issue 63

crazyjooUID: 2805124

TOPIC: ISSUE63 - "To truly understand your own culture-no matter how you define it-requires personal knowledge of at least one other culture, one that is distinctly different from your own."
WORDS: 665
TIME: 01:10:00
DATE: 2000-7-25 22:07:06


I fundamentally agree with the speaker's claim. The back ground knowledge of at least one other culture would surely ameliorate your knowledge of your own culture. Cultures are interplaying each others and they serve to be a mirror of each other as well. You can see the reflection of your own culture in other culture and this kind of perspective may bring you a comprehensive understanding.


As a threshold problem, we should give definitions of culture and a true understanding of own culture. Over nations and history, culture has been characterized as the totality of human transmitted behavior pattern, beliefs, arts, ideologies, and all the product of human endeavor and thought. And what's more, a true understanding of own culture do not necessarily equal to a understanding which involves nearly everything of a culture, even including those anecdotes and trivial events. That is to say, a person who truly understand his/her own culture is a person who has not bias to any cultures and can judge his/her own culture with critical thinking.In this respect, the study pattern---comparative approach---is beneficial. Common sense informs us that we cannot tell how dark the feather of craven is at night since comparison plays a crucial role in recognizing. By making comparison between one's own culture and other culture, one people can not only avoid to follow his/hew own culture blindly, but also gain a relatively objective perspective.

One example aptly illustrates this point involved the market economics and planned economics, which stand for two distinctly different culture. During the early time of China's foundation, Chinese people had been poured by the merit of planned economy  and they always feel proud of it since most of them regard planning economics as flawless. However, in the 1960s, China was suffering from the disadvantage of the machination of planned economics which slacked the labor becasue of the deficiency of motivating strategies. This situation did not change until the presence of Deng with his new machination of economics. He wisely added elements of market economics for which Chinese once disdained to the current planned economics. The effort of this new product of combination is shocking. The tremendous economic development speed is seen by everyone and the economic situation of China remained stable after the crush of global economic crisis. If Deng did not have a true understanding of his own culture, that is to say, ignoring the positive aspect of planning culture, he may abnegated the planned economics and replaced it with a new one. If he did not find have a true understanding of his own culture, that is, neglecting the negative aspect of socialistic culture and ignoring the merit of capitalistic culture, he may not be able to make such a brave and far-reaching decision.

On the other hand, the speaker's claim may be go to an extreme since the statement involves the absolute word 'distinctly'.With the advancement of history , cultures are affecting each other to a greater extent. Thus, it is not uncommon to see that one culture contain certain respects which are influenced by or even directly derived from other cultures. For example, China’s Confucius culture has great impact on the whole world, especially on the Eastern-Asia countries such as Korea, Japan. We can also observe more than two thousand Chinese letters in Japanese.Understandably, Korean and Japanese culture researchers usually visit China for study, which is a motherland to them in terms of academics. In this light, it is unnecessarily to acknowlege  other distinctly different cultures in order to  understand one's own culture given the increasing intensive trend of interweaving among different cultures.

To sum up, no one can have a true understanding of his/her own culture without the knowledge of other cultures because other cultures can mirror the beauty and shortcoming of one's own culture both of which are the indispensible parts of the foundation upon which the understanding of his/her own culture advances. Besides, the trend of globalization is more and more significant, thus, such comparative study pattern should be advocated.

论证和论据的比例到底有固定的么？ xdf大神说要2:1甚至3:1。。而我延续我中文论证习惯，没能做到这个比例。请问这样合适么？ 一会看看范文make sure一下

starfirezhuUID: 2842465

… to a understanding which… 又是a和an的问题？

… critical thinking.In…；…'distinctly'.With…；…in Japanese.Understandably… 又是标点后没有空格？…advancement of history , cultures…还有标点前面打空格的！

…planned economy  and they…; …to acknowlege  other… and和other前面怎么打出两个空格？…to  understand one's own… 这里to后面又是两个空格？

