欢迎拍砖，有拍必回~Issue120【六人行小组8.8】by xyjprc

xyjprcUID: 2412778

我错了，一不限时又写多了，下篇一定限时。。。ToT
感觉论证的分析依然很不到位，着重帮我提一些这方面的建议吧~灰常感谢~

TOPIC: ISSUE120 - "So much is new and complex today that looking back for an understanding of the past provides little guidance for living in the present."
WORDS: 712
TIME: 01:20:00
DATE: 8/8/2010 12:09:47 PM

In this era of rapid social and technological change leading to increasing life complexity and psychological displacement, it seems that the retrospect of history could hardly provide any guidance for living in the present. However, in my observation, history not only serve us as direction through the mist of the complexity of our current society, but also teach us valuable lessons that how to avoid repeating the same mistakes, and I insist that we would greatly benefit from looking back for the past.

History, filled with encouraging feats and successful cases of the renowned people in the past, could serve as direction for the confused ones today. Facing with allures and uncertainties towards various futures, it is hard for one to decide what he would like to pursue. Many of these confused ones could turn to history for directions. A student, previously unsure what he would like to do in the future, may be deeply impressed by the feat of prominent explorer Columbus described in his history book, and decides to follow his path and explore the world. Then he may read relative books and choose selective courses in archaeology, astronomy, oceanography and geology to further his study and realize his dream. Rather than blindly finding a way to success, it is much easier and promising to follow the path that had proven to be feasible. In other words, those who look back for an understanding of the past are more likely to succeed than those who do not.

Moreover, history could teach us valuable lessons about how to avoid repeating the same mistakes. Mistakes are made by human beings from time to time, and those most severe ones are recorded in our history as warnings. In this time of rapid social and technological development, people tend to focus on ways to make the largest profit and usually neglect the safety of people. Nuclear power plants have been proven to be powerful, while tragedies of nuclear accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl warn us the potential danger if no safety measures are taken. Only after these history lessons paid by lives do the governments seriously consider the safety issues of nuclear facilities. Another example is the propagation of SARS in 2002 which severely struck China and revealed the inadequacies of health system of the country. Chinese government learned this lesson in history and invested lots of money to reform its health system, and 7 years later when the H1N1 Flu sweeps over the Western countries and killed thousands, the pandemic was successfully controlled in China and no more than 100 were killed. Through these examples and analysis, we could see that those who proactively look back for understanding of the past could better avoid committing the same mistake and more likely to survive in the future.

Admittedly, merely follow the path of predecessors and do not explore new ones is undesirable. Studying history could only reveal inadequacies in the past and inspirations for the future, but never direct instruction towards a new invention. However, inventions have to be made to be compatible with the developing society, so we could not pay too much attention on the past, but should take the future into account. Simply put, without the desire of talking with anyone in the world, the Bell laboratory would not have invented telephones when people have inherited post offices from the past; without the desire of talking anywhere with anyone, mobile phones would not have been invented when telephones have already made a revolutionary improvement on communicating; without the desire of a even more convenient and exciting form of chatting, Internet-based video chatting technologies would not have been developed. In this ever-fast developing society, people are striving to make their lives better, while researching on the already out-dated instruments in the history could hardly provide direct instructions for inventing new ones that are compatible to the current society. To think boldly and set hand to take experiments are the more effective ways to improving our lives.

In summary, while we should not pay too much attention on understanding the past and forget to make our own progress, it is beneficiary that we carefully examine our history, through which we could reap lessons from the past and directions for our future.