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
Symptoms of Pervasive Anti - Intellectualism Americans today don’t place a very high value on intellect. Our heroes are athl
Symptoms of Pervasive Anti - Intellectualism Americans today don’t place a very high value on intellect. Our heroes are athl
admin
2012-12-22
56
问题
Symptoms of Pervasive Anti - Intellectualism
Americans today don’t place a very high value on intellect. Our heroes are athletes, entertainers, and entrepreneurs, not scholars. Even our schools are where we send our children to get a practical education—not to pursue knowledge for the sake of knowledge. Symptoms of pervasive anti -intellectualism in our schools aren’t difficult to find.
"Schools have always been in a society where practical is more important than intellectual," says education writer Diane Ravitch. "Schools could be a counter - balance. " Ravitch ’s latest book, Left Back; A Century of Failed School Reforms, traces the roots of anti - intellectualism in our schools, concluding they are anything but a counterbalance to the American distaste for intellectual pursuits.
But they could and should be. Encouraging kids to reject the life of the mind leaves them vulnerable to exploitation and control. Without the ability to think critically, to defend their ideas and understand the ideas of others, they cannot fully participate in our democracy. Continuing along this path, says writer Earl Shorris, "We will become a second - rate country. We will have a less civil society. "
"Intellect is resented as a form of power or privilege," wrote by historian and professor Richard Hofstadter in Anti - Intellectualism in American Life, a Pulitzer Prize winning book on the roots of anti - intellectualism in US politics, religion, and education. From the beginning of our history, says Hofstadter, our democratic and populist urges have driven us to reject anything that smells of elitism. Practicality, common sense, and native intelligence have been considered more noble qualities than anything you could learn from a book.
Ralph Waldo Emerson and other Transcendentalist philosophers thought schooling and rigorous book learning put unnatural restraints on children: "We are shut up in schools and college recitation rooms for 10 or 15 years and come out at last with a bellyful (满腹) of words and do not know a thing. " Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn exemplified American anti - intellectualism. Its hero avoids being civilized—going to school and learning to read—so he can preserve his innate goodness.
Intellect, according to Hofstadter, is different from native intelligence, a quality we reluctantly admire. Intellect is the critical, creative, and contemplative side of the mind. Intelligence seeks to grasp, manipulate, re-order, and adjust, while intellect examines, ponders, wonders, theorizes, criticizes and imagines.
School remains a place where intellect is mistrusted. Hofstadter says our country’s educational system is in the grips of people who joyfully and militantly proclaim their hostility to intellect and their eagerness to identify with children who show the least intellectual promise.
We can learn from the text that Americans have a history of______.
选项
A、undervaluing intellect
B、favoring intellectualism
C、supporting school reform
D、suppressing native intelligence
答案
A
解析
本题是推断题,有较大难度。文章第四段最后一句“Practicality,common sense.and native intelligence have been considered more noble qualities than anything you could learn from a book”里,“have been considered”是现在宪成时态,表明美国从过去到现在一直是这样,“anything you could learn from a book”指的就是intellect,综合这两处,可以断定美国历史上就一直不重视思考能力.A项是近义改写,因而是解。B项与文意正相反,因此不是解。第二段提到Diane Ravitch的书,Left Back:A Century of Failed School Reforms,这个题目就说明美国历史上并没有支持学校教育改革,C项与文意相反,不是解。第四段最后一句谈到美国人认为天分比思考更重要,说明天分并没有受到压抑,D项与文意不符,也不是解。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/BwUd777K
本试题收录于:
职称英语综合类A级题库职称英语分类
0
职称英语综合类A级
职称英语
相关试题推荐
RenewableEnergySourcesTodaypetroleumprovidesaround40%oftheworld’senergyneeds,mostlyfuellingautomobiles.Coal
ScienceandTruth"FINAGLE"(欺骗)isnotawordthatmostpeopleassociatewithscience.Onereasonisthattheimageofthes
SingingAlarmsCouldSavetheBlindIfyoucannotsee,youmaynotbeabletofindyourwayoutofaburningbuilding—andth
TightenedVisaRegulationsAccordingtoSouthKorea’snewvisaregulations,nativespeakersofEnglishinSouthKoreawillb
TheWorkers’RoleinManagementTraditionally,ithasbeentheworkers’roletoworkandmanagement’sroletomanage.Managersh
Alaska1In1959AmericanswelcomedAlaskaintotheUnionasthe49thstate,symbolizingachangeofattitudefromthatheldin
GunRightsintheUSImmediatelyaftertheshootingatVirginiaTechUniversity,Americansgatheredtomournthedead.Thepresi
GunRightsintheUSImmediatelyaftertheshootingatVirginiaTechUniversity,Americansgatheredtomournthedead.Thepresi
InterestsandStudyActivitiesAnarrowingofyourworkinterestsisimpliedinalmostanytransitionfromastudyenvironm
Irememberlotsofthings.
随机试题
《风雪夜归人》中魏莲生这一人物的身份是()
A.二重感染B.慢性感染C.原发性感染D.亚急性感染E.继发性感染致病菌在创伤发生时同时立即进入伤口所引起的感染为
患者,女性,36岁,因咽痛服磺胺药后,舌背起疱,破溃后疼痛难忍。进食受限。以往曾有类似病史。检查:舌背黏膜表面可见0.8cm×1.2cm界限清楚的糜烂面,表面有黄色假膜,渗出较多。下列治疗措施中最重要的是
与未来企业生产经营有关的其他费用有()。
下列给水排水管道和燃气管道安装要求中,符合规范规定的有()。
主张绅士教育,并著有《教育漫话》的教育家是()
2017年9月3日,朝鲜进行自2006年以来的第六次核试验,遭到国际社会普遍反对。中国对朝鲜半岛核问题的立场,就是“三个坚持”:坚持实现半岛无核化目标,坚持维护半岛和平稳定,坚持通过对话协商以和平方式妥善解决半岛核问题。中国认为,朝核问题的本质是
设f(x)在[a,b]上连续且单调减少.证明:当0<k<1时,∫0kf(x)dx≥k∫01f(x)dx.
A、Shewouldratherdriveherself.B、Themandrivescrazily.C、Themanalmosthadanaccident.D、Shefeelscomfortablewhenhedr
However,attimesthisbalanceinnatureis______resultinginanumberofpossiblyunforeseeneffects.
最新回复
(
0
)