Unit 1 Text A A Kind of Sermon
by W.S.Fowler
The author is not a preacher, and yet he does deliver a kind of sermon here. Who is his audience? Interestingly, his audience is your teachers of Advanced English as a foreign language. The author seeks to help them in their difficult task of teaching advanced students, their task of leading their students to a higher lever of ability and fluency. Does it encourage you to know that you are not the only one who is struggling at this level of language acquisition?
1 It is probably easier for teachers than for students to appreciate the reasons why learning English seems to become increasingly difficult once the basic structures and patterns of the language have been understood. Students are naturally surprised and disappointed to discover that a process which ought to become simpler does not appear to do so.
2 It may not seem much consolation to point out that the teacher, too, becomes frustrated when his efforts appear to produce less obvious results. He finds that students who were easy to teach, because they succeeded in putting everything they had been taught into practice, hesitate when confronted with the vast untouched area of English vocabulary and usage which falls outside the scope of basic textbooks. He sees them struggling because the language they thought they knew now appears to consist of a bewildering variety of idioms, clichéd and accepted phrases with different meanings in different contexts. It is hard
to convince them that they are still making progress towards fluency and that their English is certain to improve, given time and dedication.
3 In such circumstances it is hardly surprising that some give up in disgust, while others still wait hopefully for the teacher to give them the same confident guidance he was able to offer them at first. The teacher, for his part, frequently reduced to trying to explain the inexplicable, may take refuge in quoting proverbs to his colleagues such as: \"You can lead a horse to water but you can't what you say. It's the way that you say it.\" His students might feel inclined to counter these with: \"The more I learn, the less I know.\"
4 Of course this is not true. What both students and teachers are experiencing is the recognition that the more complex structures one encounters in a language are not as vital to making oneself understood and so have a less immediate field of application. For the same reason, from the teacher's point o view, selecting what should be taught becomes a more difficult task. It is much easier to get food of any kind than to choose the dish you would most like to eat on a given day from a vast menu.
5 Defining the problem is easier than providing the solution. One can suggest that students should spend two or three years in an English-speaking country, which amounts to washing one's hands of them. Few students have the time or the money to do that. It is often said that wide reading is the time or the money to do that. It is often said that wide reading is the best alternative course of action but even here it is necessary to make some kind of selection. It is no use telling students to go to the library and pick up the first book they come across. My own advice to them would be: \"read what you can understand without having to look up words in a dictionary (but not what you can understand at a glance); read what interests you; read what you have time for (magazines and newspapers rather than
novels unless you can read the whole novel in a week or so); read the English written today, not 200 years ago; read as much as you can and try to remember the way it was written rather than individual words that puzzled you.\" And instead of \"read\\"listen to.\"
6 My advice to teachers would be similar in a way. I would say \"It's no good thinking that anything will do, or that all language is useful. It's no good relying on students to express themselves without the right tools for expression. It's still your duty to choose the best path to follow near the top of the mountain just as it was to propose a practicable short-cut away from the beaten track in the foothills. And if the path you choose is too overgrown to make further progress, the whole party will have to go back and you will have to choose another route. You are still the paid guide and expert and there is a way to the top somewhere.\"
Unit 2 Text A Argument
Where exposition explains and judgment unfolds a question and measures out an answer, argument persuades. More exactly, it persuades by appealing to reason. To reason ─ the restriction is important, distinguishing argumentation from other types of persuasive writing that aim rather at our emotions than at our minds. With emotion argumentation has little to do. Its task is, by the use of reason, to defend what is true and to attack what is false.
The essence of the argument, then, is reason, and reason may work in two ways: by deduction and by induction. The first argues from general premise to particular conclusion; the second from particular fact to broad conclusion. The writer desiring to argue effectively must understand both.
Deductive argumentation is usually cast in the form of a logical syllogism. At its simplest a syllogism contains two premises and an inference that necessarily follows from them. For example:
1. All hatters are mad.
2. X is a hatter.
3. Therefore X is mad.
If the major premise (1) and the minor premise (2) are true, the inference, or conclusion, (3) has got to be true, for the inference is logically valid. Logical validity, however, is not the same thing as empirical truth. Since all hatters are not mad, the factual truth of the conclusion about X is open to question. Syllogistic reasoning, in short, is no sounder than the premises upon which it rests. The writer arguing logically must begin from premises not easily denied by his opponents.
In working from these premises he must proceed carefully. It is not hard to make mistakes ─ called fallacies ─ in getting from premise to conclusion. Many arguments involve a chain of interlocked syllogisms, each more complicated than that about X the hatter. In most arguments the rigid form of the syllogism will be replaced by a more fluid prose, and here and there a premise or an inference may be omitted for economy. Under these conditions fallacies are especially easy to commit. There is no shortcut to learning sound logic. The student who wishes to argue well should consult a good textbook, master at least the rudiments of logic, and train himself to detect the common fallacies.
Exposing these fallacies is an effective way of attacking the argument of others. One such flaw, quite frequent and quite easily demonstrated, is self-contradiction. It is a fundamental law of logic that if a is true, a cannot be no-true. For example, one cannot argue that the Romans were doomed to fall and then assert that they were fools because they failed to solve the problems that destroyed them. To argue the inevitability of their decline is to deny the Romans free will, to charge them with folly presupposes that they had the freedom to choose between acting wisely or not. All this seems very obvious, yet in more subtle matters a writer can easily contradict himself without realizing it. To be sure that he has not, he must examine, not only his argument itself, but all the assumptions which lie beneath it and all the implications which lie within.
About deductive argumentation, then, we may conclude: (1) that it must begin from true premises, and (2) that it must derive its conclusions from these premises according to the rules of inference. The writer who ignores either principle is himself open to attack. If his premises are untrue he may be answered factually, if his conclusions are invalid the fallacy can be revealed.
Inductive reasoning is somewhat more common in argumentation. The method of the scientist or the prosecutor, it begins with facts and builds from them to a general conclusion. In practice a writer will usually find it more convenient to indicate his conclusion first and then bring forward the evidence which supports it. This is only a matter of arrangement, however, and does not deny the essential order of particular to general. Like the syllogism, induction will be fallacious when it fails to observe certain rules, which may be called the laws of evidence.
The first, and most obvious, is that evidence must be accurate. The second, more easily
forgotten, is that it must be relevant. relating meaning fully to the conclusion it is brought forward to support. To prove, for instance, that women have more accidents than men, a writer might cite figures which show that they bring more automobiles to body shops with damaged fender. Granting the accuracy of the evidence, we may still question its relevancy. It may be that women are afraid of their husbands and hastily repair dents which men blithely ignore; it may be that most of the dents resulted from accidents with reckless males. Often relevancy is so obvious that it may be taken for granted, but sometimes, as in this example, the writer must show that his evidence connects with his conclusion.
