COMMENTS
jason h wrote: Dear Madam,
The very poor are breeding at an alarming rate compared to the educated counties. I live and work through out Latin America and there are 2 distinct cultures separated by education and money!(mayge素材)
These people vote! The absolutly do not care for anything except what makes the next hour better for them.
Education is the key the children the only hope!
Thanx
J
============== ============== sawlty_showers wrote: Dear Madam,
I agree that a diet ofelectronic media warps the way one's brain works. I am a software engineer by trade and was an avid reader before I began writing code. Now I cannot stand to read anything for more than a few minutes. I am accustomed to scanning text very quickly looking for precise patterns and skipping that which does not fit. My brain just can't stand to slow down and move at the speed of reading anymore.(可以由此推广做素材:先进传媒vs传统阅读)
There are upsides - my analytical powers have increased since I started coding. I suppose if I concentrated on a text I would be a better "close reader" than before, but probably in exchange for being more myopic.
Was it Aristotle who talked of reflexive actions? You become what you do? I would agree, and it is my opinion that reading literature makes you more human while writing code makes you less. ==============
============== Sunil Eshwar wrote: Dear Ms. Rocco,
I am reminded of a profound statement that seems to apply to the way the world has been fundctioning and the way the world will continue to function : "Things always fall in place, always;and nothing matters, almost always". Just as fashion designs change once every few years (applies also to musics, genre movies, books etc.) with the wheels coming full cirlce, every action of mankind tends to come full circle(这个观点收了). In layman speak, the moment I get bored of facebook, I would tend to begin re-living my interest in culture, or what I presume is supposed to be culture. That said,(尽管如此) while it might sound anathema, I see the paradigm of culture itself changing; no thanks in small measure to the leaps and bounds innovation and the internet have brought to our door-step.
My world (or the world I see) is definitely wising up to culture; but, a culture which seems to have a broader definition and a different paradigm.
Thanks,
Sunil Eshwar ============= =============
Jose Abelardo wrote: Dear Madam,
I am a college student in New York City, and when I was a child, I used to devour books. I used to be able to read for long hours without feeling as if I was wasting my time.
Now, I feel an intangible pressure to read only that which makes me more knowledgeable in relation to other people(可以代表一部分人,素材读书的意义). Because of this, my time is taken up a lot more by reading short tidbits of information online than by reading actual books, which after all, contain unnecessarily detailed explanations (nonfiction...why read a whole book about World War II if I can look it up on wikipedia and absorb everything I need to know about it in order to to sound smart in a conversation?) or no actual information at all (fiction...why read about Moby Dick if it does not tell me anything about the behavior of whales in the real world?) (这两句疑问也很能代表一部分人的观点,可做素材)
This is something I choose to struggle with, especially when I sit down and force myself to read books, trying to feel as I did when I was younger and did not have frequent access to a computer as I do now, and trying to dispel my sisters' accusation that my laptop is my best friend. =================== =================== R. S. Harrison wrote: Dear Madam,
Alexander the Great, while on his campaign throughout Asia, would keep his Companions sharp by playing a deceptively simple game. One person would stand up and produce an argument either for or against something. When he was finished, he would then have to argue the opposite with equal facility. The poor man was afterwards gauged on how equally he treated both sides of the argument. I cannot help but think that this game was a gift from Aristotle, and if so, I have every reason both to hope, and fear, such a game. My hope is that this gift can be wielded by someone less than Aristotle or Alexander, and my fear is that any attempt by myself pales so in comparison to its progenitors as to warrant no credence whatsoever. By heeding both my hope and my fear, perhaps I can yet steer a middle road through this argument.
