首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
The Redistribution of Hope "HOPE" is one of the most overused words in public life, up there with "change". Yet it matters e
The Redistribution of Hope "HOPE" is one of the most overused words in public life, up there with "change". Yet it matters e
admin
2013-09-24
73
问题
The Redistribution of Hope
"HOPE" is one of the most overused words in public life, up there with "change". Yet it matters enormously. Politicians always pay close attention to right-track/wrong-track indicators. Confidence determines whether consumers spend, and so whether companies invest. The "power of positive thinking", as Norman Vincent Peale pointed out, is enormous.
For the past 400 years the West has enjoyed a comparative advantage over the rest of the world when it comes to optimism. Western intellectuals dreamed up the ideas of enlightenment and progress, and Western men of affairs harnessed technology to impose their will on the rest of the world. The Founding Fathers of the United States, who firmly believed that the country they created would be better than any that had come before, offered citizens not just life and liberty but also the pursuit of happiness.
Desperation road
The Westerners’ growing pessimism is reshaping political life. At present, the mood in Washington is as glum as it has been since Jimmy Carter argued that America was suffering from "malaise(不安)". The Democrats’ dream that the country was on the verge of a 1960s-style liberal renaissance foundered in the midterms. But the Republicans are hardly hopeful: their creed leans towards anger and resentment rather than optimism.
Europe, meanwhile, has seen mass protests, some of them violent, on the streets of Athens, Dublin, London, Madrid, Paris and Rome. If the countries on the European Union’s periphery are down in the dumps it is hardly surprising, but there is pessimism at its more successful core, too. The best-selling book in Germany is Thilo Sarrazin’s Germany Does Away With Itself, a jeremiad(血泪史)about the "fact" that less able women are having more children than their brighter sisters. French intellectuals will soon have Jean-Pierre Chevenement’s Is France Finished? on their shelves alongside Eric Zemmour’s French Melancholy.
The immediate explanation for this asymmetry(不对称)is the economic crisis, which has not just shaken Westerners’ confidence in the system that they built, but also widened the growth gap between mature and emerging economies. China and India are growing by 10% and 9%, compared with 3% for America and 2% for Europe. Many European countries’ unemployment rates are disgraceful even by their own dismal standards: 41% of young Spaniards are unemployed, for example. And the great American job machine has stalled: one in ten is unemployed and more than a million may have given up looking for work. But the change goes deeper than that—to the dreams that have propelled the West.
For most of its history America has kept its promise to give its citizens a good chance of living better than their parents. But these days, less than half of Americans think their children’s living standards will be better than theirs. Experience has made them gloomy: the income of the median worker has been more or less stagnant since the mid-1970s, and, thanks to a combination of failing schools and disappearing mid-level jobs, social mobility in America is now among the lowest in the rich world.
European dreams are different from American ones, but just as important to hopes of a peaceful and prosperous future. They come in two forms: an ever deeper European Union(banishing nationalism)and ever more generous welfare states(offering security). With the break-up of the Euro a possibility, and governments sinking under the burden of unaffordable entitlements as their populations age and the number of workers contracts, those happy notions are evaporating.
Shift happens
In the emerging world, meanwhile, they are not arguing about pensions, but building colleges. China’s university population has quadrupled(成四倍)in the past two decades. UNESCO(United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization)notes that the proportion of scientific researchers based in the developing world increased from 30% in 2002 to 38% in 2007. World-class companies such as India’s Infosys and China’s Huawei are beating developed-country competitors.
The rise of positive thinking in the emerging world is something to be welcomed—not least because it challenges the present situation. Nandan Nilekani of Infosys says that his company’s greatest achievement lies not in producing technology but in redefining the boundaries of the possible. If people in other countries take those ideas seriously, they will make life uncomfortable for the old in China and Arabia.
But there are dangers, too. Optimism can easily become irrational exuberance(兴奋): asset prices in some emerging markets have risen too high. And there is a danger of a Western backlash. Unless developing countries start taking their responsibility for global security seriously, Americans and Europeans may begin to wonder why they are policing the world to keep markets open for others to get rich.
As for the Westerners’ gloom, it has its uses. There is a growing recognition that the old rich world cannot take its prosperity for granted—that it will be overtaken by hungrier powers if it fails to deal with its structural problems. Americans are beginning to accept that their country must become less wasteful. Europeans are realizing that they need to make their economies more agile and innovative. Both are beginning to treat this crisis as the opportunity that it is.
