题目内容

As individuals we can change the contour of a day, the mood of a moment, the way people feel. The demolition and reconstruction of public life is the result of personal decisions made every day: the decision to give up a seat on the bus; the decision to be patient or pleasant against all the odds; the decision to let that jerk take a left-hand turn from a right-hand lane without rolling down the window and calling him a jerk. Its the resolution to be a civil, social creature. This may be a peak period for the battle against the spread of a waistline and creeping cholesterol. But it is also within our will power to fight the spread of urban rudeness and creeping hostility. Civility doesnt stop nuclear holocaust and doesnt put a roof over the head of the homeless. But it makes a difference in the shape of a community, as surely as lifting weights can make a difference in the shape of a human torso.

查看答案

搜索结果不匹配？点我反馈

更多问题

History as the artificial extension of the social memory (and I willingly concede that there are other appropriate ways of apprehending human experience) is an art of long standing, necessarily so since it springs instinctively from the impulse to enlarge the range of immediate experience; and however camouflaged by the disfiguring jargon of science, it is still in essence what it has always been. History in this sense is story, in aim always a true story; a story that employs all the devices of literary art (statement and generalization, narration and description, comparison and comment and analogy) to present the succession of events in the life of man, and from the succession of events thus presented to derive a satisfactory meaning. The history written by historians, like the history informally fashioned by Mr. Everyman, is thus a convenient blend of truth and fancy, of what we commonly distinguish as "fact" and "interpretation". In primitive times, when tradition is orally transmitted, bards and story-tellers frankly embroider or improvise the facts to heighten the dramatic import of the story. With the use of written records, history, gradually occurred; and with the increase and refinement of knowledge the historian recognized that his first duty is to be sure of his facts, let their meaning be what it may. Nevertheless, in every age history is taken to be a story of actual events from which a significant meaning may be derived; and in every age the illusion is that the present version is valid because the related facts are true, whereas former version are invalid because based upon inaccurate or inadequate facts.

Its an odd paradox: thanks to cell phones, PDAs and the Internet, weve never before been in touch and within reach of so many people. And yet, weve never been so lonely, either. Which is to say, our loneliness is largely something weve inflicted on ourselves through countless lifestyle. choices, many of them good, some even critical. But in the end, is it all worth it？ What is lost when we have e-mail pals on the other side of the world, but dont know our own neighbors？ Are bigger salaries, bigger cars, bigger homes worth the price of smaller social circles and diminished relationships？ Our loneliness has costs: crime goes up when neighbors dont look out for each other. The burden on public services increases when were not helping each other out. And the din of an iPod is no substitute for genuine connection with another human being. Theres no easy way out of our collective loneliness, and no solutions that come without trade-offs. But some of those trade-offs are worth reconsidering, lest we consume our lives with the things that matter least, at the expense of those that matter most.

Actually, what occurred to Einstein was something more like the beginning of a solution to

Honesty is not a problem only in the sphere of our social engagements. Honesty is also important psychologically, as regards our feelings about ourselves. Here the important question is: Can I be honest with myself？ We exhibit an amazing agility in avoiding the truth about who we are and what we do. Our failures in being honest with ourselves are instances of self-deception. And all of us are, have been, or could be self-deceivers. We are prone to it, capable of it, and never more likely to be in its grip than in those moments when we are sure we are not. As people of faith, we are called to be honest in our dealings with God, with others and with ourselves. Self-deception can disrupt all of those relations. It is therefore appropriate to consider what self-deception is and how our faith tradition has attempted to enlighten us, to "build us up" , so that we might be able to respond to its threat.