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Thinking of a time in the past when things were better seems like an illusion. for the past decades it has been from one tribulations to another, no one seems to have an definite answer to the crisis that dwells in our society.
When I was little, I used to hear some amazing stories about the past from my maternal grandmother, she talked about how a vast length of lands is worth less than 20 naira, days where 5naira is enough to feed an entire household for months, doesn't that sounds like a fairy tale. those were good times.
Thomas Hobbes, one of the scholar that propagated social contract theory, in his narration he stated that, before civilisation man kind lived in harmony with less greed but the moment man kind started evolving, man kind fell out of grace.
civilisation has both negative and positive impact on man kind, let's view some of the things civilisation has brought upon us.
During the era of our forefathers, we had limited schools in the society. only the elite had the capacity and the connection to afford the expenses of schools, other average Nigerians due to the affordability, they enroll their children into hard labour or any family businesses. the male children are of great priority to the household because they were used has labourers on the family farm or fishing boats. the women on the other hand were sent off to rich homes for early marriage. that was a time when many wives are a sign of a man's wealth. all this happened because formal education was not available to all and there was scarcity of schools.
but regardless of the manner at which there was scarcity of schools and tertiary institutions, our forefathers valued morals and ethics more than any form of education. A man's words as more worth than money.
in today's generation, we have availability of schools in every corner of the society at affordable prices, though not all level of education is affordable to an average Nigerian but there are opportunities for acquiring primary and secondary education through government schools.
Has availability of schools made us any better? These days we have a lot of educated illiterate roaming the street with their certificate, does having a certificate means you are educated? Nigeria schools for instance has placed more value on certificate than acquisition of knowledge, which seems to be the mentality of every student these days. Majority lack the ability to replicate what they have learned in schools for years. Practical knowledge or practical application of knowledge has now become impossible among Nigeria youths.
We now have a lot of students involved in gangs and terror acts, is that also taught in schools? Our values, decency and sense of identity as been invaded by the same knowledge offered in schools. Morals and ethics have now become a thing of the past. We now have a lot of abnormalities being normalised in many institutions in today's generation. What good is education if it doesn't add value to the society.
We have a lot of new knowledge acquired everyday which has resulted to innovations especially in the health sector, different medications for diseases but in the olding dayd how many of these diseases exist, where our forefathers could make use of herbs to cure illness without doctors prescriptions.
School brought about formal education, education brought about enlightenment. What good does the enlightenment serve when all man kind craves for is evil.
During the the era of our forefathers, their primary duties were to Farm and fish, there was a lot farm product to consume. The prices for food were low and there was low rate of inflation if not zero. Though our forefathers lacked man power due to lack of machines to farm their lands but they did as much as they could. Their primary medium of exchange was trade by barter, which was before the introduction of any currency.
Acquisition of wealth was also in place but there was lesser greed and femine among the people, then civilisation came which brought introduction of machines into our farm lands, we could farm more and harvest more but the more civilised we get the more we sold off our farm lands and abandoned our primary way of life.
Now we seek white collar jobs which has enslaved a lot of the youths from the ability to think creatively and work hard, nowadays there is this mad drive for get rich quick mentality rampaging among the youths. They don't want to work hard like our forefathers did.
In today's, society we have more money in circulation than farm products, which has resulted to a high level of inflation, GDP declining every year, now we have more beggers roaming the streets for survival both the young and old.
During the era of our forefathers they had security issues too like the way we do but the level at which it occurs and level of damages defers a lot. It seems the more innovatione that occurs in the society, the more we empower the instrument of max destruction.
In the era of our forefathers, all they had for weapons were wooden spears and sharpened rocks. How much destruction can they possibly cause. These days we have created different instruments to protect ourselves against our enemies but what happens when our enemies have the same weapons we are trying to protect ourselves with. Does development in the weaponry really save lives? Now it is a game of kill or be killed with less diplomacy among individuals and societies.
Culture is said to be and agreed perspective and idea based on norms, values, attitude and lauguages of a given number of people or individuals in the society. In the era of our forefathers we have this popular culture called the traditional system. It gives us a sense of identity and belonging in our society. We had one voice, though it was the monarch system of government, which also has its own disadvantages but what difference is it with what we have now, Does an average Nigerian really have a say in the government affairs?
Analysing who had it better between our forefathers and our present generation in my opinion is a matter of a person's perspective to the meaning of civilisation and modernisation but from my own perspective I believe the number of casualties and scarcity were lesser during the era of our forefathers, this also an hypothesis worthy of being tested.
If you believe otherwise, kindly drop your opinion in the comments section.
Thanks for reading.
©𝓔𝓶𝓻𝔂𝓼𝓳𝓸𝓫𝓫𝓮𝓻
