issue33 我是越来越困惑了。这就是ets的范文？

tomatoeggsUID：82073

Topic[1]
"Creating an appealing image has become more important in contemporary society than is the reality or truth behind that image."


Sample

This is truer of politicians the world over than of other public figures; or at least so the politicians believe. If they have charisma, they often manage to sail through their career whatever be the skeletons in their cupboards. Then there are public relations exercises calculated to give them a phony build-up. However, such a build-up often blows up in their faces when the cadavers rattle out of their closets. But if a politician combines charisma with character, he takes all criticism in his stride in the certainty that none of the mud flung at him will stick. 这里用词够“地道”的。

Anyway, 'charisma' has become a cliché, used mostly by those unfamiliar with its origin. It was a term used by Christian theologians and a few social scientists who had read Max Weber. Not long ago it was used by one of the characters in "Pogo", a comic strip. This is what Weber would have called truly the "routinization of charisma". But, then, most politicians the world over are not educated enough to know all this.

"Charisma", says the OED, is the "ability to inspire followers with devotion and enthusiasm, an attractive aura, great charm, a divinely conferred power or talent." In other words, it is a natural endowment, not a cultivated virtue. However, mercifully for mankind, many politicians, particularly those in power, are acutely conscious of their lack of it. But are they all despised for the deficiency? No, voters everywhere have become mature enough to be able to look behind the attractive mask where it exists. They now form their judgment on the basis of the performance and track record of the dignitary rather than by what his or her PR men may have said of them.

There can be no other explanation for many Presidents and Prime Ministers having ticked without possessing charisma. Jawaharlal Nehru and John F.Kennedy, to cite only two examples, had this quality in such abundance as to make their respective countrymen overlook their peccadilloes exposed by the media. Others like George Bush Sr. and Chandrashekhar had the compensatory satisfaction that their respective countrymen prized their services and that people's esteem was the biggest reward.

"The greatest pleasure in life," wrote Walter Bagehot, "is doing what people say one cannot do." Assumption of office by Bush and Chandrashekhar revealed a trait: they could be dared to attempt dangerous things. There could be nothing more dangerous for Bush than ordering the attack on Iraq when it threatened the sovereignty of neighboring Arab countries, and for Chandrashekhar than allowing the refueling of American aircraft in India at the height of the conflict in spite of public opinion in India being overwhelmingly against such a gesture.

Besides their charisma, Nehru and Kennedy had an advantage: their times were secure and self-satisfied, notwithstanding the Bay of Pigs development in the USA and Chinese aggression against India. The strength of that period was its steadiness of nerve. If his vast reading and participation in India's freedom struggle widened Nehru's sense of joy of life, they also taught its littleness and transience. Nehru thus became a rebel who was also profoundly conscious of the dominance of the Unalterable Law. Prometheus was a fine fellow in his way, but Zeus was the king of gods and men!

The two did not believe in parading their achievements whose name was legion. It was well enough to be successful if success could be achieved unostentatiously and carried lightly as if it fell to them in the ordinary process of nature. There was no appearance of seeking it. Both had seen much of distinguished people, so much so that they always seemed to have a foot in the greater world. Not that they ever gave this impression by anything they said or did, but they always had the air of those who had seen enough of the outer world to be able to judge it with detachment. Indeed, they had always had the detachment from the atmosphere that is called distinction. Their manner was self-possessed and urbane, but there was always in it something of a pleasant aloofness.

They may not always have been right. But they were seldom wrong. If stubborn refusal to rush in where angels might fear to tread could be held against statesmen, with or without charisma, it was not in either case because both Indians and Americans constantly remembered the words of Confucius that " the cautious seldom err," and, consequently, worshipped the ground the two leaders walked on.

我是越来越puzzled了，在没有确定ets究竟给这篇文章打多少分之前，我不会轻易说这篇文章该得多少分的。粗略看了一遍，觉得作者完全是用native languages, quotes, examples来堆砌的，他/她还涉及到大量的当今时势政治（用词大胆），而且全文完全没有208篇的套数，基本上没有很明确的说明自己的立场。如果是我写，我可是绝对不可能这么落笔的。