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
Whom can you trust these days? It is a question posed by David Halpern of Cambridge University, and the researchers at the Downi
Whom can you trust these days? It is a question posed by David Halpern of Cambridge University, and the researchers at the Downi
admin
2017-04-20
74
问题
Whom can you trust these days? It is a question posed by David Halpern of Cambridge University, and the researchers at the Downing Street Strategy Unit who take an interest in "social capital". At intervals they go around asking people in assorted nations the question: "Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted?"
The results are fascinating. The conclusion that leaps from the figures and into sensational headlines is that social dislocation, religious decline, public scandals, family fragmentation and the fear of crime have made us less trusting. Comparative surveys over 40 years suggest that British trustfulness has halved: in the 1950s 60 percent of us answered "yes, most people can be trusted", in the 1980s 44 percent, today only 29 percent. Trust levels also continue to fall in Ireland and the U. S.—meanwhile, the Norwegians, Swedes, Danes and Dutch express tremendous confidence in one another’s probity, levels are actually rising. And the Palme d’Orr for paranoid mutual suspicion goes to the Brazilians—with less than 3 percent replying "yes"—and the Turks with 6. 5 percent. The French, apparently, never trusted one another and still don’t. So we become less Scandinavian and more French (or Turkish) every year.
Regarding Britain, the obvious conclusions are being drawn. Mr. Halpern and others cite reasons why we appear less trustful: the demise of the job-for-life culture, rising divorce, physical mobility, higher immigration, an aggressive commercial ethic and the new isolation of mass media. "You use your wealth to free yourself of the inconvenience of other people," says Halpern. "You ensure you have your own house, and you don’t even have to watch TV with your family because you have five TVs."
This is useful research, but there are a few caveats. The trouble is that you may not get a very thoughtful answer if you merely ask—as they did last year—whether "generally speaking, most people can be trusted". For the British like to think of themselves as canny, savvy, nobody’s fools. We have a powerful culture of satire and a hypercritical media which gleefully splash news of every private and public betrayal, however trivial. In our fantasy life we court paranoia, lapping up crime thrillers and spy novels. We are fascinated by rogues, from Chaucer’s Pardoner to Del Boy. We are bad at risk-assessment, and repeated surveys show that we fear crime far more than is justified.
So we are conditioned to claim that we don’t trust people much. A Scandinavian or Dutchman is proud to express trust and affection for his fellow-man (I have just been sailing on a Dutch ship for a fortnight and the prevailing open-heartedness makes any Briton feel like Scrooge). Our national preference is to purse the lips, shake the head and affect an air of judicious canniness.
But if you look at the actual daily workings of British society there is an astonishing degree of unquestioning trust of strangers, simply because we are a technological society. These respondents who tell the researchers that" generally speaking, people cannot be trusted" are in fact blithely trusting distant strangers all day long. Every time you get on a train or plane you put your life into the hands of unseen engineers and designers, drivers, pilots and traffic controllers. When you give a password to a bank call centre you are displaying trust; tapping your credit-card number on to an Internet site, you affirm the rectitude of a company you have never seen, and rely on the conscientiousness of distant software designers. The list of our trustful ways goes on and on. Twenty minutes’ contemplation of the simple scams uncovered by the BBC Watchdog should suggest that rather than living in a state of constant suspicion, in many areas of life we are relaxed to the point of gullibility.
But ask the bald question, and we think immediately about those who publicly let us down: politicians who broke election promises, pension funds that jeopardized our future while their directors swanned off with bonuses, stars who turned sleazy. This is not entirely healthy. What we say will, in the end, become what we think. U. S. evidence is denser than ours, but broadly speaking it is clear that trust is linked to "social capital"—networks, alliances, local societies, anything that takes people out into common spaces. There is much discussion in the English-speaking nations about how to "rebuild" social capital, but I was glad to see that the 2002 report was extremely cautious about the ability of policy-makers to change things. The last thing we need is nagging. I also much enjoyed its worried little digression into the negative side of social capital— old-boy networks, micro-communities that exclude outsiders, ethnic ghettos, and so forth.
