Phoenix小组组员10号 issue185

zachary19891018UID: 2765757

185. "Scandals—whether in politics, academia, or other areas—can be useful. They focus our attention on problems in ways that no speaker or reformer ever could."
丑闻——无论是政治、学术还是其他领域——可能会是有用的。丑闻可以用演说家或者改革家无法使用的手段让我们注意到某些问题。


The speaker asserts that scandals in some areas can be useful by focusing our attention on problems in ways that no speaker or reformer ever could. It has merit from a normative standpoint, and I agree insofar as scandals have positive effects. However, the assertion is indefensible because it does not take into account the negative effects of scandals. We should consider both the positive and negative effects of scandals.

True, the speaker's assertion that scandals in some areas can be useful is quite compelling. Scandals play an important role in focusing our attention on problems in ways that no speaker or reformer ever could. It could reveal problems to which most people do not pay attention. Scandals, such as the sexual scandal of President Clinton, the Watergate scandal of President Nixon, and even the Enron Gate, serve to call our attention to a multitude of problems of the society. People have not focused on these problems and with the appearances of these scandals, most people realize that a lot of social and political problems have to be considered and eliminated, whether in politics, academic, or other areas. Indisputably, no speaker or reformer could call our nation’s collective attention to these problems. In short, scandals are useful and they can bring about the results of revealing and solving problems, therefore we should better pay some attention to them.

Beyond this concession, however, I disagree with the speaker because it seems to encourage us to focus on scandals. Nonetheless, scandals also have negative effects, which we can not neglect, to our society. Scandals can serve chiefly to distract our society from some more important things such as the political leaders' achievements and the efforts they made, companies' contributions to the society, other pressing problems or issues in the society, and so forth. Indisputably, paying too much attention to scandals would bring deleterious effects to the society.

Finally, perhaps most importantly, we should better consider advantages and disadvantages of paying attention to scandals. With paying attention to scandals, we can have many social problems revealed and solved; with paying to much attention to scandals, we would have other social problems. Can you imagine a society without paying attention to scandals which might have serious problems? Can you imagine a society with too much attention to scandals which might lead to depression or other problems? Or, do you want to have a picture of a society which could solve problems according to scandals while focusing on more important things of the society?

In sum, I concede that scandals can be useful by focusing our attention on problems in ways that no speaker or reformer ever could. Nonetheless, to some extent, the speaker's claim overrates the positive effects of paying attention to scandals and underrates the negative effects. In final analysis, the optimal approach to the problem, in my view, is a balance one that we should better pay proper attention to scandals, both positive and negative ones.