The third rule is that evidence must be complete. One of the commonest mistakes in inductive reasoning is to ignore this rule, especially when dealing with what are called universal affirmative propositions. These are statements that assert a truth applicable to all members of a class; for example, All students love school. Such propositions can be proved only by testing each member to which they apply. Since so complete a demonstration is generally impossible, all that can be shown for most universal propositions is a strong probability. Usually probability will be all the argument requires, but honesty demands that the conclusion be stated as less than an absolute truth. In brief, a writer should never phrase his premise even one degree stronger than his evidence will support. Writers who scorn such qualifiers as some or generally speaking, expose themselves to easy counterattack. Their evidence may in itself be good, but they ride it too hard and are surprised when it collapses under the strain.
All evidence, then, must observe these rules; the evidence itself, however, may take different forms. Three are most frequent: common knowledge, specific examples, and statistical data. Evidence is often advanced in the form of common knowledge, which may be defined as what is so generally known that it can safely be asserted without the support of
examples or statistical tables. No one can draw the line that separates common knowledge from particular assertion. It is common knowledge that school is sometime dull. It is a particular assertion that crocodiles make fine household pets. Perhaps they do; still, most of us would require proof. Perhaps the best rule is this: if a writer is doubtful whether a statement is common knowledge or assertion, he had better support it with additional specific evidence.
Examples, especially when they are historical, often involve the problem of interpretation. For example, one might offer General Grant's Wildemess Campaign to support the contention that professional soldiers are often unconcerned with the lives of their men. The example, however, hides an interpretation: that Grant sacrificed men simply because he was callous. It may well be that Grant did care about his troops and accepted heavy losses only because he felt them militarily necessary.
Another type of specific evidence often misused is the rhetorical analogy. For clarification or emphasis an analogy is often excellent; for proof it is meaningless. No matter how similar two things may be, there must be some differences between them. However slight, these differences deny any possibility of proof. This does not mean that analogies have no place in argumentation, simply that they should be restricted to supporting more legitimate evidence. To do this they must be fair and not force similarities where none exist. A famous instance of an unfair, or false, analogy is Thomas Carlyle's comparison of a state to a ship in order to demonstrate the weakness of democracy. The analogy is used to argue that a state cannot survive danger unless its leader, like the captain of a ship, has power independent of majority consent. But ship and states are very different things, and what may hold at sea does not therefore hold on land. Analogies, then, are valuable in argument if they are fair and if they are not used for proof.
The first sort of evidence is statistical. Although subject to the same laws that govern all evidence, statistics are often employed less critically. Consider a very simple case. We wish to answer the charge of the dented fenders and to prove that, on the contrary, American women are sager drivers than American men. Selecting a small community, we show that in a single year 100 women had accidents as compared to 500 men. The figures seem strong evidence. Yet this town may contain 5000 male drivers and only 500 female drivers, and if so then only 10 percent of the men had accidents as opposed to 20 percent of the women. Or perhaps the community is not a typical sample of the American population; or perhaps the police records included only some accidents, not all; or perhaps these figures cover a wide range of accidents, from mild humps to head-on collisions.
Perhaps a great many things. As you se, statistics must be handled carefully. If it is too much to expect all writers to be trained in statistical method, it is not too much to ask them to subject any statistical data they use to the common-sense criteria of accuracy, relevancy, and completeness. So tested, statistics are good evidence.
Most of the faults of inductive reasoning follow from ignoring these criteria, or, even worse, from ignoring the spirit behind them. Induction begins with facts, and it stays with facts until it has established their truth. It does not select or distort facts to fit a preconceived notion. It is easy, for example, to blame juvenile delinquency on comic books by ignoring the complexity of forces that create juvenile crime. Such an argument may strike us for a moment, but only for a moment. It is neither true nor honest. And in argumentation, as in murder, truth will out.
We have stressed here the problems of reasoning well, for that is the essence of argumentation. Yet to be fully effective an argument must be not only well reasoned but well
expressed. Its organization must be clear. The writer should make plain at the very beginning what he is arguing for or what he is contending against, and his paragraphs should march in perfect order from premise to inference or from evidence to conclusion. His syntax should be an easy yet a strong vehicle for the ideas it conveys, and his diction both honest and exact. In short, argumentation is reason finely phrased. Reason twisted in awkward prose is like a chisel of strong steel with a blunted edge. Beautiful writing that hides fallacy and misrepresentation is a shiny tool of cheap metal that soon cracks. To argue well the writer must begin with intelligence and with honesty, but he must hone them to the sharp edge of good prose. A person cannot learn how to be honest ─ not at least from textbooks. But from the study of writers who know their trade, he can learn something about how to argue well. That is the purpose of the selections that follow.
Unit 3 Text A The Use of Force
They were new patients to me, all I had was the name, Olson. “Please come down as soon as you can, my daughter is very sick.”
When I arrived I was met by the mother, a big startled looking woman, very clean and apologetic who merely said, Is this the doctor? And let me in. In the back, she added. You must excuse us, doctor, we have her in the kitchen where it is warm. It is very damp here sometimes.
The child was fully dressed and sitting on here father’s lap near the kitchen table. He tried to get up, but I motioned for him not to bother, took off my overcoat and started to look things over. I could see that they were all very nervous, eyeing me up and down distrustfully. As often, in such cases, they weren’t telling me more than they had to, it was
up to me to tell them; that’s why they were spending three dollars on me.
The child was fairly eating me up with her cold, steady eyes, and no expression on her face whatever. She did not move and seemed, inwardly, quiet; an unusually attractive little thing, and as strong as a heifer in appearance. But her face was flushed, she was breathing rapidly, and I realized that she had a high fever. She had magnificent blonde hair, in profusion. One of those picture children often reproduced in advertising leaflets and the photogravure sections of the Sunday papers.
She’s had a fever for three days, began the father and we don’t know what it comes from. My wife has given her things, you know, like people do, but it don’t do no good. And there’s been a lot of sickness around. So we tho’t you’d better look her over and tell us what is the matter.
As doctors often do I took a trial shot at it as a point of departure. Has she had a sore throat?
Both parents answered me together, No…No, she says her throat don’t hurt her.
Does your throat hurt you? Added the mother to the child. But the little girl’s expression didn’t change nor did she move her eyes from my face.
Have you looked?
I tried to, said the mother but II couldn’t see.
