1006G备考日记 by pluka——Pursuit of simplicity（谢幕）

cinderella1016UID: 2666652

"have no intend to"

guess it might be "have no intention of".

plukaUID: 2721764

01.08 COMMENT
今天这篇太强大，全文贴上……
Political Crime
Chapter XI Conclusion

By Louis Proal

Politics have become discredited by the employment of culpable expedients and the adoption of immoral maxims; for their reputation to be retrieved they must be brought into accord with morality.（倒装+被动，词组） After having resorted for so long to cunning and falsehood, to intrigue and violence, politics, were it only for the novelty of the thing, should try the effect of fair dealing, tolerance, and justice. Today, more than at any period, novelty is liked. And what greater novelty could there be than politics conducted on moral lines? It is possible that people will end by recognizing that in public as in private life honesty is the most effective and the most skilful policy. Not only should Machiavellism be loathed by honorable people, but it should be regarded as fatal to the true interests of nations. A great policy cannot be immoral. Craft and violence may score ephemeral successes, but they do not assure the greatness and prosperity of a country. The successes achieved by an immoral policy are not lasting; sooner or later nations, like individuals, politicians, just as private persons, are punished for the evil or rewarded for the good they do. Political crimes are punished more often than is supposed. Those who put their adversaries to death by poison or upon the scaffold often undergo a like fate; those who send others into exile are exiled in their turn. 

There is more immorality than profoundness in Machiavellism. It was not a shifty and violent policy that was pursued by Saint Louis, L'Hopital, Henry IV., Sully, Turgot, Franklin, or Washington. Their example shows that it is possible to be a great King, a great Minister, a great citizen, and at the same time an honest man. On the other hand, mighty geniuses have been the ruin of the peoples they have governed, because they despised justice and pursued a Machiavellian policy. Napoleon I., who was solely guided by reasons of State, lost his senses in the end and embarked upon the war in Spain and the Russian campaign. Danton and Robespierre, who did not lack talent, brought the Republic to ruin through trying to save it by the Terror. Liberty is not to be imposed by the guillotine; fraternity is not established by the extermination of its adversaries; the reign of justice and equality is not founded by popular or judicial massacres. 

The disciples of Machiavelli declare that politicians should resort to violence and even to crime, if to do so be necessary for the safety of the people, but what they call the safety of the people is often nothing more than the safety of their rule. The authors of the 18th Fructidor, who carried out that coup d’état（政变） under pretext of saving the Republic, violated the law solely with a view to escaping a personal danger; and far from saving the Republic, by demanding the intervention of a general they created a precedent for the 18th Brumaire. The public safety is an excuse for all violence and every iniquity. Moreover, when a political crime is really committed to assure the safety of the people, there is no proof that the crime is necessary, or that the people might not have been saved by other means. The safety of the people lies rather in respect for legality than in its violation. A people that does its duty can await the future with confidence; if it suffers for the moment in the cause of justice it is rare that the day of reparation does not dawn, for in the case of nations, as in that of individuals, it is virtues that elevate them and vices that debase them. 

A Machiavellian policy is not a great policy; to practice it a great genius is not necessary. It is easier to govern by expedients than by principles. What is more, there has ceased to be any necessity for a policy of this sort in modern societies. It is comprehensible that Machiavelli's prince, that is to say, an absolute sovereign, should find it to his interest to sow division among his subjects in order to rule them; on the other hand, the maxim, "Promote division in order to reign," is out of place in a free Government that is supported by opinion and whose interest it is to unite and not to divide the community. Terror may be an instrument of government for a popular or military dictator, but it becomes inapplicable under a government of opinion. This being the case, instead of saying, as under the old system of politics, "Cunning, still cunning, and always cunning; audacity, again audacity, and always audacity," the watchword（暗语口令格言） ought to be under the modern system of politics, "Straightforwardness, still straightforwardness, and always straightforwardness; justice, still justice, and always justice." 

