It’s easy to get the sense these days that you’ve stumbled into a party with some powerful drug that dramatically alters identity. The faces are familiar, but the words coming out of them aren’t. Something has happened to a lot of people you used to think you knew. They’ve changed into something like their own opposite.
There’s Bill Gates, who these days is spending less time earning money than giving it away--and pulling other billionaires into the deep end of global philanthropy(慈善事业) with him. There’s historian Francis Fukuyama, leading a whole gang of disaffected fellow travelers away from neoconservatism. To flip-flopis human. It can still sometimes be a political liability, evidence of a flaky disposition or rank opportunism. But there are circumstances in which not to reverse course seems almost pathological(病态的). He’s a model of consistency, Stephen Colbert said last year of George W. Bush:" He believes the same thing Wednesday that he believed on Monday -- no matter what happened on Tuesday."
Over the past three years, I found people who had pulled a big U-turn in their lives. Often the insight came in a forehead-smiting moment in the middle of the night: I’ve got it all wrong.
It looked at first like a sprinkling of outliers beyond the curve of normal human experience. But when you stepped back, a pattern emerged. What these personal turns had in common was the apprehension that we’re all connected. Everything leans on something, is both dependent and depended on.
"The difference between you and me," a visiting Chinese student told University of Michigan psychologist Richard Nisbett not long ago," is that I think the world is a circle, and you think it’s a line." The remark prompted the professor to write a book, The Geography of Thought, about the differences between the Western and the Asian mind.
To Western thinking, the world is linear; you can chop it up and analyze it, and we can all work on our little part of the project independently until it’s solved. The classically Eastern mind, according to Nisbett, sees things differently: the world isn’t a length of rope but a vast, closed chain, incomprehensibly complex and ever changing. When you look at life from this second perspective, some unlikely connections reveal themselves.
I realized this was what almost all the U-turns had in common: people had swung around to face East. They had stopped thinking in a line and started thinking in a circle. Morality was looking less like a set of rules and more like a story, one in which they were part of an ensemble cast, no longer the star.
According to the text, one difference between Western and Eastern minds was that ______.
A:the world in Eastern thought is a line while in Western thought is a circle. B:Western mind is more comprehensive than Eastern mind. C:Western mind is more concerned of connections. D:Eastern mind considers things more like a whole instead of separate parts.
Text 4
The recent, apparently successful prediction by mathematical models of an appearance of El Nifio—the warm ocean current that periodically develops along the Pacific coast of South America -- has excited researchers. Jacob Bjerkness pointed out over 20 years ago how winds might create either abnormally warm or abnormally cold water in the eastern equatorial Pacific. Nonetheless, until the development of the models no one could explain why conditions should regularly shift from one to the other, as happens in the periodic oscillations between appearance of the warm El Nifio and the cold so-called anti-El Nifio. The answer, al least if the current model that links the behavior of the ocean to that of the atmosphere is correct, is to be found in the ocean.
It has long been known that during an El Niflo, two conditions exist: (1) unusually warm water extends along the eastern Pacific, principally along the coasts of Ecuador and Peru, and (2) winds blow from the west into the warmer air rising over the warm water in the east. These winds tend to create a feedback mechanism by driving the warmer surface water into a "pile" that blocks the normal upwelling of deeper, cold water in the east and further warms the eastern water, thus strengthening the wind still more. The contribution of the model is to show that the winds of an El Nifio, which raise sea level in the east, simultaneously send a signal to the west lowering sea level. According to the model, that signal is generated as a negative Rossby wave, a wave of depressed, or negative, sea level that moves westward parallel to the equator at 25 to 85 kilometers per day. Taking months to traverse the Pacific, Rossby waves march to the western boundary of the Pacific basin, which is modeled as a smooth wall but in reality consists of quite irregular island chains, such as the Philippines and Indonesia.
When the waves meet the western boundary, they are reflected, and the model predicts that Rossby waves will be broken into numerous coastal Kelvin waves carrying the same negative sea-level signal. These eventually shoot toward the equator, and then head eastward along the equator propelled by the rotation of the Earth at a speed of about 250 kilometers per day. When enough Kelvin waves of sufficient amplitude arrive from the western Pacific, their negative sea-level signal overcomes the feedback mechanism tending to raise the sea level, and they begin to drive the system into the opposite cold mode. This produces a gradual shift in winds, one that will eventually send positive sea-level Rossby waves westward, waves that will eventually return as cold cycle-ending positive Kelvin waves beginning another warming cycle.
A:The arrival in the eastern Pacific of negative sea-level Kelvin waves. B:An increase in the speed at which negative Rossby waves cross the Pacific. C:A shift in the direction of the winds produced by the start of an anti-El Nifio elsewhere in the Pacific. D:The reflection of Kelvin waves after they reach the eastern boundary of the Pacific, along Ecuador and Peru.