Both proposition and opposition are fairly equal here. Optimism and pessimism are carefully presented against each other, as they often are. All that truly remains is to understand how they are two sides of the same coin. Any new understanding of this problem will occur at the point where we see the truth of both sides to coexist, and then we will have a new perspective. I am not so bold as to think that I can tell you the answer. Wiser men than I have claimed to have no answers at all, but only endless questions. The task, then, is to find our way towards a better question. Therefore, my aim is to provide here some information that may steer us towards such a question, and one, I hope, that is sufficiently elevated for us to peer down from its heights to perceive a greater piece of the puzzle.
Ms. Jacoby's fears are quite real. The times that have produced Shakespeare, Cervantes, Tolstoy, Hugo, and Dickens were times that employed educations that are almost unimaginable to even the richest countries of today. The memorization of Latin, the learning of verse, and instruction in mathematics were forced onto children in profound doses. Often there are reports of these lessons being no less than beaten into those children. However, their minds bore the instruction. There were children who grew into literary, or scientific, giants. The human mind was indeed a sponge that could absorb far more than the aptitude tests of today indicate. Going back further, we may read Plato and wonder at the thoughtfulness of both the teacher and his students. How many students today react with such eloquence as the students of Socrates? How many students today have the truly awesome capacity for memory that the classics teach us that people once had? It is very difficult for the average adult these days to even imagine being able to memorize the entire length of Homer’s Iliad or Odyssey. Romans could often read a letter once and recall its exact contents well into old age. I can scarcely remember the contents of my last e-mail. R. S. Harrison wrote: Dear Madam,
Some of us have come across a book that Victor Hugo wrote, entitled “Notre-Dame of Paris”. Many more of us know it by another title, “The Hunchback of Notre-Dame”. This book has an importance that has been obscured by the latter title. Hugo’s intention was to focus the reader on the cathedral, rather than its hunchbacked inhabitant. A British publisher no doubt had it in mind to sell the human drama, rather than an old church, but the irony is that he sold the lesser human drama out from under the greater. For the narrative is most persuasive when it is actually an essay describing architecture as the first literature of mankind. Our earliest societies carved their history and learning into stone. They lived in monuments to themselves and to their god(s). They created rituals that interacted with these monuments, and in being passed down through generations became a part of those monuments. They bestowed upon these edifices a kind of meaning that we are still struggling to decipher because we recognize that there is meaning throughout them, and that we are not producing such works of stone today. The modern age has brought us an architecture of aesthetics, but little or no meaning. Would we be as impressed with Shakespeare if his verses were all form and no content? Would we remember him at all?
Hugo postulated that the printing press stole the content away. It democratized information in a way that the radio did in the 1930’s, and the internet is doing today. Hugo lamented the waning of architecture’s meaning, and today we fret endlessly over whether the book will wane as well in the presence of the internet. Personally, I believe the confrontation between architecture and the printing press was far more epic than either the radio or the internet. A book, a radio show, and wikipedia have far more in common than any of them had with the endless symbols of architecture. Our monuments were enriched and informed by a seemingly infinite number of letters and phrases, because the boundaries of art and fact were so blurred as to be indistinguishable. Our archeologists and anthropologists try to catalogue every ounce of meaning, but there is hardly a monument that we have figured out definitively. All still produce wonder. All of them still teach us. However, the greatest books do precisely the same. The Bible and the Qur'an are obviously still informing us of all kinds of things. Every rereading leads to another insight. The same can be said of Shakespeare. No matter how many times you read a play by the Bard, you always learn something new - either about the play, or yourself. This is the true definition of a “work of genius”.
Overall, the transition from architecture to books is encouraging. Something was surely lost, but the gains speak for themselves. We appear to adapt to new mediums. Perhaps George Lucas and Steven Spielberg are but heralds for the film medium. Perhaps a new Shakespeare awaits us, who will forever dominate that medium. There are plenty of reasons to hope. Digital cameras are quickly becoming as beautiful as 35mm film, and for a much lower price. The Apple computers that we are currently bringing home from the store are the same computers that are making such breathtaking films as we see in theaters. It is not unreasonable to allow that the next great film-artist will be as unknown as William Shakespeare is to us today.