Diplomatic dissimulation（掩饰虚伪装糊涂） becomes more difficult with the publication of parliamentary debates. This publicity, which has its inconveniences, offers the advantage that it is profitable to morality. It is impossible for a Minister to confess in a public discussion that he harbors unjust projects. Moreover, as public opinion becomes more enlightened, and acquires greater weight, its sound common sense takes the place of the finessing of the diplomatists. A crafty policy is not always the most skilful. Henry IV. did not have recourse to craft. A diplomatist who is in ¬the habit of resorting to falsehood ceases to inspire confidence and at once loses the greater part of his authority. 

A policy based upon immorality is antiquated and unworthy of modern society; it pre-supposes contempt for humanity, and an antagonism that ought not to exist between those who govern and those who are governed. The policy of free peoples ought not to resemble the policy of absolute sovereigns; it is founded upon the respect of legality. 

Whatever the skeptics may say, craft and violence are not necessities of politics. As society becomes more enlightened, politics may attain to greater perfection. Corruption is not an indispensable method of government: liberty can exist without license, it is allowable to hope for a state of things in which the administration will be impartial, the legislation equitable, the elections sincere, and in which industry and merit will be rewarded. The European Governments show better faith in respect to their financial engagements at the present day than in the past; they are conscious that it is to their interest not to tamper with（干预玩弄） their coinage, and not to go bankrupt, and for the reason that public confidence in their credit is their principal force. Why should they not arrive at understanding that they ought to have the same respect for liberty and human life as for the public debt? 

The progress of public reasonableness is most of all to be counted upon to render politics more straightforward and more in accordance with equity. Politicians, assemblies, and sovereigns, knowing that they will be called upon to give an exact account of their conduct before the tribunal of public opinion, will become more circumspect in the employment of expedients of a kind to arouse public indignation. Politics should serve an educational purpose as well as maintain order and protect material interests. Men are governed by ideas and sentiments as well as by appeals to their interests and to force. A lofty sentiment does not spoil politics. The great advances made in the sphere of politics have been advances of a philosophical order and have been due to an application of Christian philosophy. Unprincipled politics are Pagan politics, and their result is not the progress of society. The true policy consists in an application of reason to the affairs of the State. 

Skepticism has brought into existence at the present day a generation of politicians who set more store upon palpable realities than upon principles. A policy of expedients and of vulgar satisfactions is the outcome of skepticism. The change that has taken place in our political morals has deep and remote causes. A people that used to be chivalrous, that despised money, that was fired with ardor for noble causes, now for political liberty, now for military glory, does not become positively skeptical, indifferent to principles, and attached to material interests in a day. This change of character is the result of the numerous deceptions it has experienced, of the frequent revolutions it has undergone, but also of the weakening of spiritual beliefs. 

"When a republic is corrupt," says Montesquieu, "none of the evils that crop up can be remedied, except by removing the corruption and reinstating principles; any other corrective is useless or a fresh evil." The suppression of the parliamentary regime would not be a remedy; the establishment of a dictatorship would be a fresh evil and a worse evil. The true remedy consists in a return to principles. Politics, like human life, need to be spiritualized unless they are to fall into the mire and to remain there. To change the persons composing the political world would be insufficient, unless a moral reform be affected at the same time. Clearly if the new politicians were as devoid of principles as the old, all that would have been done would have been to exchange fat for lean kine, who in turn would wish to wax fat. Between fatted skeptics and lean skeptics the difference is but slight, or if there be any difference it is rather in favor of the former. Obviously satiated skeptics are less dangerous than skeptics whose appetites are keen, because it may be hoped that, having looked after their own interests, they will at last look after those of the country. This, according to Saint Simon, was the cynical remark made by Maison when the direction of the finances was taken from him. "They are making a mistake," he exclaimed, "for I had looked after my own interests and was going to look after theirs." 

A return to principles and moral beliefs and the substitution of ideas for appetites are, in consequence, the true remedies for that hideous malady political corruption. It is only in the power of great passions to drive petty passions from the field. As long as noble sentiments, love of country and of liberty and purifying beliefs, are not revived in a country the parliamentary atmosphere will remain vitiated. 

