31 工业化之前的社会

In history, many times people found themselves changing and tinting theirtrue goals in life to suit the natural flow taken by main stream companies. Theymoved out of the city and started smaller businesses. Many had small coops inthe middle of the country- side because this helped them produce a product thatfit more of the consumers’ needs. The products became more intimate and thingssuch as lace, wood carvings and other intricate home furnishings. These weresold throughout the countryside and the best-selling items were shipped tolarger cities for assured success.

Most pre-industrial economies had standards of living not much abovesubsistence, meaning that the majority of the population was focused onproducing their means of survival. For example, in medieval Europe, 80% of thelabor force was employed in subsistence agriculture.

32 工业化带来的问题

Industrialization has spawned its own health problems. Modern stressorsinclude noise, air, water pollution, poor nutrition, dangerous machinery,impersonal work, isolation, poverty, homelessness, and substance abuse. Healthproblems in industrial nations are as much caused by economic, social,political, and cultural factors as by pathogens. Industrialization has become amajor medical issue world-wide.

33 自然生存状态与社会

Without society, we would live in a state of nature, where we each haveunlimited natural freedoms. The downside of this general autonomy is that itincludes the “right to all things”and thus the freedom to harm all who threaten one’s ownself-preservation; there are no positive rights, only laws of nature and anendless “war of all against all”. In other words, anyone in the state of naturecan do anything he likes; but this also means that everyone can do anything helikes to anyone else. To avoid this, we jointly agree to a social contract bywhich we each gain civil rights in return for subjecting ourselves to civil lawor to political authority. In Hobbes’ formulation, the sovereign power is not aparty of the contract but instead its creation; so it is not bound by it.

Alternatively, some have argued that we gain civil rights in return foraccepting the obligation to respect and defend the rights of others. Thisalternative formulation of the duty arising from the social contract is oftenidentified with militia, or defense activity.

34 六大基本自由

The basic liberties include:

1. Freedom of thought;

2. Liberty of conscience as it affects social relationships on the groundsof religion, philosophy, and morality;

3. Political liberties （e.g. representative democratic institutions, freedom ofspeech and the press, and freedom of assembly）;

4. Freedom of association;

5. Freedoms necessary for the liberty and integrity of a person （freedom fromslavery, freedom

of movement and a reasonable degree offreedom to choose one’s occupation）;

6. Rights and liberties covered by the rule of law.

35 思维创造性与技术

Though many reasons can be cited for the accelerating pace oftechnological inventions, one major cause is the role played by mentalcreativity in an increasing atmosphere of freedom. Political freedom andliberation from religious dogma had a powerful impact on creative thinkingduring the period of Enlightenment. Dogmas and superstitions had an incrediblyrestrictive effect on the scope for mental creativity. For example, when theastronomer Copernicus proposed a heliocentric view of the world, it wasrejected because it did not conform to established religious doctrine. WhenGalileo perfected a telescope for viewing the planets, his invention wascondemned by churchmen as an instrument of the devil as it seemed to be sounusual and hence fit to be deemed heretic. Such obscurantist fetters on freedomof thought were shattered only with the coming of the Enlightenment. From thenon the spirit of experimentation began to thrive.

36 互联网使用的四大障碍

It is already received wisdom among those who are working to bridge thedigital division that providing access to technology is only one of manyobstacles that must be addressed. Internet access is not enough. The Children’sPartnership argues that content is one aspect of the digital division that hasbeen neglected. The four content-related barriers to greater Internet uptakeacross society are:

1. local information barriers;

2. literacy barriers;

3. language barriers;

4. cultural diversity barriers.

37 完美竞争的概念及其三大要素

The theoretical ideal developed by economists to establish the conditionsunder which competition would achieve maximum effectiveness is known as“perfect” competition. Although rarely possible, perfect competition, as aconcept, provides a useful benchmark for evaluating performance in actualmarkets. Perfect competition exists when （1） an industry has a large number of businessfirms as well as buyers; （2） the firms on the average are small; and （3） buyers and sellershave complete knowledge of all transactions within the market. The practicalsignificance of a large number of small firms and many buyers is that the powerto influence the behavior of the participants in the market is thoroughlydispersed. In other words, no single person or business has the power todictate the terms on which the exchange of goods and services takes place. Marketresults then are truly impersonal. Under conditions of perfect competition,economists contend, goods and services would be produced as efficiently aspossible—that is, at the lowest possible price and cost—and consumers would getthe maximum amount of the goods and services they desire.

38 不同文化社会对极端行为的态度

The social consequences considered appropriate for unacceptable behavioralso vary widely between, and even within, different societies. Punishment ofcriminals ranges from fines or

humiliation to imprisonment or exile, frombeatings or mutilation to execution. The form of appropriate punishment isaffected by theories of its purpose to prevent or deter the individual fromrepeating the crime, or to deter others from committing the crime, or simply tocause suffering for its own sake in retribution. The success of punishment indeterring crime is difficult to study, in part because of ethical limitationson experiments assigning different punishments to similar criminals, and inpart because of the difficulty of holding other factors constant.

39 生活水平的概念

The standard of living refers to the quality and quantity of goods andservices available to people, and the way these goods and services aredistributed within a population. It is generally measured by standards such asincome inequality, poverty rate, real （i.e. inflation adjusted） income per person.Other measures such as access and quality of health care, educational standardsand social rights are often used too. Examples are access to certain goods （such as number ofrefrigerators per 1,000 people）, or measures of health such as life expectancy. It isthe ease by which people living in a time or place are able to satisfy theirwants.