Nor should Westerners overdo the despair, for the emergence of new great powers will benefit them, too. True, their governments will find it harder to boss the rest of the world around; their most desirable properties will increasingly be owned by foreigners; their children will have to work harder to get good jobs in an increasingly globalized economy. But the rising number of Indians, Chinese and Brazilians who can afford to buy their products and services will help their companies prosper. The countries that have provided them with workers will increasingly provide them with customers, too.
It may not feel like it in the West, but this is, in many ways, the best of times. Hundreds of millions are climbing out of poverty. The Internet gives ordinary people access to information that even the most privileged scholar could not have dreamed of a few years ago. Medical advances are conquering diseases and extending life spans. For most of human history, only a privileged few have reasonably been able to hope that the future would be better than the present. Today the masses everywhere can; and that is surely the reason to be optimistic.
Thilo Sarrazin’s best-seller tells us about______.
选项
A、violence in European Union countries
B、melancholy of the French people
C、the sufferings of those less able women
D、the jeremiad of the women in Germany
答案
C
解析
细节辨认题。由原文可知,Thilo Sarrazin的畅销书讲述的是没有多大能力的妇女们的血泪史,由此可得出答案为C“那些能力弱的妇女们的遭遇”。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/aDc7777K
0
大学英语四级
相关试题推荐
Wefindthatbrightchildrenarerarelyheldbackbymixedabilityteaching.Onthecontrary,boththeirknowledgeand【B1】______
WhenMomandDadGrowOldTheprospectoftalkingtoincreasinglyfragileparentsabouttheirfuturecanbe"oneofthemost
ExchangeRates:ABriefHistoryofExchangeRatesForcenturies,thecurrenciesoftheworldwerebackedbygold.Thatis,apie
A、Shewasslimmerthen.B、Shewas140poundsthen.C、Shewas160poundsthen.D、Shewasinverygoodfigurethen.C推理判断题。本题关键词为“
Securitiesandcommodityexchangesaretradingpostswherepeoplemeetwhowishtobuyorsell.The【S1】______themselvesdonotr
Securitiesandcommodityexchangesaretradingpostswherepeoplemeetwhowishtobuyorsell.The【S1】______themselvesdonotr
Securitiesandcommodityexchangesaretradingpostswherepeoplemeetwhowishtobuyorsell.The【S1】______themselvesdonotr
Securitiesandcommodityexchangesaretradingpostswherepeoplemeetwhowishtobuyorsell.The【S1】______themselvesdonotr
A、InJanuary.B、InApril.C、InOctober.D、InDecember.B信息明示题。短文中提到,四、五月份是沿海岸看海龟的最佳时期。
A、EditingSundaySport.B、WorkingforCapitalRadio.C、Managingprofessionalsoccerteams.D、Developingasportsmarketingcompa
随机试题
中度吸入性损伤的病变部位在
A.急性单纯性胆囊炎B.胆囊结石反复发作C.胆总管结石感染并休克D.肝内结石局限于左叶E.胆总管扩张不明显,但并发胰腺炎胆囊切除术适合于
50岁,女性患者,因右上肢抽搐和昏迷而急诊,陪人诉近半月来患者反复畏寒、发热、恶心欲呕、精神不振,4小时前开始神志不清,既往史不详,有糖尿病家族史。体检:肥胖体型,双瞳直径3mm,尿糖(+++),尿酮(+),二氧化碳结合力19mmol/L,血钠155mmo
关于子宫的解剖,下列哪项是错误的( )
按照评价对象分,环境影响评价可以分为()。
近年来,无力矩顶储罐建造较少,其主要原因有( )。
A公司2011年1月10日购入B公司15万股股票作为交易性金融资产,每股价格为6元。3月15日收到B公司宣告分派的现金股利3万元。6月30日该股票的市价为每股6.5元,则该交易性金融资产6月30日的账面余额为()万元。
张某2007年12月买了一张医疗费用保险单,该保单日历年度免赔额为500元,并包含一个20%的比例分摊条款和4000元的止损条款。张某在2008年5月发生保险责任范围内的医疗费用为3000元,则保险人应承担的医疗费用是( )元。
民间非营利组织应将预收的以后年度会费确认为负债。()
科威特通讯社(KUNA)
最新回复
(
0
)