Doubtless to exercise authority it is not sufficient to be above reproach; a clear intellect, tact, and experience are necessary. Talent, however, without morality is insufficient, and mere intelligence is no preservative against moral backslidings. Nobody would entrust his daughters or his fortune to the care of a clever but dissolute and extravagant man. Why then confide the country and the public fortune to the care of men of pleasure, who easily develop into men whose sole concern is money? When a money- and pleasure-loving man declares himself a friend of the people, who can believe in his sincerity? Affection is not proved by words, but by acts. The true sentiments of politicians are not to be judged by their professions of faith or their humanitarian speeches, but by their character and their habitual conduct. The probity expected of the head of a Government involves not only his own personal integrity, but the choice on his part of men of integrity for his Ministers. "If we would pass for men of integrity," says Cicero, "we should not only display probity ourselves, but exact it of those about us."

Statesmen would avoid many political errors if they were more respectful of justice; their political errors are often moral errors; their good sense and their skillfulness suffer in proportion as they swerve from the dictates of equity: they abandon themselves to passions that cloud their intelligence. Just ideas and wise resolutions are inspired by an upright conscience, whose qualities influence the intelligence. To be a man of good sense it is sufficient to be an honest man. 

By again becoming moral, politics would be brought back into unison with common-sense, and would be cured of two serious diseases called the Socialist madness and the Anarchist madness that are the result of the sophisms by which we are inundated, and of the letting loose of evil passions. We lack reasonableness at the present day; our brains are disordered; our good sense, a quality that used to be particularly distinctive of the French, has been affected by innumerable philosophical, economical, and political sophisms that reach us from Germany, Italy, England, the East, and even from India. Good sense has ceased to guide our thoughts and actions since we have adopted German pessimism and socialism, English evolutionism, Italian skepticism, Russian Nihilism, and Asiatic Buddhism. Let us become Frenchmen again and Christians, let us return to the school of good sense and morality. 

The malady from which contemporary society suffers is a moral disease rather than a political or economical disease. It is doubtless useful to improve institutions and to reform abuses but how much more necessary it is to reform morals and to give tone to men's minds by healthy ideas and moral beliefs. If society is to be saved from the corruption by which it is invaded, and from the revolutionary barbarism by which it is threatened, spiritualist teachings must be restored to the place they formerly occupied in men's minds and in politics; this is the only way to save them from the clutches of envy and hatred. 

The sentiment of duty and of personal responsibility must be re-established in the public mind and in the education of the young. It is necessary to fight against the sophisms which lead to the absorption of the individual by the State, and to the conversion of every citizen into a part of a colossal machine that produces wealth and distributes it according to each man's needs. The true remedy for the crises we are traversing is a return to the old morality, which teaches that working-men in common with their employers are intended to do their duty, and to labor, and have their responsibilities. What other doctrine will teach the rich the spirit of sacrifice, and the voluntary renunciation of what is superfluous, and the poor the obligation of personal effort, the merit of patience, and respect for legality? 

It is not by encouraging atheism and materialism that a Government effects an improvement in morals, that it stills passions and relieves wretchedness. Hostility to religion is contrary to sound politics. Merely from the utilitarian point of view the blindness and perversity are incomparable of those incredulous fanatics who would rob their fellows of the beliefs in which they find consolation. Who can deny that the religious sentiment conduces to（导致，有利于） morality? The more religious citizens there are in a State, the fewer are the restless spirits, the Socialists and the Anarchists. In a period of skepticism, materialism, positivism, evolutionism, and nihilism, who can dream of denying the immense services rendered by Christianity in inculcating the dignity of human nature and the obligatory character of duty, and in opposing the worship of an ideal to the worship of the golden calf? In a society in which there is talk of nothing else but of the struggle for life, of the rights conferred by might, of the elimination of the weak, of the disgrace of poverty, of the all-powerfulness of wealth, religion teaches self-sacrifice, respect, and love for the poor, and responsibility before God and before the conscience. At a period in which Socialism, grown more and more threatening, demands that the State should be omnipotent, Christianity again performs a useful work in standing out for the rights of the human being and the rights of the conscience, and in setting limits to the action of the State. If spiritual beliefs were not regaining ¬their hold over men's minds one would be forced to tremble for the future of society, for "there comes a day when truths that have been scorned announce themselves by thunder-claps."

