杂记
136. "The absence of choice is a circumstance that is very, very rare."
Imagine the following scene: you are perspiring profusely after a game of baseball and pick up a bottle of iced cola as usually facing various kinds of food and beverage. You make a choice; you probably chose the juiciest apple when there are only several sacks of nuts and a couple of apples, though what you actually desire is cola. You make a choice, too. The former could be called an active choice, which means you can choose freely what you want, and the latter refers to a passive one, which you have to make, similar to a forced work.
In the real world, most choices are passive ones while active choices are rare. It is well know that peasant workers, migratory laborers from countryside during slack seasons engaging in simple physical work with low payment, constitute a large portion of China’s work force. Among them, you can easily find some young people who should be at school as their peers. After graduating from high school and even primary school, some youngsters have to choose one between continuing their study in college and going to find a job to afford the tuition fee for their brothers or /and sisters due to the low income of their family. Unfortunately, most of them choose the latter one driven by their responsibility as the elder. While in relatively rich families in cities, many children are asked to learn to play piano and dance or something else which, their parents insisted stubbornly and expect confidently, will make them better than others and finally become the elite of society. In this case, children tend to choose the subject that they do not hate most.
There exists even worse situation: only nuts are in front of you and no apples at all. You certainly chose to continue thirst. Do not think this is merely an extreme assumption. Just think about refugees in Africa. They have no chance to make a choice between two pieces of evening dresses as nearly attracting as each other to attend a party, which may be annoying you; they can not choose whether to enter university or to find a decent job; they have no chance to choose between watching a Hollywood blockbuster in a modern cinema and enjoying a splendid game of super bowl in a magnificent stadium in Saturday night since all of such facilities have been ruined by lasting war. The only choice for them is to wait for limited relief; to wish the civil war come to end forever as soon as possible; to expect plague which took their families and friends away to be constrained earlier.
As a matter of fact, the active choice is rare in modern society. Most of better choices have been taken up by winners of ubiquitous competitions and people who came earlier and thus few cola and apples are left to you. Before two kinds of choices are differentiated clearly, to assert that the absence of choice is a circumstance that is very, very rare is arbitrary and superficial.
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130、"How children are socialized today determines the destiny of society. Unfortunately, we have not yet learned how to raise children who can help bring about a better society."
The term socialization, as defined by psychologists and sociologists, refers to and how to live within it. Since it is well acknowledged that children are the future and hope of mankind, how tomorrow’s masters are socialized today plays a decisive role in the destiny of society. It can not be denied that general education conditions have been improved profoundly as rapid development of society and some optimist assert that a better society will be undoubtedly constructed by our children. However, we will not be so confident of a brighter future when flaws are found, with a rational and careful observation, regarding socialization agents such as family, education and mass media.
In first place, parents have not done well enough to raise their children. In the modern society full of fierce competitions, parents devote much time and energy to their work than ever before. Thus little time has been shared with their children, exerting a negative impact on children’s mental health, which contributes profoundly to autism, a common problems of children today. It is beyond imagination that children without open heart and mind as well as lacking the ability to communicate with others will make our society better in the future. Moreover, the values of parents towards the society influence prominently on those of their children, but some parents fail to set a good model for children in terms of various values. This case is prominent in China. Some children of peasant workers, migratory laborers from countryside during slack seasons, give up the chance on their own initiative to continue study after graduating from senior and even junior middle school after finding their parents with knowledge of lower level can make money, though usually through simple physical work. The fallacy “studying is useless” is formed correspondingly, which is fatal to a better future of our society. On contrary, some children craving knowledge have no chance to receive formal education because of their poor family and insufficient help from government, especially in underdeveloped countries.
Furthermore, education has also bogged down in vital problems. On one hand, overemphasis has been put on students' intellectual development. Take myself as a typical example. Time for courses of music, arts and physical education were often taken up by main subjects such as math, Chinese, English, chemistry and so on at primary school. What’s more, things became even worse—those so called subsidiary subjects were thorough cancelled by high school because none of them is listed in college admission examinations. Students under high pressure probably will suffer from psychological problems, but they have no one to resort to. On the other hand, the sense of competition has been much emphasized while the importance of cooperation has been ignored. Only through cooperation among different countries, enterprises and individuals can many tough problems worldwide be effectively solved, such as greenhouse effects, depletion of ozone layer and species extinction.
In addition, mass media produces bad effects on growth of children. As to adults, mass media were regarded merely as sources of information and forms of entertainment. While when it comes to children, mass media serves more likely as moulders of personality, further affecting the values of Children directly or unconsciously because children tend to believe what mass media convey due to immature judging ability, and children are characterized by strong imitative powers. Unfortunately, mass media, both of traditional readings and television programs and newly-emerged Internet are rife with violent and porn contents. There even exist the horrible websites teaching the young tricks for suicide. Online games are another poison. Many children are addicted to various games, which inevitably distracts them from study and normal life, and even result in mental problems. To extreme extent, sudden death of some children after playing games for several days and nights has been reported.
In summary, we have not fully prepared to teach our children how to build a better society as analyzed above. As children can be influenced by every aspect of a society, the whole society should pay more attention to the healthy growth and appropriate cultivation of our masters of tomorrow.
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51、"Education will be truly effective only when it is specifically designed to meet the individual needs and interests of each student."
Generally speaking, there are two methods of education, students-centered and comprehensive. Which education method is effective has been a controversial issue for a long time. While the speaker asserts that only by the student-centered method designed to meet the needs and interests of each student will education be truly effective, I hold the opinion that it is not unfair and reasonable to underestimate or even ignore effects of the comprehensive method, and only two methods are combined coordinately can education achieve its genuine goals.
Admittedly, students will be more active in pursuit of knowledge in their interested fields. Edison is a typical example demonstrating that the failure to discovery of his gift regarding invention by his teachers and interest is the best teacher. His teachers not only failed to discover his gift regarding invention but also as deride him as an imbecile because Edison often ask strange questions such as “why is one added by one equal to two since there is still one cup when one cup of water is poured into another cup full of water?” and finally threw him out of school. Nonetheless, it is his strong interest in invention and guidance of his great mother rather than conventional education that make him one of noblest inventors in history.
However, thorough students-centered education strategies will exert prominent negative impacts on the effectiveness of education. First of all, it is quite and even impossible for school to meet EVERY student’s needs and interests. More teachers with specific knowledge and teaching equipments are indispensable for various needs and interests, which certainly demands huge investment in education by government and society. Additionally, some students’ interests do not last long—they may show interests in physics inspired by Einstein at beginning and turn to other subjects after finding physics is too abstract to understand. Frequent changes of their interests will merely lead to a scratchy of knowledge instead of mastery. Furthermore, to study what they are interested in may be used as a powerful excuse of evading difficulties. Few students will choose math, chemistry, physics and those needing long term devotion. By contrast, most students prefer the choice of arts, such as singing, drawing and dancing which are common forms of entertainment. The whole society will suffer from the unbalanced supply of graduates finally—scientific research will be bogged down due to the shortage of talents majoring in science and engineering. Moreover, overemphasizing interests of students will make them lack basic skills to work in modern complex society. Aside from knowledge, other abilities are require for one to do work well, such as clear expression of one’s ideas and cooperation with colleagues.
The destination which education should reach should include two parts. On one hand, to find out one’s unique talents and further to maximize them, which requires students-centered education. On the other hand, students should be granted with a full understanding of knowledge and necessary skills to make a living when stepping into society, involving comprehensive education. So truly effective education depends on a balance between individual needs and interest of students and compulsory curriculum provision by school.
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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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