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Wang Tun
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48. "The study of history places too much emphasis on individuals. The most significant events and trends in history were made possible not by the famous few, but by groups of people whose identities have long been forgotten."
历史研究过于关注个人。历史上最有意义的事件和潮流能够成为可能不是因为几个少数的名人而是一些身份早就被淡忘的人群。
少数和多数，精英和大众
字数：550 用时：0:45:00 日期：2009-7-26
One will be widely jeered if he doesn't know that Obama wins the election, but few people know the names of the members in his cabinet. We all know that General George Washington wins the War of Independence, but the names of his soldiers will never be grasped (acknowledged) by us, not even one.
It is a fact that the study of history usually put a bit more emphasis on individuals, for the simple reason that people tend to believe great figures play a more significant role in historic event. Well, this is quite a good question that deserves further discussion.
In the first place, I will argue that apart from the reason stated above, there are some others that contribute to the historians’ preference toward individuals.
On the one hand, it is a reflection of the ideology of individualism. In the world of capitalism, people value and appreciate individuation. It is claimed that "Private property is sacred and inviolable". Diverse personal development is encouraged, especially in the U.S. America is usually thought of as being "at the individualistic end of the spectrum". In my opinion, it is one of the reasons that America’s success today, for it could fully take the advantages of individual initiative. You can find this spirit of individuation in NBA superstar like Kobe and James, a spirit of “self-made” success. This kind of historical view, often referred to as "Great Man Theory", is just the appreciation of individuation finding expression in historical study.
On the other hand, this kind of historical view has its aesthetic basis. It is much easier to notice the leader than the crowd. For example, when you look at the famous French painting "Liberty leading the people" by Eugene Delacroix, will you spend your time on the woman or the crowd after her? People like hero; it is just a reflection of their hero dream. It is people’s nature to appreciate and admire heroes, and such kind of appreciation and admiration often will help encouraging them in normal life.
In addition, it is impossible for people to remember the crowd. You know Achilles is the first to knock off the gate of Troy and 100 000 men rushed into Troy after him, but will you know the name of the 53 634th man?
Secondly, let us clarify the question of who made history.
In most of the cases, it is the joint force of leaders and people. Different people have different destiny. Greater ability means more responsibility. The joint force, with leaders guiding the direction, supported by the people, achieves the common goal. The Chinese revolution would have never succeeded without either the charisma of Mao, or the millions of Red Army.
While in some cases, it is the great figures alone, that will make great difference. Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations, which lay the foundation of the English Revolution. Rousseau, Voltaire, Montesquieu, they three almost accomplished the French Enlightenment. Without the famous Common Sense by Thomas Paine, or the just sound of Declaration of Independence by Thomas Jefferson, I'm afraid US would never have been what it is like today.
Finally, the emphasis on individuals happen not only in historical study, but also in our daily life----for that, history is the past "present life". The function of history is to let us know better about our society today. The whole society is a collection of individuals, and the destination of a society is achieved by every individual achieving his own goal, whether they are great figures or common people.
So, from what is analyzed above, we should draw the conclusion that we should read history on our own mind, and understand it on our own mind, and to fulfill our own destination of our time.
Issue 17: "There are two types of laws: just and unjust. Every individual in a society has a responsibility to obey just laws and, even more importantly, to disobey and resist unjust laws."
有两种法律：公正的和不公正的。每个社会成员都有责任遵守公正的法律，但是更重要的是，更应该不遵守和反抗不公正的法律。
社会和个人之法律公正么？
905 words
There is no denying that our law is by no means perfect, actually, far from that. There is always injustice everywhere in this peaceful world labeled as "freedom and democracy", not only because of the abuse of authority against the just law, but also because sometimes the law itself is not so just, though it is supposed to be.
And meanwhile we have to accept it as it is, no matter reluctant or not, for it is just the objective fact. Everything has two sides. Our law is no exception. For example, people usually have the general impression that Frenchmen are very romantic. But one can never expect every French guy you meet is rich in romance. So when one is facing the real world thing, it will always be wise to view things seperately. Employing a dialectical approach is usually advisable. Let's see what Hegel do when he is facing a philosophy problem. Usually he arrives at the truth by stating a thesis, then developing a contradictory antithesis, and concluding and resolving them into a coherent synthesis. So being aware of “Unity of opposites” is always of great help.
But at the same time, we have to recognize the basic fact that, in most cases, the law is just. There is no doubt that every individual in a society has the responsibility to obey just laws. But when it comes to the unjust law, it is quite a convoluted problem worth thinking about. This is to some degree the idea of exception dealing mechanism of a system. We know that sometimes things do go wrong, and it is significantly necessary for a stable and health system to have exception dealing mechanism. In the programming language world, C++ is superior to C, partly because that C++ has exception dealing mechanism while C not.
Now we are aware of the reasonableness of the existence of a measure of injustice of the law system. Before going on the topic of how we should deal with the unjust law, we need to consider two more questions?
First let's trace why sometimes the law is unjust.
The reason is simple. From the perspective of the Theory of Class, we know that the law system, as a part of state machine, works for the ruling class. The ruling class makes laws and executes them to ensure their interest. As long as you are not a full member of the ruling class, you will more or less find the law to be unjust. How unfair you find the law is depend on how close you stand to the ruling class.