Mr. Halpern’s book will come to more informed conclusions than I can; but my own instinct, from the research and from observation, is to draw only two. First, we’re not quite as cynical as we say we are, and nothing like as cynical as our media. Secondly, the worst crisis of trust is not actually between citizens, but between citizens and their government and institutions. The remedy for that is in the hands of politicians, who ought to police their own ambition and greed and that of their corporate friends. Interference from the top is a lousy idea. Example from the top would be much better.
The author’s attitude towards Halpern’s survey is one of________.
选项
A、slight antipathy
B、blanket approval
C、slight disapproval
D、strong disapproval
答案
C
解析
态度题。第四段开头指出,这项调查的确是有益的,但是也需要做些说明。问题在于如果像去年那样,调查时仅仅询问是否“总的来说,大部分人是可以信任的”,人们的回答或许没有经过深思熟虑。由此可知,作者对Halpern调查的态度总体上是肯定的,只是有些小小的质疑,故[C]为答案。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/rtzK777K
0
专业英语八级
相关试题推荐
TheRomanticPeriodinAmericanliteraryhistoryendedwiththepublicationof
Educationistheprocessoflearningandknowing,whichisnotrestrictedtoourschooltext-books.Itisaholisticprocessan
BritishEducationalSystemI.PrimaryandsecondaryeducationinBritain1)Childrengotoprimaryschoolattheageof【B1】______
TheattitudeofmostBritaintowardsthewarinAfghanistanis______.
Acreditcardthatonlyworkswhenithearsitsowner’svoicehasbeendevelopedbyUSscientists.Researchershopethatthe【B1】
AsIwrite,agentle,muchneededrainisfallingthismorning.IthasbeenadryspringhereinVermont.Sodryinfact,thatt
Whatisthetruedefinitionofagentleman?Thisquestionisnoteasytoanswercompletely,butwewilltry.Firstofall,agen
ForgetexpensiveeducationalDVDsandprivatetutors,thesecrettosmartchildrencouldbesosimpleasgivingbirth【M1】______
PASSAGEFOURWhatisJasperRine’sattitudetowardSchmidtandGoodwin’sproposal?
PASSAGETHREEWhydidtheauthorearnthenicknameCaptainCalamity?
随机试题
在Word2010中,可以显示出页眉和页脚的视图方式是
下列哪些乳腺癌病人不需要行放射治疗
2岁小儿,低热4周,乏力、盗汗、食欲不振,出生时未接种卡介苗,其祖母1年前患开放性肺结核,今前来就诊。该患儿X线胸片示哑铃状“双极影”应诊断为
刘某是15岁的中学生,因迷恋电子游戏,在电子游戏厅老板赵某的唆使下,闯入附近居民家中行窃。刘某见该居民家中只有其女儿一人在家,遂起歹念,予以强奸,后逃离。对赵某的行为该如何处罚?( )
我国《公司法》对董事的身份取得作出了一定的限制,有( )情形的,不得担任股份有限公司的董事。
海派文化有持久的生命力,就其根本原因来说,是因为它具有持久优良的特性,具体表现在()。
心理咨询的对象包括()。
喜洋洋摄影公司的主要业务是摄影、冲印底片和制作艺术照片。公司由50名雇员组成,有8位管理人员。艺术部(8名雇员和1名管理人员)的基本工作是挑选相片,进行艺术处理,并装订成册。如果组织得当,这些工作其实是很有趣的。在工作设计之前,主管人员接收所有的任务,将它
戒毒所收容了一批当地的吸毒犯,发现其中有艾滋病毒感染者。另据有关统计数据显示,近年来当地艾滋病毒感染和发病率呈明显上升趋势。其感染途径按感染率,首先是静脉注射吸毒,其次是同性恋,最后是卖淫嫖娼。除此以外,没有其他感染途径。如果上述断定是真的,并且上述统计数
Theex-presidenthadbeen______inthecountrytorefreshhismindbeforehepassedaway.
最新回复
(
0
)