Archive for June, 2009
144、"It's the artist, not the critic, who gives society something of lasting value."
Artists provide a vivacious and somewhat enchanting element to the seemingly monotonous and immutable life experiences and therefore guarantee a relatively intriguing life journey. To be more specific and concrete, it is no exaggeration to proclaim artists the booster and purifier of our society due to their very functions. On one hand, artists can help boost our taste in life. Let us take literary as an example. Literary, which includes novels, poems, essays, dramas, etc, may be the most effective approach to enhance and deepen our understanding of society because of theirs panoramic and meticulous portrayal along with incisive analysis, just as A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens and Farewell to Arms by Earnest Hemingway do. The list goes on. On the other hand, art like paintings, drawings and music can embellish and decorate our life. We think of Mona Lisa by Da Vinci, Mazurkas by Chopin. By absorbing the essences of art, we unconsciously abandon the devil and undoubtedly artists play the role of purifier of our hearts and our society.
But meanwhile it is inappropriate for us to completely ignore the influences that critics can bring about. Firstly, the primary goal of critics is to discover excellent artists or those with great potential and to introduce them and their work to the public. In addition, arts, as a form to express passions, desires and emotions of artists, sometimes can not be exactly understood by average people, because others do not share what the artists feel during the creation process. While the comments on specific artworks from critics help people understand, appreciate and enjoy them. Although some may argue that everyone has his own understanding and attitude towards a masterpiece just as a maxim goes: there are a thousand of Hamlet in a thousand of people’s eyes, there is no denying that people will benefit when they are closer to authentic intention of the artists led by critics’comments.
Moreover, we should note that some outstanding talents possess more than one title such as Thomas Steams Eliot, a winner of Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948, was famous poet, dramatist and was also considered to be a great literacy critic of 20th century. People like this contribute to both arts and criticisms at same time.
In summary, for a complete and objective view, not only the artist but also the critic contribute to lasting values of a society.
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88、"Technologies not only influence but actually determine social customs and ethics."
With the rapid development of technologies, our daily lives have changed dramatically. While it is no doubt that social customs and ethics we are used to have influenced a lot by more and more advanced technologies, to assert that technologies tend to be a decisive factor of social customs and ethics seems to be superficial.
Admittedly, great advances in technologies exert prominent impacts not only on social customs but also on ethics of a society. On one hand, the ways we live and communicate have varied much compared with those in ancient time and even a couple of decades ago. Consider the convenience electric commerce brings to us. Shopping online became prevalent recently as the development of internet and electric billing. Just turn on your computer, log on internet, and search online shops such as Amazon and Ebay for what you want and finally click the Purchase button below the goods you prefer. What you need to do next is just waiting at home for the delivery worker. The shopping process is so easy now rather than driving miles away to a crowed supermarket and looking several rounds for planned products as before. Moreover, we write fewer letters on papers while send more emails on computers. What is more, businessmen and academicians do not have to travel by air to certain cities and universities to attend meetings and seminars, instead they could negotiate and discuss with their counterparts in front of video-meeting system anywhere and anytime. On the other hand, some ethics have also been deeply influenced by technologies. For example, intermarriage, which was regarded as an effective means to concentrate the blood tie of a family, has proved to be of great danger to offspring due to the development of genetics. In addition, the concept of ethics has been expanded, from the relationship between different people to the one between people and nature, after people realized the disastrous consequences to our environment caused by inappropriate employments of technologies.
However, neither social customs nor ethics are determined by technologies. As to social customs, technologies just change forms of their existence but the substance of them. Just as online shopping emerges merely as a new form of trade; sending an email or making a phone call to a friend during Chinese New Year do not change the tradition of greeting each other during festivals; communicating remotely facing a video camera in their own offices do not modify the convention for academicians of exchanging different opinions on some scientific studies regularly. As far as ethics are concerned, contrary to what the speaker asserts, it is ethics that determine the application of technologies. The people’s attitude towards clone is a typical case. Though clone exhibits incomparable advantages and potential applications in medical field, it is limited all over the world and even banned in some countries such as United States by President Clinton. The main reason for the fact is that if it was set free, the current ethnics system will be broken. Think about the following assumption: what should you call the one cloned from you, who resembles you in all aspects, brother, son, father, or just “copy”? No position in kinship can be assigned to another you. In fact, technologies only produce a direct effect on us, not on ethics. Those responsible for determining ethics are human beings.