Second let's clarify how to define justice and injustice.
It is quite an open question and the conclusion is so contingent. It depends on which class you belong to and who you are. Everyone makes the judgment based on his own interest. One same item in law will be labeled as 'just' or ‘unjust’ by different groups of people. It is impossible to please everyone. Maybe Warren Buffett will be pleased at Allen Greenspan's decision to reduce US interest rates while Allen may lost his access to a banquet well prepared for him by Rockefeller. That coincident with what Shakespeare said as: there are a thousand readers; there must be a thousand Hamlets.
Finally, we have to know how to behave when facing unjust laws.
Shall we just act as the issue stated: to disobey and resist unjust laws? Well, it depends.
In most cases, from my personal angle alone, it is neither possible nor necessary for us to resist laws, even it is unjust.
On the one hand, there won't be a state that will state: individuals have responsibility to disobey or resist unjust laws. They will never doubt the justice of their laws. What’s more, to disobey or resist laws is by no means a ‘responsibility’; it is a privilege, a privilege that will never be entitled. In addition, law is law because the state uses the power to ensure the enforcement.
On the other hand, we all know that nothing is perfect, so is our law system. As long as we trust the nation and its people, we should trust its laws; even a few of them may be unjust (let alone just or not is still such a relative identification). This is what we must sacrifice for the efficient running of the government. Suppose everyone has its own judgment of whether a law is just or not, and to execute only what he think is 'just' and resist others, there will be no authority, and national chaos would be just around the corner. For instance, as long as America still holds the belief that 'everyone is created equal' and its people still seek the American dream of freedom and democracy, no matter Republican or Democracy, its citizen will undoubtedly forgive the slight flaws of its laws.
But under some certain extreme circumstance, we must take the act to resist unjust laws, even at the price of life, to seek for freedom and democracy. I mean the Hitler's Nazi German. When most of its laws are unjust, even inhumane, the state is not worth trusting.
From what is analyzed above, we can draw the conclusion that, it's normal for the laws sometimes to be unjust, and we need to understand this and obey all the laws to ensure the authority of the law system, except under extreme circumstance.
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."
现在孩子的社会化程度决定了社会的命运。可惜的是，我们还没有学
会教孩子怎么样去建设一个更好的社会。
教育之下一代
The way in which our children are socialized today is one of the significant factors that influence the direction where our society goes tomorrow, but it is by no means the only dominant factor. When talking about raising children, though we must admit that there is still a long way to go, we must be aware of the fact that we are not complete losers at the same time.
Firstly, important as it is, socialization contributes to the society by getting its unit functional component------an individual, well involved in the system and playing the appropriate part. The complexity of human society makes socialization a compulsory course for a pristine individual. Only by learning its custom, morality, law, habit, etc. a natural person could be transformed to a social one. The story of "wolf children" is a suggestive example to demonstrate that without proper socialization, one will find it extremely difficult to survive in the human community.
Meanwhile, rootless as it is, the word "determine" largely exaggerated the role that children socialization plays in our society. At least two aspects could serve as supplements. On the one hand, in the term of children itself, apart from socialization, the formation of the outlook of the world and values, the education children receive, both effectively define an individual as he is, thus exert an important influence on the destiny of our society. On the other hand, beyond the landscape of children, when it comes to the topic of destiny of a society, its scientific and technical achievement and potential, its political power and stableness, the civilization of its people, can never be regarded as ciphers. At least in my eyes, they don't fade compared with the socialization of children.
Secondly, from my personal angle alone, there is no need to hold such a pessimistic view about our achievement concerning raising children. China has done a pretty good job when laying a firm academic foundation of a future researcher while US Minister of Education could bogus at a banquet that it is his achievement that American students have their creativity and leadership fully developed. We can imagine that if they join hands, together with other peers from elsewhere on the earth, they can make a better world for you and for me.
Of course, far from perfection as we are, we need to carefully analyze the current situation, to know where our strength and weakness lies, respectively. Carefully study tells us that when educating the youth, it is knowledge, methodology, skills, etc that we are good at teaching, while Achilles’ heel is to equip the children a proper altitude toward this society, when dealing with unfairness, fierce competition, corporation, depression and the like. So, we know what to do next.
Finally, before reaching our conclusion, there is one important thing needs to be reconsidered carefully. I mean, socialization doesn't automatically mean to teach children how to make a better society. What is the contribution of socialization to building a better society? How does the socialization of the young affect the destiny of our society? Now let's correlate them to find the answer.
On the one hand, the destination of socialization is to equip one with the common sense and social skills in order to survive in the society, rather than to teach one the technique or method to build a better society. Socialization only ensures the survival and adaption to current society of children, as for reforming, it's their own business. First, change yourself to survive; then, change the circumstance as you please, if you can. So, what we can get hold of is only the former, helping them to survive. You can never teach them how to build. To say the least, when we refer to "better", that means "better of their own definition", not ours.
On the other hand, socialization contributes to better society by the mechanism of inheriting. Man lives generation after generation. It is only by inherence that human civilization could continue and progress. Or we human will be nothing today if a new generation must start over everything from the very beginning. So, socialization is the key to all the precious fortune left by our ancestors. Knowing their language and regulations help children learn quickly.
