ISSUE22

mirageechooUID: 3331175

不明白在我自己主题帖子之后回复，为什么就看不到我的作文了呢？弱弱啊……

马上就要考了额，这居然是第一篇作文。从9/23作业中选了一篇自己不太熟悉的，强迫写作。求狠扁：

ISSUE 22
Claim: The best way to understand the character of a society is to examine the character of the men and women that the society chooses as its heroes or its role models. Reason: Heroes and role models reveal a society's highest ideals.

Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the claim and the reason on which that claim is based.

Outline:
P1提问+让步+立场：有保留的反对

P2 通过了解一个社会的英雄和模范，对理解这个社会有一定的帮助。每个社会/不同时代的社会都有其特点，不同的理念或者价值观。英雄和社会模范的塑造往往体现了一个社会的价值观和集体意识，是一种符号，展示一个社会的面貌。EX1 伽利略+EX2 马丁路德金

P3 但是，在现今不断复杂化的社会中，单一依赖识别和认定英雄或模范来了解社会，其效果是有限的。首先对于一个社会来说认定和识别英雄越来越难，因为社会正在变得更包容，人们的价值观也趋于多元化，选出一个共同的英雄比较困难。其次，英雄和模范容易被人们美化，神圣化，脱离现实，各文化各社会塑造的英雄趋于相似。

P4 此外，在强调通过了解英雄和模范来了解社会特点的同时，忽略了还有很多有效的、同等重要的途径。社会是一个复杂运行的机体，涵盖经济、政治、文化等众多方面，想要全面了解社会的特点，仅通过了解英雄和模范是不够的。比如，我们可以通过了解一个社会的历史，并通过与其他不同社会历史的比对，来了解一个社会是如何形成现今政治体系和法律体系的；再比如我们可以通过研究一个社会的文学或者是其他艺术形态（建筑、绘画）等，来了解一个社会的主流价值观、公众的集体意识。

总结：我不否认研究英雄或者模范对于了解一个社会有其作用。但是考虑到社会本身是一个庞大而复杂的机体，光是研究英雄或模范对于了解社会的作用将会是非常有限的。

example 延伸：
Galileo Galilei : through Galileo's observations with the telescope (which he largely invented) he virtually proved Copernicus's theory that the Earth revolves around the sun. His observations also showed the moon and planets to be natural, like the Earth, not mysterious and inexplicable supernatural bodies; in other words, he brought the heavens down to Earth, that is, to reason and science.

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) was a leader of the American civil rights movement of the 1960s. King's emphasis on freedom helped to eliminate many of the existing laws against blacks in the U.S. and thereby establish equality under the law for all citizens regardless of race.


[558字]
How to understand the character of a society? The speaker claims that scrutinizing the character of heroes or role models of such society is the optimum method. I concede that heroes and role models reflect a society’s ideals, thus by examining them can bring about some fruits. Society, however, a complicated organism as a whole which transforms along with the time cannot be approached by such one-dimension analysis.

Admittedly, learning the character of heroes and role models benefits the understanding of social character. Every society has its personality—in terms of values, mores, collective senses and etc.—that differentiates it from others. Heroes and role models, like a symbol, shaped by society’s expectation and ideals, through which, one can understand what under the society’s context is deem as righteousness and evil as well; what should be extolled and disparaged as well. For supporting examples, we need to look no further than Galileo Galilei. The Italian Astronomer virtually proved Copernicus’s theory that Earth revolves around the sun, which brought the heavens down to Earth, not mysterious and inexplicable supernatural anymore. His theory also ensue his ‘imprison’ life under arrest of Catholic Church. From Galileo, we can understand the people in his era were eager to be enlightened and get rid of control by pseudoscience. The other hero—Martin Luther King, who emphasized on freedom helped to eliminate many of the existing laws against blacks in the U.S. He represents his society’s need to establish equality under the law for all citizens regardless of race.

However, approaching a society by learning its heroes and role models’ characters has inherent limits especially in nowadays circumstances. Due to civilization progress, society becomes more elective under relaxed political and cultural environment. People hold so variety of values that identifying or cultivating a hero or role model who can obtain universal recognition is unrealistic. Moreover, to be more attractive, heroes and role models are always glorified, even deified. They become impeccable, stripped of the weakness of commonplace as well as human personality and thus they bear little benefits for understanding a society in which they were born.

Aside from the foregoing limits, overemphasizing the merits of examining heroes and role models’ character would bring about to understand a society obscures other, while equally important, methods which can assist us to know the society more thoroughly. As a complicated mechanism, society covers economy, politics, cultural and demonstrates in multi dimensions, which means one tries to understand it through solely method will finally find himself abortive and frustrated. To understand the present political and legal system of a society, one need to refer to its history, grasping more information about the transitions of its political and legal systems; one also need to understand the economic system on which these constructions based; still, one have to delve into its cultural to understand the citizen’s awareness that legitimatize the development and existence of these systems. The same things happen in other scopes.

To sum up, I admit that we can know more about the character of a society through studying its heroes and role models character. Nevertheless, given the inherent limits of such method and the complexity of the society, we can hope to get the holistic picture of the society through more compound way that combines variety aspects of the society rather than resort to single index.