Nations, too, in their mutual relations, have every interest not to separate politics from morality. A sound policy, no less than morality, dictates to them justice and charitableness, which are alone capable of preserving peace and with it the benefits it carries in its train. The policy that teaches nations that they should envy, hate, and injure each other, that their conduct should be solely guided by their interests, and that the difficulties that crop up between them should be settled by force alone, such a policy is criminal and mistaken. The statesmen who counsel this narrow and egoistical, this envious and malevolent policy, are shortsighted, they are merely alive to the interests of the moment that are a source of division, but they are blind to the interests which the peoples have in common, and above all to the disastrous consequences of antagonism and war; they do not keep in view the benefits of peace and the horrors of war. 

How far preferable to an envious and ambitious policy that divides nations would be a just, friendly, and moderate policy that would bring them together! How far happier the nations would be if they would cease to lend themselves to a revengeful and high-handed policy! What a pitch of prosperity Europe would have reached if, realizing the project of Henry IV., it had applied to politics the rules of good sense and Christian morality. The aspect of the world would be changed if the nations, considering themselves members of the same family, would banish violence and craft from their councils. The policy of Christian peoples is still Pagan: it must become Christian if the world is to enjoy peace. 

Carried away by his somewhat excessive enthusiasm for military glory, M. Thiers has remarked: “What purpose would the strength of nations serve if it were not expended in attempts to gain the mastery over each other?" It seems to me, however, that the strength of nations might be more usefully employed than in realizing dreams of conquest, which are so dearly paid for in money and blood, and which end in disasters and catastrophes. Every time that a nation has sought to conquer other nations, it has caused torrents of blood to flow without profit to itself. All those who have entertained dreams of conquest have met with failure. To establish their supremacy Charles V. and Napoleon I. caused millions of men to perish, and they were unable to attain their goal: the former died in a convent（女修道院）, the latter on the rocks of Saint Helena; Spain and France were ruined by their ambitious policy. To how many conquerors may not these words of the Bible be applied: "The hammer that shattered the nations of the universe has itself been broken in pieces." 

A policy that aims at international equilibrium is better than a policy of conquest. Empires that are too vast cannot last; they succumb, sooner or later, to a coalition between the other nations. That one nation should rule over another is always a danger to the common liberty, for a nation that is too powerful, like a too powerful sovereign, has a difficulty in keeping within the limits of a wise moderation. If the desire for domination be of value as a motive force in politics, why should not moral domination achieved through science, literature, and institutions be made the object of the activity of nations? 

Skeptics are disposed to（有...倾向） smile when they hear moralists express the hope that international wars will cease, and that arbitration will take the place of recourse to force. Lord Salisbury, however, who at one time considered this hope a dream, is now of opinion that it is realizable. "Civilization," he has said, "has substituted law court decisions for duels between private persons and conflicts between the great. International wars are destined in the same way to give place to the courts of arbitration of a more advanced civilization." In 1883 Switzerland and the United States pledged themselves to submit to a court of arbitration all difficulties arising between them during a period of thirty years. In 1888 France contracted a similar engagement with the Equatorial Republic. In 1890 the plenipotentiaries（全权大使） of seventeen American Republics, assembled at Washington, admitted the principle of permanent arbitration. 

It may be hoped, in consequence, that war will become rarer and rarer in proportion to the progress of civilization and of the moral and economical solidarity existing between different nations. The new engines of war, the destructive force of which augments every day, also contribute to the maintenance of peace, because peoples and sovereigns recoil in terror from the frightful consequences of a war waged with such formidable engines of destruction. The tendency of public opinion is more and more to compel Governments to maintain peace. It may be hoped in consequence that war, which is already more civilized, will become of rare occurrence. 

Still, as peoples and sovereigns have a tendency to become intoxicated（喝醉的，极其兴奋的） by success, historians and moralists ought to unite their efforts to combat their unruly impulses. Historians, who habitually admire success, too often forget, when narrating wars, to inquire into their morality and utility; they almost always exalt the conquerors, and in this way corrupt public opinion, by accustoming it to allow itself to be dazzled by success. They should keep a little of the admiration they lavish upon conquerors for the upright men who have given evidence of their love of humanity and of their respect for human life. 