In summary, technologies only influence but do not determine our social customs and ethnics. Since we act as creators for technologies, we should try best to be master of them instead of becoming slaves of them.
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43、"To be an effective leader, a public official must maintain the highest ethical and moral standards."
Whether a public official must maintain the highest ethical and moral standards to be an effective leader has been a controversial issue for a long time perhaps since the first time human beings select some fortunate guys as their leaders. Although most of voters in domestic societies or subjects in totalitarian regimes wish their leaders as perfect models in all aspects, including ethical and moral ones, many leaders proved to be effective and successful in their terms of office with certain blemishes in regard to ethical and moral standards.
And the standards of social conducts will hardly be in high level if the monarch is extravagant and dissipated. In addition, moral regulations in leaders’ mind constrain from themselves abusing their authorities and are helpful to prevent corruption.
However, the list of effective leaders is starred with famous ones imperfect in terms of ethical and moral standards. Consider President John Kennedy. While he was in deep trouble of extramarital relations rumors, the space race program initialized and nuclear test ban treaty proposed by him in his administration made US the strongest competitor in space exploration and contributed prominently to the peace of world, respectively. What’s more, he has been ranked highly in public opinion among presidents in American history. Bill Clinton is another typical example. He was accused of various sexual affairs and once impeached for obstruction of justice, but the longest period of economic expansion after the Second World War testifies his effective leadership. Or consider an extreme case of Hitler, who framed the notorious ethnic genocide policy towards Jews, which offends basic humanity, let alone highest ethical and moral standards. By contrast, few historians will deny his role as an effective leader in the fields of economy and military. It is during his tenure that German transformed from a weak defeated country of World War I to a super power in Europe in merely a couple of decades. Also his unique military strategy of lighting attack became the nightmare of invaded countries such as Poland, a representative victim of lighting war, which was totally occupied by German troops just in five weeks.
As a matter of fact, there are other factors influencing the effectiveness of a public leader such as insight, creativity, managing skills, affinity to people and so forth. A leader with highest ethical and moral standards but without traits mentioned above will not become an effective one. Overemphasizing on the aspects of ethical and moral standards and ignoring other abilities of a public official will make a moral model rather than an effective leader. Furthermore, a leader can hardly satisfy everyone because the term highest is subjective and varied a lot as far as different individuals are concerned.
In summary, although high ethical and moral standards may help a leader in some situations, the assertion in title statement is arbitrary and superficial for lack of a full consideration of other factors important for an official to be an effective leader.
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212、"If a goal is worthy, then any means taken to attain it is justifiable."
The speaker asserts that any means can be taken to attain a goal if it is worthy, while he or she fails to take into account the cost caused by means taken to realize the goal. If adverse consequences derived from the pursuit of certain goals outweigh benefits we expect, then the means we take should not be considered to be justifiable.
To obtain personal economic success is well acknowledged and encouraged in modern society. Various means are available for reaching this goal. For example, you could choose to try your best to become an excellent businessman like Bill Gates. In this case, your success in terms of business not only realizes your dream–being a rich man, but also benefits lots of consumers due to your innovative products with high quality and sets up a typical example inspiring other young people. On the other hand, for an extreme case, stealing and bank robbery are another choices. While you can be rich over night, your “success” is based on the damage of interests of others, which is illegal, let alone justifiable.
