[i习作temp] issue136 同主题有拍必回！ [复制链接]

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电梯直达

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发表于 2005-7-23 17:24:12 |只看该作者 |倒序浏览

Issue136."The absence of choice is a circumstance that is very, very rare."

提纲:
1. 外在条件确实影响着人们的选择, 性别，种族，社会条件，家庭压力……
2. 但是，即使没有其他的选择，人们仍可以选择自己的态度。

开头是不是费话太多了。。。

Now I am sitting in this room and typing my writing with a computer: I am having my Graduate Record Examination. Did I have a choice for that? Yes, I chose to go to graduate school and I chose the date of the test, I chose to come to this place this morning and I just chose to deal with this issue other than the other one a minute ago. But given that my decision to go to graduate school, do I have a choice to take GRE or not? It seems not, for most graduate schools I want to go require GRE score. Do I have a choice to use my own laptop rather than this computer during the test? No, that is not allowed. Together with these cases are tons of other situations that people complain about their “having no choice”. I will argue, however, although it seems that in many circumstances we do not have a choice, we do always have one, for we can always choose our attitude toward those situations.

True, many external factors influence our choice: we are not masters of the world. For most of us, we cannot choose our color or gender, the times we live in, the habits we learned since we were very young, mother language we speak, rules and morals that we have to obey, and other social customs that we have to follow. In a word, just as Rousseau put, “human beings are everywhere in shackles.” In many situations though it seems that one does have choices, yet those choices are too strict that they are not possible choices for one at all. Could one not answer the call of his or her country to fight against invaders when a war breaks out? Could one easily quit her job simply because she does not like it when she has a family to raise? Those external situations, wars, family pressure, have already eliminated other “choices” before one gives answer.

Although external forces limit our choice, it does not necessarily follow that in those situations we have no choice at all, for we can always make our internal choices, that is, choose our attitude towards external facts that we cannot change. Jean-Paul Sartre uttered this point in the strongest way: “Human beings are bound to be free.” Whatever external situations are, human beings always have free will to make their internal decisions, and in this way they can always be free in another area.

Consider an extreme example, the metaphor of Sisyphus given by another famous existentialist, Albert Camus. Sisyphus was punished by Zeus and had to push a monolith to the top of a mountain every day; whenever he succeeded, however, the monolith would fall to the foot and he had to repeat the same work day by day. Did this poor man, Sisyphus, have a choice? It seems not. No one would like to choose to do such a ridiculous and meaningless job and it was forced by Zeus that Sisyphus had to do so. Nevertheless, Camus argues that Sisyphus did have a choice: his attitude and mood toward this job. Sisyphus never despaired of his fate; on the contrary, he regarded his everyday job as a fight for life, from this continuous struggle he granted meaning to this otherwise meaningless job. Although his choice of mood cannot change the fact that he had to repeat the same work, its significance nevertheless changed and Camus argues, Sisyphus was a happy man in doing this job.

We are probably much luckier than Sisyphus, for most situations we meet are not worse than his. This extreme example can give us an inspiration: even if in some circumstance external forces undermine our choices--and we are not able to change those external factors--we may nevertheless have internal freedom and make our inner choices. When wars break one’s peaceful life and force one to go to battlefield, one can nevertheless decide to bear a positive mind toward the situation. When one has to keep a job in spite of preferring more free time, one can try to change mood and be less negative toward the job. In all those situations, it is hardly to say one has no choice at all.

In a word, although external factors may limit our choices, we may always grasp internal freedom in our hand. External obstacles should not be our excuse of complaints, for all things considered, the absence of choice is a very rare circumstance.

751 words

"I will act," says Don Quixote, "as if the world were what I would have it to be, as if the ideal were real..."

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[i习作temp] issue136 同主题 有拍必回！ [复制链接]

[i习作temp] issue136 同主题有拍必回！ [复制链接]