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
2011-01-10
65
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 practical is more important than intellectual," 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 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 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".
The views of Ravitch and Emerson on schooling are______.
选项
A、identical
B、similar
C、complementary
D、opposite
答案
D
解析
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/HXcO777K
本试题收录于:
NAETI中级口译笔试题库外语翻译证书(NAETI)分类
0
NAETI中级口译笔试
外语翻译证书(NAETI)
相关试题推荐
Still,itwasnaturaltobeupsetwhensomeoneyouknowhasbeenbrutallymurdered.
Hewaslookingimpatientatthevisitingsalesman,whoshowednosignsofgettingreadytoleave.
女士们,先生们:金秋十月,北京气候宜人,中国国际投资贸易论坛今天在这里隆重召开了。我很高兴能够应邀出席本次论坛,首先我谨代表中华人民共和国商务部向远道而来的国内外朋友表示热烈的欢迎和衷心的感谢。[TONE]∥[TONE]众所周知,通
在中关建交25周年前夕,我应布什总统的邀请正式访问贵国。纽约是我访美的第一站,在这里能与各位新老朋友欢聚一堂,我感到很高兴。在此我要特别感谢美国银行家协会的盛情款待,向多年来为推动中美经贸合作做出积极贡献的各位朋友表示敬意!并通过你们向伟大的美国人民致以诚
当年为了实现乌拉圭回合,各个成员费了很大劲儿,但事后的结果并不乐观,世界经济更不平衡,两极分化越加严重。面对这一现象,发展中国家不能容忍,发达国家也感到了危机。正因为如此,大家才把多哈回合定为发展回合。这是WTO历史上巨大的进步,也是各个成员富有远见的选择
北京奥运会不仅将展示新的激动人心的中国文化,也将体现北京独特的个性与技巧。北京也认为,应从奥林匹克运动中通过广泛咨询,得到技术上的建议。在准备这份报告时,我们咨询了来自悉尼、亚特兰大、巴塞罗那的专家。协商和对话是我们工作的原则。//再次申办以来,
作为一名运动员、教练员和体育管理者,尤其是作为奥运会的技术官员,我最大的体会是:在奥运会中,没有什么比运动员的利益更重要了。我们整个奥运计划的制定是以运动员需要为中心的。//在做任何决定时,我们都要问一问自己,什么对奥运会和残奥会运动员最有利。在国际单项体
当前,国际金融危机已从局部发展到全球,从发达国家传导到新兴市场国家,从金融领域扩散到实体经济领域,给世界各国经济发展和人民生活带来严重影响。值此关键时刻,我们在这里共同探讨维护国际金融稳定、促进世界经济增长的举措,具有十分重要的意义。//我们正在
下面你将听到一段介绍北京申奥功臣何振梁的讲话。7月13日晚,在莫斯科国际贸易中心,当国际奥委会主席萨马兰奇宣布北京获得2008年奥运会主办权时,一楼新闻中心的大屏幕,久久定格在一个动人的场面上:何振梁先生眼含热泪,与前来祝贺的国际奥委会委员逐个拥
Overthelastdecade,demandforthemostcommoncosmeticsurgeryprocedures,likebreastenlargementandnosejobs,hasincreas
随机试题
下列关于软件的叙述中,正确的是
农村包围城市、武装夺取政权道路的形成标志着毛泽东思想的形成。
税务师2015年3月在审核某化妆品生产企业的“营业外收入”账户,调阅记账凭证,发现企业2014年12月份,企业有一笔账务处理为:借:其他应付款5000贷:营业外收入5000经过向企业财务人员
位于某县的某卷烟厂(一般纳税人)生产销售A级卷烟,同时经营进口卷烟。2014年10月发生如下经济业务:(1)10月3日,自其他企业购进已税烟丝不含税买价180万元,自某烟丝加工厂购进烟丝不含税买价150万元,上述烟丝均取得增值税专用发票,烟丝于10月10
以下属于增值税法定免税项目的有()。
()是商业银行实施全面风险管理的媒介,贯穿于整个流程和各个层面。
政府为扩大社会投资规模,要通过加速折旧、补贴、贴息、税收优惠等方式,激励私人投资,是财政政策的()。
良好的师生关系的特点有哪些?
A、0B、2C、3D、4A
由市场供求决定的市场价格,就像“一只看不见的手”,自动地指挥着资源的流向,这体现了市场经济的()功能。
最新回复
(
0
)