As it happens we had been having a number of cases of diphtheria in the school to which
this child went during that month and we were all, quite apparently, thinking of that, though no one had as yet spoken of the thing.
Well, I said, suppose we take a look at the throat first. I smiled in my best professional manner and asking for the child’s first name I said, come on, Mathilda, open your mouth and let’s take a look at your throat.
Nothing doing.
Aw, come on, I coaxed, just open your mouth wide and let me take a look. Look, I said opening both hands wide, I haven’t anything in my hands. Just open up and let me see.
Such a nice man, put in the mother. Look how kind he is to you. Come on, do what he tells you to. He won’t hurt you.
As that I ground my teeth in disgust. If only they wouldn’t use the word “hurt” I might be able to get somewhere. But I did not allow myself to be hurried or disturbed but speaking quietly and slowly I approached the child again.
As I moved my chair a little nearer suddenly with one catlike movement both her hands clawed instinctively for my eyes and she almost reached them too. In fact she knocked my glasses flying and they fell, though unbroken, several feet away from me on the kitchen floor.
Both the mother and father almost turned themselves inside out in embarrassment and apology. You bad girl, said the mother, taking her and shaking here by one arm. Look what you’ve done. The nice man…
For heaven’s sake, I broke in. Don’t call me a nice man to her. I’m here to look at her throat on the chance that she might have diphtheria and possibly die of it. But that’s nothing to her. Look here, I said to the child, we’re going to look at your throat. You’re old enough to understand what I’m saying. Will you open it now by yourself or shall we have to open it for you?
Not a move. Even her expression hadn’t changed. Her breaths, however, were coming faster and faster. Then the battle began. I had to do it. I had to have a throat culture for her own protection. But first I told the parents that it was entirely up to them. I explained the danger but said that I would not insist on a throat examination so long as they would take the responsibility.
If you don’t do what the doctor says you’ll have to go to the hospital, the mother admonished her severely.
Oh yeah? I had to smile to myself. After all, I had already fallen in love with the savage brat, the parents were contemptible to me. In the ensuing struggle they grew more and more abject, crushed, exhausted while she surely rose to magnificent heights of insane fury of effort bred of her terror of me.
The father tried his best, and he was a big man but the fact that she was his daughter, his shame at her behavior and his dread of hurting her made him release her just at the critical times when I had almost achieved success, till I wanted to kill him. But his dread also that she might have diphtheria made him tell me to go on, go on though he himself was almost fainting, while the mother moved back and forth behind us raising and lowering her hands in an agony of apprehension.
Put her in front of you on your lap, I ordered, and hold both her wrists.
But as soon as he did the child let out a scream. Don’t, you’re hurting me. Let go of my hands. Let them go I tell you. Then she shrieked terrifyingly, hysterically. Stop it! Stop it! You’re killing me!
Do you think she can stand it, doctor! Said the mother.
You get out, said the husband to his wife. Do you want her to die of diphtheria?
Come on now, hold her, I said.
Then I grasped the child’s head with my left hand and tried to get the wooden tongue depressor between her teeth. She fought, with clenched teeth, desperately! But now I also had grown furious-at a child. I tried to hold myself down but I couldn’t. I know how to expose a throat for inspection. And I did my best. When finally I got the wooden spatula behind the last teeth and just the point of it into the mouth cavity, she opened up for an instant but before I could see anything she came down again and gripped the wooden blade between her molars. She reduces it to splinters before I could get it out again.
Aren’t you ashamed, the mother yelled at her. Aren’t you ashamed to act like that in front of the doctor?
Get me a smooth-handled spoon of some sort, I told the mother. We’re going through with this. The child’s mouth was already bleeding. Her tongue was cut and she was screaming in wild hysterical shrieks. Perhaps I should have desisted and come back in an hour or more. No doubt it would have been better. But I have seen at least two children lying dead
in bed of neglect in such cases, and feeling that I must get a diagnosis now or never I went at it again. But the worst of it was that I too had got beyond reason. I could have torn the child apart in my own fury and enjoyed it. It was a pleasure to attack her, my face was burning with it.
The damned little brat must be protected against her own idiocy, one says to one’s self at such times. Others must be protected against her. It is a social necessity. And all these things are true. But a blind fury, a feeling of adult shame, bred of a longing for muscular release are the operatives. One goes on to the end.
In the final unreasoning assault I overpowered the child’s neck any jaws. I forced the heavy silver spoon back of her teeth and down her throat till she gagged. And there it was – both tonsils covered with membrane. She had fought valiantly to keep me from knowing her secret. She had been hiding that sore throat for three days at least and lying to her parents in order to escape just such an outcome as this.
Now truly she was furious. She had been on the defensive before but now she attacked, Tried to get off her father’s lap and fly at me while tears of defeat blinded her eyes.
Unit 4 Text A The Fifth Freedom
by Seymour St . John
Beginning with the earliest pioneers, Americans have always highly valued their freedoms, and fought hard to protect them. And yet, the author points out that there is a basic freedom which Americans are in danger of losing.
What is this endangered freedom? For what reasons could freedom-loving Americans possibly let this freedom slip away? And what-steps can they take to protect it ---- their fifth freedom?
1 More than three centuries ago a handful of pioneers crossed the ocean t Jamestown and Plymouth in search of freedoms they were unable to find in their own countries, the freedoms of we still cherish today: freedom from want, freedom from fear, freedom of speech, freedom of religion. Today the descendants of the early settlers, and those who have joined them since, are fighting to protect these freedoms at home and throughout the world.
2 And yet there is a fifth freedom - basic to those four - that we are in danger of losing: the freedom to be one's best. St. Exupery describes a ragged, sensitive-faced Arab child, haunting the streets of a North African town, as a lost Mozart: he would never be trained or developed. Was he free? \"No one grasped you by the shoulder while there was still time; and nought will awaken in you the sleeping poet or musician or astronomer that possibly inhabited you from the beginning.\" The freedom to be one's best is the chance for the development of each person to his highest power.
3 How is it that we in America have begun to lose this freedom, and how can we regain it for our nation's youth? I believe it has started slipping away from us because of three misunderstandings.
4 First, the misunderstanding of the meaning of democracy. The principal of a great Philadelphia high school is driven to cry for help in combating the notion that it is
undemocratic to run a special program of studies for outstanding boys and girls. Again, when a good independent school in Memphis recently closed, some thoughtful citizens urged that it be taken over by the public school system and used for boys and girls of high ability, what it have entrance requirements and give an advanced program of studies to superior students who were interested and able to take it. The proposal was rejected because it was undemocratic! Thus, courses are geared to the middle of the class. The good student is unchallenged, bored. The loafer receives his passing grade. And the lack of an outstanding course for the outstanding student, the lack of a standard which a boy or girl must meet, passes for democracy.