As to the moralists, it is necessary that they should unceasingly combat the sophisms of immoral politics by declaring that reasons of State are the negation of reason; that the object of government is not to divide but to unite; that the lesser morality does not destroy the higher morality, because there are not two moralities; that public safety lies in justice alone: that the end does not justify the means; that illegitimate means result in the end being unattained; that right is superior to might; that justice is the supreme law; that the maxim that right is on the side of the strongest is a maxim good enough for wolves but not for men. 

Science without conscience, Rabelais has said, is the ruin of the soul. Politics without morality are the ruin of society.
==========================================
COMMENT

This essay is so thought-provocative that instead of picking out good sentences, phrases and expressions, I'd rather keep it as it is, with its fluidity and integrity. 

While reading the article (and being filled with admiration), I suddenly came up with a man: a man who plays with tricks and juggleries, coaxes the public, flirts with business and media, and unconcernedly yet freely tiptoe dances at the political stage. His name is, of course, Silvio Berlusconi, the prime minister of Italy. Though his fame has been (or has long been) tarnished and reputation tainted with unceasing scandals and inappropriate performances in public, there are still ardent supporters who believe he is man to steer Italy towards the prosperity. He is crafty, and capable as well; he shows apparent, if not unbridled, sexism, regarding and promoting his women subordinates according to appearance and their affinity with him; he behaviors unbelievably frivolous in serious international meetings, drawing women's bra and showing it to other presidents and prime ministers. Well, this man is out of rule. He's notorious as a politician, yet somehow holds an almost irresistible charm to some people. Humm, that's interesting.

Thx hugesea for sharing so enlightening an essay! Learned a lot. And I love this kind of topics~smile~

plukaUID: 2721764

又考完一门专业课，面对考卷不由得泪目：俺真是自虐，选了一门本不用学的变态课，撞墙中......
明天一定一定一定要开始再过阿狗题库了！不能再拖了！啊啊啊啊啊啊~~~~~
01.08

plukaUID: 2721764

好歹算是开始阿狗了，继续纠结issue，最难确定的还是思路，要从一团乱麻里揪出一个头绪，好麻烦。极度缺乏例子中……
01.09

plukaUID: 2721764

01.10 COMMENT
NOTE
Risk resides in simple choices, but uncertainty arises in messy situations, where the variety of possible actions is nearly infinite.
The distinction hinges on(依...而转移） the range of possible actions they can employ to achieve a desired outcome.
peer deep into the future
seize golden opportunities
weather（经受，承受，耐住） unforeseen threats
reap the benefits of
COMMENT
This article introduced the conception of risk and uncertainty in financial field and explained simply methods that managers can adopt to deal with uncertainty.

Its explanation in distinguishing risk and uncertainty impresses me. Risk, it claimed, refered to the possible lose attached to certain relatively simple and known consequences. Uncertainty, on the other hand, lay in the complexity of the interaction of a myraid of components both subjective and objective, planed or accidental, crucial or irrelevant. The result of uncertainty defied detailed delineation, but was possible to make rough prediction and thus adopt certain measures. 

Next, the article presented three major way to handle uncertainty: strategic anticipation, organisational agility and uncertainty absorption. 
Strategic anticipation required managers to abstract patterns out of available data, statistics and experience, forming sketchy predictions for a short future. Managers were warned to stick to the steretype because old predictions often failed to provide accurate anticipation, and patterns and models needed to be renewed all the time.
Organisational agility standed for self-construction, the self-restoration that helped making the cooperation more durable and flexible in harsh time full of uncertainty. 
Uncertainty absorption focused mainly in the reduction of the potential lose caused by uncertainty. Diversification weighed much in this process. Companies could achieve the uncertainty absorption with the help of governmental fund and subsidy as well.

Since I have little financial background, I came up with little comment for this article (so I chosed to make kinda sum-up). Well, yet an increasing interest for economc hits me... perhaps management and finance are fun, humm, like to know more once have time.