The idea of a “standard” may be contrasted with the quality of life, whichtakes into account not only the material standard of living, but also othermore subjective factors that contribute to human life, such as leisure, safety,cultural resources, social life, mental health, environmental quality issuesetc. More complex means of measuring well-being must be employed to make suchjudgments, and these are very often political, thus controversial. Even amongtwo nations or societies that have similar material standards of living,quality of life factors may in fact make one of these places more attractive toa given individual or group.

40 竞争与合作

While cooperation is the antithesis of competition, the need or desire tocompete with others is a common impetus that motivates individuals to organizeinto a group and cooperate with each other in order to form a strongercompetitive force. Cooperation in many areas such as farming and housing may bein the form of a cooperative or, alternately, in the form of a conventionalbusiness.

Many people resort to this because they may cooperate by trading with eachother or by altruistic sharing.

Certain forms of cooperation are illegal in some jurisdictions becausethey alter the nature of access by others to economic or other resources. Thus,cooperation in the form of cartels or price-fixing may be illegal.

41 个人主义

Individualism is a term used to describe a moral, political, or socialoutlook that stresses human independence and the importance of individualself-reliance and liberty. Individualists promote the exercise of individualgoals and desires. They oppose most external interference with an individual’schoices—whether by society, the state, or any othergroup or institution. Individualism is therefore opposed to holism,collectivism, fascism, communalism, statism, totalitarianism, andcommunitarianism, which stress that communal, group, societal, racial, ornational goals should take priority over individual goals. Individualism isalso opposed to the view that tradition, religion, or any other form ofexternal moral standard should be used to limit an individual’s choice ofactions.

Individualism has a controversialrelationship with egoism （selfishness）. While some individualists are egoists, theyusually do not argue that selfishness is inherently good. Rather, some arguethat individuals are not duty-bound to any socially-imposed morality and thatindividuals should be free to choose to be selfish （or to choose anyother lifestyle） if they so desire.Others still, such as Ayn Rand, argue against “moral relativism”and claim selfishness to be a virtue.

42 社会责任感

Social responsibility is an ethical or ideological theory that an entity,whether it is a government, corporation, organization or individual, has aresponsibility to society.

There is a large inequality in the means and roles of different entitiesto fulfill their claimed responsibility. This would imply that differententities have different responsibilities, insomuch as states should ensure thecivil rights of their citizens, that corporations should respect and encouragethe human rights of their employees and that citizens should abide by writtenlaws. But social responsibility can mean more than these examples. Many NGOsaccept that their roles and the responsibility of their members as citizens areto help improve society by taking a proactive stance in their societal roles.It can also imply that corporations have an implicit obligation to give back tosociety （such as is claimedas part of corporate social responsibility and/or stakeholder theory）.

Social responsibility is voluntary; it is about going above and beyondwhat is called for by the law （legal responsibility）. It involves an idea that it is better to beproactive toward a problem rather than reactive to a problem. Socialresponsibility means eliminating corrupt, irresponsible or unethical behaviorthat might bring harm to the community, its people, or the environment beforethe behavior happens.

43 社会改革运动和社会激进运动

Reform movements—movementsdedicated to changing some norms, usually legal ones. Examples of such amovement would include a trade union with a goal of increasing workers’ rights,a green movement advocating a set of ecological laws, or a movement supportingintroduction of a capital punishment or right to abortion. Some reform movementsmay advocate a change in custom and moral norms, for example, condemnation ofpornography or proliferation of some religion. The nature of such movements isnot just related to the issue but also to the methods used. There could bereformist or radical methods used to achieve the same end, such as in the caseof making abortion legal and readily available.

Radical movement—movements dedicated to changing value systems. Thoseinvolve fundamental changes, unlike the reform movements, examples would includethe American Civil Rights Movement which demanded full civil rights andequality under the law to all Americans （this movement was broad and included bothradical and reformist elements）, regardless of race, and the Polish Solidarity movementwhich demanded the transformation of communist political and economy systeminto democracy and capitalism.

44 公众知识分子的社会作用

The Public Intellectual communicates information and “truths” about issueson a variety of societal issues; however, this role is seemingly filled byothers, so what makes the Public

Intellectual something warranting a title?Public Intellectuals usually emerge from the educated elite. McKee has shownhow the bulk of North American writers on public intellectuals assume that theywill be academics—people likethemselves—if never “merely”academics, and have therefore a tie toacademia and the power （communication） that such a position holds alongside theability to convey to the wider public their understandings and ideas via arange of media （books,documentaries, films, talks）. It is this converging with the public sphere whichseparates academics with Public Intellectuals.

Today’s public intellectuals speaking from their privileged positions haveto negotiate how to simultaneously speak and act as an insider/outsider and inways that make a difference within the moral consciousness of the population.This is achieved by the public intellectual’s role of deliberate choice—usually not a particularly fashionable one atthe time, seeking to provoke debate in wider circles than just academia. Theyspeak in the issues of the day, often trying to answer unanswerable questionsand acting from a moral necessity more than a career impulse.

45 知识分子的社会作用

Intellectuals have been viewed as a distinct social class, oftensignificantly contributing to the formation and phrasing of ideas as bothcreators and critics of ideology. Intellectuals as a whole may be thought of asupholding the existing order, though some intellectuals specialize in highlyfashionable dissent against the Establishment.

In many definitions, intellectuals are perceived as impervious topropaganda, indoctrination, and self-deception.

Yale Universitypsychologist Stanley Milgram’s seminal series of social psychology experimentsmeasured the willingness of people to obey an authority figure instructing themto perform acts conflicting with their personal consciences. Prof. Milgramlearned that ordinary people can become agents of a destructive process, evenwhen the destructive effects of their work become clear. Despite intelligenceor intellectual capacity, when people are asked to effect actions incompatiblewith fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have theintellectual-moral resources needed to resist authority.