Issue120 我的第一篇issue谢谢

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120. "So much is new and complex today that looking back for an understanding of the past provides little guidance for living in the present."

提纲：

1社会确实在高速发展，科技不断进步，每一天的生活都有新的变化。现在的社会和古代有很多不同，而我们也不希望再回到过去借鉴很多落后过时低效的生活方式和生产技术。各种技术的发展让我们需要不断接受新的知识和思想。

2但是，历史从来都不是一无是处的without a single redeeming feature，不代表我们不需要从历史中学到东西。当今生活中许多问题和历史是有关系的，失业unemployment，经济问题economic problems，教育问题 education problems。a可以从历史的失败中吸取教训，在历史已有的基础上发展，就像中国古代皇帝Ancient Chinese emperor为了追求永生immortality ，而有了炼金术alchemy，但是这也为后世的化学发展做出了贡献。b过去的很多思想和技术都是具有很深远的价值的，例如柏拉图Polato，孔子confucian的儒家思想confucianism“ren”的观点到现在也有很多人推崇。

3.但是借鉴历史不能照搬，必须适合现在的社会情况。教育制度，技术等。

I concede that the contemporary society has changed in many aspects so that it becomes more complex than before. Nevertheless, I disagree with the assertion that learning from the past is useless on solving the new and complex problems today. As far as I am concerned, understanding the past still plays a significant role in our society.

Admittedly, with the development of technology, our life becomes more convenient than before. Thanks to the invention of planes and cars, we can arrive at the places we want to go to in quite a short time. Because of the appearance of telephones and emails, it is not necessary to write letters to communicate with others. With the help of machines, we can do hard work more efficiently. I believe that the inefficient production technology provides little guidances for living in the present. The innovation in any realm of life requires us to accept new knowledge and concepts. For instance, nowadays almost everyone who engages in any realm needs to operate computers as a result of the popularity of computers. However，the knowledge of computers and the internet is impossibly found in the past.

Nevertheless, it doesn't mean that we can learn nothing useful from the past. A great many of issues in contemporary society relate to history such as education problems, the question of morality and political questions. First of all, we can learn from the failure in history. The extremely low living standards of people in former Soviet Union which
result from Stalin's policicy let us realize the infeasibility of autocracy and prevent us from repeating his mistakes. Moreover, it is necessary to correct mistakes and gain something valuable from them. For example, it is absurdly that some ancient Chinese emperors encouraged alchemy in order to pursue immortality. Nonetheless, when it is applied in many fields such as medical treatment, biology and manufacture, chemistry which is developed from alchemy also benefits our society. Secondly, many ideas in the past have a profound influence in our society. For instance, Polato's concept of love is also praised highly by some young people today. Confucian ideas have a far-reaching impact on China for thousands of years so that Chinese people always have a character of modesty.

Certainly, learning from the past doesn't mean copying the experience from it. We should adjust the methods to the condition in modern society. For example, considering the problems that how to treat the students who make mistakes, educators today still agree with the opinion that  punishment is necessary. However, the way they choose is criticism education instead of corporal punishment like before. In addition, reciting words and passages is useful for study as the same as before. Nevertheless, modern educators may prefer to help students recite efficiently with the use of computers rather than cram/learn by rote. Owing to the changing of educational ideas, educators have realized that the interest is the best teacher and guiding students is better than controlling them.  

In sum, even though the complexity in contemporary society is unprecedented, the history can help us solve the problems in many fields today. What's more , the key to learning from history is taking the essence and rejecting the dregs.