We are quick to fear that by democratizing a medium, we will dilute it. In the case of architecture, the fear appears to be justified. In the case of the written word, however, there are examples that point to the contrary. Dr. Samuel Johnson was possibly the greatest literary critic of all time. His analysis was so penetrating that literary critics today often emulate him, such as Yale’s Harold Bloom. Yet the contemporaries he reviewed are essentially nobodies to us. The Harry Potter’s of his day did not survive, and Johnson, to his credit as a critic, knew so. All kinds of books were being published that nobody would ever remember, but we know that it was not the death of literature. Hugo, Dumas, Conrad, Emerson, and Twain were all yet to arrive on the scene. It seems that great stories, no matter the medium, take a great deal of time to construct, and the right person to construct it. R. S. Harrison wrote: Dear Madam,
The trend of recorded history has an interesting beginning. The first history was composed by Herodotus some 2,500 years ago and covered the wars between ancient Greece and Persia (where we get the story of the 300 Spartans). This narrative featured an incredible synthesis of stories, facts, culture, rumors, travels, and anecdotes. At one moment you are receiving anthropological data, and the next is sociological or philosophical. Science had not yet intervened to categorize everything. Even Aristotle, a great categorizer, saw the usefulness of such a text, especially in the hands of his young pupil, Alexander. Soon after Herodotus composed his history, another historian arrived, Thucydides. This time a later war would be recorded, and it would be meticulously made up of facts. Historians tended towards Thucydides. Science liked facts, too. Over the centuries we bore down hard on collecting and organizing facts, but the facts never added up to fulfillment. Instead of finding answers, no matter where we look, we still just find more questions. Today, historians have categorized so much away from history, that we have lost much of our ability to find anything to understand beyond the basic facts, which is why we are starting to edge back toward Herodotus by synthesizing the different categories back together.
Natural synthesizers have always been storytelling, myth, and spirituality. They are modes that abstract facts into something tangible we can feel. Empirical fact turns out to be not as sturdy as we had once hoped. Thus, on our mission to expand Science, we have occasionally been required to take a step back, collate the data, and reestablish our feelings by refreshing or re-imaging our religions, or stories, or myths. In order to be human, we cannot be all facts, nor can we be all emotions. We live in a combination of both.
Today in Science, we are chasing particulars and facts infinitely small and infinitely large. By starting in the middle, our facts have led us to the subatomic and quantum theory. The further out we go in either direction, the more our effort begins to look like we are chasing fractals (designs that are just as complex in either micro or macro).
With so many facts and categories, what are our real aims with education? Our life-spans do not permit us to learn it all. But educations today are typically trying to distill so many of these pursuits at once that kids only get quick smatterings of each, and then we are surprised when our children have short attention spans, and even then we sooner blame it on television than the education itself.(嗯,很少有人质疑教育本身的问题,这个观点可留用) Not one of us has a clue how to best make as much information as possible available to children through education. Except that the internet seems to think that it has a solution. Search engines track clusters of interests, and thus anyone can take a starting point, and begin tracking the things that they would likely be interested in. However, they might not encounter some things that would be good to round out their thinking. This goes back to Socrates when we choose to do things that we want to do, but not necessarily what is good for us. Socrates saw himself has reminding the people of Athens of things that were good for them that they were not choosing because they did not think they wanted them. But surely, if they understood better, they would prefer what was good for them, right?
See how quickly we have reached a veritable quicksand of ideas? R. S. Harrison wrote: Dear Madam,
Michel de Montaigne was the first great essayist. He intended (and to many, achieved) for his essays, taken together, to map out his complete person. By recording his reactions to a myriad of topics, we have a literary equivalent of the human genome project. Like the genome project, Montaigne’s study was based primarily on one individual, but our learning was of the whole of mankind. Montaigne is considered to be almost as universal as Shakespeare, as if anyone who reads the essays could find their inner Montaigne, or a reading of the Henriad could relate one to Falstaff. But for all his learning he mistrusted professors. He claimed the best teacher he ever had was himself. Yet, somehow, for all his modesty, his advice was heeded by even the kings of his day.