坚持写东西~~~！
写summary或者comments倒是容易，脑子里想到什么直接说就是了，然而作文却是边想边斟酌边犹豫边挑字眼……泪目，依然卡壳。
不行，坚持就是胜利~~~~！

01.10

plukaUID: 2721764

幸而还记得跑上来更新备考楼。今日任务没完成，阿狗还差十题没看= = 泪目。近期目标是做作业，看阿狗，琢磨ISSUE。
被作文堵得郁闷的时候突然想到星夜无夏前辈的帖子，关于自由的写作，当时看的时候不觉得有啥，现在饱经折磨之后，终于发现那是大实话。
01. 11

plukaUID: 2721764

01.12 COMMENT
NOTE

IT IS an oft-told（耳熟能详的）story, but it does not get any less horrific on repetition.
paedophile（恋童癖者）
In their grief, the parents started a petition.
a sexual predator
In no time at all（未几）, lawmakers in New Jersey granted their wish.
child-molesters(molest骚扰困扰调戏）
self-defeatingly harsh
They have been driven by a ratchet（日益糟糕的） effect.
stretching the definition of ...to ...
Ms Allison will spend the rest of her life publicly branded as a sex offender. 
Public registers drive serious offenders underground, which makes them harder to track and more likely to reoffend.

In America it may take years to unpick(拆开拆散） this. However practical and just the case for reform, it must overcome political cowardice（怯懦胆小）, the tabloid（小报） media and parents’ understandable fears. Other countries, though, have no excuse for committing the same error. Sensible sex laws are better than vengeful ones.

COMMENT
One of the function of law is to protect. Yet it seems tricky topic whether the protection should include criminal and law offenders. Lawmakers, who advocate the human rights for prisoners, might pose harsher restrictions on potential criminals: after all, prisoners have been in control and it's safe to grant them relative conveninence(and create a humane image for politicians themselves), while criminals at large incur fears, anger and turbulence for the mass. The incentive for those cautionary regulations for potential offense, of course, is justified, but to what extend should it be implemented? This article hints us an answer: while the law must keep the principle of protecting its citizens, it should not leave aside the rights of suspect, who usually poses literally little threat, and instead of lavishing taxpayer's money on trivial tracks for minor offenses, politic should concentrate on sth worth doing.

When reading the article, I could not help recalling scenes watched before in American sitcoms. FBI  employed high-tech equipment, exploring data and profiles of suspects from database that contains millions of pieces of information from offensive records, hospital bills to current addresses. By those information, police were able to pinpoint any one they wanted.Efficient can it be, those information can threat to be dangerous for individuals if not properly used. As the article suggested, people might be discriminated, expeled or even shot simply for the records of shameful yet minor offensive deeds. 

Well...once speaking of this kind of issue, one name poped out in my mind:  Big Brother. humm? well, practically it seems not a big case wether we are under the nose of Big Brother, as long as the degree of supervision is restrained into certain scope and interventions remain low.

错字：turbulence efficient 

ieyangj08UID: 2743219

pluka加油，你比我快多了，我还在做海选的作业呢~

plukaUID: 2721764

新鲜出炉的错别字~（汗）
juvenile,discerning,straightforward（总是漏掉g或者h）,knowledge（有时候dg位置弄反）,quaint（a漏掉了）,whether（居然拼成wether= =）

今日阿狗任务完成，精读又拉下了……泪目，拆东墙补西墙？现在去做~嚯嚯~
01.12

plukaUID: 2721764

EXCERPT
But to a swelling chorus of critics, the definitions have a hollow sound. 


"We are told," says Dr. Buttrick, quoting Harvard's James Bryant Conant, "that education is preparation for the 'good life,' but neither the word 'good' nor the word 'life' is given any content. Or we are told [by John S. Brubacher] that the 'general aim' of education 'is only that of pupil growth.' But what kind of 'growth'? . . . Or we are told [by William Heard Kilpatrick] that education must assume 'increasing responsibility for participation in projecting ideas of social change.' But again we must ask: What kind of change and in what direction? . . ."

...recent education has almost deified（神化） an attitude of suspended judgment, blind to the fact that while suspended judgment may be possible in matters of opinion or unfinished scientific research, it is not possible on any deeper level of life.