So, from what is presented above, my conclusion is drawn as: we should learn from the successful achievement we human have made in raising children, and at the same time get instructions from the failure, to better socialize our coming generation, to get them better prepared for the society, and let them pursuit their own happiness, create a better society of their own.
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."
为了改进大学的教学质量，所有的教员都应该被要求花一定时间到学术领域以外去参加和他们所教科目相关的工作。
孤立的教育
题目：ISSUE50 - "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."
字数：591 用时：0:45:00 日期：2009-7-28
Quality is a cardinal aspect of education and combining theory with practice is one of the good ways to improve the quality of college education. However, to extend this idea to "all" the faculty of a university doesn't seem to be a good idea, being neither necessary nor possible.
One the one hand, we have a presumption here, i.e., being involved in relevant professional work does benefit teaching. This is true with most of the areas concerning practical use like engineering, business, management, finance, economic, etc. Not only students but also the professors could benefit much from the experience of real-life working.
In the first place, on the behalf of students, vivid as it is, the real world thing seems more interesting and heart catching. One would of course prefer listening to Warren Buffett's lecture on investment to reading the pile of textbooks full of formulas. Interest is the best teacher. Once the initiative of the students is triggered, you can expect plenty more about their performance than you would have originally thought. What's more, only a small percentage of the students will step into the area of academic research after they graduate. Instead, more of them will go to industry. So, breathing the fresh air of industry is extremely vital. Knowing what is going on in the real profession could better prepare them for the future career.
In the second place, as for professors, they also have much to expect from the professional work. Firstly, in the field of applied science or engineering, it is the demand from industry that drives the research on campus. Knowledge of the cutting-edge in the current industrial world is a very significant guidance of the at-hand research work. Months ago, during my attendance in the Forum of Computational Electromagnetic held by my mentor in Zhejiang University, Professor Jinfa Lee from the Ohio State University emphasized to us researchers: "Never get out of industry and bury your head in the papers, or you will loss the greatest chance, for industry is always where the leading technology comes from!" Secondly, close relationship with the industry will make a professor's research work find its way more easily to the market. In addition, by being engaged in the professional work, the faculties strengthen the connection between universities and enterprises, which will potentially attract more investment to the university from the business, and thus exerts a good impact on the development of the university.
On the other hand, it may not be suitable to combine practice with theory in some areas, be it math, physics, linguistics, philosophy, or anthropology. Apart from the absence of necessity, there may be no such kind of professions so relevant to them, at least there couldn't be as many as wanted.
Therefore, this problem needs to be studied case-by-case when we come across different disciplines. Maybe we could find some clues when considering that there are two different beliefs toward the destination of college education. For the classical English universities like Oxford and Cambridge, they believe that education should aims at bringing up a well-educated man, thus they set courses like philosophy, anthropology, linguistics, and the like. They may feel less necessity of combination with practice. While the 17th century Germen Universities, where modern universities are originated from, hold that universities should be at the service of practical social use, whether agricultural or industrial. So they put more emphasize on the connection with real work.
To conclude, the destination of today's universities is not only to prepare a student for his career, but also to form his personality, character, and outlooks of the world and values. So when facing the problem of getting involved in professions or not, consider the original goal of education.
题目：ISSUE208 - "The way people look, dress, and act reveals their attitudes and interests. You can tell much about a society's ideas and values by observing the appearance and behavior of its people."
人们的眼神、穿着和动作都揭示了他们的态度和兴趣。你可以透过观察一个社会中人们的外貌和举止来认识该社会的理念和价值观。
字数：681 用时：0:45:00 日期：2009-8-13
The appearance and behavior are the external aspect of one society while the ideas and values are the internal one, as the way a person looks, dresses and acts to his interests and attitudes. Usually, they consist with each other, but, not always.
In most of the cases, the intrinsic and extrinsic are united, and mutually reflect each other, because they are the two different aspects of one essential object. The extrinsic is the indicator of the intrinsic while the intrinsic is the very source where the extrinsic is originated from.
Firstly, in the term of individuals, there is no denying that the way people look, dress and act give away information about his personality or believes. For example, a teenager in white is more likely to be a sunny boy while a withdrawn man is always dressed in black; at a party, an introvert maybe likes sitting quietly while in contrast, an extrovert may prefer to talk around loudly. Whether intended or not, one tell something about himself without any word.
Secondly, in the term of society, the situation is almost the same. You can certainly tell the ideas and values of a society, i.e. ideology, by observing the commonness of the appearance and behavior of its people. It's no different from the way you tell the interests and attitudes of a person from his dressing style and appearance, except your object of observation has expanding from a single person to a whole society. Moreover, apart from that, you can gain knowledge of the ideology of a society from some other ways, say, art. Art is certainly an important mirror of the people's life and belief of a society. For example, the paintings and frescoes of the Early Medieval are always Christian themed. Their destination is to honor the deities and propel humans into afterlife. However, from the works of the great artists during the Renaissance, be it Mona Lisa from Leonardo Da Vince, or The Statue of David given by Michelangelo, we can sense a strong passion and honorable respect to humanity. Thus, we can see that common believes wildly hold by its people, the ideology of one society will find express in various ways, whether simply in the way its people look and dress, or in a cultivated manner like art. That's a global law of our universe; just like that you can expect the very high temperature inside the core of the sun from the terrible flames on the surface of the fire ball.
