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:loveliness: I SSUE40"Scholars and researchers should not be concerned with whether their work makes a contribution to the larger society. It is more important that they pursue their individual interests, however unusual or idiosyncratic those interests may seem."
Should scholars and researchers be unfettered to pursue their personal interest rather than make a contribution to the larger society, as the speaker proposes? To respond it, we need to make overall and systematical analysis of the proposition. I agree with the speaker on the part that importance should be attached to the personal interest of scholars and researchers. However, except for the motivation of interest, scholars and researchers should be also guided by the ultimate goal to promote the progress of the human race.
Undeniably, it is personal interest in possession of much magnitude to motivate researchers and scholars to strive for knowledge and explore uncharted fields. Personal interest would stimulate the craving for knowledge, equip people with the determination and resolution to overcome twists and turns, and most importantly let people enjoy the primitive joy and pleasure in pursuit of knowledge. There are numerous examples to illustrate this point. Let’s say Paul Ekman, a preeminent psychologist in the study of emotion, whose interest in people’s facial expressions and body language drove him study and classify hundreds of thousands micro expressions indicating 17 main emotions, which later were universally applied in various fields. Not only does this require large amount of work, but also continuous inspiration and courage, and it is his personal interest that count.
Another compelling argument is that if we set the criterion of social contribution to assess a certain scholar or professor, he would obtain little auspices to do his study or research as it is usually uncertain to value the importance of a study or it takes years for the desirable results to emerge or for people to recognize the genuine value of it. Take the Polish astronomer and mathematician Nicolas Copernicus as an example, whose masterpiece On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres was not published until the year of his death in 1543 because of the rejection of the Catholic churches, and then the value of his heliocentric theory began came into light.
However, personal interest possesses the features of emotion, if let it drift at the will of researchers and scholars, they are likely to become over-fanatic to the field they are concerned with, exceeding the control of rationality, and their researches and studies are likely to fly in the face of ethics and morals, for example, the researchers in the study of the technology of clone once attempted to extend it on human race as their final objective. However, they neglect a series social problems, like cloned person’s social identity and psychological problems it may give rise to when two identical persons appear in the world. Apart from that, fair amount of social resources are devoted to the researches and studies, so researchers and scholars should not indulge themselves in their personal interest regardless of the expense.
No matter studying the current problems, or making a breakthrough in an uncharted territory, researchers and scholars first triggered by personal interest should take the entire human race’s progress as their ultimate goal by making their own contribution since every valuable research or study would finally give impetus to human society. Thus, while given the ample freedom to operate studies and researches, scholars and researchers should be aware the mission they should take and responsibility they are supposed to shoulder to repay the social invest.
In sum, I agree with the speaker that scholars and researches should be given unrestricted freedom to inquire and probe intellectual area to yield desirable achievements. On the other hand, as people live in society, researchers and scholars should adhere to moral and ethical standards to better serve the society and promote the development of the human society.
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