On the other side of the coin is Vitruvius, a Roman architect. He writes:
“I am very much obliged and infinitely grateful to my parents... for having taken care that I should be taught an art, and that of a sort which cannot be brought to perfection without learning and a liberal education in all branches of instruction. Thanks, therefore, to the attention of my parents and the instruction given by my teachers, I obtained a wide range of knowledge, and by the pleasure which I take in literary and artistic subjects, and in the writing of treatises, I have acquired intellectual possessions whose chief fruits are these thoughts: that superfluity is useless, and that not to feel the want of anything is true riches.”
So these are ideas that came to my mind while thinking of the debate. But I have no degree from any college. I manage a coffee shop in Austin, Texas and I am only 25 years old. Yet, I have used the internet and a library card to pretty good effect. I own over a thousand books. I have traveled to every country, state, and province on this continent, largely by my wits alone. I have wandered England and Greece as well. Everywhere I go, I meet hundreds more like me. We are everywhere, and you’ve probably never heard of most of us. Well, we are busy finding meaning in our own lives. In America, we got an appreciative nod for helping elect Obama, because we were the invisible youth vote. With a little more time, and a little more experience under our belts, we’ll show you that there was nothing to worry about it. We are a beginning, not an end.
But some of you will continue to doubt, just as some of you will continue to hope. For us. For each other. For the future. For the past. For traditions. For change. Either way, we will try to carve out the best existence we can for ourselves, and most importantly, for each other.
“For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.” (-Arthur O’Shaugnessy) (额米看懂。。。>。< 感觉太晦涩了。。。呃呃呃呃。。。。。。。) ============= ============= high-cheese wrote: Dear Madam,
I feel that the proposition's proponet is drawing an inaccurate conclusion from the presented data. In my opinion, the suggested resurgence of high-culture activities is merely an unconscious popular uprising against the inevitable dilution and subsequent "dumbing down" of the human experience. That media and technology are providing ever greater distraction to the masses, by providing ever smaller bites to be processed by ever smaller attention-spans, is simply a function of supply and demand. Humans are demanding simpler information, because taken as a whole, humanities' processing ability is eroding. I believe the Darwin was right. And Mendel.
And, sadly, Robert Malthus as well.
To have children is a natural, instinctual drive that must either be satisfied, or else its disappointment must be heavily rationalized, often at great cost to the individual. To NOT have children is the path of greater resistance - a challenge more often subdued by those of greater intellect.
Therefor, as the world's population surges, its average intelligence must wane, and with it, the very ability to foster, recognize, empathize with, and ultimately to embrace creative genius...which I feel to be the foundation of higher culture(.
把文化的衰落归结为人口质量的下降)
Respectfully,
Kirk A. Ryan CLS-NCA
================= ================= Carlo wrote: Dear Madam,
Depending on which side one takes on the proposition, the "information age" is either a cultural nirvana or an oxymoron.
In my view the modern world is wising up culturally. The access to education around the world is significantly better than it ever has been in the history of humankind. It is providing an ever-inceasing percentage of the world's population with the tools to not only understand and participate in the enjoyment of human culture, but more importantly it is providing so many more people with the opportunity to contribute to the cultural "store".(人多力量大)
One can now create music, literature and art in ever more imaginative ways and be able to deliver that creation to the world. Not all that is created will be the work of the quality of Dante, Mozart or Michelangelo, however, it will contribute to what it means to be human and provide us with the opportunity to appreciate it.
The information age has brought the museum,the library, the gallery and (more importantly) the participants and audience to my home. None of this has created an "appetite". The mere membership of the human race provides us with that appetite. What this has done is provided us with a means of satiating that appetite in a manner that best suits us, rather than in a manner that others believe should suit us.
