今天这篇essay感觉不太好, 要是大家都来这写写就好了

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I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite.
--G.K.Chesterton (1874-1936)

/ T$ c& l2 }; ?7 \% ?3 w: q! mAssignment: Are people held back by their adherence to the beliefs of the majority or doing things in the conventional way? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experiences or observations.

I agree to a certain extent with the notion, which has same truth in it. From my observations, I feel that it is a common trend for people to follow the majority. Any subversion from the conventional is to be doubted. People who are not affected by the pressure of how the majority does things are of the minority, as for most cultures and values of conservative groups, following the flow has long been a convention. Now we are looking at the majority who adhere to beliefs and conventions, I feel that there is great element of truth to say that many are held back by the pressure of the crowd.
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4 C( v* D) |) l$ `" O7 Y8 ^: XFirst off, I would like to point out some negative effects of following the majority. Most beliefs are formed on the basis of spreading and word of mouth, where a large group of people lead another larger group into believing their cause, therefore resulting in a majority. For example, our school’s students have the habit of following how the majority act in many circumstances. In the auditorium for a weekly assembly, someone started jeering and will cause a ripple effect, thus ending up with ad handsome group of students laughing and jeering. This is called the ‘herd effect’, which is a classical case of chaos caused by following.
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Popular or news worthy stuff can spread like wild fire and people’s adherence to such news caused interesting effects. Certain conventions are formed in this way and much more are to be formed. This has given rise to the sweeping effects of Korean and Japanese pop-culture across Asia, where it truly common for people to follow their friends in viewing pop-drama which become a convention for such groups of people. If we do not follow the herd and free ourselves from the shepherd, we will then find a fresh new path of uncertainties to explore. These are the people that society needs to inject new hood and produce new advancements. Examples are everywhere in the history books, where we see progress from new endeavors.
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$ ^, D1 y  M, f: S  oTherefore, I feel that it is true that people are held back by conventional beliefs. For us to break free of such chains and subvert into new endeavors do require some courage, for it is conventional for society to doubt individuals we dare to subvert from the majority.
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" i, D# ?6 p$ a9 U& j写了392字，还超时5分钟。
0 l# V7 d+ O. [& `' M$ l4 z; _希望看到大家一起来写写。
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[ 本帖最后由 topgoer 于 2008-12-2 00:00 编辑 ]