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
We must Train People to Break the Rules [A]Lay out the entrails, read omens and auguries, study the heavens, shake your hoary lo
We must Train People to Break the Rules [A]Lay out the entrails, read omens and auguries, study the heavens, shake your hoary lo
admin
2013-11-12
50
问题
We must Train People to Break the Rules
[A]Lay out the entrails, read omens and auguries, study the heavens, shake your hoary locks like an ancient seer. Signs and portents bring us messages, and we should heed them ere civilization crumbles.
[B]Off Hope Cove, on the Devon coast, a crew of strong, experienced men has saved a girl’s life with minutes to spare, only to find itself "disciplined" because the only boat available was classified as an "additional facility awaiting inspection". Earlier and farther inland, see two more strong men standing helpless in their luminous Police Community Support uniforms, wittering into radios because they lacked the correct certificates to try to rescue a drowning boy.
[C]Elsewhere, a coastguard resigned after saving a 13-year-old dangling from a cliff. He failed to fetch and buckle on his own safety harness, and immediately found himself in trouble from bosses droning that they "don’t want dead heroes".
[D]Meanwhile a thousand small habitual practices — from cake stalls to carpentry classes — find themselves under heavy reproof and restraint. And in a hospital ward somewhere a dying, frail old man repeatedly falls out of bed because nurses reckon that they can’t put up the sides of the bed without a "risk assessment", in case they breach his "human rights" and "unlawfully imprison" him.
[E]A frantic family tries to get a telephone line reconnected to a remote Welsh hillside where a man has had a stroke, and meet only call-centre shrugs because they don’t have the account number off the bill; a neighbor phones the weekend "on-call" doctor service about an ailing nonagenarian neighbor, to be told by the doctor that nothing can be done until they give the victim’s correct postcode and date of birth.
[F]An amateur dramatic group has to find lock-up storage for two plastic toy swords; and in Huddersfield, citizens have to barricade the road before Binmen will take away rubbish bags that didn’t fit correctly into the wheelie bins, although the surplus is entirely due to the said Binmen having been on strike and omitting the last collection.
[G]From distant California, thanks to Times online message boards, comes the echo of a voice from the Ancient World. Jim from El Centro responded to the Hope Cove rescue story at the weekend with a quotation from Marcus Tullius Cicero: "A bureaucrat is the most despicable of men, though he is needed as vultures are needed, but one hardly admires vultures, which bureaucrats so strangely resemble. I have yet to meet a bureaucrat who was not petty, dull, almost witless, crafty or stupid, an oppressor or a thief, a holder of little authority in which he delights, as a boy delights in possessing a vicious dog. Who can trust such creatures?"
[H]Something is wrong. We read too many stories about this craven, inhuman, poltroonish cowering behind rules and routines, and about individuals who get into trouble for momentarily breaching them in the name of humanity or sense. I take issue with Cicero and Jim a little, though — it is too easy to rage at bureaucracy itself and join in thoughtless jeering at "suits". Even Cicero accepts that efficient administration is necessary: it gets things done and distributed, and is a bulwark against chaos. So I think we have to choose our targets more carefully, and unpick more precisely the evil threads that make us so uneasy and unhappy and desperate to stick to rules in defiance of common sense and kindness.
[I]I would diagnose it as insecurity, linked to a misunderstanding of the concept of "training"(which, incidentally, links straight back to the culture of unintelligent testing in schools). Depressed, anxious people always prefer to stick to rules rather than think for themselves; at the extreme they lapse into obsessive-compulsive disorder, forever washing their hands and touching wood. Depressed, anxious institutions such as the Maritime and Coastguard Authority, National Health Service management(and quite a few call centers)display this pathology on a corporate level. You get the "training", tick the right multiple-choice boxes and refuse to think that there might be another choice, not listed. You feel safer that way, like a troubled child determined not to color outside the lines.
[J]Yet this is the opposite of real training, as practised for years in real armies, navies, laboratories and institutions. Real training lays down a framework of expertise and safety not to prevent initiative, but to free it. If you really know the rules and understand their purpose, you can judge when to make an exception and break them.
[K]A nurse should be able to think(as some no doubt do): "Right, the patient is confused and rolling about, and might get hurt, I’ll put up the sides of the bed and keep an eye on things, and have a word with the relatives later to explain."
[L]The boat crew should feel free to think(as they did): "The big lifeboat isn’t going to be in time, we know our own boat’s safe even though it hasn’t got the certificate yet, and if we do get into trouble it’s worth a try to save a life — go for it!" The dustmen should say: "OK, so there are bags lying beside the wheelie bins in contravention of council regulations, but that’ll be because of the strike, isn’t it? Chuck them in."
