PassonChen【同主题写作之ISSUE143&ARGUENT242】

PassonChenUID: 2614331

TOPIC: ISSUE143 - "Artists should pay little attention to their critics.* Criticism tends to undermine and constrain the artist's creativity."


In the speaker's view, it is presumably taken for granted, which I take leave to doubt, that criticism will exert side effects on the artists when they are creating a piece of artwork and, simply because of this, he/she concludes that artists should pay little attention to their critics.

Admittedly we are more or less affected by other people's remarks, but for artists who are bearing a fruit, influences from criticism is almost nil. Artists in such a state enjoy an abundance of freedom of imagination and are ready to forget everything that might otherwise seem unpleasant, for art treats beauty, which is beyond the reach of reason. If someone should refute that there were in history artists whose genius was never recognized by their contemporary critics and take Van Gogh as an example, I will in response argue that being not recognized never means that their flair was stifled, as we can see at
first glance from Van Gogh's masterpiece of astronomical value today.

Art, so far as I am concerned, is a realm that involves not only the artists and critics, but also the appreciators. In the stage of art, artists alone cannot play all the roles, and without the rest, there is no point in referring to the creativity of artists. There is a good reason for artists to show their respect and interest for the views of the critics because it is they that take pains to understand them and make their works understandable to the ordinary. In so doing, critics become the bridge between the creators and the appreciators. I can imagine what art will look like without critics just like I can imagine what science will be without teachers.

Not only will the critics not undermine or constrain the creativity of the artists, but they sometimes stimulate masterpieces. When Earnest Hemingway was severely criticized and believed to have exhausted all his spring of creation, he went ahead with anger and determination and finally brooded his immortal work, The Old Man and The Sea, which won him the Nobel Prize for Literature, yet still received a good amount of criticism for its plain stile of narration and lack of interesting plot. Now that it has come into being, what is the matter however much criticism? I am rather coherent here with the debate above, which doesn’t exclude the impact of critics on artists before and after their conceiving their works.

What’s more? Critics, with their own understanding of art, not only criticize, but also applaud, according to the quality of the artworks. Through their critics, artists can understand the art in other people’s minds, as art is universal, and if artists focus only on their own feelings and emotions, they may miss the essence of art.
Based on the argument above, it is fitting to say, if artists bore to pay attention to their critics, they are running against their status. But their attitude towards the critics should avoid being either anger or content, but more liberal for the sake of the prosperity of art.





TOPIC: ARGUMENT242 - The following appeared as an editorial in the student newspaper of Groveton College.

"To combat the recently reported dramatic rise in cheating among college and university students, these institutions should adopt honor codes similar to Groveton's, which calls for students to agree not to cheat in their academic endeavors and to notify a faculty member if they suspect that others have cheated. Groveton's honor code replaced an old-fashioned system in which students were closely monitored by teachers and an average of thirty cases of cheating per year were reported. The honor code has proven far more successful: in the first year it was in place, students reported twenty-one cases of cheating; five years later, this figure had dropped to fourteen. Moreover, in a recent survey conducted by the Groveton honor council, a majority of students said that they would be less likely to cheat with an honor code in place than without."






Given the figures in the argument, we can see the honor code was practiced with efficacy in Groveton College, but it is far from promoting it to all colleges and universities simply because of this.

First of all, it should have a comparison between the honor code and stark punishment. The honor code encourages the students to perform in a good manner while punishment proscribes them from doing the inverse. The difference lies in that the former depends on the students' honesty while the latter their fear of being punished. Honor is good, but it can never outweigh the fear of failure, which drives the students to cheating. Employed well, punishment code can show much more efficiency, which makes for it being widely practiced. Secondly, if we take a closer look at the code, we see nothing honorable for students agreeing not to cheat at all, but the notification of those who cheat, which has nothing to do with honor, yet bears a better name of preparation for punishment! Thirdly, the college is not big enough to boast abundant subjects. In such a college with a small number of students, things are quite easy to handle, but in large ones no rules are complied without many students breaking them. Last but not least, the editorial failed to take into account the real cause of cheating, the lack of a healthy academic ambience. If students study painstakingly, they should have no motive to commit a cheat, and the establishment of such an atmosphere will be the most effective solution to cheating.