5 The second misunderstanding concerns what makes for happiness. The aims of our present-day culture are avowedly ease and material well-being: shorter hours; a shorter week; more return for less accomplishment; more softsoap excuses and fewer honest, realistic demands. In our schools this is reflected by the vanishing hickory stick and the emerging psychiatrist. The hickory stick had its faults, and the psychiatrist has his strengths. But hickory stick had its faults, and the psychiatrist has his strengths. But the trend is clear. Tout comprendre c'est tout pardoner (To understand everything is to excuse everything). Do we really believe that our softening standards bring happiness? Is it our sound and considered judgment that the tougher subjects of the classics and mathematics should be thrown aside, as suggested by some educators, for doll-playing? Small wonder that Charles Malik, Lebanese delegate at the U.N., writes: \"There is in the West\" (in the United States) \"a general weakening of moral fiber. (Our) leadership does not seem to be adequate to the unprecedented challenges of the age.\"
6 The last misunderstanding is in the area of values. Here are some of the most influential tenets of teacher education over the past fifty years: there is no eternal truth; there
is no absolute moral law; there is no God. Yet all of history has taught us that the denial of these ultimates, the placement of man or state at the core of the universe, results in a paralyzing mass selfishness; and the first signs of it are already frighteningly evident.
7 Arnold Toynbee has said that all progress, all development come from challenge and a consequent response. Without challenge there is no response, no development, no freedom. So first we owe to our children the most demanding, challenging curriculum that is within their capabilities. Michelangelo did not learn to paint by spending his time doodling. Mozart was not an accomplished pianist at the age of eight as the result or spending his days in front of a television set. Like Eve Curie, like Helen Keller, they responded to the challenge of their lives by a disciplined training: and they gained a new freedom.
8 The second opportunity we can give our boys and girls is the right to failure. \"Freedom is not only a privilege, it is a test,\" writes De Nouy. What kind of a test is it, what kind of freedom where no one can fail? The day is past when the United States can afford to give high school diplomas to all who sit through four years of instruction, regardless of whether any visible results can be discerned. We live in a narrowed world where we must be alert, awake to realism; and realism demands a standard which either must be met or result in failure. These are hard words, but they are brutally true. If we deprive our children of the right to fail we deprive them of their knowledge of the world as it is.
9 Finally, we can expose our children to the best values we have found. By relating our lives to the evidences of the ages, by judging our philosophy in the light of values that history has proven truest, perhaps we shall be able to produce that \"ringing message, full of content and truth, satisfying the mind, appealing to the heart, firing the will, a message on which one can stake his whole life.\" This is the message that could mean joy and strength and
leadership -- freedom as opposed to serfdom.
Unit 5 Text A Bulletins from the future: Julian Assange and the new wave
A host of non-profit actors have entered the news business, blurring the line between journalism and activism
THE BEATEN-UP RED car crunched up the driveway and came to a halt outside an English manor house. A tall, strangely hunched woman emerged into the November night and hurried indoors. In fact it was Julian Assange, the boss of WikiLeaks, who had donned a wig to disguise himself as an old woman as he travelled from London to a safe house in Norfolk. That may have been a tad dramatic, but there can be no doubt about Mr Assange’s prominence among a group of unconventional new actors in the news business that have emerged lately.
These are non-profit organisations that are involved in various forms of investigative journalism. As funding for such reporting by traditional media has been cut, they are filling the gap using new methods based on digital technology. Some of them make government information available in order to promote openness, transparency and citizen engagement; some gather and publish information on human-rights abuses; and some specialise in traditional investigative journalism and are funded by philanthropy.
And then there is WikiLeaks. Launched in late 2006, it was intended to be “an uncensorable Wikipedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis”, with the aim of “exposing oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet block, sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East”. Inspirations included Wikipedia, the web encyclopedia written by
volunteers, and the leak of the Pentagon Papers by Daniel Ellsberg to the New York Times during the Vietnam war, which ultimately led to a Supreme Court ruling that “only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government.” WikiLeaks welcomes documents from whistle-blowers and provides anonymous drop boxes. It is funded by donations and staffed by volunteers.
In its first three years WikiLeaks published leaked material on a range of subjects, including corruption in Kenya, the church of Scientology, Sarah Palin’s e-mails, the membership of a British nationalist party and a Peruvian oil scandal. But in 2010 it abandoned the wiki-style approach and adopted a new, editorialising tone. In July that year it worked with three mainstream news organisations—the New York Times, DerSpiegel and the
Guardian—to publish a cache of 75,000 documents relating to the war in Afghanistan.
Speaking to The Economist at the time, Mr Assange explained that such partnerships gave it more impact than if it simply posted leaked material online and expected people to seek it out. “We see actually that the professional press has a nose for what a story will be—the general public becomes involved once there is a story, and then can come forward and help mine the material.”
A further cache of nearly 400,000 documents, relating to the Iraq war, was released in October, and in November five newspapers began to publish highlights from over 250,000 diplomatic cables sent by American embassies around the world. But by this time the relationship between WikiLeaks and its media partners was breaking down, and WikiLeaks itself was in turmoil. Mr Assange was fighting an extradition request in the British courts from Swedish prosecutors who want to question him about two alleged sexual assaults, and his increasingly imperious behaviour prompted the departure of several of his key associates. Ironically, WikiLeaks itself sprang a leak and some of its material was passed to its estranged
media partners, which no longer felt they had to co-ordinate publication with Mr Assange.
The line between activism and journalism has always been somewhat fuzzy, but has become even fuzzier in the digital age
Despite WikiLeaks’ difficulties, its approach is being adopted by others. Al Jazeera has set up a “transparency unit” with a WikiLeaks-style anonymous drop box. The Wall Street Journal launched a drop box of its own in May, but was criticised for not offering enough
protection to leakers. “Everyone’s looking at the idea,” says the Guardian’s Alan Rusbridger, “but if you’re going to do it you have to make it really secure.”
Conspiracy theory
What happens next depends in part on the fate of Mr Assange and of Bradley Manning, an American soldier who has been charged with passing confidential information to WikiLeaks. If American prosecutors can show that Mr Assange encouraged Mr Manning to leak the material, they may try to charge WikiLeaks’ boss with conspiracy. That would be worrying for news organisations in general, because it would strike at the idea that journalists should be able to develop relationships with confidential sources without fear of prosecution.
