Question: These days everyone seems to have more and more possessions (e.g. computers, cars, mobile phones, etc.) Our strong desire to own these things is making us less aware of important personal qualities such as kindness and concern for others. Do you agree or disagree?
Essay:
In the process of industrial and technical development, the living quality increases everyday and people has own large number of material possessions like luxury, cars, mobile phones, and so on. This trend will help people have a better life in property and freedom society. However, in my point of view, people are losing their moral values such as kindness and concern for others because their strong desire to own these things.
First of all, in modern life, people are becoming more insensitive to their society. The pressures of jobs, the ambitious of having higher salary, higher position in company, all of these overloads them. They want to earn more money to buy all of things or afford for their life. Hence, they do not have enough time to concern anything or anyone around them.
Secondly, crime rate is on the rise in almost country in the world. Some employed people might do anything to earn money so that they can buy the things they want. According to a 2008 study by the Crime statistics for the United States, 14,180 people were murdered in America and the number of arrests for property crime was 1,248,000 cases.
In addition, the cupidity of people is destroying our earth. A lot of people are ready to exchange our natural environment to their benefits. They are not only the murderers but also the suicides. They kill many animals such as shark, tiger, rhino which pulled on brink of extinction. Deforestation, environmental pollutions are the consequences of human action.
In contrast, there are some people believe that the desire to possess these objects has not necessarily affected people's personal values. They point out that some rich people, for example, Bill Gates, the richest person, donates his earnings for charitable activities like poverty reduction in many developing countries in Africa. Nevertheless, this example is not the norm if we compare the number of people like Bill Gates with the number of crime as I mention before.
In conclusion, I strongly believe that materialism could negatively affect people's moral values. I do not deny that some there are a lot of people who are kind and helpful for life, however, money and other valuable possessions still directly influence on the behavior between people and people in modern social life.
Hei Minh! :D
While I enjoyed your essay, I think you might have omitted one thing. Perhaps you are familiar with the theory: "Man is not born evil, but society corrupts him." I think it is futile to stress about problems on the surface and not attack their roots.
Also [and this is just a thought], have you ever thought about the fact that morality could simply be relative? Every person will try to forge his own set of moral values; vegetarians will consider that eating meat is cruel, feminists think that everything male is stupid, and so on. And I am sure you know, there have been many criminals throughout history who believed that killing people is the right thing to do. For example, Christians. They believed it's ok to kill scientists, homosexuals, pagans and people who opposed their belief. Is that moral? Well, according to their belief, yes. So, perhaps, our morals are not being lost, they simply change. Perhaps some people have come to realize that the only way to be respected and admired is through being rich. And, at this point I'm asking you, can they be blamed for that?
