issue11 （高频,非主流领域）希望大家批评指正！ 有拍必回！讲义气！

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Issue41  
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Such non-mainstream areas of inquiry as astrology, fortune-telling, and psychic and paranormal pursuits play a vital role in society by satisfying human needs that are not addressed by mainstream science.
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Nowadays, it is widely controversial whether those non-mainstream areas of inquiry as astrology, fortune-telling, and psychic and paranormal pursuits play a vital role in our society. As far as I am concerned, I concede that these avenues can address certain human needs in some cases. However, the potential harm brought by them should not be ignored.

Admittedly, the non-mainstream areas indeed have their special roles in pastime, literature and art. In the first place, these avenues of inquiry satisfy human's curiosity about unexplained fields. There are many mysterious events in the world which cannot be explained by mainstream areas such as natural science. Thus in order to satisfy their curiosities, many people rely on those non-mainstream areas which provide an explanation called "other side" which fills the gap in our souls left by reason and knowledge. In the second place, in an age of explosive information, more and more choices, responsibilities and pressures are in front of the public. Yet people have no clue of what will happen in the future and feel frightened of wrong choice and decision. Understandably, they wish to shift the burden of making difficult decisions to someone else while these non-mainstream areas can predict impending events and alleviate people’s pressure. Moreover, from the past to the present, many novels, fictions and art works have correlation with these areas. The writers and artists can obtain inspiration from these mystic areas which are filled with imagination and fantasy. Without these non-mainstream areas, it is hard to imagine how many art works full of wisdom will be lost.

However, these sorts of pursuits may be useless or even harmful to our society in other cases. Too great an adherence on the guidance from these areas would lead us to lose self-trust of striving for better life. If a fortune-teller tells a person that all of his investments will be successful this year, is it wise for him to largely buy the stock of a company without amply investigation? If a girl is told that it is unfortunate to get married with her boyfriend, should she give up her true love? Everyone can tell that these two things are unreasonable. Therefore, we cannot let those prophecies control our lives. On the other hand, as a result of large amount of non-mainstream information offered by media, sometimes people may not distinguish them from mainstream sciences. For example, a person may jump from the high building with the illusion that man is able to fly by himself. These irrational and unreasonable actions make harmful impact on individuals and even the whole society. Moreover, these non-mainstream areas may be utilized by some terrorists in the name of holy wars to take anti-social behaviors. Just consider the 911 terrorism in New York which largely destroyed our society and civilization. In a word, the non-mainstream pursuits have many undeniable negative effects on our society and cannot serve as substitutes for reason and logical.

To sum up, although people can acquire some needs such as pastime, fantasy and so forth from these non-mainstream areas, we should not pay too much attention to them. Actually, the harm they can inflict on their participants and on society far outweighs their psychological benefits.

[ Last edited by staralways on 2005-8-4 at 13:12 ]

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