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
2016-01-05
51
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.
The word "bummer"(Para. 5)most probably means something
选项
A、religious.
B、unpleasant.
C、entertaining.
D、commercial.
答案
B
解析
含义题。根据题干定位到第五段。第五段指出,无论在现实生活中还是在教堂中,早期的生活时刻都在提醒着人们痛苦的存在(surrounded by reminders of misery)。在这种情况下,人们不需要艺术也成为一个bummer。由此可知,bummer也可作为痛苦的提示,只有B项符合要求。A、D项是利用下文第六段第一句中religious but commercial设置的干扰项。C项是反向干扰。均可排除。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/cksZ777K
0
考研英语一
相关试题推荐
A.InrecentyearsPurduehaslaunchedabatteryofexploratorycoursesacrossdisciplinestohelpstudentsgetabetterideaof
Thepastyearortwohastestedtheideathatallpublicityisgoodpublicity,atleastwhenitcomestobusiness.Undeservedbo
Thatpeoplehavepersonalitiesgoeswithoutsaying.Petownerswillquicklyarguethattheiranimalshavepersonalitiestoo.Yet
Ifyouaren’talreadyparalyzedwithstressfromreadingthefinancialnews,here’sasurewaytoachievethatgrimstate:read
OneofthemostpressingchallengesthattheUnitedStates—andindeed,theworld—willfaceinthenextfewdecadesishowtoall
Scientistsareunearthingtantalizingcluesabouthowtodesignspacesthatpromotecreativity,keepstudentsfocusedandalert,
Inthecourseofalongweekendin1991,thePhilippines’MountPinatubovolcanoinjectedenoughsulfurdioxideintothestratos
Inresponsetoscandalsrockingthestudentloanindustry,theHousehasquicklypassedreformlegislationtorequiremorediscl
Inresponsetoscandalsrockingthestudentloanindustry,theHousehasquicklypassedreformlegislationtorequiremorediscl
KingJuanCarlosofSpainonceinsisted"kingsdon’tabdicate,theydieintheirsleep."Butembarrassingscandalsandthepopul
随机试题
钩端螺旋体是唯一可以人工培养的致病性螺旋体。()
血栓闭塞性脉管炎营养障碍期主要症状
患者男性,12岁,肺动脉瓣区听到3/6级收缩期杂音,同时听到不受呼吸影响的明显第二心音分裂。该患者可能是
小儿指纹鲜红主()
建立注册计量师的职业道德,是为了_________。
完全负相关的证券A和证券B,其中证券A标准差为40%,期望收益为15%,证券B的标准差为20%,期望收益率为12%,那么证券组合25%A+75%B的标准差为()。
某宗房地产交易合同,约定买方付给卖方5394元/m2,交易中涉及的税费均由卖方负责。该地房地产买卖中应由卖方缴纳的税费为正常成交价格的7%,应由买方缴纳的税费为正常成交价格的5%。对可比实例价格进行交易日期调整时,最适宜采用()。
根据证券法律制度的规定,上市公司发生的下列事件中,应当立即公告的有()。
明末清初,著名的思想家王夫之所写的“鬼神之所不容,臣民之所共怨”是对()的评价。
A.negativeB.interactC.gainD.self-respectPhrases:A.achildislikelytodevelopa【T13】_____________outlook
最新回复
(
0
)