传统与现代之争 范文一篇

fiona

When a country develops its technology, the traditional skills and ways of life die out. It is pointless to try to keep them alive. To what extent do you agree or disagree with this opinion?

I am always amazed when I hear people saying that traditional skills and ways of life will die out since technology will improve a lot in future years. I do not believe that keeping them alive is pointless, for they will still play a very important role in society.

Some traditional skills or ways will never die out, for they tend to be more emotional while the modern ones may be impersonal. For instance, the traditional way of writing letter can be replaced by mobile phones, ICQ, or MSN in functions. But in the case that we live very far from home and miss our families, writing a letter to the family can ease our loneliness and homesickness. When writing letters, we can recall the good old times we spent with our families and feel that we are at home and are talking to our parents; this can make us feel good. Though the new types of devices may be convenient and economical, it can never give people the same kind of feelings as writing letters.

A major argument raised by those who believe all the old or traditional are bound to disappear is that the old means the valueless. This is indeed simplistic. We may say with abundant evidence that many traditional skills have enormous potential economical values. And therefore should be preserved. For example, as the technology develops, using pesticides and chemicals to grow crops has become prevalent, for it can greatly improve the yield. But now in some countries, the public are more willing to buy foods produced in the traditional way（organic foods）, even if it is much more expensive. Many farmers are now coming back to the traditional way of farming, in order to meet the market demand. This is not a special case nowadays and hundreds of more examples can be easily found to illustrate this viewpoint.

Overall, the traditional skills and ways of life are not dying out, regardless of how the technology develops. We should keep them alive so that they will in some ways still benefit us.   (325 words)

Some people say that giving aid to poor countries has more negative effects than positive effects. To what extent do you agree or disagree?

Though many people today in the rich West live comfortable lives, enjoying the benefits brought by advanced hi-tech, there are indeed nearly 1 billion of world’s population are constantly living in poverty, or even extremely poverty, according to statistics of a UN report. So it is quite common for rich countries to give international aid to those impoverished ones.

The advantages of this practice are easiest to note. For example, with foreign investment, local people have finally found employment to earn a living and to support their families, which also partly contributes to greater social stability, thus forming a virtuous rather than vicious circle. More direct benefit can be seen in the field of medical care and education. As a result of medicine donation from individuals, corporations and governments from the richer world, and some dedicated medical teams in particular, one of the prevailing diseases—malaria has been controlled or eradicated in several African countries. Thus, I believe the international aid will be a must in fighting against AIDS. Without the financial and technological support from international communities, these achievements would be rather impossible.

Those who claim giving aids is more a curse than a blessing may argue that the poorest nations are typically badly governed, where corruption, official incompetence, and the failure to protect basic rights are capable of rendering the aids not just useless but harmful. This is indeed a problem. Consequently, in these countries, a more efficient way of providing aids should be explored, for example, giving aids directly to those in need rather than local government is a good attempt indeed. Thus, the point here is not that international aid itself should be doubted but that how to give should be improved.

In conclusion, I am firmly of the opinion that richer countries have moral responsibilities to help the poor ones and this endeavor has more benefits than drawbacks and should be encouraged. Of course, different and more efficient approaches can be well explored.

Some people believe that individuals can not improve environment, but only governments and big companies can make a difference. To what extent do you agree or disagree?

These days, no one would deny the importance of protecting the environment. But there is no consensus on how to achieve this end.

Some people believe that this responsibility is too heavy for individuals to shoulder or to make a difference. I find it really difficult to justify this argument from any perspective. The fact is that without individual efforts, and large project designed to improve our surrounding will fail in the end without doubt. For example, the Chinese government introduced legislation banning use of plastic bags in supermarkets to tackle the problem of “white pollution” in July 2008. However, in many community markets, we can still find that the white bags are given at the request of customers. If we individual customers demand fewer products or services contaminating the environment, the production will definitely be less.

Of course, reaching the conclusion that individuals play a vital role in the environmental protection does not mean governments and big corporations are less capable or responsible. They have their own role to play. For example, governments should keep on doing related surveys and bring in some practical laws or regulations to ensure that both individuals and companies do take the environment into consideration when buying or producing something and China’s restricting plastic bags serves as an excellent instance. Meanwhile, companies, especially the manufacturing factories, should obey the related environmental regulations and give serious thought to the severe consequence of contamination, not only in terms of economy but also in terms of the future generations.

To conclude, I think it is a comprehensive task to improve today’s environment, which needs the cooperation and coordination of individuals, enterprises and governments and even at international level( for example, in the case of dealing with global warming). Yet one thing is certain that all efforts would be less effective without individuals’ participations.