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
Americans today don’t place a very high value on intellect. Our heroes are athletes, entertainers, and entrepreneurs, not schola
Americans today don’t place a very high value on intellect. Our heroes are athletes, entertainers, and entrepreneurs, not schola
admin
2015-01-31
34
问题
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 practice is more important than intellect", says education writer Diane Ravitch. "Schools could be a counterbalance". 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", writes historian and Professor Richard Hofstadter in Anti-intellectualism in American Life, a Pulitzer Prize winning book on the roots of anti-intellectualism in U.S. 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 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".
What contributes to the citizens’ active participation in democracy?
选项
A、Self-evaluation.
B、Critical thinking.
C、Social environment.
D、Law enforcement.
答案
B
解析
细节题。题干问,公民积极参与民主的原因是什么?根据关键词“democracy”定位于第三段“Without the ability to think critically…they cannot fully participate inour democracy.”可知答案是选项B,批判性思维。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/HFh7777K
0
大学英语六级
相关试题推荐
Asgoodsandservicesimproved,peoplewerepersuadedtosendtheirmoneyonchangingfromoldtonew,andfoundthechangewort
A、Parents’supportandloanforthestudents.B、Thedecliningopportunitiesforthequalifiedpeople.C、Thegrowingneedforhig
Bloggingisapastimeformany,evenalivelihoodforafew.Forsome,itbecomesan【B1】_____.Suchbloggersoftenfeelcompelle
A、About40.B、Almost200.C、Over240.D、Morethan72.B根据原文,Smithsonian展览展出了约200件JosephCornell的作品,所以答案为B。
A、Shehatedthefilmverymuch.B、Shedoesn’tlikeromancemovies.C、Shethoughtthecastofthemoviewasbad.D、Shedidn’tund
Researchershavefoundmoreevidencethatsuggestsarelationshipbetweenraceandratesoflungcanceramongsmokers.Some(36)
Choiceblindness:Youdon’tknowwhatyouwant[A]Wehaveallheardofexpertswhofailbasictestsofsensorydiscriminationin
Choiceblindness:Youdon’tknowwhatyouwant[A]Wehaveallheardofexpertswhofailbasictestsofsensorydiscriminationin
Advertisementcanbethoughtof"asthemeansofmakingknowninordertobuyorsellgoodsorservices".Advertisementaimsto
Americansusuallyconsiderthemselvesafriendlypeople.Theirfriendships,however,tendtobeshorterandmore【B1】______thanf
随机试题
汉字的特点。
已知随机变量X的分布函数为F(x),若y=g(x)是单调递减函数,则随机变量Y=g(X)的分布函数G(y)=________.
在胸骨左缘第2~4肋间可听到Ⅱ~Ⅳ级喷射性收缩期杂音的先天性心脏病是
A.泻下利水、消肿散结B.泻下逐饮、消肿散结C.泻下去积、消肿散结D.泻下通便、消肿散结E.泻下除胀、消肿散结商陆的功效是
当事人签订买卖房屋或者其他不动产物权的协议,为保障将来实现物权,按照约定可以向登记机构申请预告登记。下列情形中,预告登记失效的有()。
如信用条件为“2/10,n/30”,放弃现金折扣的成本为()。
庐陵孝献王义真,美仪貌,神情秀彻。初封桂阳县公,食邑千户。年十二,从北征大军进长安,留守柏谷坞,除员外散骑常侍,不拜。及关中平定,高祖议欲东还,而诸将行役既久,咸有归愿,止留偏将,不足镇固人心,乃以义真行都督雍、凉、秦三州司州之河东、平阳、河北三郡诸军事、
如果不堆叠,直径16厘米的盘子里面最多可以放多少个边长6公分的正方体?( )
企业使命是()。
已知当χ→0时,-1与cos-1是等价无穷小,则常数a=_______.
最新回复
(
0
)