Many in the Middle East have difficulty in adjusting themselves to the new situation created by the departure of the imperial powers. For the first time in almost 200 years, the rulers and people of the Middle East have to accept the final responsibility for their own affairs, to make their own mistakes and to accept the consequences. This is difficult to internalize, even to perceive, after so long a period. For the entire lifetimes of those who formulate and conduct policy at the present time and of their predecessors for many generations, vital decisions were made elsewhere, ultimate control lay elsewhere, and the principal task of statesmanship and diplomacy was as far as possible to avoid or reduce the dangers of this situation and to exploit such opportunities as it might from time to time offer. It is very difficult to forsake the habits not just of a lifetime but of a whole era of history. The difficulty is much greater when alien cultural, social and economic preeminence continues and even increases, despite the ending of alien political and military domination.
Military and to a growing extent political intervention by the West has indeed ended, but the impact of its science and culture, its technology, amenities and institutions remains and even increases. As in other parts of the non-Western world, this impact has been and will be enormous. In these circumstances, it is natural that Middle Easterners should continue to assume—and proceed on the assumption—that real responsibility and decision still lie elsewhere. In its crudest form, this belief leads to wild and strange conspiracy theories directed against those whom they regard as their enemies—Israel, and more generally the Jews, the United States, and more generally the West. No theory is too absurd to be asserted or too preposterous to be widely and instantly believed. Even among more responsible statesmen and analysts, a similar belief in alien power, albeit in a less crude form, often seems to guide both analysis and policy. Some even go so far as to invite outside intervention, presumable in the belief that only outside powers have the capacity to make and enforce decisions. A case in point is the constant appeal to the United States to involve itself in the Arab Israel conflict, oddly coupled with the repeated accusation of "American imperialism. "
This state of mind is likely to continue for some time, with appeals for support or even intervention to the United States, to Russia and even to the European Union. In time, no doubt, Middle Eastern governments and people will learn how to use this window of opportunity to the best advantage—that is, of course, if the window remains open long enough.
The word "this" in the third sentence of Paragraph 1 refers to______.
A:the departure of the imperial powers B:the final responsibility of the Middle Eastern countries for their own affairs C:the consequence created by the departure of the imperial powers D:the fact that the Middle Eastern countries have to be responsible for their own affairs
Text 3
It’s easy to get the sense these days
that you’ve stumbled into a party with some powerful drug that dramatically
alters identity. The faces are familiar, but the words coming out of them
aren’t. Something has happened to a lot of people you used to think you knew.
They’ve changed into something like their own opposite. There’s Bill Gates, who these days is spending less time earning money than giving it away--and pulling other billionaires into the deep end of global philanthropy(慈善事业) with him. There’s historian Francis Fukuyama, leading a whole gang of disaffected fellow travelers away from neoconservatism. To flip-flopis human. It can still sometimes be a political liability, evidence of a flaky disposition or rank opportunism. But there are circumstances in which not to reverse course seems almost pathological(病态的). He’s a model of consistency, Stephen Colbert said last year of George W. Bush:" He believes the same thing Wednesday that he believed on Monday -- no matter what happened on Tuesday." Over the past three years, I found people who had pulled a big U-turn in their lives. Often the insight came in a forehead-smiting moment in the middle of the night: I’ve got it all wrong. It looked at first like a sprinkling of outliers beyond the curve of normal human experience. But when you stepped back, a pattern emerged. What these personal turns had in common was the apprehension that we’re all connected. Everything leans on something, is both dependent and depended on. "The difference between you and me," a visiting Chinese student told University of Michigan psychologist Richard Nisbett not long ago," is that I think the world is a circle, and you think it’s a line." The remark prompted the professor to write a book, The Geography of Thought, about the differences between the Western and the Asian mind. To Western thinking, the world is linear; you can chop it up and analyze it, and we can all work on our little part of the project independently until it’s solved. The classically Eastern mind, according to Nisbett, sees things differently: the world isn’t a length of rope but a vast, closed chain, incomprehensibly complex and ever changing. When you look at life from this second perspective, some unlikely connections reveal themselves. I realized this was what almost all the U-turns had in common: people had swung around to face East. They had stopped thinking in a line and started thinking in a circle. Morality was looking less like a set of rules and more like a story, one in which they were part of an ensemble cast, no longer the star. |
A:the world in Eastern thought is a line while in Western thought is a circle. B:Western mind is more comprehensive than Eastern mind. C:Western mind is more concerned of connections. D:Eastern mind considers things more like a whole instead of separate parts.
It’s easy to get the sense these days that you’ve stumbled into a party with some powerful drug that dramatically alters identity. The faces are familiar, but the words coming out of them aren’t. Something has happened to a lot of people you used to think you knew. They’ve changed into something like their own opposite.
There’s Bill Gates, who these days is spending less time earning money than giving it away--and pulling other billionaires into the deep end of global philanthropy(慈善事业) with him. There’s historian Francis Fukuyama, leading a whole gang of disaffected fellow travelers away from neoconservatism. To flip-flopis human. It can still sometimes be a political liability, evidence of a flaky disposition or rank opportunism. But there are circumstances in which not to reverse course seems almost pathological(病态的). He’s a model of consistency, Stephen Colbert said last year of George W. Bush:" He believes the same thing Wednesday that he believed on Monday -- no matter what happened on Tuesday."