However, in some cases, there exists the situation where the extreme heat is encompassed by freezing ice, instead of flame. I mean, sometimes, the extrinsic does contradict with the intrinsic.
Again in the term of individuals, you will find yourself wrong if you depend too much on the appearance and dress-style of a person when judging his or her personality and characteristics. The information might be misleading. For instance, a restrained person likes to wear sunglasses to hide himself from others. But you can never expect every guy wearing a sunglass to be restrained, for often some of the celebrities wear sunglasses just to avoid being figured by the paparazzi. What's more, when being engaged in a work, people always dress to meet the demand of their profession. That gives no information of one's personality. In addition, some people sometimes dress themselves to create false images for a certain purpose. Newspaper reports a new fashion recently that some workers like to dress like beggars, to earn a second wage after work.
While in the term of a society, it is more reliable. Mass reduces randomness. A single person is easy to mislead others by dressing of displacement, while a group of people can't do the same thing easily. So, judging the ideology of a society from people's behavior and appearance, you can be more assured, than judging the personality of a person by his outlook.
Therefore, to sum up, the extrinsic is the indicator of the intrinsic, for the former gives away information of the latter, to some extent. Different levels of consistency identify judges of different things.
题目：ISSUE88 - "Technologies not only influence but actually determine social customs and ethics."
技术不仅仅影响而且实际上是决定了社会传统和道德规范。
字数：680 用时：0:45:00 日期：2009-8-13
Technology is always a very important aspect of our human society and it plays a significant role in the progress of our civilization. As a certain result, it does exert strong influence on the social customs and ethics apart from the influence in the term of material, but it is still far from a determinant factor of that.
As given by Karl Marx, productivity determines production relations. Well, technology is the most influential factor of productivity while social customs and ethics are important reflections of production relations. One important technology often marks an age and a society of a certain production relations has its own system of outlooks and values, including morals, laws and ethics, etc. For example, in Stone Age, to make stone tools is the cardinal technology, and a tribe is often organized around those craftsmen who are good at it. And thus, individual people are collected together to live: they hunt together, eat together and live together. Under such kind of circumstance, team work and sprite of cooperation is one of the most important ethics. And usually, it is a good manner to leave some good meat to the aged and women, for the aged offer experience and guidance to their hunting while women take on the responsibility of taking care of children. This is very different from the past when the strong get their own food while the weak are left hungry, and even in face of starving to death. When it comes to the Iron Age, people are better at making tools. Iron tools allow people to grow plants on the farm and harvest, which is quite a frog-leap in technology. At that time, tribes are united into kingdoms, where nobles and a king establish a government and gain the authority. Since people are not worried about food as much as they used to be, more complicated feudal system of moral and ethics were developed. Like parents should take care of children and adults should fulfill their filial duties; there should be only one husband and one wife to form a couple, i.e. monogamy; the plebeian should at the command of their monarch, etc. But when stepping into the machine age marked by the Industrial Revolution, we have a brand-new system of ideology because the establishment of Capitalism. Freedom and individuation is encouraged and appreciated; seek of money and fortune is taken for granted. The invention of machine allows people to have more leisure time, therefore the idea of a more comfortable life become into fashion in west Europe. This is all influences brought by technology. And now, we are at the gate of a new era of technology, for example the invention of electricity has made it possible to sentence a prisoner to death by electric chair, which posts a new ethic problem to our society. Besides, the invention of atomic bomb, the research of modifying human genome, etc, all become puzzling problem of human society.
Yet so influential, technology has never guided the trend of the customs and ethics of the society alone. A lot of other factors contribute the formation of customs and ethics of a society. A lot of example can be listed. Firstly, geography. For instance, Japanese are said to be somewhat narrow-minded because they live on island. They have no immediate neighbors, and there are not so much natural resources on the island, therefore they tend to invade the other countries on the mainland, so it's no wonder why they like fighting. And the lack of natural resources is also a reason of Japanese’s consciousness of danger, as well as the spirit of hard work. Secondly, climate. We all know that Englishmen will take an umbrella with him when he goes to work in the morning, regardless of what the present weather is, for it changes suddenly in England. A rain could reach in five minutes even it is completely sunny now. That is why umbrella is an important object in British customs. Thirdly, religious beliefs. People who believe in different gods certainly have their own customs and ethics, no need for further explanation.
To sum up, there are many factors that influence the customs and ethics of a society, and technology is just one of them, not the only determinant factor.
//embryonic stem cell research
题目：ISSUE40 - "Scholars and researchers should not be concerned with whether their work makes a contribution to the larger society. It is more important that they pursue their individual interests, however unusual or idiosyncratic those interests may seem."
字数：607 用时：0:45:00 日期：2009-8-16
There is no denying that human curiosity and interests are the driven forces of the progress of our society, but if they go too far, it will turn out to destructive.
To begin with, I think researchers should pursue their individual interests. On the one hand, interest is the most functional motivation that drives scientific research to the most. We all know that interest is the best teacher. Only driven by the pure curiosity could researchers have the most fun in their research work, and thus have the greatest discoveries.