If it is this act of cultural self-determination that is defined as dumbing down then I respectfully disagree. Individuals will all participate differently in the human experience and they should be as free as possible to choose those elements that are most relevant to them: whether they be passive consumers or creative contributors(用human nature.来分析,观点收了) =============== ===============
kultcha wrote: Dear Madam,
How rather than whether lies at the centre. Why risk purchasing a tome when there is so much competing for your eyeballs at home... for free?
Sure I've been known to buy an author's book or video from a store after they've peaked my interest. Usually distracted online, interacting. I've even subscribed to an RSS feed from a blog.
Opera, Classic FM, cinema or youtube? Access in my opinion is improving (unless you live on that farm in Africa); stuffiness in retreat (unless someone is censoring your internet content).
Just don't forget your crap detectors, no matter where your culture comes from. It's all part of 'wising up'. (这应该是大众的大众的代表,很实际,不看书为了省钱) =================== =================== Micael CD wrote: Dear Madam, I feel that the time frame of culture in modern english language can be said to have around five hundred years. Five hundred years is a terribly small amount of time. Recent changes include not only mass culture but also the increase the population of the world from around 2,5 billion to 6 billion in 500 years, and from 310 million in 1000ACE. The rise of the television and entertainment media is criticized for constituting a "dumbing down" but even Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet has sexual innuendo that only some catch. In a way it is like a type of "The Simpsons". It must also be stressed that there was a great difference between the educational level of the masses and that of the intellectual elite five hundred years ago, today it is only more noticeable and accentuated as more technology and culture are available. ===================== =====================
这篇是陈述弃权理由的,就那也挺resonable Federal Farmer wrote: Dear Madam,
I am staggered by the breadth of the proposition. How in the world can we get our minds around the idea of culture in such a way as to be able to gauge whether the world, let alone a nation or even smaller locality, is wising up or dumbing down? Susan Jacoby, Tim de Lisle, and you, our moderator, valiantly attempt to gain some perch on the subject by raising myriad disparate factors.
Is it museum attendance? Is it reading good books? Is it education? Is it public policy pertaining to education? Is it how you vote and who you voted for, as one comment from the floor seems to imply? Is it a narrative of some sort or just any sort?
And once all these points have been raised, how in the world, and who in the world, is going to judge its quality? A refined post-modern of the west? An old-school high Church Tory? A professionally trained bureaucrat from the Board of Education? A learned Imam? A Buddhist monk? A devout Sikh follower of the ten Gurus? All are deeply imbedded in some cultural narrative, but who is to judge the quality of global culture? Would any of them want someone learned of another culture to evaluate his/her own narrative?
As some have noted, great accomplishments were had in ancient times, but these were usually the result of select and limited patronage. Elite achievements and accomplishments are still with us, but the masses of the not-so-distant past typically found their culture from the circumstances of their birth and condition. Literacy may well have been high in certain parts of the world, such as in colonial New England, but such was very often severely limited to sacred texts. Such literacy might eventually break out to embrace more, but to proclaim "wising up" or "dumbing down" of the world would require us to ask, of whom and where?
On this one, at this time, I must decline a vote either way ================================ ================================ Kate wrote: Dear Madam,
The proposition does indeed say the world. No matter how disappointing the dumbing down of mainstream educated people in anglo-saxon cultures may be, there is a clear and huge rise in both appetite and acquisition of knowledge (and culture) around the world as access to information, education and opportunity has exploded through, for example, globalisation and the internet revolution.
What would be interesting to hear more about from both debaters would be how they define 'culture' and what comprises 'wising up(这个观点感觉很好,从定义上来讲)'. If we take an evolutionary view, we have certainly wised up since our days in the caves, and since one might argue that at its core human nature is relatively consistent, would it not follow that we continue - as a world wide population - to wise up (despite what stupid things we do!)
