Issue 66，求修改，不胜感激~

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66    People who are the most deeply committed to an idea or policy are also the most critical of it.
Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the statement and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, you should consider ways in which the statement might or might not hold true and explain how these considerations shape your position.


Some people might argue that if a person is deeply committed to an idea or policy, he might be blinded by his commitment. However, others consider that those who are most committed really take account of the idea or policy most seriously. For these two views, which one is correct? In order to answer the question, we should firstly define what is commitment and what is criticism.

Commitment may be considered as being loyal to an idea, believing the idea is correct and justifiable, and taking strong actions to support it. There are many examples about a person who is committed to whatever they believe. For example, Albert Einstein believes that the nature might be explained in a uniform theory, and spent most time in his old age to explore the theory. Although until his death, the theory has not been established, we may understand that he is quite committed to his idea about the nature. This might be considered to be commitment. And for political leaders, they may also stick to a certain policy, which might be considered to be committed to it. Thus commitment might be considered to stick to an idea.

As for the definition of criticism, I suppose there are two types of it. In one aspect, being critical of an idea might be considered to be strict with the idea and do the best to safeguard the purity and authority of it. Such definition actually means that being critical of other ideas, especially those originated from the idea. In other aspect, to be critical means that to objectively and strictly consider the correctness of an idea. That means one will check the accuracy of an idea with no regard of whether he believes it or not. For the two definitions, one might have different conclusions about the statement of commitment and criticism.

For the first definition, the statement might be considered to be right, because for those people who are loyal to an idea, they tend to be strict with its purity and accuracy. Those people might not allow others to misrepresent or change it. For example, those people who are committed to communism might have their own ideas about it, and do not allow any other ways of explaining it. They just think that their way is correct and pure, other explanations cannot be accepted. In this way, the people who are loyal to communism, are most strict and critical of the idea. Thus according to this definition, the statement is justifiable.

However, for the second definition, the statement should be judged to be incorrect. As long as somebody adhere to what he believes and refuse to make a change, it might be difficult for him to understand the limitations or wrong parts. For those people who are quite loyal to communism, they might not think there are many problems with it. It is even much harder for them think that such an idea might be wrong. In this way, they might refuse to think objectively about the ideas. They do not want to see the wrong parts. The result is that they refuse to be critical of it. Thus for the second definition, the statement is not correct.
From the discussions above, we may safely conclude that if being critical means being strict with the purity of an idea or policy, those people who are loyal to the idea or policy are also critical of them; if being critical means considering an idea objectively and caring about whether the idea is true or not, those people who are committed actually tend to ignore bad aspects, and bystanders might be in fact more critical.