In the second place, as researchers are members of our society, in most of the cases, their personal interests will coincident with the social will, sooner or later. Some of the most brilliant research works in the human history, though seemed to be ridiculous at first sight, turned out to be masterpieces at last. For example, The Theory of Relativity given by Albert Einstein, when he first introduced this strange theory to the physical world, almost nobody think it will be useful someday; instead they just take it as an game of imagination played by the young guy himself. But today, as time goes on, the Theory of Relativity has not only proved itself the truth of the universe by many evidences, but also found use in many aspects of our society: the study of the origin of the universe, space travel, astronomy, and so on.
In addition, when we encourage our researchers to pursue their personal interests and hold the belief that their results will be beneficial to our society some day, we must be aware of the fact that, sometimes, things do go wrong. That is to say, we can never trust on people completely, never. There are certain dark aspects along with human, undoubtedly. This can be seen from the story of the first man and woman. God trust Adam and Eve, and ensure their happy and worry-free life in Eden, but the result turned out to be disappointing. What we can learn from this story is that, we must supervise what is going on with the research, to some extent, to be sure that the research doesn't go far against human nature. Take the research of genome as example. Well, we must admit that it is quite beneficial to our society. With better understanding of how the genome works, we can better improve the quality of the plants or livestock much more to produce more farming products of higher quality. A gene-modified berry could reach five times bigger than the usual one while a gene-modified cow could produce double of the amount of milk than one that doesn't have its genome modified. But at the same time, we must set restrictions and limits to human genome researches. Though insightful research tells us the mechanism of how our genes work and thus let us know how to avoid some certain inherited disease, we can never imagine the scene of modifying human genome at will. Maybe you want to be smarter, so you get the IQ genes of Einstein, and you want to be more handsome, and you take the appearance genes of Beckham----we could hardly imagine what the world would be like, in a mess, or much worse than that.
To sum up, from what is analyzed above, I would like to draw my conclusion as: as the authority of the undergoing research, we must keep an eye on what is going on with the work to ensure social safety, but no more interference with the research detail, just let the genius seek the answers and have fun driven by their personal interests.
题目：ISSUE43 - "To be an effective leader, a public official must maintain the highest ethical and moral standards."
字数：630 用时：0:45:00 日期：2009-8-16
It is quite a controversial problem about the leaders’ ethics and morals. Though it is clear it is neither necessary nor possible for the leaders to maintain the highest standard, it is still heatedly discussed that whether leaders should maintain higher ethical and moral standards than common people.
Ethical and moral standards are essential to human society----that is an important characteristic that distinguishes we human beings from other species. Therefore, even just as a common member of human society, one should maintain a certain degree of ethical and moral standards. The public leaders are no exception. While when it comes to the problem that if they should maintain higher standards, it becomes quite a complicated problem.
In my opinion, concerning the degree of the ethic and moral issues related to the professions that the leader is enrolled in, we could divide this question into two halves. On the one hand, when the ethical and moral issues have a close relationship with the official's career engagement, he should certainly maintain a higher standard. For example, the Watergate Scandal, Nixon abused the power of the state to benefit himself, which will render the nation to believe less in him and his government. And the behavior of spy the meeting of the competitors not only will be viewed as immoral, but also will make all the people of the nation to suspect how he won the election years ago. Since Nixon is a political leader, such behavior undermined much of his political authority, making him lost a lot of trust from the people. So there is no wonder he lost his presidency soon after that. However, on the other hand, when a leader doing something against the ethics and morals which are not so closely related to what he is supervising, in theory, it doesn't matter that much. For instance, Bill Clinton, after his romance with the White House intern was exposed to the public, he still won the election and got his second ticket to White House, because Americans witnessed how the economy recovered and kept a relatively high rate of progress during his presidency. They would say: "Oh, Bill, you have done quite a good job as a president. Though you did something bad, it's your own business which I don't care so much. But you’d better not do that again.” People forgave Clinton and elected him to White House again didn't mean the approval of his behavior of having unexpected relationship with the intern, but the approval of what he has done to help America.
But unfortunately, the populace is not always that rational. Sometimes they will evaluate their leader simply by their feeling of his behavior instead of by judging his performance in the position. And common people seem to have a preference of the knowledge of private anecdotes of celebrates, including public officers. Months ago, a CEO of a newspaper at Hong Kong was forced to resign because he has been caught spending time with an hooker after work. After being photographed and exposed unexpectedly, he made a clarification through HIS newspaper that the woman was just a friend of his. From my personal angle alone, he should be fired because, rather than his behavior of going to hooker, but his behavior of telling lies through the newspaper which was in charge of him. That is a matter of cheating and abuse of his authority, which will prove his wrongness to sit on the chair of the newspaper.
To sum up, from what is analyzed above, we can draw the conclusion as: a leader should maintain a certain degree of ethical and moral standards as a member of the society, and they should maintain higher standards than common people when the ethics and morals are relevant to what they take charge, and they had better maintain higher other ethical and moral standards, to establish a better public image, though not that necessary.
//Watergate Scandal
//plebeian, populace
144. "It is the artist, not the critic*, who gives society something of lasting value."
*a person who evaluates works of art, such as novels, films, music, paintings, etc.
