Issue 104 诚意求拍 留链必反

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题目：ISSUE104 - "It is primarily through formal education that a culture tries to perpetuate the ideas it favors and discredit the ideas it fears."
字数：370          用时：00:45:00          日期：2010/7/27 18:07:37

1.教育确实对文化有影响。纵观中国古代史，胜利者将自己的功绩，伟大的贡献在史书中大写特写，而对于失败者，他们的对少，则过多的记录他们邪恶，不好而一方面，迷惑人心。

2 但是，历史告诉我们教育的影响不是绝对的，同时代的古代人可能被迷惑但随着历史发展，终究给出了公正客观的评价，德国纳粹Nazi通过教育迷糊青年，但最终盟军的胜利后，德国人还是选择了民主自由的道路。罗马教堂虽然烧死了Bruno，压制日心说，即后来对伽利略的迫害，暂时好像胜利了，但最终历史还是证明Bruno是对的。

3现代社会各种方面的影响，使得教育更不可能完全左右文化了


It goes without doubts that formal education, widely accepted by the most people, plays a irreplaceable role in the inheritance and further development of culture, through the process of which the next generations of the nation develop their own value and attitude toward the society and the nation's culture. However, the speaker seems to me that he has confined his thoughts to a narrow focus but misses the large picture that  none specific factor could determine the  culture and the people would choose the one that embrace the history tendency.

Admittedly, our basic value toward the history and society form through the general education from elementary school to university. During this process, forms of arts, views of historical figures and matters and the nature science we received are the selective ones by the experts and government officals. Through the formal education, most of us accept the ideas that contemporary culture favors and the ideas it fears are either described as something wrong or even evil or just absent from the text books. To better illustrate the function of the formal education, we just need to look through the history of ancient China. The history ,written by the victorious group, objective on the general scale,  their contributions to the nation were sometimes exaggerated. And the culture at that times was influenced to some extent by the willingness of the governor through the history education.

People's value and attitude may be affected through the selective formal education, however, the truth that is partly covered by the education would change nevertheless. The contemporaries could be confused, but the followers will make the objective and fair comments toward this period of history and the culture would still be leaded by the truth. Taking the Germany in the world war two for example,most individuals at that period were misled by the Nazi education that the Germanic is prior to any nations and the Jewish are responsible for the economic crisis in Germany. Tragedies happens due to such indoctrination. However, present Germen have made a sincere apologise for what they did and re-embrace the democracy and freedom. Additionally, in the medieval Europe, the religion, which represented the leading culture, discredited the sun-center theory by educating public that it is evil and heterodox. The church even punished Bruno to death and exerted a crucial persecution on Galileo. But the truth were finally accepted by the public and the culture did not head in the direction that the religion once favored.

As for the culture, it is sort of self-identity of a nation and distinguishes the nation from others by displaying its unique characters, which form gradually through a long period and are impacted by various aspects of the society. So the education alone can not absolutely decide the ideas of culture, especially at the present world in which democracy and freedom are recognized widely by the public. Mass media, advertising campaign by different organizations as well as formal education and so forth provide the citizens with a thorough understanding of each ideas. The only result is that the ideas of truth and according with the tendency of social development will eventually emerge. The culture would choose the idea that best benefits its people.

From the analysis above, we can see that formal education would serve as means of culture to promote the ideas it favors and discredit the ideas it fears. But it is becoming harder and harder to reach that goal. What is most important is that though people may be misled in the short term, they find the truth sooner or later and reform the culture.