TOPIC: ISSUE81 - "Patriotic reverence for the history of a nation often does more to impede than to encourage progress." WORDS: 655
TIME: 00:45:00
DATE: 2010/7/17 19:45:40 Does patriotic reverence for the history of a nation really do more to impede than to encourage progress as the speaker asserts? In my opinion, appropriate and proper patriotic reverence under some occasions could serve to encourage the progress of that nation while at the meantime excessive and abusive patriotic reverence without rationality might do more to impede the nation's progress.
Patriotic reverence springs from our identifications of distinctive cultures and civilizations which separate diverse groups of people into different nations and ethnics. For everyone who belongs to some specific nations would more or less have such a feeling that his or her nation's culture and civilizations must be better than others' in some certain aspects. Besides, people tend to find his positions and cultural-recognitions from some unitary and same kinds of cultures which are shared by his peers. Thus, from this cultural respect that we tend to favor our nation's cultures and identify ourselves better through the same cultural recognition with other people who share the same cultures, patriotic reverence for history is inevitably existing in everyone's heart.
In the thousands years' development of human civilizations and cultures, history informs us that patriotic reverence which is proper and appropriate under some certain conditions could always do more good to the nation's progress and thrive. Consider, for example, in ancient Greece, Greek people usually had very strong patriotic reverence as citizens in their cities and nations. As citizens of ancient Greece people had high recognitions of their nation's cultures and civilizations thus resulted many great ideas and scientific methods and thoughts. At that time, many great men who had make glorious and significant contributions to the world presented themselves well under the circumstance of patriotic reverence of ancient Greek culture and civilization. Great philosopher Socrates committed this patriotic reverence well to the end of his life that he would rather die himself than to be expatriated abroad. We can assume that, had Socrates not love his nation and his Greek cultures his great achievements would never contribute to the human history.
However, not all kinds of patriotic reverence for history would serve to do goods to the nation's progress,some excessive and abusive patriotic reverence without rationality might even impede that progress. China's example in the Qing Dynasty comes immediately to my mind. As we are know, ancient China was regarded as one of the four origins of human civilizations, and ancient Chinese cultures and civilizations once to be great honor and glory to the Chinese people in terms of China's distinctive and outstanding cultural constructions and ancient scientific inventions such as paper and compass. Although during a very long period China seemed one of the most developed countries in the world, its glory and honor were ever shadowed by its people's excessive reverence of their own cultures and civilizations which lead most ancient Chinese people believed that China is the best of the world and the country would never be defeated. That excessive and abusive patriotic reverence of their cultures and civilizations finally impeded the nation's progress seriously and resulted China's lost in the first so-called 'war of opium' to the Great Britain.
In sum, I fundamentally agree with the speaker's statement that excessive and even abusive patriotic reverence would serve to impede a nation's progress while under certain conditions some appropriate and proper patriotic reverence with rationality would always serve to encourage the development of a nation no matter in the fields of science or cultrue or even some other respects. In the final analysis, the patriotic reverence is a double-edged sword which would either encourage the progress of a nation or to impede that progress, therefore how to use that sword is decided by ourselves and only by the way that we hold our patriotic reverence with the objective eyes and justifiable judgment over other nations' cultures and civilizations could we benefit and encourage the progress of our nation instead of impede it.
3#zhangjunzj Does patriotic reverence for the history of a nation really do more to impede than to encourage progress as the speaker asserts? In my opinion, appropriate and proper(appropriate和proper一个意思，在这没必要都用上，只是相同的意思重复) patriotic reverence under some occasions could serve to encourage the progress of that nation while at the meantime（while有些多余，直接At the meantime后加个逗号，之前句号） excessive and abusive patriotic reverence without rationality might do more to impede the nation's progress. Patriotic reverence springs from our identifications of distinctive cultures and civilizations which separate diverse groups of people into different nations and ethnics. For everyone who belongs to some specific nations would more or less have such a feeling that his or her nation's culture and civilizations must be better than others' in some certain aspects. Besides, people tend to find his positions and cultural-recognitions from some unitary and same kinds of cultures which are shared by his peers. Thus, from this cultural respect that we tend to favor our nation's cultures and identify ourselves better through the same cultural recognition with other people who share the same cultures, patriotic reverence for history is inevitably existing in everyone's heart. In the thousands years' development of human civilizations and cultures, history informs us that patriotic reverence which is proper and appropriate under some certain conditions could always do more good to the nation's progress and thrive. Consider, for example, in ancient Greece, Greek people usually had very strong patriotic reverence as citizens in their cities and nations. As citizens of ancient Greece people had high recognitions of their nation's cultures and civilizations thus resulted many great ideas and scientific methods and thoughts. At that time, many great men who had make glorious and significant contributions to the world presented themselves well under the circumstance of patriotic reverence of ancient Greek culture and civilization. Great philosopher Socrates committed this patriotic reverence well to the end of his life that he would rather die himself than to be expatriated abroad. We can assume that, had Socrates not love his nation and his Greek cultures his great achievements would never contribute to the human history.