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  3. The attitude that intolerance is an evil is especially strong in Britain, where tolerance has been elevated into the Great Natio

The attitude that intolerance is an evil is especially strong in Britain, where tolerance has been elevated into the Great Natio

admin2010-01-15  61
问题      The attitude that intolerance is an evil is especially strong in Britain, where tolerance has been elevated into the Great National virtue. We believe ourselves to be unique among nations in our generosity of spirit and our readiness to put up with all kinds of people. Listen to any public debate or radio phone-in about immigration and you will hear people reiterating this view. Only the British, they say, would have allowed so many black and brown people into their country, would have treated them so well, given them jobs, put them on the National Health Service, and so on. And this, they conclude, is why no more of them should be allowed in.
     Their conclusion, of course, gives the game away, for the tolerance they are talking about does not in fact exist but is invented as a justification for present intolerance. It is a thoroughly hypocritical posture which makes one wonder whether British claims to being especially tolerant have any validity at all.
      What is called tolerance by the British may often be just unassertiveness or timidity, for it is true that most English people do not relish public rows or confrontations and will go to some lengths to avoid them. But this does not mean they are particularly indulgent to other people’s behaviour. Do anything out of the ordinary--give a party, for example--and your neighbours will soon begin to bare their teeth.
     The British tend to be very critical of Continental drivers, whom they accuse of uncontrolled aggressiveness. But while British drivers may be rather more reliable about sticking to the rules of the road, they are dangerously intolerant of other drivers who, in their view, are doing things they shouldn’t be doing. I myself may sometimes be incompetent or a bit too pushy as a driver but I have often been a victim of verbal abuse and terrifying revenge manoeuvres quite out of proportion to any offence that I may have committed. In fact, I am much more frightened of British drivers than I am of French or Italian ones, for you can at least be reasonably confident with the latter that, unlike the British, they are not prepared to die--and take you with them--in order to prove a point.
     British attitudes to bad habits like drinking also tend to be intolerant and are getting more so. I was shocked to hear on the radio this week that personnel officers, people whose task is to care for the workers, had revealed in a survey that many of them would like to see drinking at lunchtime forbidden and made grounds for dismissal. The whole idea of telling people when they should be allowed to drink, a principle enshrined in the licensing laws, is of its nature profoundly intolerant.
According to the passage, giving a party in Britain may fill the neighbours with ______.
选项 A、happiness
B、anger
C、thankfulness
D、envy
答案B
解析 第三段说如果你做任何超出一般的事情的话(比如举办晚会)，你的邻居就会生气。bare one’s teeth的意思是“生气、发怒”。
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