issue185[AWER小组] 求拍

JasonDoveUID: 2322013

TOPIC: ISSUE185 - "Scandals-whether in politics, academia, or other areas-can be useful. They focus our attention on problems in ways that no speaker or reformer ever could."
WORDS: 561          TIME: 00:44:11          DATE: 2008/3/8 18:10:44

The speaker asserts that in any areas, scandals are effective to focus our attention on problems in ways that no speakers or reformers could. I disagree with the speaker's assertion. Intricate as the issue is, the following illuminations are necessary.

Before we judge whether scandals are useful or not, it is necessary for us to make clear the definition of scandals. Scandals, in a narrow sense, refer to losses of or damages to reputation caused by actual or apparent violation of morality or propriety. And scandals are, generally, broadly influential.

When considering what can scandals bring us, we realize that scandals are effective to draw our attention on persons involved in them. People involved in scandals are generally famous people. It is human nature for public being inquisitive toward these people. And scandals, which can always reveal famous people's life on aspects that cannot be perceived by public, could satisfy public's inquisitiveness toward them. So public would focus on the famous people who are involved in scandals.

However, the foregoing analysis does not suffice to prove that scandals are useful to focus public's attention on problems. Scandals would misguide public to focus attention on the private life or mistakes of people who involved in them rather than make public focus on problems that should be focused on. The paragon of Bill Clinton, the former president of the United States, comes immediately to my mind. When the sex scandal of Bill Clinton is burst out, people spend a large multitude of resources, including money and time, etc. , are spent on probing the private life of Clinton and Lewinski. I am afraid seldom people, at that time, would pay attention to Clinton's political achievements and his political opinions. And these wasted resources, could be better used to solve the problem of the wide range job losing at that time in the United States. It might be tempting to think that not all people would spend resources on the scandals, some sensible ones would not be appealed by scandals and focus their attention on political problems. However, we should consider how many such people there would be? If most people are interested in scandals rather than political problems, the author cannot conclude that scandals could focus public attention on problems in ways no speaker or reformer could.

Further more, there are some bogus scandals to which we should be more cautious. These bogus scandals may be fabricated or largely overstated by the media, such as newpapers, magazines, and television stations, in order to increase or maintain their subscribers' preference for them. The event of US Today, a famous magazine in the United States, is a case in point. When Jack Kerry, the former president of US Today, resigned from US Today, the announced to the public that during the time period he was in power, this magazine fabricated a lot of scandals to undermine their reputations in order to maintain popular. So we should take care of this sort of scandals to avoid wasting public resources.

To sum up, I cannot agree with the speaker's assertion that scandals are more effective than speakers and reformers in focusing public's attention on problems, because they would mislead public to focus their attentions on scandals themselves rather than focus on the political problems that need public attention. Moreover, we should be away from some fabricated scandals.