【☆09GRE作文冲刺组】liuhantony2月15日作文issue221

liuhantony2UID: 2597441

TOPIC: ISSUE221 - "The chief benefit of the study of history is to break down the illusion that people in one period of time are significantly different from people who lived at any other time in history."
WORDS: 701
TIME: 01:01:07
DATE: 2009-2-15

I agree with the fundamental contention of the speaker that history teaches us the inherent similarities between people of different times and we benefit a lot from this knowledge. Yet by taking into account the specific difference between people in times, we also gain a power to make our approaches of improving human life more accurately and effectively.

Basic to all the regulation of history learned by human study is the inherent nature of human beings lying behind the circulation of historical events and trends in history. Had human nature continued to change throughout history, seldom would there be the occurrence of similar scenarios of human society. Therefore, the repeating occurrence of war and peace and economy circles provides solid proof of the same human nature shared by people living in different times. Furthermore, facing the similar social scenario, the elites of the time who controlled the power of making vital decisions and how the history will be written tended to come to similar solutions. And it would less possibly be so if human beings are actually significantly different from their ancestors. As a consequence, again history events and trend reflect the same human nature. For example, during the time of war, regardless of the time difference, it is always the case that invaders swept away all the resources and treasures from the country being attacked and suffered enduring and severe revenge from the people whose country was invaded. And never had history disappointed its audience by giving the lasting victory to the evil nation. Therefore, we learn from history that the ultimate nature mankind remains almost unchanged while time passes by, indication that rules can be used for present problem.

After learning the lesson and being assured that what is true in the past will also come into play at present and future, human beings benefit by making sound decisions which will most feasible and likely to achieve their expectation for peace and harmony, and the well being of all the people. Taught by history what kind of stimuli and encouragement imposed might be beneficial, human uses them in everyday life. For instance, productivity of human society was raised significantly after the industrial revolution, during which time machine took the place of human labor and improved work efficiency. More workers were free from the heavy work and had time to be engaged in inventions, further promoting the development of the nation. As a consequence, nations now realized that science is the ultimate power of development, as is shown from past; and most of the nations establish particular authority directly leading by nation to offer assistance and guidance to scientific research. Awards such as the famous Nobel Prize are set in order to encourage and award those who greatly accelerated the development of science and technology and, in other words, brought benefit to the human beings as a whole. As a result, no one ever envision how fast should science develop today and what comfortable life human live today. In conclusion, people benefit a lot from learn from history how to make appropriate decisions and establish sound systems to increase the well being of all the people.

Admittedly, history also shows that people do differ between those of the past and those live now, resulting from the changing environment and different social background. Yet we actually learn from those differences. As a matter of fact, the difference help human to further amend and optimize the conclusion from the past to better solve current problems. Therefore it also bears merits. For example, from historic statistics, we understand that people nowadays are generally enjoying a longer life; thus the proper treatment of old people should be taken into consideration and related welfare program should be modified to guarantee its effective work.

In the final analysis, it is quite obvious that human beings did benefit a lot from lessons taught by history. On one hand, the assurance by history enables people to apply the rule effective in the past as solutions to present problems of today. On the other hand, the difference of people between times help us keep a clear head and notice how to adjust the solution to better fit current situations.