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
Time, as we know it, is a very recent invention. The modern time-sense is hardly older than the United States. It is a by-produc
Time, as we know it, is a very recent invention. The modern time-sense is hardly older than the United States. It is a by-produc
admin
2011-05-29
90
问题
Time, as we know it, is a very recent invention. The modern time-sense is hardly older than the United States. It is a by-product of industrialism--a sort of psychological analogue of synthetic perfumes and aniline dyes.
Time is our tyrant. We are chronically aware of the moving minute hand, even of the moving second hand. We have to be. There are trains to be caught, clocks to be punched, tasks to be done in specified periods, records to be broken by fractions of a second, machines that set the pace and have to be kept up with.
Another time-emphasizing entity is the factory and its dependent, the office. Factories exist for the purpose of getting certain quantities of goods made in a certain time. The old artisan worked as it suited him with the result that consumers generally had to wait for the goods they had ordered from him. The factory is a device for making workmen hurry. The machine revolves so often each minute; so many movements have to be made, so many pieces produced each hour. Result: the factory worker (and the same is true of the office worker) is compelled to know time in its smallest fractions. In the hand-work age there was no such compulsion to be aware of minutes and seconds.
Our awareness of time has reached such a pitch of intensity that we suffer acutely whenever our travels take us into some corner of the world where people are not interested in minutes and seconds. The unpunctuality of the Orient, for example, is appalling to those who come freshly from a land of fixed meal-times and regular train services. For a modern American or Englishman, waiting is a psychological torture. An Indian accepts the blank hours with resignation, even with satisfaction. He has not lost the fine art of doing nothing. Our notion of time as a collection of minutes, each of which must be filled with some business or amusement, is wholly alien to the Oriental, just as it was wholly alien to the Greek. For the man who lives in a pre-industrial world, time moves at a slow and easy pace; he does not care about each minute, for the good reason that he has not been made conscious of the existence of minutes.
This brings us to a seeming paradox. Acutely aware of the smallest constituent particles of time--of time, as measured by clock-work and train arrivals and the revolutions of machines--industrialized man has to a great extent lost the old awareness of time in its larger divisions. The time of which we have knowledge is artificial, machine-made time. Of natural, cosmic time, as it is measured out by sun and moon, we are for the most part almost wholly unconscious. Pre-industrial people know time in its daily, monthly and seasonal rhythms. They are aware of sunrise, noon and sunset; of the full moon and the new; of equinox and solstice; of spring and summer, autumn and winter.
Industrialism and urbanism have changed all this. One can live and work in a town without being aware of the daily march of the sun across the sky; without ever seeing the moon and stars. Even changes of season affect the townsman very little. He is the inhabitant of an artificial universe that is, to a great extent, walled off from the world of nature. Outside the walls, time is cosmic and moves with the motion of sun and stars. Within, it is an affair of revolving wheels and is measured in seconds and minutes--at its longest, in eight-hour days and five-day weeks. We have a new consciousness; but it has been purchased at the expense of the old consciousness.
The thesis of the essay is that ______ .
选项
A、urbanism could affect natural environment
B、machines have brought about establishment of offices
C、modern technology has transformed our notion of time
D、science could promote human individuality and dignity
答案
C
解析
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/P16O777K
0
考博英语
相关试题推荐
Readthearticlebelowaboutproblemsindonginternationaltrade.Foreachquestion23-28ontheoppositepage,choosethecorr
Companystaffareremindedthatnodocumentsmaybetakenfromthefilingroomwithoutthepermissionofthelibrarian.
RoleofSecurityManagementinanIndustryTherearemanycompaniesprovidingyousolutionsforsecuritymanagement.Someof
CustomerTargetingFindingandkeepingloyalandprofitablecustomersisessential.Theroutetolong-termsuccessistofin
Thewonderswhichmedicalworkershavealreadybroughtaboutinthediagnosisandtreatmentofdiseasesuggestthatatimemayc
Asawisemanoncesaid,weareallultimatelyalone.ButanincreasingnumberofEuropeansarechoosingtobesoataneverear
Thisdistinguisheddirector______theplotfortheprizewinningfilmwhilehewasstillacollegestudent.
Manhasbecomemasteroftheearth’ssurface.Heisconstantlyprobingintotheearth’sdepthsandintotheatmosphere’suppe
ThetradefairisdesignedtofacilitatefurthercooperationbetweenChineseautoindustriesandoverseasautoindustries.
Thosegiftsofrarebooksthatweregiventousweredeeply______.
随机试题
正常新生儿脑脊液中,白细胞数为
先天性喉喘鸣患儿通常不出现下列哪项症状
WhatkindofeconomicsystemdoestheUnitedStateshave?
马方综合征为一种先天性遗传疾病形成主动瘤常形成梭形动脉瘤。
既能截疟,又可退虚热的药物是()
纳税人的具体纳税期限,由主管税务机关根据纳税人应纳税额的大小分别核定,不能按照固定期限纳税的,可以按次纳税。()
下列各项,不属于原始凭证审核内容的是()。
纳税人在购买机动车交通事故责任强制保险时缴纳车船税的,需向地方税务机关申报纳税登记备案。()
注意事项1.申论考试是对应试者阅读理解能力、综合分析能力、提出和解决问题的能力、文字表达能力的测试。2.应试参考时限:阅读资料40分钟,作答110分钟。3.仔细阅读给定资料,按照后面提出的“作答要求”作答。给定资料:
______failstoseethiswillmakeabigmistake.
最新回复
(
0
)