"The cult of 'objective study' likewise cannot stand scrutiny . . . The mockery is so complete that the whole foundation of our education must now be questioned. For education has assumed that human nature is a receptacle for 'facts,' and that this diet of facts will of itself somehow lead to knowledge, and that knowledge by an even more mysterious alchemy will then become wisdom . . . Education has pinned its faith to a fictitious 'progress,' blandly（温和地殷勤地） believing that man is a romantic creature destined to walk the road of evolution 'more and more unto（到，向，直到） the perfect day.' Every tenet of this creed has been falsified（伪造）: progress has become a rather nasty mixture of cash and gadgets, and the road of evolution has reached—Buchenwald（地名，德国法西斯曾在此设立集中营残杀反法斗士）!"

The Homeless. The fact is that these "aims" of education are not aims but escapes; "the uneasiness that comes of letting major issues go by default has fallen like mildew（霉菌） on our schools." The real aim of education cannot be "different from the total purpose of life . . . The realm of education may be like a field within a farm: it may cultivate a special crop. But the crop must still serve the purpose of the whole farm."

The major question that education must face, in short, is God, for "if God is the sovereign fact of life, God is the sovereign fact for education . . . Education cannot live under any hermetic（密封的，与外界隔绝的）seal, but only under the countersign（口令，答令）of man's nature and destiny. If God is, education must live under the acknowledgment of God."

In acknowledging God, says Dr. Buttrick, the educator cannot compromise with half measures; he cannot "be content to let the student add God as an extracurricular according to choice . . . the blasphemy which says of God: 'Season according to taste.' " What is needed leanings. In the U.S., educators became more & more absorbed with the equally radical ideas of Columbia's John Dewey. Even some of her own followers betrayed her: they transformed her doctrine of guided freedom into a doctrine of anarchy, and many educators turned away in disgust.

Though old and exiled, Maria Montessori continued to preach. She wandered to Barcelona, where she had to be rescued by a British cruiser during the civil war. She went to India, where she was interned as an enemy alien. And she went to The Netherlands, where she set up a new training center. Wherever she went, her message was always the same. "You must fight for the rights of the child," she would exclaim, and hundreds of educators were still inspired to take up the cry.

Last week, in The Netherlands, Maria Montessori's own fight came to an end. She had helped to revolutionize a whole generation's concept of primary education, but at 81, she had no intention of stopping there. Her last words were directed to her adopted son Mario, who has gradually taken over her work: "What are you planning for the reform of the world?"
==================================

COMMENT
The overemphasis on aims and results erodes not only education, but today's life. It seems that all of our learning, working and interpersonal actions are primarily the preparation for better life in tomorrow. But where is "tomorrow"? And as Dr B questioned: what is "a better life"? Standardized criteria such as income and social status does not guarantee a comforted living, rather, it imposes so much pressure that people get exhausted to be aim-directed or result-oriented.

While the utilitarian conception results in depressing situation on adults, the clear and authoritative purpose for education may leave even deeper wounds in children, whose nature is of the pursuit of freedom, creativity and indiscriminate discovery. When they enter school, most kids are nowhere near sophisticated enough to realize the importance of "preparation for tomorrow", let alone concentrate on it. They, however, have been imposed with stiff curriculum, whose meanings, in their eyes, are hard to capture and contents are nothing but detached statistics or so-called objective truth. Without being aware of the purpose themselves, they fall into prey of the "caring" yet indifferent system. Larger tragedy awaits ahead.  To the time that students can make their own judgment, they have been subliminally constrained within the system: institutionalized--as Shawshank described the life in prison.

Ironically, instilled with the conception that all make for some purposes, educators forget the original and ultimate function(if I can call it function) of education: education serves as tool or path in life, yet without some kind of goals. John Dewey advocated for this idea for years, with little fruition. It seems all too rare a chance that we can stand sth with no definite destination--though we have to admit that life itself is, actually, without fixed destination.

