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请高手指教!不知道能打个几分呢?
221、The chief benefit of the study of history is to break down the illusion that people in one period of time are significantly different from people who lived at any other time in history. 研究历史主要的好处就是消除了人们这样的错觉:一个时代的人与以前任何一个时代的人有显著的不同。
We study history to explore our predecessors or ancestors’ lives and to guide our new lives. Whether people in one time differ from those at any other time in history is a controversial question. I deem that it is not the human nature that has changed but the circumstances that people face have altered in different times. And the merits of studying history do not limit to break down the illusion that people in different eras differ apparently.
Admittedly, with the development of history, situations change enormously. Human society has evolved from slash-and-burn cultivation to an era of computers. The surviving conditions have been more and more complex, together with the changes, the way of life become totally different. About 30 years ago, telephone was not prevalent in China and people usually kept writing letters to get in touch with each other. Nowadays, letters are rare even in remote regions. It seems that relative sentiment or friendships with people in a long distance have been weakened. Consequently, the illusion that people in one time are obviously different from people who lived in any other time come out.
Nevertheless, human nature lasts similar whatever the period of time is. Thousands of years have passed since the origin of human beings, but the desires for essential living security do not change, for instance, sufficient food, safe shelter and warm clothes. Besides, people, whenever they are living in, all have the eager for love and sex, and need to interact with others. Therefore, as having referred in the former paragraph, the decrease in letters cannot indicate that the contact between friends or relatives is weakened too. Maybe people keep in touch more frequently and immediately through telephones and internet, which can strengthen the sentiment. Although many new countries sprang out, the pursuit for peace and stability did not change among people on the earth.
The problems people have to face become more complex now so that people today may be more anxious than those in any other time in history in psychological aspect. In the agricultural era, people had to overcome the extreme climate, that maybe draught in planting season or too drown in harvest season, or to fight against the invasion of wild animals. In a new technological era when we have created various machines to help us to produce abundant products, however, we cannot avoid the atmosphere contamination or water pollution that may endanger our lives. What is even worse, the invention of nuclear weapon threats the safety of many nations. Even we are proud of convenience brought by automobiles when traveling, we have to concede that we are relying more and more on power resources or maybe the import of oil as energy. Can we still be so comfort when the resources are exhausted/depleted one day?
Although the circumstances have changed a lot, the study of history cannot stop for it is of great value to modern society. History tells modern people a lot more than just how to differ the differences. History is a mirror of today and we can learn experience in dissimilar realms. Take politics as an example. When researching Chinese history, we can learn that once the basic living standard could not be guaranteed, people must revolt to the authority and dynasty changed. Although we are stepping into democratic society today, the social welfare is of the same importance as in history. According to history, the leader in power ought to put the people’s interest at first when making policy. Another example is that in ancient time, we learn that human and nature should keep in harmony so we must keep our nature harmonious and lead the sustainable way of developing.
In sum, whenever the period of time is, human nature is similar, while the surviving environments have transformed and many new questions come into mind. Anyway, the study of history benefits people to adjust to new circumstances and provide implications to solve new problems rather than merely tells us that people in history are similar with people in one time.
TOPIC: ISSUE235 - "Most people are taught that loyalty is a virtue. But loyalty-whether to one's friends, to one's school or place of employment, or to any institution-is all too often a destructive rather than a positive force."
WORDS: 435 TIME: 00:45:00 DATE: 2009-4-1 16:45:41
Whether loyalty is a virtue may be a controversial question. The speaker claims that loyalty is almost a destructive but not a positive force. However, I think loyalty is essential for one to survive in society even though sometimes extreme loyalty may cause passive consequences.
To begin with, loyalty, which means being faithful to someone or organization, is a virtue that we can never abandon. For individuals, we like to make friends with persons who are loyal and honest. No one, no matter how genteel or tolerant they are, can bear a friend who is friendly and telling the truth in front of him or her but does something badly when he or she leaves. When the company employers are interviewing the applicants, they usually pay much attention to the morality, which includes loyalty. Because commercial information in a company is required to be confidential, unmoral staff may undermine the base of a company. Loyalty is the basic condition for a corporation to develop stably and healthily. Even if there is one staff who are not loyal to the company and sell the secret documents to the competitors, the closing for this company is not far away. As a result, immorality may not only lead some people can not gain real friendship, but also make him or her unemployed. Without such virtue, liars are here and there in society. We can not trust anyone except ourselves. How terrible it is to imagine that!
