Issue185 【老兵小组】有拍必回！！！

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TOPIC: ISSUE185 - "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."
WORDS: 577          TIME: 00:45:00          DATE: 2008-2-16 下午 10:35:43

Scandals have always exist with the development of human civilization. Though the term itself refers to something disgrace toward morality, the scandals could absorb the public attention on problems in ways no speaker or reformer ever could. However,  I cannot agree with the notion that scandals useful to our society.

To begin with, scandals could  really  focus the public attention on problems in ways that no speaker or reformer ever could. Speakers are always making speech to the public, and reformer are responsible for taking certain actions to bring a change to the current society. What is more,  the objective they would like to change or criticize is the problem already existed in the society. On the contrary, the scandals could expose such hidden problems, which are usually ignored or neglected by both speakers and reformers.  Without scandals, the public attention is hardly absorbed or accumulated. For instance, if without the referee scandal on the NBA playground, public would never notice the aggression toward the justice of competitive sport games; if without the sex scandal of Clinton, there would hardly raise a debate about the relationship between the rights and the leaders among the public; if without the academic scandals about plagiarizing papers and falsifying the data, the attention about the truth behind the fame of knowledge is never paid from the public.
The reason of why scandals could expose hidden problems while speaker or reformer not is that scandals are expressed to the public by the method of media. The mainstream media is interested in digging out scandals, which are due to two reasons. On one hand, the scandals could bring the media--no matter the newspaper industry or the TV cannel--enough attention from the public, which would lead to more profits from the advertisements. On the other hand, scandals could stimulate the curiosity from the public, who are eager to know the privancy( privacy / private ) of the famous. Before the scandals are spread,  the secrets of the famous are kept well and unknown to both the public and the speaker and reformer. Besides, while considering the powerful method used by media--the Internet, the speed and enfluence(influence) are more easily received by the public and absorb their attention to events which they have never focus on.

Although scandals have such enfluence(influence),  to praise them useful to the society appears too hasty, especially taking into account that scandals themselves could do nothing to solve the problems but may bring about some opposite effect.

First of all, some of the problems are due to the nature of our human. For  example, the corruptions result from the greed while the sex scandals are because of the lust . Such lasting problems have existed for thousands of years. Although the focus would act as the monitor and prevent such kind of scandals to some extent, there are, at least in nowadays, no proper methods to root them away.

Secondly,  sometimes scandals could even play a harmful role to the society. Consider the situations that if there are too many negatives reports about scandals in any field, varying from politics to acadamia(academia) to sports; the leas result is that the public gradually  lose the confidence in government, in economic and in education. The society would boggle down in a mess; people would not follow the laws and the regulations, the country or the stock would be out of control. If so, the net loss is beyond measurement. We need look no further than the Asian Economic crisis.


TOPIC: ARGUMENT31 - The following appeared in the editorial section of a newsmagazine.

"Some states are creating new laws that restrict the use of of handheld cell phones by drivers of automobiles. Such legislation, however, is sheer folly. Although some people with cell phones undoubtedly cause problems on the road, including serious accidents, the majority do not. Besides, problems are also caused by drivers who are distracted by any number of other activities, from listening to the radio to disciplining children. Since there is no need to pass legislation restricting these and other such activities, it follows that there is no need to restrict people's freedom to use a device that they find convenient-or helpful in emergencies."
WORDS: 449          TIME: 00:30:00          DATE: 2008-2-16 下午 10:35:43

The author opposites the laws restricting the use of cell phones by drivers. By citing other activities which could cause problems and compare them with the use of phones, the author concludes that there is no need to restrict people's freedom to use a device that they find convenient or helpful in emergencies. However, after close scrutiny of the argument, I find some logic flaws which might reach to an opposite conclusion.

An threshold problem is the evidence cited by the author that the majority do not cause accidents while using phones. However, the evidence could not lead to the no need of laws. For one thing, we are not told what the exact percent of the so-called "majority"  is of all drivers. Perhaps it is just 51%, which belongs to the referrence (reference) of majority but is insufficient to get the final conclusion. Besides, even the majority refer to most of the drivers, the author could not prove that the minority who cause problems, especially serious accidents as mentioned,   are unworthy of making such laws. We may assume that the accidents would have lead to hundreds of death right along with a great pollution to the surroundings by the process of exploration and burning oils. Thus, if the author could not convince me that the accidents

In addition, the author made a false analogy between the use of phones and other activities such like listening to radio and disciplining children. Although other activities could cause problem, we do not know the damage they created.
It may, in fact, that such activities only contribute to some problems like parking at the forbidden areas. Besides, we are known if there is any injury or serious accident caused by such activities; if there is no case while comparing  with the serious accidents caused by the use of phones, the no need to pass legislation restricting such activities would sound convincing.

Even other activities except of the use of phones could lead to serious problems and the free restriction upon them therefore unsound, the author made an uncredible (incredible) assumption that the use an convenient or helpful device in emergencies is representative of the normal use of phones. On the one hand, the author cited no fact to equate the driving itself to the emergencies--we are not told that the drivers only use phones when they face emergencies; on the other hand,  the device includes not only the cell phone but  also other tools like GPRS facilities and so on. The laws restricting the use of phone aim at preventing the accidents, while the restrictions to use an(a) convenient or helpful device in emergencies are the same as killing someone in danger.

[ 本帖最后由 wy86917 于 2008-2-16 23:16 编辑 ]