keep up with the time
深圳大学 赖小琪
With the rapid development of science, technology and other fields, our nation and society take on a totally brand-new look in this new millennium. Never ever have we enjoyed such a great prosperity everlastingly. We are bathing in a materially and spiritually abundant world and appreciating numerous unprecedented privileges over our ancestors. However, while our living standard is dramatically increasing, is our thought keeping up with the speed of our material development? Are we open and enlightened enough to accommodate ourselves to this materially flourishing world? I do cast doubt on it.
Needless to say, our thinking pattern has greatly changed during the past decades, especially after the open and reform policy implemented at the end of 1970s. Countless examples can illustrate this inspiringly drastic change. For instance, in the past, people always worshiped famous people blindly and thought what they said and did must be correct, which led to lots of political and economic disasters in China. However, now most of us can have our independent thinking and judgment towards certain issues. We are enjoying more democracy and freedom than ever before and can voice our opinions feely to a large extent. Another instance that can be raised is that in the past women were regarded as inferior to men in status and deprived of the education opportunity due to the trite Chinese traditional notion that women without knowledge were of greatest virtue. Nowadays, women’s status is universally acknowledged and they are equal to men in innumerable aspects of our lives. Typical cases like the two I put forward above are too many to list one by one. All these instances can come to a conclusion that people are becoming increasingly open-minded!
However, compared with our fast developing material standard, our thought is still somewhat distant from the one we ought to have achieved. Everyone of us knows to exclaim “keep up with the time”, but what is the authentic “keep up with time”? Have we truly put this great slogan into practice? When asked about these questions, maybe many of us would sink into silence. To my mind, the real “keep up with the time” intrinsically means we should adjust our thinking to the development of our society! More specifically, we should always turn over our originally rooted-in-mind ideas, notions and thinking patterns to see whether they are still practical and reasonable in present-day life. If they are too conventional and old, we need to eliminate them and re-mould our thinking methodology to better fit ourselves to the constantly changing surroundings, or we may be greatly obstructed on the way to progress. But the pity is, nowadays many of us still maintain a lot of traditional conventions and are reluctant to revolutionize them. For example, many Chinese people still place sons over daughters, which is precisely the reason why so many couples break the one-child policy in quest of a son every year. Another example is that many Chinese people still boycott foreign products such as Japanese products under the name of patriotism. From my viewpoint, I do admire their great spirit of patriotism, but I do not consent to this actions. In this age of globalization, it is impossible to block ourselves from the outside world. Maybe some people will say that according to the survey, if all Chinese people refuse to buy Japanese commodities, more than 80 percent of Japanese enterprises will go bankrupt. Hearing this statement, many people may feel proud of ourselves, nonetheless, I feel a dire concern. We simply see the effect on Japan, but fail to see the effect on our domestic economy. If we refuse to buy all Japanese products and force numerous Japanese companies into bankrupt, maybe our economy will be totally paralyzed even more severely. How many of us have pondered upon the consequence of our blindly boycotting foreign products? Few! Always remember, we are no longer in ancient world now, which indicates we can never isolate ourselves from others.
Altogether, though we have spiritually progressed tremendously in the past decades, we still need to do more to keep up with the time by further reform our thinking patterns. Keep in mind that before we act, we should weigh twice the advantages and disadvantages. |
