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
考研
Many things make people think artists are weird. But the weirdest may be this: artists’ only job is to explore emotions, and yet
Many things make people think artists are weird. But the weirdest may be this: artists’ only job is to explore emotions, and yet
admin
2017-12-11
26
问题
Many things make people think artists are weird. But the weirdest may be this: artists’ only job is to explore emotions, and yet they choose to focus on the ones that feel bad.
This wasn’t always so. The earliest forms of art, like painting and music, are those best suited for expressing joy. But somewhere from the 19th century onward, more artists began seeing happiness as meaningless, phony or, worst of all, boring, as we went from Wordsworth’s daffodils to Baudelaire’ s flowers of evil.
You could argue that art became more skeptical of happiness because modern times have seen so much misery. But it’s not as if earlier times didn’t know perpetual war, disaster and the massacre of innocents.
The reason, in fact, may be just the opposite: there is too much damn happiness in the world today.
After all, what is the one modern form of expression almost completely dedicated to depicting happiness? Advertising. The rise of anti-happy art almost exactly tracks the emergence of mass media, and with it, a commercial culture in which happiness is not just an ideal but an ideology.
People in earlier eras were surrounded by reminders of misery. They worked until exhausted, lived with few protections and died young. In the West, before mass communication and literacy, the most powerful mass medium was the church, which reminded worshippers that their souls were in danger and that they would someday be meat for worms. Given all this, they did not exactly need their art to be a
bummer
too.
Today the messages the average Westerner is surrounded with are not religious but commercial, and forever happy. Fast-food eaters, news anchors, text messengers, all smiling, smiling, smiling. Our magazines feature beaming celebrities and happy families in perfect homes. And since these messages have an agenda—to lure us to open our wallets—they make the very idea of happiness seem unreliable. "Celebrate!"commanded the ads for the arthritis drug Celebrex, before we found out it could increase the risk of heart attacks.
But what we forget—what our economy depends on us forgetting—is that happiness is more than pleasure without pain. The things that bring the greatest joy carry the greatest potential for loss and disappointment. Today, surrounded by promises of easy happiness, we need art to tell us, as religion once did, Memento mori: remember that you will die, that everything ends, and that happiness comes not in denying this but in living with it. It’ s a message even more bitter than a clove cigarette, yet, somehow, a breath of fresh air.
Which of the following is true of the text?
选项
A、Religion once functioned as a reminder of misery.
B、Art provides a balance between expectation and reality.
C、People feel disappointed at the realities of modern society.
D、Mass media are inclined to cover disasters and deaths.
答案
A
解析
细节题。本题可用排除法。A项可以定位到第五段第三句,文中提到“教会提醒信众们他 们的灵魂处于危险之中,他们迟早会成为蚁虫的食粮”,因此A项“宗教过去的功能是提醒痛苦 的存在”正确。B项似是而非,将艺术的作用“提醒人们痛苦的现实”换成“提供期望和现实之间 的平衡”。C项“人们对现代社会的现实感到失望”原文没有提到。D项张冠李戴,将早期教堂传 播的内容说成是现代大众媒体倾向于报道的内容。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/WnBZ777K
0
考研英语一
相关试题推荐
Oldpeoplearealwayssayingthattheyoungarenotwhattheywere.Thesame【C1】______ismadefromgenerationtogenerationand
Itistheurbandriver’smostagonizingeverydayexperience:thesearchforanemptyparkingplace.Circling,narrowlymissinga
Collegestudentsaremorestressedoutthaneverbefore—atleastaccordingtothelatestfindingsofalarge,nationalsurveyth
Universitiesareinaseeminglyself-contradictoryposition.AsStefanCollinipointsoutinhisbook,theseancient【C1】______ha
Universitiesareinaseeminglyself-contradictoryposition.AsStefanCollinipointsoutinhisbook,theseancient【C1】______ha
Universitiesareinaseeminglyself-contradictoryposition.AsStefanCollinipointsoutinhisbook,theseancient【C1】______ha
Peekthroughtheinspectionwindowsofthenearly100three-dimensional(3D)printersquietlymakingthingsatRedEye,acompany
ALetterofRequestWritealetterofabout100wordsbasedonthefollowingsituation:Youarestrivingtofindajobi
Technologyissupposedtomakeourliveseasier,allowingustodothingsmorequicklyandefficiently.Buttoooftenitseemst
You’venowhearditsomanytimes,youcanprobablyrepeatitinyoursleep.PresidentObamawillnodoubtmakethepointpublic
随机试题
编写函数fun,其功能是:求ss所指字符串中指定字符的个数,并返回此值。例如,若输入字符串123412132,输入字符为1,则输出3。注意:部分源程序在文件PROG1.C中。清勿改动主函数main和其他函数中的任何内容,仅在函数fun的花括号中填入你
建设工程项目实行总承包管理的,各分包单位应将本单位形成的工程文件整理、立卷后及时移交()单位。
【背景资料】某建筑公司,在施工一写字楼的泥浆护壁钻孔灌注桩基础时,发生如下事件。事件一:为节省成本,项目经理严格要求按设计桩顶标高控制桩顶浇筑标高。事件二:有5根桩的混凝土标准养护试块强度不合格,经对桩体钻芯取样检测,桩体混凝土实际强度均满足要求。
在计算速动比率时要把存货从流动资产中剔除的原因不包括()。
一般资料:求助者,女性,38岁,律师。案例介绍:求助者因为婚姻问题而内心痛苦近半年时间,经朋友介绍前来咨询。下面是心理咨询师与求助者之间的一段咨询对话:求助者:张老师您好!心理咨询师:您好!请坐。天气挺热,我给您倒杯
一般资料:夫妻共同来咨询,两人是大学同学,均30岁,本科学历,企业员工。案例介绍:婚后妻子不想马上要孩子,对性生活多有拒绝,决定要孩子后情况好了些,后妻子怀孕、生子,性生活明显减少。现在孩子2岁多,妻子主动时丈夫不为所动,妻子认可丈夫所说性生活的
2006年末,浙江省拥有人才资源数379.5万人,比2005年增长18.7%;每万人口中拥有人才资源数达820人,比2005年增长18%。人才资源中拥有大专及以上学历人员204.3万人,比2005年增长26%;拥有高级技术职称人员13.7万人,比2005年
根据以下资料,回答下列问题。T市2011年城镇低保标准由450元调整为480元,农村低保标准由250元调整为280元,优抚抚恤、特困救助、农村五保供养、老年人生活补贴标准等都有新的提高。政府抚恤、补助各类优抚对象3.02万人;城乡低保
ImmuneFunctionsTheimmunesystemisequalincomplexitytothecombinedintricaciesofthebrainandnervoussystem.Thes
Paintinghasbeencontinuouslypracticedbyhumansforsome20,000years.Togetherwithotheractivities【C1】______ritualistic
最新回复
(
0
)