[M]The NHS or telecom call-centre staff should be alert not only to the list of correct procedures on the wall, but to the note of panic in the distant voice.
[N]Employees should be allowed to be people too; and a good bureaucrat should feel safe to judge which value scored highest at the critical moment. We all see examples of this gentle accommodation every day. But we also know that those who break small rules for human values run a real risk, because of that corporate anxiety and depression. It is brought on by soulless micromanagement from the top and a culture that assumes the citizen is a moron. Keeping the balance is not always easy: but hell, human life is a tightrope and always has been. Certainly the reckless rule-breakers should be curbed or sacked; but so should the stupidly rigid bureaucrats.
[O]Can’t leave you on that gloomy note. So rejoice: 125 miles out in the dark North Sea, in the excellent Tall Ships Race, 13 crew(mainly teenage)have just been rescued from the flooded cutter Clyde Challenger by the(mainly teenage)crew of a fellow-competitor, the Norwegian ketch Loyal. I am sure that they all obeyed the rules: perish the thought that they wouldn’t. But if they had to break a few, good luck to them.
The two men in the uniforms did not rescue the drowning boy as soon as possible because they thought they had no right to rescue him.
选项
答案
B
解析
根据题目中的drowning boy可将本题出处定位于[B]段末句.、该句指出,两个穿着社区警察服装的强壮男士看到一个即将溺水的孩子却无能为力,而这仅仅是因为他们缺少必要的证书(lacked the correct certificates),也就是说他们认为自己无权对那个孩子施救,题目与原文内容相符。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/Fs17777K
0
大学英语六级
相关试题推荐
A、HedismissedtheCaptain.B、Hemadetheword"boycott"popular.C、Heremovedthepoortenants.D、Heincreasedtherentsandta
Growingolderisinevitable.However,asyougetold,careinoldagebecomesmoreimportant.Manypeoplewronglybelievethatw
Growingolderisinevitable.However,asyougetold,careinoldagebecomesmoreimportant.Manypeoplewronglybelievethatw
A、Sellinghomefurnishings.B、Rentingfurnishedapartment.C、Sellingusedfurniture.D、Rentinghomefurnishings.D细节题。根据选项中的核心词s
StudentsWithoutBordersAmericanstudentsabroadarehardlyrare:AreportbytheAmericanCouncilonEducationfoundthat
A、Saturday.B、Sunday.C、Monday.D、Tuesday.A细节题。男士明确提到说IwenthikingSaturday.(我在星期六那天去徒步旅行了。)答案是A。
MultilingualismontheInternetInrecentyears,Americanculturehasincreaseditsworldwideinfluencethroughinternationa
DougMorrellhadalreadyinstalledsolarpanelsonhishouseinCoopersville,Mich.,buthewaseagertogetalittlebitgreen
Plato,anancientGreekphilosopher,believedthatmenaredividedintothreeclasses:gold,silverandbronze.VilfredoPareto
关于资源消耗,中国的消耗增长率可谓惊人。例如,国家钢材(steel)消耗在1983年为3000万吨,到2003年飙升到2亿5000万吨。20年内增长8倍,占世界总消耗量的40%。水泥(cement)消耗大约为8亿吨,1983年后也增长8倍,占世界总消耗量的
随机试题
下列选项中,不属于癌前病变的是
直肠癌下缘距齿状线3cm,直径1cm,手术术式应选择( )乙状结肠息肉,直径2cm,窄蒂,手术术式应选择( )
下列选项中,属于可以抵押的财产包括()。
钢筋混凝土框架结构中的梁与板应同时浇筑混凝土,当梁高大于()m时,为了施工方便,也可将其单独浇筑。
换入资产和换出资产公允价值均能可靠计量时,采用换入资产公允价值优先原则。()
时下,在一些课堂中,常常遇到这样的情景:老师说:“同学们喜欢哪段就学哪段,大家自由组合,选择同一学习内容的同学坐在一起。”于是,课堂成了“自由市场”,学生们交换位置,你争我抢,自由民主的气氛洋溢着这个空间。问题:作为教师你对这一教学现象怎么看?怎
舞台上的演员不同于画室里的模特儿。舞蹈除自然美外,更注重艺术美,于是便要讲到衣饰。但这衣饰决不像旧戏那样给人套上死板的程式,也不像话剧那样过分地写实。它是绿荷上的露珠,是峭壁上的青藤,是红花下的绿叶,是翠柳上的黄鹂,是一种微妙的附着。 这段文字主要谈
下面的文学常识,连接完全正确的一组是:
根据《物权法》的规定,下列选项中,属于侵犯相邻权的行为有()。
辩证唯物主义和旧唯物主义是唯物主义的不同派别,它们之间既有相同也存在分歧。在认识论领域,二者的区别主要有()
最新回复
(
0
)