I203，社会和英雄，为什么写这么慢啊！！！

shadow1987UID: 2605840

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."
WORDS: 330
TIME: 00:45:00
DATE: 2010-8-6 16:41:30

In this era, scientific and technological changes bring about a more complex society wherein the ideas and values have changed dramatically as well. Therefore, I find the speaker's claim that we can understand the character of a society by examining the character of its idols is to some extent too extreme. In my view, considering the complexity of a society, we could judge a society only if we carry a thorough study about the society from all respects.

In the first place, I must concede that idols in a society indeed reveal certain characteristic or trends of a society because under certain circumstance, they are the ones who lead the social tendency. In realm of entertainment, singers and performers usually lead the fashion style in wearing, speaking and performing. By examining these stars, we can absolutely learn the contemporary ideas and values in a society. For another example, Dante, who is one of the three giants of the Renaissance, wrote the "Divine Comedy" to appeal the freedom under the shadow of godhood and he consequently became popular. Considering the fact that his masterpiece had been well received by the messes at that time, we understand the people's instinctive will and tendency towards humanism. Thereby, idols could sometime represent certain social ideas.

However, the topic is rarely a straightforward issue due to the social complexity. We should also be aware that one particular hero or heroine cannot represent all the characters in a society. People who hold different ideas might follow different idols, in this way, it is hard to indentify a idol as the hero or a heroine of a whole society. Some heroes of one group might be taken as enemy by the opposite groups. For example, Mao Zedong, who is the founder of new China, has been described as a hero by most of Chinese people. On the contrary, people in Taiwan especially those nationalist soldiers’ offspring hold the view that China had been occupied by communist party and the the chief criminal is Mao Zedong. It remains a controversial issue and if one wants to study Chinese characters in that period of time, it is crucial to take into account the opinions from both sides.

Additionally, same minorities might have no idol at all and we cannot simply ignore their opinions or positions since they are also the important elements in our society. Chinese numerous minority nationalities may serve as a proper example here. China has fifty-six nationalities in total, and the fifty-five nationalities among them are national minorities. Some of these minorities have leaders or heroes but some are not, meanwhile, they all have their own cultures and customs. To provide a justifiable conclusion about Chinese character, studying national minorities’ cultures and customs is an indispensible process. In short, just considering the heroes might lead to misunderstanding about social characters.

To sum up, our society is extremely complex, since some people’s heroes might have negative appraisement from other people, and these heroes cannot represent all the ideas and values in a society, I venture to disagree with the speaker’s claim that he 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.