WikiLeaks seems to be hoping that by calling itself a news organisation it will be protected by the First Amendment. The “about” page on the WikiLeaks website, which used to describe the organisation as “an excellent source for journalists”, has been rewritten to describe its activities as journalism, its staff as journalists and Mr Assange as its editor-in-chief. There has been much debate about whether Mr Assange should be regarded
as a journalist; Mr Rusbridger calls him “a new breed of publisher-intermediary”. Jay Rosen of New York University says such arguments show that in the digital age “the very boundaries around journalism are collapsing.” WikiLeaks is not the only example.
The Sunlight Foundation, based in Washington, DC, also campaigns for government openness and transparency, but in a different way from WikiLeaks. Its aim is to make government data more easily accessible, both to journalists and to ordinary citizens. Its Transparency Data website, for example, is a database of federal and state campaign contributions, federal grants and contracts, and lobbying disclosures going back 20 years; Party Time keeps track of the political party circuit; Checking Influence is a database of campaign contributions and lobbying activity by companies. All this provides raw material for journalists, but the compilation and presentation of these data sometimes shades into journalism.
Ellen Miller, the organisation’s co-founder, cites the example of Sunlight Live, which combines a live video stream of government proceedings on a web page with information from Sunlight’s databases to provide context. “As different people speak, we talk about their backgrounds, whether they have campaign contributions, whether they are involved in lobbying,” says Ms Miller. “That’s clearly journalism.” Sunlight Live won an award for innovation in journalism last year, and its technology will be made available to other organisations. Sunlight also takes pictures of people attending public hearings so that it can identify lobbyists. That is journalism too, says Ms Miller: “We want to use the tools of journalism to open up government.”
The line between activism and journalism has always been somewhat fuzzy, but has become even fuzzier in the digital age. The Sunlight Foundation has been closely involved in
the campaign to get the American government to provide more information about its workings, which led to the data.gov site being set up in 2009 (though its funding is now under threat). There have been similar initiatives in Britain, Australia and New Zealand, and several American cities and states have made information available about anything from procurement contracts to traffic accidents. Websites have sprung up that present such data in a user-friendly form, such as mySociety.org’s TheyWorkForYou, which provides information on British politicians and is starting to add brief summaries of their activities. Is that journalism? No, says Myf Nixon, a spokesman for mySociety, because the website merely aggregates facts that are available elsewhere. But the same could be said of the Sunlight Foundation.
In the developing world, transparency campaigners are pushing for greater openness about aid flows and the governance of natural resources, and campaign groups are often the most credible sources of information about human-rights abuses. In the past, bringing such information to wider attention meant working with news organisations and getting them to publish the information. Yet thanks to the web, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) can now also publish material independently. “The same internet that has blown a gaping hole in media budgets is also allowing NGOs to reach their audiences directly,” observed Carroll Bogert of Human Rights Watch (HRW), a global campaigning group, in a report published in January. But that requires NGOs to change the way they operate.
This is beginning to happen. HRW now sends photographers and radio producers to work alongside its researchers in the field. Amnesty International is creating a “news unit” staffed by five journalists, and Médecins Sans Frontières produces photographs and video of its work. “We are beginning to realise that there’s a far wider range of people who are qualified, have the integrity and are competent to be part of the reporting picture—and
NGOs are part of that picture,” says Sameer Padania, who advises human-rights groups on the use of technology. But no matter how painstaking the reporting, it has been produced to serve a particular agenda. So being able to verify the accuracy and provenance of material is vital, he says.
Dan Gillmor, a veteran journalist who is now a professor at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism, observes that some of the best reporting on conditions at Guantánamo Bay was done by the American Civil Liberties Union, and that HRW produced an excellent report on the abuse of domestic workers in Saudi Arabia. But he says reporting by advocacy groups often falls just short of journalism. Such groups may not give sufficient weight to opposing views or fully reflect nuances in the subject. In the end, says Mr Gillmor, what matters is not whether or not particular people qualify as journalists but whether the work they produce is thorough, accurate, fair and transparent enough to qualify as journalism.
Making up for a market failure
There is also growing interest in investigative news organisations that operate on a non-profit model, particularly in America. The Centre for Investigative Reporting (CIR), based in Berkeley, California, was founded in 1977 and describes itself as “the nation’s oldest non-profit investigative news organisation”. Since 2008 it has expanded and reinvented itself as a multimedia news producer under the leadership of Robert Rosenthal, a former editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer. The Centre for Public Integrity was founded in 1989. A more recent entrant to the field is ProPublica, launched in 2008 under the leadership of Paul Steiger, a former managing editor of the Wall Street Journal.
All three organisations produce stories that are syndicated to newspapers, television and radio stations and websites across America. Non-profit news outfits have been popping up at the state and city levels, too. They are needed because there has been a market failure in the creation of some kinds of content, including investigative reporting, says Dick Tofel, general manager of ProPublica. His organisation’s aim is to help fill that gap. ProPublica has already won two Pulitzer prizes for its work, including investigations into the financial crisis and the provision of health care in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina (with the New York Times magazine). But although these three organisations are well funded for the next few years, the long-term viability of philanthropic funding is still uncertain.
All these organisations work across a range of different media, producing versions of the same story for different outlets, which has led to some innovative work. ProPublica collaborated with journalism students to produce a music video called “The Fracking Song”, part of an investigation into the impact of shale-gas extraction. The CIR exposed failings in the enforcement of earthquake-safety laws in California’s schools in a project entitled “On Shaky Ground” which resulted in a series of articles, audio and video, as well as interactive maps and databases—and a colouring book in five languages to help educate children about earthquake safety. “I ran a newspaper with 630 people and a $75m budget and we never would have dreamt of doing this,” says Mr Rosenthal. The project also shades into activism, providing contact details for local officials. “You can point people to information, guide people to take action,” Mr Rosenthal adds. “Getting people to come together around problems is something the media can do more and more.”
The discussion about where lines should be drawn between non-profit journalism and journalism by non-profits is still evolving. But it is clear that non-profit groups of various kinds are beginning to fill some of the gap left behind as traditional news outfits shrink.
Unit 6 Text A Miss Brill
Although it was so brilliantly fine – the blue sky powdered with gold and the great spots of light like white wine splashed over the Jardins Publiques – Miss Brill was glad that she had decided on her fur. The air was motionless, but when you opened your mouth there was just a faint chill, like a chill from a glass of iced water before you sip, and now and again a leaf came drifting – from nowhere, from they sky. Miss Brill put up her hand and touched her fur. Dear little thing! I t was nice to feel it again. She had taken it out of its box tat afternoon, shaken out the moth-powder, given it a good brush, and rubbed the life back into the dim little eyes. “What has been happening to me?” said the sad little eyes. Oh, how sweet it was to see them snap at her again from the red eiderdown! …But the nose, which was of some black composition, wasn’t at all firm. It must have had a knock, somehow. Never mind – a little dab of black sealing-wax when the time came – when it was absolutely necessary. … Little rogue! Yes, she really felt like that about it. Little rogue biting its tail just by her left ear. She could have taken it off and laid it on her lap and stroked it. She felt a tingling in her hands and arms. But that came from walking, she supposed. And when she breathed, something light and sad – no, not sad, exactly – something gentle seemed to move in her bosom.