错别字：preparation prey curriculum

plukaUID: 2721764

明天回家，今天算是半正大光明地犯懒，= =|||
01.13

plukaUID: 2721764

啊,事实证明回家果然会让学习效率和学习时间都大幅度下降!! 还好今晚赶上了这两天的阿狗, 但ISSUE没能抽出太多空,只改了一篇,泪目.
但是还是回家好, 跟家人比起来. 牺牲一点复习时间也就不算啥. 恩,不过当然还是要严格控制,不能太过......COMMENT拉了好多,两天没上网......明天的目标是补上COMMENT和精读, 继续单词和阿狗, 复习专业课(俺还要下周赶回学校考试咧), 看完一篇ISSUE的资料列提纲,如果有时间就写,没时间就改......仰头, 俺觉得俺做不完啊怎么办...泪目
01.15

plukaUID: 2721764

01.14COMMENT
NOTE

But the decision to offer a censored search page prompted an outcry from human-rights activists and some members of Congress that the company was turning a blind eye to its "Don't be evil" motto for the sake of access to the lucrative Chinese market. "Google came into the market bending some of its own rules," says Mark Natkin, managing director of Marbridge Consulting in Beijing. "It was intoxicated with the prospect of this enormous and still just-beginning-to-develop market.

Average Chinese Web users never warmed to the company's services

"They were trying to find a way to compromise without completely bending over and it turned out they couldn't win,"

Baidu, a Chinese search engine with a Google-lookalike home page, has used its better relationship with authorities and its indigenous appeal as a domestic company to surge past Google.

By dropping its censorship, the company stands to regain some of the moral clout. Today, several Chinese bloggers delivered flowers to the company's Beijing headquarters to thank it for its new stand. "It's a public message that some people in China are picking up on（与…熟悉起来）,"

the Chinese government's behavior is unacceptable, and that can't fail to resonate（使共鸣，使共振）."

Given the company's tempestuous four years in China, the odds the authorities will now compromise are slim.

COMMENT

I used to be fretted instantaneously at the thought of internet censorship in China, yet somehow this spleen was quenched and seemingly forgotten as the time past. Google’s articulate statement, however, re-arouses the fire. Chinese internet users are amazingly tolerant to the omnipresent censorship that engulfs them online; they shouldn’t be. We read articles on the right of free expression in the Constitution, that might be true: we are able to, indeed, gain freedom to some extend, but only under a confine—a limited realm whose space is under encroachment at any moment and whose authority lies in no its residents’ hand.

Is it justifiable that the government imposes filter system to its people? The answer may well remain to be seen. One relevant factor is the degree of censorship. While it’s understandable that the government conceals certain part(but by no means a big part) of information such as certain upheaval or political or military tensions so as to appease the public and avoid possible turbulence, I deem it ridiculous and nonsensical to hide everything that in their eyes undermine the authority and infallibility of the government.
For one thing, though ostensible forbiddance may squash the words spoken from the mouth, it hardly suppress the words flow from the heart. Instead of concession, internet users vented their spleen in various approaches and developed another set of language in contest with these banned phrases. It has even became a kind of satire that jokes on many government-launched bans or softwares enter the daily online activity such as hexie or lvbaniang（= =）. Those jokes can be fun, but they originate from the abnormal current in which people have no way to express their ire other than through black humor. How far are we from the normal? Many people, Google included, awaite for an answer.

错别字：
Quench constitution（S后面没有I！） relevant（V后面是A不是E！） ridiculous（R后面是I不是E！） forbiddance（双写D+A！） squash suppress（U后面没有R双写P！） abnormality（N后面有R！）

plukaUID: 2721764

01.15COMMENT

The day before I read a LSAT reading concerning the women status in work places. There are two reasons for the phenomena of sexual discrimination in professional life: one is the discrimination from employers who are unwilling to offer opportunity for women applicant and better treatment for women employees, another is the seemingly discretionary choice of women based on the demand of motherhood. While the former is rightly condemned as unfair, the latter is always labeled as women’s self-decision out of free choices. The author of that material, however, told that the ostensible free will depended on the deliberately downplayed yet still persistent and
widespread social convention that women are home creatures who find the most preferable place in house works. This convention comprises the underlying constraint that confines the world of women.
Even though today’s society becomes more and more open and tolerant for career women, those who want to climb up to the pinnacle of their career are charged for a high price of possible collapse in family. Other than frequently mentioned reasons such as sexism or psychological imbalance, the thinking pattern developed during the competitive and pressing professional life serves as a cause for the unhappy family life. Plunging themselves into the rapids of modern life where the efficiency and results are highlightened, career women may unconsciously lose their softness and compromise dealing with family conflicts.

错别字：
Imbalance（ba非ban！）