Humanity has not changed much socially over the past millenium

Thanks for the informative reply typhoon.At the beginning of our agreed upon time frame, 1011, in what is commonly called the High Middle Ages, society was divided into upper, middle and lower classes.This is simply an inaccurate statement. With the feudal system that was dominant during this period, the "class system" was limited to peasants (serfs) and the lords who owned the land. The middle class was a product of the free market economy which replaced manorialism, another significant change. We don't have the feudal system anymore, and since the feudal system didn't allow for a middle class (if you weren't nobility you were a serf), the middle class emerged during the mercantilist system's advent, in which this class of people evolved around functions such as the crafting guilds.Major areas of social science still rely on class based explanations of personal identity, for instance, the history from below school of Marxist history.It is interesting that my opponent mentions Marxism, as this seems to defend my stance. Marxism, socialism, whatever one wishes to call it originated from the changes associated with the industial revolution. I did mention that it was the AVERAGE standard of living that increased, which may not necessarily reflect the evidence brought up by my opponent that the lower-class suffered severe reductions. However, is this not a change if the lower class suffered these reductions? The resolution wasn't that society hasn't advanced much, rather that it hasn't changed much. Furthermore, it was in fact this perception of the working class's decline during the Industrial Revolution that prompted the origination of modern socialist thoughts. People like Robert Owen and Henri de Saint-Simon were critics of the effects of industrialization on the workers, with Owen going so far as to create his own utopian socialist society in Indiana. Socialism clearly has plenty of associated impacts today, with China, North Korea, and Vietnam adopting socialist policies in their current governments. A socialist society will naturally have a different impact on its citizens as opposed to if socialism had never emerged, and China was completely free market. Socialist-based parties, such as the Social Democrats in many European countries, are also prevalent and exercise their voice in vying for policies correspondent with socialist principles.Also, my opponent doesn't contest the fact that massive urbanization has occurred. He also does not protest the health reforms that were initiated due to the spread of disease from crowded urban conditions. Eventually, we gained a multitude of health reforms which paved the way for cleaner cities with less disease along with much higher life-expectancies in many nations, something I will go much more into detail with next round.Has technology changed how people behave? I do not believe so.Once again, evidence proves the contrary. Numerous scientific studies have found that the emergence of mass media, including the associated trends of violence within said entity, has a profound effect on children today. [1] They are prone to emulate the violent actions of what they see on the screen, and overall media violence has been linked to increased aggressive behavior within children today. Such evidence directly disproves my opponent's contention. Technology can sometimes only serve to exacerbate a situation. Lets not forget that the riots in in the United Kingdom were only made easier for the rioters by their use of social networking websites like facebook and twitter Once again, is this not a change in society? Social networking has undoubtedly made communication with others easier, including people that may not know each other personally such as the aforementioned rioters. Numerous other groups on Facebook have rallied support behind various other causes, including this example of a more positive cause promoted by the interconnectedness of Facebook. [2] Social networking has also contributed to negative aspects like cyberbullying and online harassments, both legitimate outcomes that have only emerged with the growth of the Internet. Ultimately, the Internet and social networking ae double-edged swords, with both positive and negative effects. However, it cannot be disputed that they have caused widespread social change, which is what this debate concerns.I intend to show stronger examples of how society has been affected by changes in culture in future rounds(especially modern advances). I still stand by the fact that the printing press provided the springboard for a dramatic transformation in how information and ideas spread through society. If we didn't have an efficient, rapid method of producing books, such as the case before its conception, then we would have a popultion with much less literacy and education. The aforementioned system of serfdom did not permit a great deal of the population to even have an education, thereby creating a largely illiterate enserfed population. With the creation of the printing press, along with the Renaissance's emphasis on education even to those beyond the extremely wealthy, the Renaissance paved the way for a complex society proliferated with a diversity of opinions and values. [3] I ask my opponent to consider what our society would be like today if texts still had to be hand-copied, and then decide whether or not the Renaissance's giving birth to the printing press is a significant societal change. Even in the Middle Ages, there were Hussites, Lollards and Waldensians who challenged Church teaching. So I think it fair to say there were was always a strong seem of dissent within Christianity as a whole.True, but you also have to remember that these dissenters were often burned at the stake for heresy, something that does not happen today. Dissent is, as a whole, much more tolerated within the Church than it was back then. To illustrate this, consider the fact that the pope recently praised Martin Luther in a visit to a monastery, a far cry from the Catholic Church of centuries past which excommunicated him and declared him a heretic. [4] And while the Catholic Church hasn't compromised its views on abortion or homosexuality too much, Pope John Paul II declared in 1996 that evolution was "more than just a theory" and was compatible with the Christian faith. This marks a drastic turn from the period since Darwin first proposed his theory. While there are still die-hard creationists, the theory of evolution has undoubtedly been able to either integrate with creation theories or overturn people's beliefs in them as a whole. A 2001 Gallup poll found that around 51% of Americans believe that evolution had something to do with the development of human life. [5] It's safe to say that the figure would have hovered around 0% before the theory of evolution was proposed, reflecting that people have assimilated it into their beliefs.With about 1.41-1.57 billion Muslims, comprising about 21-23% (6) of the world's population, Islam is the second-largest religion and one of the fastest-growing religions in the world. Again, isn't this backing the opposite of my opponent's resolution? The Muslim population was only 200 million in 1900, and in the century since it has increased nearly tenfold. It isn't the system of empires that existed way back in the Golden Age of Islam (there isn't even a caliph anymore that heads the religion); it is instead more of an assimilation into Western society. The prevalence of Muslims in America has definitely expanded over the past millennium, and has brought the religion into the political spotlight ever since 9/11.1:http://allpsych.com...2:http://www.autoblog.com...3:http://atheism.about.com...4:http://news.yahoo.com...5:http://en.wikipedia.org...