首页
登录
职称英语
Americans today don’t place a very high value on intellect. Our heroes are at
Americans today don’t place a very high value on intellect. Our heroes are at
游客
2025-01-15
50
管理
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". [br] What do American parents expect their children to acquire in school?
选项
A、The habit of thinking independently.
B、Profound knowledge of the world.
C、Practical abilities for future career.
D、The confidence in intellectual pursuits.
答案
C
解析
转载请注明原文地址:https://tihaiku.com/zcyy/3913762.html
相关试题推荐
Americanstodaydon’tplaceaveryhighvalueonintellect.Ourheroesareat
Americanstodaydon’tplaceaveryhighvalueonintellect.Ourheroesareat
OurculturehascausedmostAmericanstoassumenotonlythatourlanguageis
OurculturehascausedmostAmericanstoassumenotonlythatourlanguageis
OurculturehascausedmostAmericanstoassumenotonlythatourlanguageis
OurculturehascausedmostAmericanstoassumenotonlythatourlanguageis
CertainphrasesonecommonlyhearsamongAmericanswhich(1)toindividualis
CertainphrasesonecommonlyhearsamongAmericanswhich(1)toindividualis
CertainphrasesonecommonlyhearsamongAmericanswhich(1)toindividualis
CertainphrasesonecommonlyhearsamongAmericanswhich(1)toindividualis
随机试题
RobertCongel,acommercialreal-estatedeveloperwholivesinupstateNewYo
Well,urn,let’sturnnowtovasepainting.Vasepaintingwasaverypoplar
[originaltext]TheCommerceDepartmentsaidsalesfellby11.3%toaseasona
亚洲是世界上最大的洲,聚居着世界上约60%的人口,资源十分丰富。历史源远流长,文化博大精深。20世纪中叶,亚洲的巨变和崛起谱写了亚洲发展的辉煌篇章,也成
下列哪一疾病的确诊主要依靠淋巴结病理活检A.恶性组织细胞病B.恶性淋巴瘤C.多发
根据人体生物节律变化的特点而设计的新型给药系统为A.靶向制剂 B.缓释制剂
对α受体和β受体均有竞争性拮抗作用的降压药是A.美托洛尔 B.米力农 C.拉
借款企业的贷后监控主要包括经营状况、管理状况、财务状况、还款账户和银行往来情况的
下列征税行为中,体现了税收纵向公平原则的是( )。A.对经济条件相同的纳税人同
安全网搭设应牢固、严密、完整有效、易于拆卸。安全网的支撑架应具有足够的强度和稳定
最新回复
(
0
)