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
On Christmas day, millions of Britons will gather around the television to watch Downton Abbey, a nostalgic soap opera set in th
On Christmas day, millions of Britons will gather around the television to watch Downton Abbey, a nostalgic soap opera set in th
admin
2014-07-25
24
问题
On Christmas day, millions of Britons will gather around the television to watch Downton Abbey, a nostalgic soap opera set in the days of country houses and dignified butlers. Back then, gentlemen cultivated the land(and occasionally went to war); they did not run a business, a task far beneath their station. In living memory, some middle-class Britons would not allow delivery boys to come to their front door; the tradesmen’s entrance was at the side.
This sniffy attitude towards commerce was not confined to Britain, nor did it die out with liveried footmen and debutante balls. Aristocrats across Europe were equally suspicious of the nouveaux riches. And their modern descendants, the middle-class intelligentsia who populate the continent’s universities and staff its public sector, have a tendency to despise the businesspeople who generate the wealth needed to fund their way of living. There is great distaste at the idea that political choices should be dictated by "the markets"; investors should just hand over their money and not ask whether it will be paid back.
French politicians will defend to the death the agricultural subsidies granted to their farmers. But the same politicians are withering about the idea that David Cameron, the British prime minister, might relegate Britain to the fringes of Europe in order to protect the country’s financial-services industry.
One can see a similar attitude in the debate about Germany’s role in creating the current euro-mess. Who are these Germans, with their work ethic, their competitive industrial sector and their success in exporting to Asia? Other Europeans may regard Germany with grudging admiration, but they see it less as an example to be copied than as a tiresome nag, forever blathering about fiscal probity. Let the Germans soil their hands with trade while the rest of us live off the prosperity it brings.
Perhaps these attitudes go all the way back to the ancient Greeks and Romans. Their elites had slaves to attend to their needs. Their lives were not idle, but the path to respectability was through military service or farming, rather than trade. However, it was the merchants bringing the grain from north Africa to Rome who kept the empire fed.
These attitudes persisted through the Middle Ages, when moneylending was a despised activity to be left to minorities like the Jews; sovereign risk in those days was the danger that the king would imprison or execute his creditors to avoid repayment. When mankind began to escape the Malthusian trap of subsistence living in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the attitude towards the new industries was one of disgust for the "dark, Satanic mills".
Admittedly, manufacturing is now seen in a rather more positive light. A far smaller part of the economy, it is bathed in nostalgia: real men making real things. Once a job on a production line was a soul-destroying drudge; nowadays that label has fallen on service-sector jobs in call centres and fast-food restaurants.
Apart from technology, the three most successful industries of the past 50 years have been finance, pharmaceuticals and energy. Look at the way those sectors are portrayed in films and in TV dramas and the same attitudes prevail. Financiers are unthinking brutes, whose obsession with numbers is a form of autism. Multinational drug companies are vast conspiracies selling products with fat margins and hiding their deadly side-effects. Energy companies are despoiling the planet.
All these industries are, of course, legitimate subjects for criticism. But such lofty attitudes towards commerce are easy to adopt in a relatively rich society, in which few have to worry where the next meal is coming from. Europeans have had a pretty privileged existence over the past half-century or so, riding on the back of America’s global dominance. But the economic power is shifting towards Asia, a region where many people are prepared to work hard to get ahead and business isn’t always a dirty word.
Eventually, the great estates like Downton Abbey fell into decay. The cost of maintenance soared while death duties depleted the owners’ capital; the servants found better-paying jobs in manufacturing. The aristocrats were forced to discover a head for business, turning their estates into safari parks and their conservatories into tea shops. As their populations age and their relative economic weight declines, Europeans may need a similar change in attitude towards the sordid business of earning a national living.
Germans are mentioned in the passage to
选项
A、criticize Germany’s attitude towards the euro-mess.
B、sum up European middle-class people’s prejudice.
C、exemplify the Europeans’ attitude towards merchants.
D、help switch the subject to traditions of the Middle Ages.
答案
C
解析
篇章结构题。根据Germans定位至第四段。由首句可以看出这是承接上一段法国政治家的态度而来,本段末句与第二段倒数第二句含义相同。可见,此处的篇章结构是第二段最后两句表达个人观点,然后分别以法国和德国为例进行说明,观点处的despise和distaste都是表达观点态度的,故[C]为答案。第四段首句提到欧元的困境,这是该段细节,排除[A];第二段和第三、四段的关系为总分关系,不是分总关系,排除[B];第五段是由第三、四段的例证引出的看法,与中世纪的传统无关,排除[D]。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/dcpO777K
0
专业英语八级
相关试题推荐
Boardofdirectorsisagroupofpeopleresponsibletogovernanorganizationbysettingstrategicdirection,establish
Byreachinganappropriateage(usuallybetween18and21years),1,______childrenareencouraged,butnotforced,to"leaveth
Byadvancingthetheoryof______,Baconshowedthenewempiricalattitutestowardtruthaboutnatureandbravelychallengedthe
EducationalValuesDuringthefirstweekatNorthAmericanuniversities,studentsmustdoafewthingsinpreparation,solif
Scientistsclaimthatairpollutioncausesadeclineintheworld’saverageairtemperature.Inordertoprovethattheory,eco
AgricultureinBritainI.Britishagricultureanditssupportingareas:accountforaround(1)______ofGNP.II.Smallpercentage
我发现自己发话太突然了,也说得太多了,一时间感到左右为难。我要求她让我想一分钟,她便坐在那里,很不耐烦,又很激动,神情有点儿快乐而舒坦,仿佛一个人刚把病牙拔掉。我于是又思索了起来。我跟我自己说,当一个人处境艰难的时候,站立起来把真相给说出来,那是要冒风险的
"CBSNewsRevampsWebSite,AddingCriticalBlogandVideos"AspartofanambitiousattempttoreviveCBSNews.comwithabr
Losingweightiseasierwhenthereismoneyontheline,U.S.researcherssaidonTuesday.Theysaidweight-lossprogramsthat
Parentswhosmokeoftenopenawindoworturnonafantocleartheairfortheirchildren,butexpertsnowhaveidentifiedar
随机试题
反核活动家:关闭这座核电站是反核事业的胜利,它表明核工业部门很迟才肯承认他们不能安全运作核电站的事实。核电站经理:它并不表明这样的事实。从非核资源可以得到便宜的电力,再加上强制性的安全检查和安全维修,使继续经营这座核电站变得很不经济。因此,关闭这座核
PB9.0中,开发空间有三个层次:Workspace(工作空间)、Target(目标)和________。
折价发行债券,最终实际收益率票面收益率。()
最能证明心动过速起源于心室的心电图表现是
患者,男,14岁。2周前患急性咽炎。1天前突然牙龈出血,口腔血疱,双下肢瘀斑。实验室检查:血红蛋白110g/L,白细胞9×109/L,血小板10×109/L,骨髓增生活跃。应首先考虑诊断是
某企业以自产产品——电冰箱作为福利发放给200名职工。已知每台电冰箱的生产成本为2000元,售价为2500元,使用增值税税率为l7%。那么该公司应该确认的应付职工薪酬为( )元。
当事人采用仲裁方式解决纠纷,应当由双方自愿达成仲裁协议。()
乳牙牙髓切断术
能直接与CPU交换信息的存储器是()。
A、Workinanotherdepartment.B、Pursuefurthereducation.C、Recruitgraduatestudents.D、Takeanadministrativejob.B行动计划题。女士听说
最新回复
(
0
)