艺术家而不是评论家带给了社会一些具有持久价值的东西。
*评论家指的是评价艺术作品的人，例如小说、电影、绘画等。
×ÖÊý£º663 ÓÃʱ£º0:45:00 ÈÕÆÚ£º2009-8-17
There is no denying that it is the artist, rather than the critic, who gives birth to the artistic works, but this doesn't mean that the critic makes no contribution to the success of the art works.
Artists create art works. Artists are those who are very sensitive to the nature beauty and human emotions. Gifted with some artistic techniques, they are willing to express these ideas about the universe and life in certain ways, be it traditional as poetry, music, dancing, painting, or modern as collage, photography, fashion, or even performance art.
But there is a problem here, the artists and common people speak different language. There is a saying in fashion that goes like:"Men are from Mars, but women Venus." This is just more or less like the situation with artists and the populace. Artists are usually gifted; one who is not gifted but only very good at techniques could be only referred to as craftsman. However, as is known, gifted guys are inclined to be difficult to communicate with. As in the famous movie "A Beautiful Mind", from John Nash, a mathematician with extreme genius, we could confirm our conclusion. For the artists, the art works are just a natural expression of their feelings and emotions, thus it couldn't be more normal; while for us, it is very confusing at first sight. I couldn't know what Picasso wants to say in his famous Guernica if not informed with certain background information; even I'm a well-educated undergraduate who has been receiving formal art education from a very early age. However, thanks to God, we have critics. Critics are someone who will bridge the gap between we common people and the gifted artists, thus ensuring us the access to appreciate the tremendous world of human arts. This is the first way that critics help a certain piece of art work to succeed.
And in the second place, in my opinion, the critics play a more important role than just explaining. Instead, they are, an indispensable part of the value of art works. Sometimes, great critics will read something important, beautiful and meaningful from the art works even the artists didn't mean to. In that way, we can say that it is the union of the artists and critics that finally create the values of art works. Just like raising a child, as we have said, artists give birth to art works, while critics are the ones who bring up the children.
Last but not least, good critics help artists to improve their work. We know from the field of engineering that, a stable and healthy system must have feed backs. And in the artistic world, the artists, audience, and critics form a system----of art. The art works are the output of the system and the critics serve as the feed backs. By adopting the words from the critics wisely and selectively, the artists will benefit much and thus give birth to art works of higher quality.
Admittedly, the part that critics played is of great significance in appreciating the art works, but we can never rely on them too much and thus exaggerate their functions. William Shakespeare once said: "There will be one thousand of Hamlets if there are one thousand readers." That is to say, every individual has his own understanding of the indication and meaning of a piece of art work. That is not decided by the critics, but the audience themselves. The critic is just a way to help.
To conclude, from what is analyzed above, we can more or less gain better understanding of the nature of art. Everyone that lives in this great and gorgeous universe with tremendous beauty, thus will have certain understandings and feelings of it, including artists, critics and we common people. But usually these ideas are subtle. Artists are those who are inspired most to express such kind of feelings. By creating art works, they remind others the subtle but beautiful feelings, and critics will help the populace to understand if they are not so sensitive about it.
//it is no exaggeration to say
ISSUE153 - "Students should bring a certain skepticism to whatever they study. They should question what they are taught instead of accepting it passively."
×ÖÊý£º650 ÓÃʱ£º0:45:00 ÈÕÆÚ£º2009-8-18
学生应该带着一定的怀疑态度对待所学的任何东西。他们应该对教给他们的东西应该进行质疑，而不是被动地接受。
Skepticism has been, is and will always be, the source of progress of human society, no matter in the world of scientific research or social problems.
On the one hand, in term of science, certain skepticism of the previous theory could lead to new discoveries, sometimes great ones. If Copernicus were not skeptical about the previous theory that the sun goes around the earth, he would not be likely to reveal the fact that it is actually the opposite. It is the courage to doubt of classical and concrete system of Newton's Law that leads Einstein to work out the Theory of Relativity. On the other hand, concerned with social affairs, a certain attitude of skepticism will always help the society to proceed. Take the replacement of monarchy by democracy for example. The monarchy system had been there for hundreds of years when it was at the dawn of The Industrial Revolution. It seemed to be very natural, and it seemed that people had to accept as it was without any other choice. But as a part of human nature, skepticism began to awake, and thus doubt was cast on monarchy. Therefore the subtle feelings of democracy hidden deeply in the heart of common people awake. And, step by step, through piles of conflicts and revolutions, human beings stepped into a more democratic world.
Skepticism could benefit the human society so much because it coincides with the nature of learning behavior of we human beings. There is no denying that learning is significantly essential to human beings, and it is one of the most important aspects that distinguish us from all other species in this world. But how an attitude of skepticism works to help the progress of our society? We know that there are two types of learning, passive and active. Passive learning means that you are taught by someone the knowledge he has previously prepared for you. However, oppositely, active learning is quite different. It is a process to learn by trial and error. Firstly, you become interested in this certain problem, or at least your own curiosity has been triggered off. Then, you employ yourself to work out the answer. During the procedure, you look for information in all kinds of ways, and think, theorize and examine, and at last, to draw a conclusion by yourself. The difference between the passive and active learning is that the learner, is quite an active and importantly functional component of the whole system in the latter. By actively involved in the learning process, the learner has his own research ability and the capability to solve real world problems fully developed. Though he may not get the "most right" solution, actually he wins more, than a passive learner. Skepticism is an important aspect of active learning. By calling into doubt other's theory, you must be a highly active component of the learning process.