The criterion for determining whether a means is justifiable also applies to a country and a society. Some countries rich of forest, for example, those in Amazon area, see deforestation and exports of timber as a main source of national revenue irrespective of the negative influence by doing this. As a matter of fact, large scale deforestation without sufficient restoration contributes largely to Green effect, aridity and desertification, posing a grave threat to the domestic people as well as the whole human being. Another relevant example is about China. As Chinese government intend to achieve instant improvement regarding the quality of Chinese people, the development of education especially in high level has been accelerated during recent years. More and more students are admitted with loosen standards in college and university. Nevertheless, more graduates find it is difficult to get jobs while lots of employers complain for the shortage of skillful mechanic who should be trained in vocational schools rather than institution of higher learning. Furthermore, high tuition fee forces many rural families into deep debt.
Moreover, we should pay very attention to the definition of a worthy goal. The term worthy is quite subjective and varies a lot as far as different persons are concerned. Although a “good” goal does not necessarily require good means, an evil goal undoubtedly means the need of evil means. Hitler framed heinous ethnic massacre policy towards Jews to demonstrate racial superiority of German. What’s more, terrorists revenge against society by the means of suicide bombings, killing both themselves and innocent citizens. So the standard of a worthy goal lies at least in the precondition of doing no harm to most of people and violating no laws.
In summary, a full evaluation should be made on whether a goal is really worthy and outcome caused by possible means before taking concrete actions, whether for an individual or a country.
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50、"In order to improve the quality of instruction at the college and university level, all faculty should be required to spend time working outside the academic world in professions relevant to the courses they teach."
The speaker asserts that all faculties in college and university should spend time working outside the academic world in professions relevant to the courses they teach in order to improve the quality of instruction. While the cases this issue involved are various and complex, to make a conclusion without full analysis is superficial and arbitrary.
Admittedly, the quality of instruction is directly relative to the capabilities of faculty. So, as a way to improve qualification of faculty, to require them work outside will be conducive to broadening of their horizon and a more clear and exact understanding of job market. For instance, the experience of working outside college and university for faculty will help them find out what knowledge and skills are desired by employers and necessary to do a job well, which will benefits students when those specific knowledge and skills are introduced into courses later. One primary reason why it is difficult for graduates from college and university to find jobs is not that there are few job vacancies but that they have not mastered the knowledge and skills required by companies. From this point of view, the assertion above is reasonable.
However, as the energy of a person is limited, working outside will inevitably make a teacher not concentrate on preparing and teaching courses. The quality of instruction will hardly be satisfactory if teachers yawn from time to time and present lectures full of mistakes to students in class. As a matter of fact, many teachers, especially graduate instructors, have already been distracted much from the work they are responsible for. For example, some famous professors have so many seminars to attend and lectures to address, not in class but on social occasions, that their students complain for having not seen them for the better part of a month. In situations like this, if the busy professors are still required to work outside, you can imagine the feelings of their students. Perhaps, what should be done to those professors is to ask them to spend more time with their students, not just to encourage them to work outside.
Moreover, some disciplines such as theoretical physics need more devotion in laboratory to formulating models and deduction rather than working experience outside. As to other subjects, such as cosmology and archeology, there are no appropriate job positions at all for researchers in those fields. Besides, to require faculty to work outside will exert severe negative impacts on those field which develops fast. The research on nanoscaled materials is a typical example. Numerous academic papers are published and many breakthroughs are made every year even every month. Working outside for a researcher will only results in the lack of latest developments which is fatal to his or her study. In fact, aside from working outside, other means to train faculty are available and prove to be effective empirically. For example, inviting notable scholars to present lectures regarding academic front and trend, taking part in symposium regularly and so on. On the other hand, the quality of instruction is influenced by many other factors, such as learning atmosphere, teaching facilities and curriculum provision. Overemphasis on the qualification of faculty may make us ignore the core of problems.
In summary, though to require all faculty to work outside the academic world can not be denied thoroughly, the management of corresponding college and university should undertake a full investigation to decide who should work outside, for how long a period and the measures to take to assure the quality of instruction during their leaving.
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