2013年1月13日星期日

People who are the most deeply committed to an idea or policy are also the most critical of it

(老题库146)

对于一种想法或者政策最忠实的人往往是那些对其最严厉的人。

Critical: Inclined to judge severely and find fault.

爱挑剔的倾向于进行严厉批判和找岔的

While I find this claim paradoxical on its face, the paradox is explainable, and the explanation is well supported empirically. Nevertheless, the claim is an unfair generalization in that it fails to account for other empirical evidence serving to discredit it.

A. Are commitment and criticism mutually exclusive? One possible explanation is that individuals most firmly committed to an idea or policy are often the same people who are most knowledgeable on the subject, and therefore are in the best position to understand and appreciate the problems with the idea or policy.

B. Lending credence to this explanation for the paradoxical nature of the speaker's claim are the many historical cases of uneasy marriage between commitment to and criticism of the same idea or policy.

C. In the face of historical examples supporting the speaker's claim are innumerable influential individuals who were zealously committed to certain ideas and policies but who were not critical of them, at least not outwardly.

Begin: While I find the claim paradoxical on its face, the paradox is explainable.

1. 看上去paradoxical. A 对某想法执着的人应该对其最有信心 B根据日常经验,即使没有完全的信心,一旦他认为自己对该观点非常执着,一旦有某些反对意见;他很有可能会为之辩护.其实,在辩护的过程中,他也在尝试说服自己。

2. One possible explanation for the paradox is that individuals most firmly committed to an idea or policy are often the same people who are most knowledgeable on the subject, and therefore are in the best position to understand and appreciate the problems with the idea or policy.
Another possible explanation is that those who are committed to an idea or policy would be more concerned and loyal to it, so they tend to be critical of it with the earnest inclination to improving it.

3. There are many relevant examples that can lend credence to this explanation for the paradox nature of the speaker's claim. For instance, Edward Teller, the so-called "father of the atom bomb", was firmly committed to America's policy of gaining military superiority over the Japanese and the Germans; yet at the same time he attempted fervently to dissuade the US military from employing his technology for destruction, while becoming the most visible advocate for various peaceful and productive applications of atomic energy. Another example is George Washington, who was quoted as saying that all the world's denizens should abhor war whenever they may find it. Yet it was the same general who played a key role in the Revolutionary War between Britain and USA. A third example was Einstein, who while committed to' the mathematical soundness of his theories about relativity could not reconcile them with the equally compelling quantum theory which emerged later in Einstein's life. In fact, Einstein spent the last twenty years of his life criticizing his own theories and struggling to determine how to reconcile them with newer theories.

End:两点are not mutually exclusive. 表面上看不满,实际上是对现在的不满,是对未来的期望。

范文:

The speaker claims that people who are the most fmnly committed to an idea or policy are the same people who are most critical of that idea or policy. While I find this claim paradoxical on its face, the paradox is explainable, and the explanation is well supported empirically. Nevertheless, the claim is an unfair generalization in that it fails to account for other empirical evidence serving to discredit it.

A threshold problem with the speaker's claim is that its internal logic is questionable. At first impression it would seem that firm commitment to an idea or policy necessarily requires the utmost confidence in it, and yet one cannot have a great deal of confidence in an idea or policy if one recognizes its flaws, drawbacks, or other problems. Thus commitment and criticism would seem to be mutually exclusive. But are they? One possible explanation for the paradox is that individuals most fmnly committed to an idea or policy are often the same people who are most knowledgeable on the subject, and therefore are in the best position to understand and appreciate the problems with the idea or policy.

Lending credence to this explanation for the paradoxical nature of the speaker's claim are the many historical cases of uneasy marriages between commitment to and criticism of the same idea or policy. For example, Edward Teller, the so-called "father of the atom bomb," was firmly committed to America's policy of gaining military superiority over the Japanese and the Germans; yet at the same time he attempted fervently to dissuade the U.S. military from employing his technology for destruction, while becoming the most visible advocate for various peaceful and productive applications of atomic energy. Another example is George Washington, who was quoted as saying that all the world's denizens "should abhor war wherever they may find it." Yet this was the same military general who played a key role in the Revolutionary War between Britain and the States. A third example was Einstein, who while committed to the mathematical soundness of his theories about relativity could not reconcile them with the equally compelling quantum theory which emerged later in Einstein's life. In fact, Einstein spent the last twenty years of his life criticizing his own theories and struggling to determine how to reconcile them with newer theories.

In the face of historical examples supporting the speaker's claim are innumerable influential individuals who were zealously committed to certain ideas and policies but who were not critical of them, at least not outwardly. Could anyone honestly claim, for instance, that Elizabeth Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, who in the late 19th Century paved the way for the women's rights movement by way of their fervent advocacy, were at the same time highly critical or suspicious of the notion that women deserve equal rights under the law? Also, would it not be absurd to claim that Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, history's two leading advocates of civil disobedience as a means to social reform, had serious doubts about the ideals to which they were so demonstrably committed? Finally, consider the two ideologues and revolutionaries Lenin and Mussolini. Is it even plausible that their demonstrated commitment to their own Communist and Fascist policies, respectively, belied some deep personal suspicion about the merits of these policies? To my knowledge no private writing of any of these historical figures lends any support to the claim that these leaders were particularly critical of their own ideas or policies.

To sum up, while at first glance a deep commitment to and incisive criticism of the same idea or policy would seem mutually exclusive, it appears they are not. Thus the speaker's claim has some merit. Nevertheless, for every historical case supporting the speaker's claim are many others serving to refute it. In the final analysis, then, the correctness of the speaker's assertion must be determined on a case-by-case basis.



Orignal From: People who are the most deeply committed to an idea or policy are also the most critical of it

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