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
2017-08-15
67
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 U.S. 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".
We can learn from the text that Americans have a history of ______.
选项
A、undervaluing intellect
B、favoring intellectualism
C、supporting school reform
D、suppressing native intelligence
答案
A
解析
从文章第l段的内容可知,美国人现在不太重视才智了;从文章第4段的内容可知,“才智受到人们的憎恶,"历史学家Hofstadter教授指出;他说,自美国的历史开始之时,美国的民主和平民的愿望就促使我们抵制任何带有精英政治味道的东西;实用性、常识以及天赋被看成是比你能够从书本中学得的任何东西都崇高的本领。据此可知,美国人有不重视才智的历史。因此A项为正确答案。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/hpFO777K
0
考博英语
相关试题推荐
FreeAdviceIsJustAroundtheCornerWhenDanielFranklin,apoliticalscienceprofessorfromAtlanta,neededcareeradvanc
BackinSeattle,aroundthecornerfromtheDiscoveryInstitute,StephenMeyerofferssomepeer-reviewedevidencethattheretruly
Americanculturehasnotbeenimmunetoculturalinfluencesfromoutside.TheideaofdemocracycamefromtheancientGreeks;th
Meteorologistsroutinelytelluswhatnextweek’sweatherislikelytobe,andclimatescientistsdiscusswhatmighthappenin1
Accordingtotheweatherforecast,whichisusually______.Itwillsnowthisafternoon.
AccordingtoBT’sfuturologist,IanPearson,theseareamongthedevelopmentsscheduledforthefirstfewdecadesofthenewmil
Inrecentyears,railroadshavebeencombiningwitheachother,mergingintosupersystems,causingheightenedconcernsaboutmo
Tight-lippedeldersusedtosay,"It’snotwhatyouwantinthisworld,butwhatyouget."Psychologyteachesthatyoudogetwh
Tight-lippedeldersusedtosay,"It’snotwhatyouwantinthisworld,butwhatyouget."Psychologyteachesthatyoudogetwh
Tightlippedeldersusedtosay,"It’snotwhatyouwantinthisworld,butwhatyouget."Psychologyteachesthatyoudoge
随机试题
在针对某个具体的组织确定不良质量成本时,应当注意哪些问题?
桡骨远端骨折,骨折线经关节面,远端骨折片向背侧移位,该骨折诊断为
我国导致直接肺损伤的原因中,占首位的是
在事先确定企业资金规模的前提下,吸收一定比例的负债资金,可能产生的结果有()。
银行为避免借款企业无力还本付息可能造成的危害,除了在发放贷款时通过认真征信、预测和分析以规避风险外,另一种有效途径就是()
金融机构的工作人员严重不负责任,造成大量外汇被骗购或者逃汇的,应以()论处。
下列哪一项是关于厌学症的最准确的描述?()
现代管理学有一个著名的“木桶原理”,即一个木桶的最大容量,不是由围成木桶的最长木板或平均长度决定的,而是由最短的那一块木板决定的。要最大限度地增加木桶的容量,必须着重解决好“短木板”的“补短”问题。这一原理的哲学寓意是()。
根据给定资料,回答以下问题。2013年,全国林产品出口644.55亿美元,同比增长9.82%,增幅比上年增加3.18个百分点,占全国商品出口额的2.92%。林产品进口640.88亿美元,同比增加3.45%,增幅比上年增加8.58个百分点,占全国商
Shop-lifterscanbedividedintothreemaincategories;theprofessionals,thedeliberateamateurs,andthepeoplewhojustcan
最新回复
(
0
)