Finally, I would very much like to hear about the phenomenon of momentum in our wising up/dumbing down. If we as individuals are wising up, why is it we cannot effect real change on significant global issues - like the Israel-Palestinian conflict, the reign of terror of Robert Mugabe - perhaps we are wising up at an individual level, but are we dumbing down in our collective action? Are the whims - or unilateral decisions - of a few overriding the collective intelligence or desires of many? Are we wising up at this collective level?
Thank you. ================== =================== UncleRo wrote: Dear Madam,when one speaks of mass intelligence one must focus on which areas of intelligence you are addressing. Specifically when it comes to basic intelligence, political intelligence, current events, history, analitical thinking, etc the intelligence of the masses varies dramatically.(定义问题)
As America has increasingly shifted towards socialism and liberalism our overall standard of intelligence has dropped dramatically. Increases in attendance at cultural events events has more of a feel good effect on the uneducated than it does on their abilities to cope, understan, or contribute to the world in a meraningful way. The fact that fewere and fewer people read books, news, orcurrent events leaves the masses in two major categories: those who know and those who don't know, and for those who don't know their perceptions becomes their realities and the unscrupelous take advantage of them by planting false preceptions to form the unwitting's realities. This most recent national election in America is certain proof of that. ================= =================== J.Sparrow wrote: Dear Madam,
The main problem of this debate is that the issue has been formulated very ambiguously. It is really difficult (if not impossible) to 'measure' how far the modern society has dumbed down or got wiser in comparison to that fifty or one hundred years ago. This fact is aggravated by the fundamental changes that occured in modern cultural dimension: globalization trend and emergence of World Wide Web, to name just a few. Thus, I would like to make a hypothesis that cultural background is not going to become 'better' or 'worse', it will be different.
We should also take into account the economic prerequisites for cultural shifts. The evident peaks in the cultural development of human civilization were caused partially by substantial decrease in working hours of an average individual. The thriving cultures of Ancient Greece and Rome were supported by free labour of slaves. The Renaissance emerged when rich merchants were willing to pay for them. The Industrial Revolution not only encouraged significant breakthrough in science and technology but also provided ordinary people with more time to enjoy and create pieces of art and literature. It seems to me that our Digital Age can become the next stage of cultural development as more and more people around the world will gain free access to worldwide pool of information. In fact, the availability of media content (including copies of impressionism paintings or recordings of Mozart) may encourage many people to learn classic arts. They might not have to go to a museum or opera house any more, but will bring them to their homes instead. (这段分析物质发展对文化的正面影响,虽然观点不很新但感觉不错,很完整很全面)
Many business analysts claim that developed economies are going to rely on new ideas in creating goods and services. However, the development of those ideas is impossible without learning the basics of an area the person works in: be it architecture or advertising.(这段对论证作者的观点好像没太大作用,但idea不错----没有基础就没有创新,收了)
And last but not least, modern world gives many people in developed countries an excellent opportunity to discover other cultures with the means of travel or distant communication. This might create a new phenomenon of 'fringe subcultures', where two a more national cultures produce fresh works in literature or music.(还是说发展带来的好处:方便文化交流,额,不过还是和本论题没太大关系,anyway,目前为止这篇算是比较完整的论述了) =================== =================== yrguard wrote: Dear Madam, I believe there is both an absolute increase in wising up and dumbing down although relatively speaking general critical thinking has decreased vis-a-vis pure appetite or emotional gut appeal of the masses.
The result of the election for President of the United States is an obvious example of the uncritical tendency of the democratic masses and the conduct of the mass media, at least in the United States(美国大选作为例子可用的地方)
Perhaps the increased availability of higher level education will improve the wising up process although the impact of higher education professors who are generally dumbed down ideologues unable to apply critical thinking are a negative force against the wising up of the people. Nonetheless, even during the dark ages there were always brilliant minds preserving human culture and wisdom, surging anew in a reactionary cyclical manner. So I am optimistic that this relative dumbing down of the masses is just a temporary phenomenon.
