issue203 【红尘笑沧桑】互改小组 by 立刻马上

立刻马上UID: 2737860

topic: issue203 "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 heroines."

Heroes and heroines are generally considered as the people who have the value and virtue that the society admires or those who have made great contribution to the progress of the society. In this perspective, generally, close scrutiny of the character of those people is actually an effective way to understand the character of a society, which represents the core values that people of the society uphold. However, it is not always right, when we take a look in the society of dictatorship, things will be complex.

Admittedly, the heroes are outstanding among others and being idolized by society because they have certain merits that the society values highly but not widely possessed by common people. Benjamin Franklin, who has been considered as a typical American hero, is a good indicator of those pioneers who said no to their humble origins, kept pursuing their dreams without giving up, and finally made a success on the new land. It is the so called "American dream" that treasured by the founders of USA and affected the whole nation generation after generation.

However, the assumption behind this conclusion is that the heroes of the society is freely chosen by the people rather than the government or the few elites, in other words, it is a democratic society. Considering a society of dictatorship, the fact will be actually contrary. In such society, whether a man is qualified to become a hero is not judged by common members of society, according to their own value system, rather dictators often tend to idolize themselves in order to get better control over his citizens. And the people who don’t have enough information will be misled. One example in case is the former ruler in Soviet Union -Stalin. By raising himself to the status as a national hero, Stalin distort people’s value system, distract people’s attention from severe societal and ethnical problems into his exaggerated accomplishments, thus diminishing the diversity of culture and reshaping citizens’ personality as well as character of society. Under such circumstances, it would not be rational to draw the statement as the speaker claims.

To sum up, it goes without denying that in a society characterized by open policies and strong emphasis on human freedom and equality, the character of heroes and heroines, who are truly idolized by common people, can represent the character of the society. However, in the society in which autocracy prevails, heroes are often built by the governors, thus this will not be the case.

forevarsenalUID: 2737856

没有特别明显的错误，例子也取得很贴切。不过我觉得应该加上一段分析，既然英雄不能代表社会，我们应该怎样去分析一个社会，这样论证就比较彻底了。