There were a number of people out this afternoon. far more than last Sunday. And the band sounded louder and gayer. That was because the Season had begun. For although the band played all the year round on Sundays, out of seaon it was never the same. It was like someone playing with only the family to listen; it didn’t care how it played if there weren’t any strangers present. Wasn’t the conductor wearing a new coat, too? She was sure it was new. He scraped wit his foot and flapped his arms like a rooster about to crow, and the bandsmen sitting in the green rotunda blew out their cheeks and glared at the music. Now there came a little “flutey” bit – very pretty! – a litter chain of bright drops. She was sure it
would be repeated. It was; she lifted her head and smiled.
Only two people shared her “special” seat: a fine old man in a velvet coat, his hands clasped over a huge carved walking-stick, and a bid old woman, sitting upright, with a roll of knitting on her embroidered apron. They did not speak. This was disappointing, for Miss Brill always looked forward to conversation. She had become really quite expert, she thought, at listening as though she didn’t listen, at sitting in other people’s lives just a minute while they talked round her.
She glanced, sideways, at the old couple. Perhaps they would go soon. Last Sunday, too, hadn’t been as interesting as usual. An Englishman and his wife, he wearing a dreadful Panama hat and she button boots. And she’s gone on the whole time about how she ought to wear spectacles; she knew she needed them; But that it was no good getting any; they’d be sure to break and they’d never keep on. And he’d been so patient. He’d suggested everything – gold rims, the kind that curved round your ears, little pads inside the bridge. No, nothing would please her. “They’ll always be sliding down my nose!” Miss Brill had wanted to shake her.
The old people sat on the bench, still as statues. Never mind, there was always the crowd to watch. To and fro, in from of the flower-beds and the band rotunda, the couples and groups paraded, stopped to talk, to greet, to buy a handful of flowers from the old beggar who had his tray fixed to the railings. Little children ran among them, swooping and laughing; little boys with big white silk bows under their chins; little girls, little French dolls, dressed up in velvet and late. And sometimes a tiny staggered came suddenly rocking into the open from under the trees, stopped, stared, as suddenly sat down \"flop,\" until its small high-stepping mother, like a young hen, and rushed scolding to its rescue. Other people sat
on the benches and green chairs, but they were nearly always the same, Sunday alter Sunday, and—Miss Brill had often noticed—there was some-thing funny about nearly all of them. They were odd, silent, nearly all old, and from the way they stared they looked as though they'd just come from dark little rooms or even—-even cupboards!
Behind the rotunda the slender trees with yellow leaves down drooping, and through them just a line of sea, and beyond the blue sky gold-veined clouds.
Tum-tum-tum tiddle-um! Tiddle-um! Turn tiddley-um turn ta! Blew the band.
Two young girls in red came by and two young soldiers in blue met them, and they laughed and paired and went off arm in arm. Two peasant women with funny straw hats passed, gravely, leading beautiful smoke-colored donkey. A cold, pale nun hurried by. A beautiful woman came along and dropped her bunch of violets, and a little boy ran after to hand them to her, and she took them and threw them away as if they'd been poisoned. Dear me! Miss Brill didn't know whether to admire that or not! And now an ermine toque and a gentleman in grey met just in front of her. He was tall, stiff, dignified, and she was wearing the ermine toque she'd bought when her hair was yellow. Now everything, her hair, her face, even her eyes, was the same color as the shabby ermine, and her hand, in its cleaned glove, lifted to dab her lips, was a tiny yellowish paw. Oh, she was so pleased to see him—delighted! She rather thought they were going to meet that afternoon. She described where she'd been— everywhere, here, there, along by the sea. The day was so charming—didn't he agree? And wouldn't he, perhaps?…But he shook his head, lighted a cigarette, slowly breathed a great deep puff into her face and, even while she was still talking and laughing, flicked the match away and walked on. The ermine toque was alone; she smiled more brightly than over. But even the band seemed to know what she was feeling and played more softly, played
tenderly, and the drum beat \"The Brute! The Brute!\" over and over. What would she do? What was going to happen now? But as Miss Brill wondered, the ermine toque turned, raised her hand as though she'd seen someone else, much nicer, just over there, and pattered away. And the band changed again and played more quickly, more gaily than ever, and the old couple on Miss Brill’s seat got up and marched away, and such a funny old man with long whiskers hobbled along in time to the music and was nearly knocked over by four girls walking abreast.
Oh, how fascinating it was! How she enjoyed it! How she loved sitting here, watching it all! It was like a play. It was exactly like a play. Who could believe the sky at the back wasn’t painted? But it wasn’t till a little brown dog trotted on solemnly and then slowly trotted off, like a little “theatre” dog, a little dog that had been drugged, that Miss Brill discovered what it was that made it so exciting. They were all on the stage. They weren’t only the audience, not only looking on; they were acting. Even she had a part and came every Sunday. No doubt somebody would have noticed if she hadn't been there; she was part of the performance, after all. How strange shod never thought of it like that before! And yet it explained why she made such a point of starting from home at just the same time each week—so as not to be late for the performance—and it also explained why she had quite a queer, shy feeling at telling her English pupils how she spent her Sunday afternoons. No wonder! Miss Brill nearly laughed out loud. She was on the stage. She thought of the old invalid gentleman to whom she read the newspaper four afternoons a week while he slept in the garden. She had goy quite used to the frail head on the cotton pillow, the hollowed eyes, the open mouth and the high pinched nose. If he'd been dead she mightn't have noticed for weeks; she wouldn't have minded. But suddenly he knew he was having the paper read to him by an actress! \"An actress!\" The old head lifted; two points of light quivered in the old eyes. \"An actress—are ye?\" And Miss Brill smoothed the newspaper as though it were the
manuscript of her pan and said gently: \"Yes, I have been an actress for a long time.\"
The band had been having a rest. Now they started again. And what they played was warm, sunny, yet there was just a faint chill— a something, what was it? —not sadness—no, not sadness—a something that made you want to sing. The tune lifted, lifted, the light shone; and n seemed to Miss Brill that in another moment all of them, all the whole company, would begin singing. The young ones, the laughing ones who were moving together, they would begin, and the men's voices, very resolute and brave, would join them. And then she too, she too, and the others on the benches—they would come in with a kind of accompaniment—something
low,
that
scarcely
rose
or
fell,
something
so
beautiful—moving…and Miss Brill's eyes filled with tears and she looked smiling at all the other members of the company. Yes we understand, we understand, she thought—though what they understood she didn't know.
