ISSUE185 ［加州阳光］第四次作业 加油！

mercurywaterUID: 2179090

185"Scandals—whether in politics, academia, or other areas—can be useful. They focus our attention on problems in ways that no speaker or reformer ever could."

提纲：
有保留的反对
1．        丑闻会令我们重视一些社会问题  FOR EXAMPLE:安然 这些事是speaker or reformer做不到的
2．        丑闻不利的一面是忽略了个人的贡献 FOR EXAMPLE:  Bill Clinton
3．        尤其是一些娱乐圈的丑闻更加没有意义

Can Scandals be useful whether in politics, academia, or other fields? The speaker claims so, for the reason that scandals focus our attention on problems in ways that no speaker or reformer ever could. I concede that in many cases scandals can serve to reveal the truth of the problems. Otherwise, in my view, scandals can sometimes distract us from more important societal issues.

On one hand, scandals can sometimes serve to call our attention to social problems. In reality, it is the scandals which are usually reported by the mass media that truly reveal the nature of the world. Take the most famous energy company -Enron for instance. Enron Corporation, in 2001 became one of the largest bankruptcies in United States history and the focus of a major scandal due to accounting fraud. The collapse of this large and almost best-run company brought a deep impact to American economies. But, in retrospect if there was no revelation of its series of financial problems, people have no way to realize the company’s dilemma, and probably have remained its glorifies. If there was no exposure of the cheating action of Arthur Andersen we still trust its reputation and justness without any suspicion. The scandal forever increased the level of scrutiny and accountability to which our public officials are held thereby working a significant and lasting benefit to our society. Surely, no public speaker or reformer could have called our national collective attention to this problem unless these scandals had surfaced.

On the other hand, the negative effect of the scandals is inclined to efface the individual's advantages and contributions. In other words, if we emphasize more on the scandals, they would disperse attention and be attracted beyond the work in which they could contribute to the society. For example, the scandal between the US former president Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky will most likely overshadow the entire eight years of his administration. However, as is known to all, there is no perfect man in the world. So do the public figures. Perhaps some behaviors conducted by them are erroneous and stupid, but it is rather ridiculous to thoroughly deny the person. Under such circumstance, we should view him in a dialectical perspective, including the errors that he commits and the contributions that he has made. Any action of hasty conclusion is irresponsible .

Even there are also a large number of useless scandals, especially on the entertainment circle. Nowadays, in order to gain people’s attention, news papers, televisions and broadcasts all try their best to look for scandals, even make up fake stories by themselves to cater to the curiosity of the readers, viewers or listeners. In the entertainment circle, actors and actresses always encounter these kinds of things. Love affairs, drug abuse, drinking too much and other personal lives among famous people are frequently going to be a cover story. These kinds of meaningless scandals appear on and on. Not only these persons entangled are going to have a hard time but also it prevents us from concerning other social problems, like poverty, unemployment, and lack of education.

In sum, I agree that scandals often serve to flag important problems more effectively than any speaker or reformer can. However, whether a scandal works more benefit must be addressed on a case-by-case basis.