GRE写作备考2012:GRE作文范文大全(53)
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.
Issue 62
"Tradition and modernization are incompatible. One must choose between them."
Must we choose between tradition and modernization, as the speaker contends.; I agree
that in certain cases the two are mutually exclusive. For the most part, however, modernization
does not reject tradition; in fact, in many cases the former can and does embrace the latter. 感谢您阅读《GRE作文范文大全(53) 》一文,出国留学网(liuxue86.com)编辑部希望本文能帮助到您。
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