Just at that moment a boy and a girl came and sat down where the old couple had been. They were beautifully dressed; they were in love. The hero and heroine, of course, just arrived from his father's yacht. And still soundlessly singing, still with that trembling smile, Miss Brill prepared to listen.
\"No, not now,\" said the girl. \"Not here, I can't.\"
\"But why? Because of that stupid old thing at the end there?\" asked the boy. \"Why does she come here at all—who wants her? Why doesn't she keep her silly old mug at home?\"
\"It's her fu-fur which is so funny,\" giggled the girl. \"It's exactly like a fried whiting.\"
\"Ah, be off with you!\" said the boy in an angry whisper. Then: \"Tell me, ma petite chere—\"
\"No, not here, “said the girl. \"Not yet.\"
On her way home she usually bought a slice of honey-cake at the baker's. It was her Sunday treat. Sometimes there was an almond in her slice, sometimes not. It made a great difference. If there was an almond it was like carrying home a tiny present—a surprise—something that might very well not have been there. She hurried on the almond Sundays and .struck the match for the kettle in quite a dashing
But today she passed the baker's by, climbed the stairs, went into the little dark room—her room like a cupboard—and sat down on the red eiderdown. She sat there for a long time. The box that the fur came out of was on the bed. She unclasped the neck let quickly; quickly,
without looking, laid it inside. But when she put the lid on she thought
she heard something crying.
Unit 7 Text A Science and the Scientific Attitude
by Paul G. Hewitt
As the author points out below, the success of science has less to do with a particular method than with an essential attitude of the scientist. This attitude is essentially one of inquiry, experimentation and humility before the facts. Therefore, a good scientist is an honest one. True scientists do not bow to any authority but they are ever ready to modify or even abandon their ideas if adequate evidence is found contradicting them. Scientists, they do place a high value on honesty.
1 Science is the body of knowledge about nature that represents the collective efforts, insights, findings, and wisdom of the human race. Science is not something new but had its beginnings before recorded history when humans first discovered reoccurring relationships around them. Through careful observations of these relationships, they began to know nature and, because of nature's dependability, found they could make predictions to enable some control over their surroundings.
2 Science made its greatest headway in the sixteenth century when people began asking answerable questions about nature -- when they began replacing superstition by a systematic search for order -- when experiment in addition to logic was used to test ideas. Where people once tried to influence natural events with magic and supernatural forces, they now had science to guide them. Advance was slow, however, because of the powerful opposition to scientific methods and ideas.
3 In about 1510 Copernicus suggested that the sun was stationary and that the earth revolved about the sun. He refuted the idea that the earth was the center of the universe. After years of hesitation, he published his findings but died before his book was circulated. His book was considered heretical and dangerous and was banned by the Church for 200 years. A century after Copernicus, the mathematician Bruno was burned at the stake -- largely for supporting Copernicus, suggesting the sun to be a star, and suggesting that space was infinite. Galileo was imprisoned for popularizing the Copernican theory and for his other contributions to scientific thought. Yet a couple of centuries later, Copernican advocates seemed harmless.
4 This happens age after age. In the early 1800s geologists met with violent condemnation because they differed with the Genesis account of creation. Later in the same century, geology was safe, but theories of evolution were condemned and the teaching of them forbidden. This most likely continues. \"At every crossway on the road that leads to the future, each progressive spirit is opposed by a thousand men appointed to guard the past.\" Every age has one or more groups of intellectual rebels who are persecuted, condemned, or suppressed at the time; but to a later age, they seem harmless and often essential to the elevation of human conditions.
5 The enormous success of science has led to the general belief that scientists have developed and ate employing a \"method\" - a method that is extremely effective in gaining, organizing, and applying new knowledge. Galileo, famous scientist of the 1600s, is usually credited with being the \"Father of the Scientific Method.\" His method is essentially as follows:
1. Recognize a problem.
2. Guess an answer.
3. Predict the consequences of the guess.
4. Perform experiments to test predictions.
5. Formulate the simplest theory organizes the three main ingredients: guess, prediction, experimental outcome.
6 Although this cookbook method has a certain appeal, to has not been the key to most of the breakthroughs and discoveries in science. Trial and error, experimentation without
guessing, accidental discovery, and other methods account for much of the progress in science. Rather than a particular method, the success of science has more to do with an attitude common to scientists. This attitude is essentially one of inquiry, experimentation, and humility before the facts. If a scientist holds an idea to be true and finds any counterevidence whatever, the idea is either modified or abandoned. In the scientific spirit, the idea must be modified or abandoned in spite of the reputation of the person advocating it. As an example, the greatly respected Greek philosopher Aristotle said that falling bodies fall at a speed proportional to their weight. This false idea was held to be true for more than 2,000 years because of Aristotle's immense authority. In the scientific spirit, however, a single verifiable experiment to the contrary outweighs any authority, regardless of reputation or the number of followers and advocates.
7 Scientists must accept facts even when they would like them to be different. They must strive to distinguish between what they see and what they wish to see -- for humanity's capacity for self-deception is vast. People have traditionally tended to adopt general rules, beliefs, creeds, theories, and ideas without thoroughly questioning their validity and to retain them long after they have been shown to be meaningless, false, or at least questionable. The most widespread assumptions are the least questioned. Most often, when an idea is adopted, particular attention is given to cases that seem to support it, while cases that seem to refute it are distorted, belittled, or ignored. We feel deeply that it is a sign of weakness to \"change out minds.\" Competent scientists, however, must be expert at changing their minds. This is because science seeks not to defend our beliefs but to improve them. Better theories are made by those who are not hung up on prevailing ones.