（这段例子说的太多了吧，一大半都是举例，而且Socrate例子感觉说服力不强，建议压缩点例子，多加一个Moreover观点） However, not all kinds of patriotic reverence for history would serve to do goods to the nation's progress,some excessive and abusive patriotic reverence without rationality might even impede that progress. China's example in the Qing Dynasty comes immediately to my mind. As we are know（语法有问题应该是As we all know），ancient China was regarded as one of the four origins of human civilizations, and ancient Chinese cultures and civilizations once to be great honor and glory to the Chinese people in terms of China's distinctive and outstanding cultural constructions and ancient scientific inventions such as paper and compass. Although during a very long period China seemed one of the most developed countries in the world, its glory and honor were ever shadowed by its people's excessive reverence of their own cultures and civilizations which lead most ancient Chinese people believed that China is the best of the world and the country would never be defeated. That excessive and abusive patriotic reverence of their cultures and civilizations finally impeded the nation's progress seriously and resulted China's lost in the first so-called 'war of opium' to the Great Britain.（感觉还是例子用的太长了，不如多举几个或者加个furthermore） In sum, I fundamentally agree with the speaker's statement that excessive and even abusive patriotic reverence would serve to impede a nation's progress while under certain conditions some appropriate and proper patriotic reverence with rationality would always serve to encourage the development of a nation no matter in the fields of science or cultrue or even some other respects. In the final analysis, the patriotic reverence is a double-edged sword which would either encourage the progress of a nation or to impede that progress, therefore how to use that sword is decided by ourselves and only by the way that we hold our patriotic reverence with the objective eyes and justifiable judgment over other nations' cultures and civilizations could we benefit and encourage the progress of our nation instead of impede it.（最后一段论述自己观点的句子很好，有新意，观点也到位）作者: zhangjunzj 时间: 2010-7-23 11:40:22
Does patriotic reverence for the history of a nation really do more to impede than to encourage progress as the speaker asserts? In my opinion, appropriate and proper patriotic reverence under some occasions could serve to encourage the progress of that nation while at the meantime excessive and abusive patriotic reverence without rationality might do more to impede the nation's progress.
Patriotic reverence springs from our identifications of distinctive cultures and civilizations which separate diverse groups of people into different nations and ethnics. For everyone who belongs to some specific nations would more or less have such a feeling that his or her nation's culture and civilizations must be better than others' in some certain aspects. Besides, people tend to find his positions and cultural-recognitions from some unitary and same kinds of cultures which are shared by his peers. Thus, from this cultural respect that we tend to favor our nation's cultures and identify ourselves better through the same cultural recognition with other people who share the same cultures, patriotic reverence for history inevitably exists in everyone's heart. （第一段说明patriotic reverence 合理存在） In the thousands years' development of human civilizations and cultures, history informs us that patriotic reverence which is proper and appropriate under some certain conditions could always do more good to the nation's progress and thrive. Consider, for example, in ancient Greece, Greek people usually had very strong patriotic reverence as citizens in their cities and nations. As citizens of ancient Greece people had high recognitions of their nation's cultures and civilizations thus resulted many great ideas and scientific methods and thoughts.（我觉得两个不是很相关啊，爱国就能result in great ideas, scientific methods么？） At that time, many great men who had make glorious and significant contributions to the world presented themselves well under the circumstance of patriotic reverence of ancient Greek culture and civilization. Great philosopher Socrates committed this patriotic reverence well to the end of his life that he would rather die himself than to be expatriated abroad. We can assume that, had Socrates not love his nation and his Greek cultures his great achievements would never contribute to the human history.
(说明爱国有利于国家进步，不是认同这个例子) However, not all kinds of patriotic reverence for history would serve to do goods to the nation's progress,some excessive and abusive patriotic reverence without rationality might even impede that progress. China's example in the Qing Dynasty comes immediately to my mind. As we are know, ancient China was regarded as one of the four origins of human civilizations, and ancient Chinese cultures and civilizations once to be great honor and glory to the Chinese people in terms of China's distinctive and outstanding cultural constructions and ancient scientific inventions such as paper and compass. Although during a very long period China seemed to be one of the most developed countries in the world, its glory and honor were ever shadowed by its people's excessive reverence of their own cultures and civilizations which lead most ancient Chinese people believed that China is the best of the world and the country would never be defeated. That excessive and abusive patriotic reverence of their cultures and civilizations finally impeded the nation's progress seriously and resulted China's lost in the first so-called 'war of opium' to the Great Britain. （其实我觉得清朝也不是爱国，是守旧，对新东西害怕，不知道能不能算excessive patriotic reverence） In sum, I fundamentally agree with the speaker's statement that excessive and even abusive patriotic reverence would serve to impede a nation's progress while under certain conditions some appropriate and proper patriotic reverence with rationality would always serve to encourage the development of a nation no matter in the fields of science or culture or even some other respects. In the final analysis, the patriotic reverence is a double-edged sword which would either encourage the progress of a nation or to impede that progress, therefore how to use that sword is decided by ourselves and only by the way that we hold our patriotic reverence with the objective eyes and justifiable judgment over other nations' cultures and civilizations could we benefit（benefit在这里是要用介词接宾语的吧？） and encourage the progress of our nation instead of impede it.