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
2016-09-24
39
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, reorder, and adjust, while intellect examines, thinks, 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 passage 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
我们可以从短文中了解到美国人具有轻视理性才智的历史。根据第四段第二句,霍夫斯达特说,从美国的历史开端起,美国的民主和平民主义的热望一直驱使他们摒弃任何带有精英主义的思想。实用性、常识和天赋一直被认为是比从书本上学到的任何知识更高尚的品质。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/wxGO777K
0
考博英语
相关试题推荐
Studentsofthegreatsociety,lookingatmankindinthelongperspectiveofhistory,havefrequentlybeendisposedtoseekane
Legally,thetermrefersto"anysubstance,with(A)intendeduse,whichresultsormayreasonablybeexpectedtoresult—directly
Tosurviveintheintensetradecompetitionbetweencountries,wemust______thequalitiesandvarietiesofproductswemaketot
Cosmopolitanismisconcernedtodisclosetheethical,cultural,andlegalbasisofpoliticalorderinaworldwherepoliticalco
Aschildrenwestart【C1】______anaturalcuriosityabouteverythingaroundus,andduringthematurationprocessthiscuriosityc
Inadditiontorestrainingeconomicgrowth,thegovernmentwasincreasinglyanxioustotackleitstrade______,whichhasbeena
Scholarsandstudentshavealwaysbeengreattravelers.【T1】Theofficialcasefor"academicmobility"isnowoftenstatedinimp
Surveyshaveshownthatmostfootballandbasketballinjuriesinvolvetheknee,eitherthroughtwistingorthroughapplicationo
Peopleappeartobeborntocompute.Thenumericalskillsofchildrendevelopsoearlyandsoinexorablythatitiseasytoimag
Bythemid-nineteenthcentury,theterm"ice-box"hadenteredtheAmericanlanguage,buticewasstillonlybeginningtoaffect
随机试题
螺旋CT的突出优点是
A、脾B、胃C、肾D、肝E、肺“生痰之源”是指
A.山药B.土炒山药C.麸炒山药D.焦山药E.山药炭以补脾止泻为主,用于脾虚久泻,或大便泄泻的是
水资源属于( )所有。
下列不能作为质押财产的是()。
下列可以由“B?.DOC”搜索出来的文件名是()。
阅读下面材料,回答问题。唐老师布置学生回家用泥巴做手工,要求留意制作的过程和感受,给作文积累素材。谁知不久,小强爸爸气势汹汹来到办公室,对唐老师大吼:“老师,为啥娃儿回家作业不做,就玩泥巴?”唐老师没有生气,和颜悦色地对家长说:“您的心情我理解,但我
(2010年联考.4月.1)“文景之治”出现在哪个朝代?()
当χ→0时,(1+χsin2χ)a-1~1-cosχ,求a.
IntheArcticCircle,itisnotthatEskimoslackabilityorindustry,butthesurroundingsrestrictconstructiveefforttothe
最新回复
(
0
)