8 Away from their profession, scientists are inherently no more honest or ethical than other people. But in their profession they work in an arena that puts a high premium on
honesty. The cardinal rule in science is that all claims must be testable -- they must be capable, at least in principle, of being proved wrong. For example, if someone claims that a certain procedure has a certain result, it must in principle be possible to perform a procedure that will either confirm or contradict the claim. If confirmed, then the claim is regarded as useful and a stepping-stone to further knowledge. None of us has the time or energy or resources to test every claim, so most of the time we must take somebody's word. However, we must have some criterion for deciding whether one person's word is as good as another's and whether one claim is as good as another. The criterion, again, is that the claim must be testable. To reduce the likelihood of error, scientists accept the word only of those whose ideas, theories, and findings are testable -- if not in practice then at least in principle. Speculations that cannot be tested are regarded as \"unscientific.\" This has the long-run effect of compelling honesty - findings widely publicized among fellow scientists are generally subjected to further testing. Sooner or later, mistake (and lies) are bound to be found out; wishful thinking is bound to be exposed. The honesty so important to the progress of science thus becomes a matter of self-interest to scientists.
Unit 8 Text A How Could Anything That Feels So Bad Be So Good?
by Richard E. Farson
If modern life is so wonderful, why do we feel so unhappy? In the following article, the author suggests that though living standards have improved, we, rather than feeling content, never become completely satisfied with what we have achieved. This is because we always find ourselves with new and higher expectations. To meet these expectations and solve the new problems that arise, new strategies should be adopted.
1 Maybe it is time to adopt a new strategy in trying to figure out why life today is so difficult, and what can be done about it. Assume that not only are things often not what they seem, they may be just the opposite of what they seem. When it comes to human affairs, everything is paradoxical.
2 People are discontented these days, for example, not because things are worse than ever, but because things are better than ever. Take marriage. In California there are about six divorces for every ten marriages -- even higher in some of the better communities. One must admit that a good deal of discontent is reflected in those statistics. But the explanation so frequently offered -- that the institution of marriage is in a state of collapse -- simply does not hold. Marriage has never been more popular and desirable than is it now; so appealing in fact, that even those who are in the process of divorce can scarcely wait for the law to allow them to marry again.
3 The problem is that people have never before entered marriage with the high expectations they now hold. Throughout history, the family has been a vital unit for survival, starting as a defense system for physical survival, and gradually becoming a unit for economic survival. Now, of course, the family has become a physical and economic liability rather than an asset. Having met, as a society, the basic survival and security needs, people simply don't need each other anymore to fight Indians or spin yarn -- or wash dishes or repair electrical plugs for that matter. The bonds of marriage and family life are no longer functional, but affectional. People used to come to love each other because they needed each other. Now it's just the other way around. They need each other because they love each other.
4 Listening to the complaints of those recently divorced, one seldom hears of brutality
and desertion, but usually something like, \"We just don't communicate very well\\"The educational differences between us were simply too great to overcome\relationship\complaints are interesting, because they reflect high-order discontent resulting from the failure of marriage to meet the great expectations held for it. Couples now expect -- and demand -- communication and understanding, shared values and goals, intellectual companionship, great moments of intimacy. By and large, marriage today actually does deliver such moments, but as a result couples have gone on to burden the relationship with even greater demands. To some extent it has been the success of marriage that has created the discontent.
5 The same appears to be true in the civil rights movement. The gains that have been made have led not to satisfaction but to increased tension and dissatisfaction, particularly among those benefiting from such gains. The discontent is higher in the North than in the South, higher in cities than in rural areas.
6 The disturbing paradox of social change is that improvement brings the need for more improvement in constantly accelerating demands. So, compared to what used to be, society is way ahead; compared to what might be, it is way behind. Society is enabled to feel that conditions are rotten, because they are actually so good.
7 Another problem is that everything is temporary, nothing lasts. We have grown up with the idea that in order to develop personal security we need stability, roots, consistency, and familiarity. Yet we live in a world which in every respect is continually changing. Whether we are talking about sky-scrapers or family life, scientific facts or religious values, all are highly temporary and becoming even more so. If one were to plot a curve showing the incidence of
invention throughout the history of man, one would see that change is not just increasing but actually accelerating. Changes are coming faster and faster -- in a sense change has become a way of life. The only people who will live successfully in tomorrow's world are those who can accept and enjoy temporary systems.
8 People are also troubled because of the new participative mood that exists today. It's a do-it-yourself society; every layman wants to get into the act. Emerson's \"do your own thing\" has become the cliché of the times. People no longer accept being passive members. They now want to be active changers.
9 This participative phenomenon can be seen in every part of contemporary life -- on campus, in the church, in the mass media, in the arts, in business and industry, on ghetto streets, in the family.
10 The problem is that modern man seems unable to redesign his institution fast enough to accommodate the new demands, the new intelligence, the new abilities of segments of society which, heretofore, have not been taken seriously. Consequently, people are frightened by the black revolution, paralyzed by student activism, and now face what may be even more devastating -- the women's rebellion.
11 Society simply has not had these kinds of problems before, and to meet them it will have to adopt strategies for their solution that are as new, and as different, and as paradoxical as are the problems themselves.
12 Instead of trying to reduce the discontent felt, try to raise the level or quality of the discontent. Perhaps the most that can be hoped for is to have high-order discontent in
today's society, discontent about things that really matter. Rather than evaluating programs in terms of how happy they make people, how satisfied those people become, programs must be evaluated in terms of the quality of the discontent they engender. For example, if a consultant wants to assess whether or not an organization is healthy, he doesn't ask, \"Is there an absence of complaints?\" but rather, \"What kinds of complaints are there?\"
13 Instead of trying to make gradual changes in small increments, make big changes. After all, big changes are relatively easier to make than are small ones. Some people assume that the way to bring about improvement is to make the change small enough so that nobody will notice it. This approach has never worked, and one can't help but wonder why such thinking continues. Everyone knows how to resist small changes; they do it all the time. If, however, the change is big enough, resistance can't be mobilized against it. Management can make a sweeping organizational change, but just let a manager try to change someone's desk from here to there, and see the great difficulty he encounters. All change is resisted, so the question is how can the changes be made big enough so that they have a chance of succeeding?
14 Buckminster Fuller ahs said that instead of reforms society needs new forms; e.g., in order to reduce traffic accidents, improve automobiles and highways instead of trying to improve drives. The same concept should be applied to human relations. There is a need to think in terms of social architecture, and to provide arrangements among people that evoke what they really want to see in themselves. Mankind takes great pains with physical architecture, and is beginning to concern itself with the design of systems in which the human being is a component. But most of these designs are only for safety, efficiency, or productivity. System designs are not made to affect those aspects of life people care most about such as family life, romance, and esthetic experiences. Social technology as well as
physical technology need to be applied in making human arrangements that will transcend anything mankind has yet experienced. People need not be victimized by their environments; they can be fulfilled by them.
15 The great frontier today is the exploration of the human potential man's seemingly limitless ability to adapt, to grow, to invent his own destiny. There is much to learn, but we already know this: the future need not happen to us; we can make it happen.
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