Second, loyalty is so important in moral system that it can also bring about belongingness for someone. As for myself, being loyal to my hometown, which means that I will recommend the people or scenery wherever I am, makes me feel like I am a part of some place. When I confront depression in my life, I often feel much better when I recall my hometown. Another example is that many people are loyal to the former school, which can also be called the sentiment for mother school.
Nevertheless, extremely loyal to some people or places may conduce severe results. There is no more appropriate example than Hitler and his followers. The Nazi, who followed the cruel policy of Hitler, were quite radical in ethnical issue. They were committed to Hitler and kill many Jews. It is not deniable that they had committed huge crimes in history. Hitler and the followers were finally defeated by justice. Another instance can be drawn from the experience of China. Although Chairman Mao, with many other Communist Party members and Democratic people, led Chinese people to liberation, he made wrong decisions in the construction of new China in the 1950s to 1970s. At that time, loyalty to such leaders may jeopardize the development of a nation.
To sum up, loyalty is crucial virtual for people to acquire social resources, such as making friends and finding jobs. Meanwhile, we feel we belong to some place when we are faithful to it. Loyalty strengthens our sentimental emotions. Sometimes, as we can see from our history, being loyal to autarchic leaders or autarchy system can ruin a person's value and force him or her to do stupid things. Above all, we need loyalty with wise choices rather than blindly follow others.
TOPIC: ARGUMENT163 - The following is taken from the editorial section of the local newspaper in Rockingham.
"In order to save a considerable amount of money, Rockingham's century-old town hall should be torn down and replaced by the larger and more energy-efficient building that some citizens have proposed. The old town hall is too small to comfortably accommodate the number of people who are employed by the town. In addition, it is very costly to heat the old hall in winter and cool it in summer. The new, larger building would be more energy efficient, costing less per square foot to heat and cool than the old hall. Furthermore, it would be possible to rent out some of the space in the new building, thereby generating income for the town of Rockingham."
WORDS: 442 TIME: 00:30:00 DATE: 2009-4-1 16:45:41
The arguer asserts that the old town hall should be replaced by a new larger and more energy-efficient building and puts forward several reasons. It seems reasonable that the old building can not be utilized any longer. However, I found many fallacies in this argument. Careful scrutiny is needed before making conclusions.
First, the arguer made a hasty assertion on the condition that some citizens proposed to tear down the old building. We do not know how many citizens proposed and what about their ratio to the total population in this town. It is quite possible that the opposed ones are majority. Even if the proposed ones take up a large proportion, we still can not ignore the opinion of the rest residents.
Second, the old hall was built almost a century ago, which indicates that it can be a historical place. Maybe many residents want to preserve this building to memorize history of this town. And we all know that the local authority can not tear down or even repair the historical place without the permission of the upper government.
Third, the arguer said that the old town hall is too small to accommodate people who are working in town. However, we do not have the recommendations from people working there everyday. Maybe it is a small town, and few people working in the hall, who do not feel uncomfortable at all. It is also possible that the hall is just crowded on certain day in a week.
Third, given that the citizens in this town consented to remove the old hall and they were allowed to do so, the cost of building a new hall can not be anticipated now. The arguer points out that it is expensive to heat the hall in winter and cool it in summer and new energy-efficient building will resolve such problems. However, it can not guarantee that the constructing price of new building will be lower than the cost to heat or cool. Maybe the raw material price for constructing is very high and the financial support can not cover it. Another problem is that renting out some of the space of new building may be an unwise choice. Because we do not know what are the main economic elements in this town. If commerce is not so developed and the economical underpinning is mainly on agriculture, it would be hard to rent out. On the contrary, the town government has to provide extra money for sustaining the facilities of the new hall.
In sum, it is not convincing to build a new hall in the town now unless the arguer can do more investigations and put forward more evidence. |
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