Han and Roman Response to Technology Dbq Essay Example

From the second century B.C.E to 200 C.E, technology has proved an important role in the modernization and advancement of empires such as the Han and Roman. The Han’s attitude towards technology was that of respect and appreciation, which eventually lead to the advancement of their great empire. The Romans, however, although dependent on technology for resources like water and everyday usages like roads, had a negative and degrading attitude towards technology. The different attitudes can be explained by the different empires and parts of society that each of the authors of the documents were a part of. The Han and Roman attitudes had a stark contrast in belief, along with the different in political and government leaders with the upper-class. Another document that would have been helpful in the analysis of the differing attitudes would be an excerpt from a lower-class worker. All of the documents provided were from either the upper-class or a political or government leader who all had their own beliefs on what technology is like without being in direct contact with tools like a worker would have been.
The Han people felt a respectful appreciation for technology and it's "benefits" (Doc 3) and "efficiency" (Doc 3). The Hans discovered the effectiveness of technology from as early as “early second century B.C.E” (Doc 1), realizing that it could help further develop their nation. Technology was used in order to “save [common people’s] labor” (Doc 4) which lead to the invention of useful tools such as the “pestle and the mortar” (Doc 3) and the “water-powered blowing-engine” (Doc 4). Although most of the documents were written by upper-class Chinese philosophers and government officials, they unsurprisingly understood they necessity of technology in order to increase productivity “a hundredfold” (Doc 3). Hans accepted technology and their dependency on it during times such as when needing to establish “water conservation officies” (Doc 1) throughout different