142. "The well-being of a society is enhanced when many of its people question authority."
Who is authority? People admit a person as a authority because of his or her previous achievement, which made great contribution to the society; his or her knowledge, which is so profound that keeps the man as the leading role in its field; his or her current leading position, which gives it power to do something that others cannot do.
According to the definition, authority is a group of people, who plays an important role in the society. Firstly, authority leads people in some field to achieve certain goal. Since authority's profound knowledge, taking the science field as an example, he or she has the right ability to do some important research, of which the contribution can influence or conduct the development in this field. Secondly, because of authority's degree and profound knowledge, he or she is in charge of judging the use of people's work in his or her field. When a new work has been done, to judge whether it is useful, the common way is that inviting some authorities in this field to set up a judging group, then the group make the judgment. At last, authority also takes the responsibility to teach other people knowledge and share his or her experience. There are so many authorities working as professors in colleges, and in their class students learn from them and make a progress.
Since authority has such important positive effects, why it is encouraged to question authority? Because authority also makes mistakes. No matter how large contribution authority has made, authority is still a common person, and in human nature, none of them can void carelessness, which leads to fault. The possibility is that the proportion of making such fault to authority is relatively lower than other people. On the other hand, authority cannot cover all problems in his or her field, and there is chance that authority make mistake in his or her conclusion because of the problems which he or she has not researched yet, or has researched but not thoroughly. What is worse is that, the authority's faults often bring much worse consequence. Because of authority’s degree and reputation, he or she affects people in a very wide range, and the number of people is large. So questioning authority is necessary.
Questioning authority will bring great benefit to the society. One is that through the process of questioning authority, no matter who is reasonable, the question will be explained more clearly than before. Not only the fault is corrected, but the relative knowledge also can be popularized widely, and make people hear of it at least. Resolving the question or popularizing knowledge improves the quality of the public and have benefit for the development of society, so the well-being of society is enhanced. The other, which is more important, is that questioning authority can easily develop the characteristic of critical thinking. Critical thinking is an important characteristic of people. People who have this character often develop their independent opinions, and further they will develop creativity. Because developing creativity is based on the independent thinking. In addition, when most of people in the society develop creativity, the society is the one full of vigor. In that stage, we can image, society will develop dramatically, which is just what people want, and then the well-being of society is assured.
Of course, what is encouraged is the question is based on facts, which means it is reasonable. Question, which is absurd and the purpose of which is only annoying authority, is what should be fight against. Naturally, in this case talking to the well-being of society is meaningless.作者: 九月爱上乒乓球 时间: 2005-1-7 11:43:33
142. "The well-being of a society is enhanced when many of its people question authority."
Who is authority? People admit a person as a authority because of his or her previous achievement, which made great contribution to the society; his or her knowledge, which is so profound that keeps the man as the leading role in its field; his or her current leading position, which gives it power to do something that others cannot do.看老帖子说，如果不是对概念很肯定不要随便下定义，当然，如果很肯定，例外
According to the definition, authority is a group of people, who plays an important role in the society. Firstly, authority leads people in some field to achieve certain goal. Since authority's profound knowledge, taking the science field as an example, he or she has the right ability to do some important research, of which the contribution can influence or conduct the development in this field. Secondly, because of authority's degree and profound knowledge, he or she is in charge of judging the use of people's work in his or her field. When a new work has been done, to judge whether it is useful, the common way is that inviting some authorities in this field to set up a judging group, then the group make the judgment. At last, authority also takes the responsibility to teach other people knowledge and share his or her experience. There are so many authorities working as professors in colleges, and in their class students learn from them and make a progress.好像一直是对authority的理解，像在外围转，没有提到well-being
Since authority has such important positive effects, why it is encouraged to question authority? Because authority also makes mistakes. No matter how large contribution authority has made, authority is still a common person, and in human nature, none of them can voidavoid carelessness, which leads to fault. The possibility is that the proportion of making such fault to authority is relatively lower than other people. On the other hand, authority cannot cover all problems in his or her field, and there is chance that authority make mistake in his or her conclusion because of the problems which he or she has not researched yet, or has researched but not thoroughly. What is worse is that, the authority's faults often bring much worse consequence. Because of authority’s degree and reputation, he or she affects people in a very wide range, and the number of people is large. So questioning authority is necessary.还是不关well-being什么事。。。
Questioning authority will bring great benefit to the society. One is that through the process of questioning authority, no matter who is reasonable, the question will be explained more clearly than before. Not only the fault is corrected, but the relative knowledge also can be popularized widely, and make people hear of it at least. Resolving the question or popularizing knowledge improves the quality of the public and have benefit for the development of society, so the well-being of society is enhanced. The other, which is more important, is that questioning authority can easily develop the characteristic of critical thinking. Critical thinking is an important characteristic of people. People who have this character often develop their independent opinions, and further they will develop creativity. Because developing creativity is based on the independent thinking. In addition, when most of people in the society develop creativity, the society is the one full of vigor. In that stage, we can image, society will develop dramatically, which is just what people want, and then the well-being of society is assured.俺觉得搂主这种纯理论的证明说服能力不是很强，像critical thinking好像和well-being并没有直接关系
Of course, what is encouraged is the question is based on facts, which means it is reasonable. Question, which is absurd and the purpose of which is only annoying authority, is what should be fight against. Naturally, in this case talking to the well-being of society is meaningless.这段放在这作结尾不大合适，如果支持观点，我想应该在突出下question authority的advantages吧？
个人卓见，供参考。;)
well-being: the state of being happy, healthy, or prosperous : WELFARE作者: ZHGsunny 时间: 2005-1-8 23:02:31