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
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
2017-01-17
17
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 US 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." 16. What do American parents expect their children to acquire in school?
What does the author think of intellect?
选项
A、It is second to intelligence.
B、It evolves from common sense.
C、It is to be pursued.
D、It underlies power.
答案
C
解析
主旨题。根据全文分析,第一段作者说今天的美国人不很看重才智,第二段引用教育学作家戴安娜·莱维西的观点来说明这一点,第三段作者表明自己的态度:鼓励孩子们排斥精神生活使得他们极易被剥削和控制。不能批判地思考、捍卫自己的思想、理解他人的观点.他们就不能充分地参与我们的民主。而且引用作家厄尔·绍利斯的话来说明如果不这么做,国家将“沦为二流国家”。至此,可以看出作者是支持才智的,故正确答案为C项。
转载请注明原文地址:https://jikaoti.com/ti/4gv7FFFM
0
考研英语一
相关试题推荐
Doctorsalreadyknowthatpeoplewhosmokecandamagetheirhearing.ThelateststudyinthejournalTobaccoControl,【C1】______m
Doctorsalreadyknowthatpeoplewhosmokecandamagetheirhearing.ThelateststudyinthejournalTobaccoControl,【C1】______m
Doctorsalreadyknowthatpeoplewhosmokecandamagetheirhearing.ThelateststudyinthejournalTobaccoControl,【C1】______m
Lookatyoursmartphone.Thinkaboutthedecisionsyouwillmakeonittoday.Youmaysnatchadinner【C1】______,tellyourspous
Lookatyoursmartphone.Thinkaboutthedecisionsyouwillmakeonittoday.Youmaysnatchadinner【C1】______,tellyourspous
WhatdoRussia’sBelgorodprovinceandsomeschoolsinFloridaandConnecticuthaveincommon?Theyareunlikelyrecruitstothe
WhatdoRussia’sBelgorodprovinceandsomeschoolsinFloridaandConnecticuthaveincommon?Theyareunlikelyrecruitstothe
WhatdoRussia’sBelgorodprovinceandsomeschoolsinFloridaandConnecticuthaveincommon?Theyareunlikelyrecruitstothe
Doyourememberallthoseyearswhenscientistsarguedthatsmokingwouldkillusbutthedoubtersinsistedthatwedidn’tknow
KingJuanCarlosofSpainonceinsisted"kingsdon’tabdicate,theydieintheirsleep."Butembarrassingscandalsandthepopul
随机试题
当Word2010文档内容超出窗口的显示范围时,编辑区右侧和底端会分别显示垂直与水平滚动条。
对建设项目的特点表述正确的是()。
下面不属于防止间接接触触电的措施是()
问卷是一连串有系统、有顺序、有目的的题目或题组的集合,其目的在于收集研究者所需要的资料。( )
资料:美国海军招募人员时使用的行为锚定等级共分为九个等级。“推销技能”属于《评价表》的一部分。内容包括:说服候选人加入海军的能力;用海军所能提供的福利和各种机会来有效地使候选人对海军产生兴趣的能力;办理手续的能力;将不同的推销技术有选择地运
完全垄断企业进行产量和价格决策的基本原则是()。
当领队提出的要求与原计划不符又涉及接待规格时,导游员应()。
孙儿孙女的平均年龄是10岁.孙儿年龄的平方减去孙女年龄的平方所得的数值,正好是爷爷出生年份的后两位,爷爷生于上个世纪40年代。则孙儿孙女的年龄差是__________岁。
联系是事物之间的关系,因此普遍联系的观点()。
广为流传
最新回复
(
0
)