What is discussed above could be reflected in the differences between the education systems of U.S. and China. In China, as well as some Far East countries, the education of indoctrination is employed. Students learn most of the lessons by listening to the lecturing of tutors. However, in the current America, it is always a kind of heuristic education. Teachers just play a role as some to cast questions or wrong theories while the students learn by doubting the theories and finding answers themselves. As a result, Chinese students are laid a firm foundation of knowledge while American students have developed powerful curiosities and imaginations, as well as the ability to solve real problems. This could partially explain the fact that Chinese students win many golden medals in the International Mathematical or Physical Olympiad for high school students while many American students win Nobel Prize after they grow up.
To conclude, from what is analyzed above, we know that skepticism is a very important attitude in the process of learning, and benefit our society much. Thus, we should always employ such an attitude to drive us to explore the real nature of the universe. What’s more, it should be specially emphasized in the process of education.
//trigger off the curiosity
题目：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."
字数：570 用时：0:45:00 日期：2009-8-18
现代社会是如此的崭新和复杂以至于回首了解过去对于当代生活已经没有太大帮助了。
No matter whether we are willing or not, what is presented before us today is a society with more rapid change and increasing complexity. And undoubtedly, this trend has aroused anxiety and unrest within people today.
On the one hand, things are changing rapidly: what is in fashion today might be out of date just after the sun set and rise again; what is right today could be proved to be totally wrong tomorrow. Suddenly one day, the probably poorest country in Far East Asia, North Korea, claimed that it has produced nuclear weapons. Michael Jackson, who was still dancing in the TV days ago, is found dead in his own house the next day. Probably one day, you may wake up to find that Barack Obama is no longer the president of America, or even, the United States is no long the United States any more.
And on the other hand, at the same time, things are getting more and more complex. Piles of introductive documents always come along with whatever you buy from the supermarket, a computer, a MP4, even a cell phone. Maybe you are no longer easy to use the new type of electronic products today like what you were with your TV set. Energy crists? Economic trends? A new weapon? There are dozens of things that you don't know. Oh, God! Even when you want to play a computer game for relaxing, the complexity of operations might drive you crazy.
There is no denying that we are now stepping into an age of information explosion. There are extremely large amount of various information we have to face every day, and they reach us very fast and conveniently by the access of internet or mass media. They have actually established a steady anxiety in modern people's mind. This is likely to be the reason why people today don't like to look back and understand of the past that there has been so many to deal with today. And they give the reason that past things provides no guidance for living in the present.
And is it really so? Doubtful. I always hold the opinion that past experiences are of great value and help to today's life, be it your personal experiences or the history of human beings.
Firstly, people could benefit much from the past. A constant review of your past life provides not only the beautiful feelings of the gone days, but also the better understanding of yourself. You will find out your strengths and weaknesses by thinking about what you have done, and thus to understand your own characteristics better. This is may be helpful when you are in the similar situation in the future.
Secondly, study of history is of greater help. Human learn by trial and error. All the past figures are your teachers, monarch or normal person, generals or soldiers, celebrates or prisoners. You can learn from Einstein the courage to doubt the authority; you can learn from Edison the importance of perseverance; Napoleon teaches you how to become great and Virginia Woolf teaches you how to enjoy being alone. It is no exaggeration to say that the history is the greatest teacher. By studying history, we can make us better equipped for today's life.
So, how to choose, because time is limited? Should we bury our mind in the past stories, or make us open to the information mass today? Combination, of course. And the wisdom to select becomes the crucial issue here. In my opinion, in order to make wise choices, a calm mind is needed, and remember, never be too greedy.
题目：ISSUE103 - "The study of history has value only to the extent that it is relevant to our daily lives."
只有在历史研究与我们的日常生活相关的前提下，历史研究才有价值。
字数：707 用时：0:45:00 日期：2009-8-19
Though I hold the opinion that it is the curiosity within human's inner mind rather than the value we seek that leads us to study history, there is no denying that the study of history does have enormous value, whether related or not so closely related to our daily lives.
Actually, from my personal angle alone, the study of history doesn't have many direct impacts on our daily lives, though there might be some. Here it is necessary for us to have a clear definition of "history". In my opinion, history means all the past events, be it big or small. It is not only the stories of the most celebrated person, or those incidents that affected the whole nation, even the world could be called history. That you played a trick on your neighbor when you were five years old, or that a prisoner just made a prison break yesterday, are also parts of history, though they might not be remembered by the populace. In all, history doesn't just refer to those written in history books, but the collection of all the days gone. Only in this broad definition of history, history could have something more to be relevant to your daily life. You know from the past experiences that it isn't quite safe in a certain district in your town, so you will not go there often, especially alone or when it is late. Or, you know that Mr. Jackson likes to call names before he gives lectures, and you will never be late for a math class.