…becasue of… 仔细看看，怎么拼写的？

starfirezhuUID: 2842465

I fundamentally agree with the speaker's claim. The [back ground] knowledge of at least one other culture [would] will surely [ameliorate your knowledge of] help you understand your own culture. Cultures are [interplaying each others] interacted with each other and they serve to be a mirror of each other as well. You can [see the reflection of] compare your own culture [in] with other cultures and this kind of perspective (insight?) may bring you a comprehensive understanding.

starfirezhuUID: 2842465

As a threshold (fundamental, ambiguous?) problem (question?), we should give definitions of culture and a true understanding of own culture (What is a culture? What does it mean by saying to truly understand a culture?). Over nations and history, culture has been characterized as the totality of human transmitted behavior pattern, beliefs, arts, ideologies, and all the product of human endeavor and thought (Hehe, you’d better not to go so deep into the terminology. You can say, a culture exists only in case there are other different cultures. For example, Maya culture, Egyptian culture, they just twinkle in the sky of modern cultures…). And what's more, a true understanding of own culture does not necessarily equal to (lead to? result in?) an understanding which involves nearly everything of a culture, even including those anecdotes and trivial events. That is to say, a person who truly understand his/her own culture is a person who has not bias to any cultures and can judge his/her own culture with critical thinking. In this respect, the study pattern---comparative approach---is beneficial. Common sense informs us that we cannot tell how dark the feather of craven is at night since comparison plays a crucial role in recognizing. By making comparison between one's own culture and other culture, one people can not only avoid [to follow] following his/her own culture blindly, but also gain a relatively objective perspective.

starfirezhuUID: 2842465

One example aptly illustrates this point involved the market economics and planned economics, which stand for two distinctly different culture. During the early times of China's foundation, Chinese people had been poured by the merit of planned economy and they always feel (felt) proud of it since most of them regarded planning economics as flawless. However, in the 1960s, China was suffering from the disadvantage of the machination of planned economics which slacked the labor because of the deficiency of motivating strategies. This situation did not change until the presence of Deng with his new machination of economics economy. He wisely added elements of market economics for which Chinese once disdained to the current planned economics. The effort effect of this new product of combination is shocking. The tremendous economic development speed is seen by everyone has lasted for more than 30 years and the economic situation of China remained has been remaining stable after the crush of global economic crisis. If Deng did not have a true understanding of his own culture, that is to say, ignoring the positive aspect of planning culture, he may abnegated the planned economics and replaced it with a new one. If he did not find have a true understanding of his own culture, that is, neglecting the negative aspect of socialistic culture and ignoring the merit of capitalistic culture, he may not be able to make such a brave and far-reaching decision. (I don’t think this is a good example. You are not so good at economics and furthermore economics is not a kind of culture; it’s rather a political matter.)

starfirezhuUID: 2842465

On the other hand By the way, the speaker's claim may be go to an extreme since the statement involves (uses) the absolute word 'distinctly’. With the advancement of history, cultures are affecting each other to a greater extent. Thus, it is not uncommon to see that one culture contain certain respects elements which are influenced by or even directly derived from other cultures. For example, China’s Confucius culture has great impact on the whole world, especially on the Eastern-Asia countries such as Korea, Japan. We can also observe more than two thousand Chinese letters in Japanese. Understandably, Korean and Japanese culture researchers usually visit China for study, which is a motherland to them in terms of academics. In this light, it is unnecessarily to acknowledge other distinctly different cultures in order to understand one's own culture given the increasing intensive trend of interweaving among different cultures. (Outline: The culture in comparison needn’t be distinctly different. In fact it’s hard to find a culture which is totally different than you own culture)

To sum up, no one can have a true understanding of his/her own culture without the knowledge of other cultures because other cultures can mirror the beauty and shortcoming of one's own culture both of which are the indispensible parts of the foundation upon which the understanding of his/her own culture advances. Besides, the trend of globalization is more and more significant, thus, such comparative study pattern should be advocated. (This long sentence doesn’t sense good. Try to make it constructed with short but powerful sentences!)