================= ================= bloodypenname wrote: Dear Madam,
It is incredible that someone UncleRo is able to state,
"As America has increasingly shifted towards socialism and liberalism our overall standard of intelligence has dropped dramatically".!!!!
That alone is a good indicator of the quality of this debate! (老米要内讧了~~笑~~)
===================== =====================
Fordham University Freshman wrote: Dear Madam,
I would like to point out that this debate is itself being posted and read on the internet; therefore, while the aggregate quality of information on the internet may be questioned, the internet obviously contains certian individual sources of high quality, "non-garbage" infomation. (网络有利有弊)
I do agee that the amount of people reading classics and other books of literary merit is on the decline, but I do not belive that has anything to do with the decline of peoples reading tangible books. I would not care whether children read knowledgeable things within computer "e-books," websites, or tangible books; I only care that they read those knowledgeble things.(只要是knowledgable,不必拘于形式)
It should be pointed out that the aggregate quality of information contined in all tangible books may actually be fairly comparable to that of the poor aggregate quality of internet sources--the Harry Potter novels, for instance, which are not of particularly high literary merit. It should not be debated whether more people are reading the Economist on-line or in print, but whether more people are reading the Economist to begin with(这个观点不错,但不切题啊). ================= ================= Random Scientist wrote: Dear Madam,
Opposition seems partially to cling to the outdated vision of culture.
Many thoughts of classic writers became so publicised and common that they are not considered any original or revealing thought at all. They are basics of modern knowledge, which children encounter in pre-school time. Youth don't read classics because they absorbed it all before.
Intellectual discussion and writing migrated to the internet. Intellectual websites, blogs, galleries and forums are just as high-quality places to exchange thoughts as 19. century galleries and cafes. I don't understand why somebody can still believe that internet is something second-class. If anything, the best internet forums and blogs are better than paper books or magazines.(依然是网络的利弊问题) ===================== ====================== E.P.F. Gregory wrote: Dear Madam,
It depends on what is meant by "the world". With polarization between rich and poor in most parts of the world growing sharper all the time, the majority of the world's population faces an everyday struggle to make ends meet. Neither they nor those who have to make do my the meager pittances many of the so called "welfare states" allow them have much opportunity to take part in most forms of cultural life. So an ever wealthier minority is wising up by enjoying many forms of high culture, while the majority feeds on the crumbs of cheap mass entertainment(首次看到定义world,感觉不错,有启发,但the poor也不一定就duming down了,the rich也不一定wising up,这个可以在分析深挖,留用). ======================= ======================= Doug Pascover wrote: Dear Madam,
The trouble with the opposition's case is that she is right about culture being a process rather than a product. If she is correct, the wisdom of culture depends less on the object of the appetite than the digestion. For example, the fact that someone can be found to claim that zero narrative may be the right amount does not mean that we live in a culture of zero narrative. I'm sure I can find a contemporary to state the opposite on Wikipedia. (不太懂) =================== =================== Lost Artist wrote: Dear Mada
A bell curve(钟型曲线) will always be a bell curve. The highest point on the X axis(x轴) is moving further to the left, meaning our capacity for knowledge continues to increase and that the smartest people are continually getting smarter(传说中的正态分布??不过后面作者都以这个钟型曲线分析,挺生动的,学习). But I don't think that this means that the the world as a whole or even just the Anglo/Western world is wising up. We must also note that due to expanding populations, that bell curve is expanding not only left & right but also up & down. What it comes down to is our definition of what constitutes intelligence. Is intelligence static, meaning that as long as the bell curve continues to shift left, everyone is becoming more intelligent? Or is intelligence dynamic, meaning that people of average intelligence get smarter, technically speaking, but are still only of average intelligence when compared to the group as a whole? I think that intelligence should be seen as the latter, as something that exists relationally.