However, in most cases, when we say "history", we mean the "written history", that is, those that nearly every educated person will know. And under such circumstance, the study of history has impacts on us in a more indirect way. We can learn the courage to doubt whatever authority from Albert Einstein, for that he dared to doubt the rightness of the classical Newton's Law which has been thought to be final truth for hundreds of years, and he made it! By learning the story of how the light bulbs came into being, we see the importance of perseverance to success from Edison, a man who received little education but has a mind that never say no when facing difficulties. The outstanding figures in history always serve as good models for us. Their way to success and their certain characteristic that led them to success are always great inspirations for we decedents. And fortunately, history is rich in such kind of examples. Great people we know in real life are so limited and it is history that we can turn to in search of guidance and lessons. In this sense, history benefits our lives more indirectly, instead exerting influences directly on the daily lives.
In addition, a wide knowledge and deep understanding of history help us to appreciate today's life more. You may feel it couldn't be more normal to drive a car to school. But after you learn the history of how machines came into being, the Industrial Revolution, the invention of electricity, the story of Henry Ford to make cars cheap enough for a common person, you will know how happy you are that you have a car. During election days, you can vote for Barack Obama because you think he could change America better, but you will never know the difficulties humans have gone through to get the freedom to vote. First, it was the French Enlightenment, those past celebrates, like Rousseau, Voltaire, Montesquieu, realized one day that people should have freedom of speech, and they devoted themselves to making all people aware of this. And then it might be the War of Independence, it is the lives of thousands of soldiers that laid the foundation of this nation of freedom and democracy. Behind your one single vote, there are so many difficulties, and you know, it is not easy. In a word, history reminds us the happiness we indeed have today by making comparison with the past. It has the function to reassure, and thus entitle us the consciousness of today's happy life.
Gone are days that teach useful lessons to us and reminds us of the happiness we have. History does have values, not only when it is relevant to our daily lives.
ÌâÄ¿£ºISSUE70 - "In any profession-business, politics, education, government-those in power should step down after five years. The surest path to success for any enterprise is revitalization through new leadership."
在任何领域中——商业、政治、教育、政府——掌权者应该在五年后就让位。这是任何机构获得成的最好的方式：通过更新领导者而保持活力。
×ÖÊý£º663 ÓÃʱ£º0:45:00 ÈÕÆÚ£º2009-8-22
Regular change of leadership is usually a useful way for an enterprise to revitalization and keep progress, for it could provides certain benefits, but there is no doubt that it is not the only or best way, let alone it also has some problems with itself. What' more, we need to change leadership when proper, and the five years regulation seems too rigid and even ridiculous.
Admittedly, plenty of merits lie in the regular change of leadership. When George Washington made it a rule that American president must take a four-year-term form and nobody could exceed two terms, he certainly had his considerations, which turned out to be wise. To begin with, regular change of leadership could avoid corruption. When not being supervised or not being afraid of losing the power, those in office are inclined to abuse the power to benefit themselves. Greed and thirst for money and material is human nature, and we must face this fact. We can't depend on the suppressant of human nature or the self discipline of the officers to avoid that. Therefore, it seems that an effective mechanism is a good choice. This is the inner revitalization of the enterprise. In the second place, new leadership could bring the enterprise new ideas and energy. There is no denying that people like new things. So it is no wonder that the American Election Day is just like a big festival like Christmas. People always have expectation on a brand-new government or governor and they may become energetic again when they are going to have a new leader. This could be reflected in the ever-high populace when Barack Obama was elected to White House. And at the same time, new ideas take place of the old thinking patterns, thus make the enterprise more competitive.
Meanwhile, too frequent or improper change of leadership has its own drawbacks. A short term of authority may lead those in position to seek for short term interests and thus neglect the long-term ones. This is detrimental to an enterprise. For example, a new mayor of the town knows that he must leave the office after some years, what he would choose to be included in his policy may be improve the road conditions or build a bridge or shopping mall, because that people could see the benefits soon when he is still in chair. But as for education, say, to fund the schools of the town to hire more experienced teachers or to equip the school with more advanced facilities, would not be considered, for it take decades for the benefited children to grow up and make contributions to the town in turn. And at that time, there must be new mayor, and people would not remember his own name.
So it seems that American presidency system is a very wise choice after taking considerations of both the two. The time length of term is regulated, but you could win another term if you have done a good job and prove to people that you could continue to do better. Different enterprise may have different restriction on the terms in a row that a person could take, because there are different situation in different areas. We need concrete analysis of concrete conditions. In business world, it seems that the leadership should be changed a little more rapidly, partly because it changes fast. While in the political or legislative area, it may take a litter longer to change, because experience is more significant here. Alan Greenspan had been the president of Federal Reserve Board for about twenty years and the justices of the supreme court of America enjoy a life-long appointment.
To conclude, from what is analyzed above, we see that both advantages and disadvantages are concerned with the regular change of leadership of an enterprise. And to make a better use of it require a case-wise analysis according to the situation. After all, there are other means to revitalization an enterprise other than change of leadership.
Sincerely
yours,
Wang
Tun
ch4w...@gmail.com
August 22, 2009
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Wang Tun | 王 暾
Undergraduate of Mixed Honors Class (Engineering)
Chu Kochen Honors College, Zhejiang University
Major: Optoelectronics, Department of Optical
Engineering
Minor: Advanced Class of Engineering Education
(ACEE)
Cell: (+86)136-5667-9099
Email: ch4w...@gmail.com
Address: Room 4073, Lantian 1st Dorm, Zijingang Campus,
Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, P. R.
China
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Frank Ma
Zhejiang University HangZhou
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