GRE写作成为横在中国学生的理想和现实之间的一大障碍，因此，如何攻克写作这道屏障，成为摆在我们面前的首要任务。
Those who disagree with the statement also fail to understand that in order to gain the
opportunity for moral leadership politicians must engage in certain compromises along the way.
Politics is a business born not only of idealism but also of pragmatism insofar as in order to be
effective a politician must gain and hold onto political power. In my observation, some degree
of pandering to the electorate and to those who might lend financial support for reelection
efforts is necessary to maintain that position. Modern politics is replete with candidates who
refused to pander, thereby mining their own chance to exercise effective leadership.
Finally, those who claim that effective politicians need not concern themselves with morality
fail to appreciate that successful political leadership, ifit is to endure, ultimately requires a
certain measure of public morality--that is, serving the society with its best interests as the
leader's overriding concern. Consider the many leaders, such as Stalin and Hitler, whom most
people would agree were egregious violators of public morality. Ultmately such leaders forfeit
their leadership as a result of the immoral means by which they obtain or wield their power. Or
consider less egregious examples such as President Nixon, whose contempt for the very legal
system that afforded him his leadership led to his forfeiture of that leadership. It seems to me
that in the short term amoral or immoral public behavior might serve a political leader's interest
in preserving power; yet in the long term such behavior invariably results in that leader's
downfall.
In sum, I fundamentally agree with the statement. It recognizes that the "game" of politics
calls for a certain amount of disingenuousness that we might associate with dubious private
morality. And it recognizes that such behavior is a necessary means to the final objective of
moral political leadership. Besides, at the end of the political game any politician failing to
exercise moral leadership ultimately forfeits the game.
87
Issue 79
"Great advances in knowledge necessarily involve the rejection of authority."
The speaker claims that great advances in knowledge necessarily involve rejection of
authority. To the extent that political authority impedes such advances, I agree with this claim.
Otherwise, in my view most advances in knowledge actually embrace certain forms of authority,
rather than rejecting authority out of hand.
One striking example of how political authority can impede the advancement of knowledge
involves what we know about the age and evolution of planet Earth. In earlier centuries the
official Church of England called for a literal interpretation of the Bible, according to which the
Earth's age is determined to be about 6,000 years. IfWestern thinkers had continued to yield to
the ostensible authority of the Church, the fields of structural and historical geology would
never have advanced beyond the blind acceptance of this contention as fact.
A more modern example of how yielding to political authority can impede the advancement
of knowledge involves the Soviet Refusenik movement of the 1920s. During this time period
the Soviet government attempted not only to control the direction and the goals of its scientists'
research but also to distort the outcome of that research. During the 1920s the Soviet
government quashed certain areas of scientific inquiry, destroyed entire research facilities and
libraries, and caused the sudden disappearance of many scientists who were engaged in
research that the state viewed as a potential threat to its power and authority. Not surprisingly,
during this time period no significant advances in scientific knowledge occurred under the
auspices of the Soviet government.
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