nan | 楠木

mm给我看的第一篇文章，当时没有用批注修改而是直接跟她说的意见，原汁原味给大家看。

本文573词，不知道她用的多少时间呵。

Issue 104

"It is primarily through formal education that a culture tries to perpetuate the ideas it favors and discredit the ideas it fears."

The speaker contends that the chief way a culture perpetuates its favored ideas while discredits the fearful ones is though formal education. A glance at history may seem to corroborate this statement; however, there are still cases which compellingly contradict this hasty generalization.

On one hand, personal experience informs me that since the very birth of formal schooling, it has been widely employed to instill in the youth the common ideas and outlooks valued in a culture. Just like we Chinese students learn in class that modesty is to be valued and thrifty can’t be abandoned; students in the other hemisphere may well be taught by their teacher from time to time that only self-dependence and self-confidence make for success, which lie at the very essence of American culture. In the ancient age before formal education, these valued ideas were mainly handed down from one generation to generation through sagas, legends or even fairy-tales, which were to be replaced by the burgeoning schools for transmitting values. In fact, the original purpose of foundation of schools lies not so much in imparting knowledge as in imparting ideas and values—it is hoped that through the inculcation of teachers, students will absorb all valued principles into their somewhat empty subconscious—and it works. Heroic deeds are extolled, agreed-upon ideas propagated, and valued thoughts perpetuated.

On the other hand, a culture often defends itself from threatening ideas through formal education. Undoubtedly most of these ideas opposed to are vicious and harmful by common standard, and dispelling these ideas formally and openly do serves to implant in students’ mind sound base of morality. For example, probably we have all been admonished by our teacher not to violate the rules and regulations once of twice, or been punished for lying and cheating and all these might well have left an indelible mark on our memory, rendering us to coil at the thought of these ill-practice. However, by discrediting ideas it fears, a culture sometimes in effect stifles new and creative ideal. It is especially true with some relatively conservative cultures. Immediately comes to mind is the abuse of Copernica ’s heliocentric theory, which was dismissed as heterodox and unacceptable. Students were still told that the earth lies the center of the universe and everything incompatible with this concept is plain absurdity. In this way, the ground-breaking but fear-rising idea was spurned out of the Catholic culture for decades, which aptly illustrate how a culture take advantage of education to get rid of ideas which it fear might spell menace to its existence.

At the same time, however, it should be realized that with the ever-growing cultural confluence and openness of society, the positive effect above mentioned have been lessened by a great degree. To embrace the new era, instead of indiscriminate reject of the ideas it fears, many cultures choose to re-examine and re-assess the value of these ideas. Instead of belittling these exotic ideas in their discourse, teachers are most likely to encourage students to make judgment about them on their own, whether to embrace them or not. Indeed, it is the very change of this function of education that marks a more open, free, and democratic society.

As it is said, schools—not the trench, is the frontier of social development. Through education, commonly valued ideas are preserved and threatening ones are discredited. However, with the increasing openness of any culture, it is predictable that attitudes towards those formally feared novel ideas will change for better.