of progress seems to have accelerated over the last few decades and the technological breakthroughs and scientific developments are causing some people to question this progress. Do technological advances really mean human progress : Androids, nano-technologies, global network, is this the future we really want ? We shall see that the technology is source of progress for the society, but also on the contrary a regression for the Humanity.

It's undeniable that robotics have improved our lives, bringing as better health and greater comfort, at lower prices.

We know that robotics, androïds, will and have already invaved our daily lives. They inform us about what it takes place in the world, help us to work, they entertained us... There are positive effects in it, for example in the field of the health, the technology helps to look and to save lives. It offers a big comfort in everyday life, in the house, as for example the television which distracts us.

Despite great inequalities around the world, it's true that human life expectancy has risen steadily over the centuries, this is the result of the latest technological advances.

On the other hand, it's paradoxical to observe the rising fears that technologies can inspire.

We should probably remain optimistic in our capacities to adjust to difficult circumstances : we can hope to find new ressources, new outlets. Some scientifics claim that we may one day settle on distants planets, and go beyond new frontiers, like our ancestors did in the past. Human beings might be able to settle on Mars like the Europeans who sailed across the seas to reach the new continent. This is the message conveyed by President Kennedy's famous speech.

The technologies allow to travel in the space in the future, and it is useful because the Man wants to explore new territories and to find a space where to live in the future. The technologies allow the scientific progress, to change the human nature, which allows to realize progress in the health, to look after itself better, to make organ transplants, to stop cancers, to live more easily.

Of course, we have to remain aware of all the excesses of modern science, we know that some are trying to create a new form of humanity, genetically-modified people... Some manipulations could indeed, enable us to choose the best genes in order to create flawness humans...

But the technologies have negative points which are not necessarily synonymic of progress. We are constantly being warned against the dangers of these new technologies : they are thought to favour oppression and to contribute to more discrimination between the rich and the poor, they carry the threat of disaster. The future ahead is often depicted as nightmarish, the end of a civilization... Technologies create a gap between rich and poor in the access to the resources, there is a risk of use of these technologies in the service of a dictatorship which would impose the oppression by weapons or control of the technologies in particular, we live in a more hostile environment, and there is a risk of seeing emerging an artificial intelligence which would destroy the humanity.

To conclude, we can say that the technology is a progress for intended provided that it is controlled well by the Man, in a reasonable way, to avoid the injustices or the uprising of a too important artificial intelligence.