If you’ve ever been on a jury, you might have noticed that a funny thing happens the minute you get behind closed doors. Everybody starts talking about themselves. They say what they would have done if they had been the plaintiff or the defendant. being on a jury reminds me why I can’t tolerate talk radio. We Americans seem to have lost the ability to talk about anything but our own experiences. We can’t seem to generalize without stereotyping or to consider evidence that goes against our own experience.
I heard a doctor on a radio show talking about a study that found that exercise reduces the incidence of Alzheimer’s. And caller after caller couldn’t wait to make essentially the opposite point: “well, my grandmother never exercised and she lived to 95.” We are in an age summed up by the saying: “ I experience, therefore I’m right.” Historically, the hallmarks of an uneducated person were the lack of ability to think critically, to use deductive reasoning to distinguish the personal from the universal. Now that seems an apt description of many Americans.
朝气蓬勃,充满活力,丰富多彩的上海是现代中国的缩影。虽然上海的文化遗迹不能与北京媲美,但是上海迷人的城市风貌,风格各异的万国建筑为这座城市注入了无限的魅力。今日之上海,已经成为享誉中外的国际大都市。
漫步在这座日新月异的现代大都市里,你会发现许多精彩的历史亮点,隐现在众多摩天大楼背后的是上海发展变化的轨迹。它们记述了上海自十九世纪末开埠以来,尤其是新中国成立以后,是如何迅猛发展的。