Essentially though, this supports Mr. de Lisle, in that the human race, regardless of region, does gets smarter over time. However, I find it interesting that we are gauging intelligence by the popularity of high culture. The high culture discussed here is relatively static on the bell curve, in that the classical music, literature and art we speak of here are not recent innovations. This would explain why average intelligence is catching up to it. If high culture and intelligence are both dynamic, the high culture will only get higher, as intelligence also increases. In kind, the average intelligence of the population and popular culture will also increase, but they will still only be average.(有个观点可用,就是intelligence不应以high culture为标准) ===================== ===================== SmileyMan wrote: Dear Madam,
Culture defines intelligence? Define culture! "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." "One man's trash is another man's treasure." Is a school teacher with a passion for classic literature more intelligent than the neurosurgeon who prefers to spend his leisure time engrossed in exotic cars?(这个例子很生活很有力) How can the internet, the most powerful distributor of information ever, be anything but a contributor to intelligence? With the literacy rate in the US going from barely 35% in 1900 to well over 60% or higher today, how are we not getting more intelligent? I do not see how the level of interest or activity around classical culture, whether it be art, literature or music can define our intelligence!
What I do believe is that the evolution of information and how we manage it, individually and collectively, is accelerating. This is a great challenge for mankind, and it will not be a smooth ride. The internet is certainly littered with garbage, but so have bookshelves for the last 200 years.
Literacy is foundational. Without literacy intelligence(and man) is likely headed towards extinction.
Collaborating on best practices of how to live while embracing differences and individuality will be one way we can truly show how intelligent our species is. How we are able to manage the limited resources of our shrinking globe in the face of rising populations while also increasing the standard of living AND helping every citizen of the planet reach their fullest potential may be the greatest measure of all for our intelligence. Great culture and science will be meaningless if we don't continue to shape our global society to be more efficient, peaceful and just.(对intelligence更深层的解释,感觉很好)
I have seen the Mona Lisa - the painter was clearly a very talented fellow. I have read Shakespeare and found it incredibly irrelevant and almost impossible to read. The Bible has inspired me with great wisdom while leaving me confused and even disenchanted with anything deistic. I adore Mozart and Nickel Creek (a contemporary blue grass band). I hate most popular US culture yet have become quite fond of American Idol, even as I loath the notion of any pop star being idolized for ANY reason. But my intelligence seems to be most apparent in how I APPLY what I know to create positive outcomes in the people and world around me.(这种一直以I开头的结构让人感觉很真实,很有力,其实自己有时是最好的例子) This is the GENIUS of our human existence - that we are so profoundly able to harness the information we access and apply it productively, whether through science, culture or the myriad of other ways we can make the world a better place to live. All the culture in the world won't make me more intelligent if I experience it but do nothing with it.(这段联系自身对Intellegence的定义进行阐述,很有说服力) ========================= ========================= R. L. Marshall wrote: Dear Madam,
Reading is a skill that should never be lost, lest we become uneducated. Going to musuems, listening to classical music, and attending literary festivals are all good for wising up, but so is reading. We should all being doing all of this, especially in Western Societies where it is readily accessible. The thought of people being proud of never reading a book is very scary to me and a move towards dumbing down. Replacing reading with musuems, music, and festivals is purely a lazy way out, and I fear is becoming more prevalent. ===================== ====================== Santa Barbara wrote: Dear Madam,
Using attendance at cultural events as a gauge of upward intellectual mobility is a poor measure. Access to and interest in certain cultural events is likely as not related to socio-economics, and that while related to education is not synonymous. There are far many more ways to gauge humankind's cognitive improvement.
Our current modes of accessing information are certainly changing. Who can say that exposure to more varied ideas, even if presented more as sound bites than complete thoughts, won't in itself lift us all up in a way that cannot yet be seen.(句式观点都不错) ========================= ========================= |