Issue185【0706G－CRUSADE小组】第5次作业 by aggie_agatha

aggie_agathaUID：2198539

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：
1丑闻确实被大众用来监督在权人员的工作，以维护自己的权益。
2a但大多数丑闻被相关行业利用，失去了原有的价值。
2b甚至有些丑闻被创造出来以迎合吸引大众的价值，从而导致了社会的诚信危机。

Human history is filled with stories of political, financial, and sexual misconduct. The general public has always been fascinated with the lived of those in power, including politicians, entertainers, and business leaders, particularly when these people fall from grace. The speaker here claims that scandals are useful since they can focus public attention on problems in ways that no speaker or reformer ever managed to. However, considering the cause, dissemination and outcome of most scandals, their usefulness is offset because in some degree, they hamper the development of the whole society instead of prompting.

Admittedly, scandals have long been considered as a powerful tool to superintend the work of those in power, in order to safeguard the benefits of the public. Along with the progressing of media techniques and political democracy, scandals which disclosed the social mishandlings have hastened the civilization of the whole society. Nixon’s  Watergate affair is of such cases, which consequently expanded the investigations into political misconduct and the scope of what broadcasters chose to expose.

However, as scandals, in most cases, are products of mass media, publication, or hostile political parties, their main function are served for those institutions and therefore lose the original usefulness. Under the guise of exposing dishonesty or hypocrisy, many scandals focused on sensational stories or privates of the public figures which in turn rose great repercussions in public, however brought no positive effect to the fields of those figures, and instead, left even worse influence among the society. Bill Clinton’s affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky was given exclusive attention by the whole nation at that time. However, we should note that any of the sexual relationship that between Clinton and any women has little to do with his political strategies and thoughts. What we can at most, blame him is an irresponsible husband, not an irresponsible president. While in order to gain audience rating, the mass media repeatedly reported the president’s sexual liaisons, which gave rise to the salacious trend of television programs, such as striptease show news broadcasting, fueling the public craving for this kind of detail, at the same time, polluting the whole atmosphere of a civil nation.

A more recently trend is that scandals are frequently “created” to meet the “usefulness” of focusing the attention, which inevitably lead to a society lost any faith.  Some people are willing to be disgraced in order to become famous, as well as famous stars or their economic companies exaggerating their behaviors to maintain the popularity. The public are overwhelmingly sank into the dilemma of judging what is true or not, or even declined to believe the idea that everyone has skeletons in their closet waiting to be exposed, and this is pretty much universal.  Such scandal culture are an increase in public distrust and cynicism and fewer figures that people can look to for strong leadership in times of crisis.

In sum, I agree that sandals can sometimes serve as a supervising tool toward socio-political problems, however, in a culture that is gradually losing trust and love, the harm that scandals inflict the society is far outweighs its usefulness.

vanluckerUID：2267009

语言真棒~赶快抄下来
overwhelmingly sank into the dilemma ~
fueling the public craving ...
striptease show news broadcasting...这条记最牢了哈哈