Over the past three years, I found people who had pulled a big U-turn in their lives. Often the insight came in a forehead-smiting moment in the middle of the night: I’ve got it all wrong.
It looked at first like a sprinkling of outliers beyond the curve of normal human experience. But when you stepped back, a pattern emerged. What these personal turns had in common was the apprehension that we’re all connected. Everything leans on something, is both dependent and depended on.
"The difference between you and me," a visiting Chinese student told University of Michigan psychologist Richard Nisbett not long ago," is that I think the world is a circle, and you think it’s a line." The remark prompted the professor to write a book, The Geography of Thought, about the differences between the Western and the Asian mind.
To Western thinking, the world is linear; you can chop it up and analyze it, and we can all work on our little part of the project independently until it’s solved. The classically Eastern mind, according to Nisbett, sees things differently: the world isn’t a length of rope but a vast, closed chain, incomprehensibly complex and ever changing. When you look at life from this second perspective, some unlikely connections reveal themselves.
I realized this was what almost all the U-turns had in common: people had swung around to face East. They had stopped thinking in a line and started thinking in a circle. Morality was looking less like a set of rules and more like a story, one in which they were part of an ensemble cast, no longer the star.
A:the world in Eastern thought is a line while in Western thought is a circle B:Western mind is more comprehensive than Eastern mind C:Western mind is more concerned of connections D:Eastern mind considers things more like a whole instead of separate parts
Many in the Middle East have difficulty in adjusting themselves to the new situation created by the departure of the imperial powers. For the first time in almost 200 years, the rulers and people of the Middle East have to accept the final responsibility for their own affairs, to make their own mistakes and to accept the consequences. This is difficult to internalize, even to perceive, after so long a period. For the entire lifetimes of those who formulate and conduct policy at the present time and of their predecessors for many generations, vital decisions were made elsewhere, ultimate control lay elsewhere, and the principal task of statesmanship and diplomacy was as far as possible to avoid or reduce the dangers of this situation and to exploit such opportunities as it might from time to time offer. It is very difficult to forsake the habits not just of a lifetime but of a whole era of history. The difficulty is much greater when alien cultural, social and economic preeminence continues and even increases, despite the ending of alien political and military domination.
Military and to a growing extent political intervention by the West has indeed ended, but the impact of its science and culture, its technology, amenities and institutions remains and even increases. As in other parts of the non-Western world, this impact has been and will be enormous. In these circumstances, it is natural that Middle Easterners should continue to assume—and proceed on the assumption—that real responsibility and decision still lie elsewhere. In its crudest form, this belief leads to wild and strange conspiracy theories directed against those whom they regard as their enemies—Israel, and more generally the Jews, the United States, and more generally the West. No theory is too absurd to be asserted or too preposterous to be widely and instantly believed. Even among more responsible statesmen and analysts, a similar belief in alien power, albeit in a less crude form, often seems to guide both analysis and policy. Some even go so far as to invite outside intervention, presumable in the belief that only outside powers have the capacity to make and enforce decisions. A case in point is the constant appeal to the United States to involve itself in the Arab Israel conflict, oddly coupled with the repeated accusation of "American imperialism. "
This state of mind is likely to continue for some time, with appeals for support or even intervention to the United States, to Russia and even to the European Union. In time, no doubt, Middle Eastern governments and people will learn how to use this window of opportunity to the best advantage—that is, of course, if the window remains open long enough.
The word "this" in the third sentence of Paragraph 1 refers to()
A:the departure of the imperial powers B:the final responsibility of the Middle Eastern countries for their own affairs C:the consequence created by the departure of the imperial powers D:the fact that the Middle Eastern countries have to be responsible for their own affairs
Many in the Middle East have difficulty in adjusting themselves to the new situation created by the departure of the imperial powers. For the first time in almost 200 years, the rulers and people of the Middle East have to accept the final responsibility for their own affairs, to make their own mistakes and to accept the consequences. This is difficult to internalize, even to perceive, after so long a period. For the entire lifetimes of those who formulate and conduct policy at the present time and of their predecessors for many generations, vital decisions were made elsewhere, ultimate control lay elsewhere, and the principal task of statesmanship and diplomacy was as far as possible to avoid or reduce the dangers of this situation and to exploit such opportunities as it might from time to time offer. It is very difficult to forsake the habits not just of a lifetime but of a whole era of history. The difficulty is much greater when alien cultural, social and economic preeminence continues and even increases, despite the ending of alien political and military domination.
Military and to a growing extent political intervention by the West has indeed ended, but the impact of its science and culture, its technology, amenities and institutions remains and even increases. As in other parts of the non-Western world, this impact has been and will be enormous. In these circumstances, it is natural that Middle Easterners should continue to assume—and proceed on the assumption—that real responsibility and decision still lie elsewhere. In its crudest form, this belief leads to wild and strange conspiracy theories directed against those whom they regard as their enemies—Israel, and more generally the Jews, the United States, and more generally the West. No theory is too absurd to be asserted or too preposterous to be widely and instantly believed. Even among more responsible statesmen and analysts, a similar belief in alien power, albeit in a less crude form, often seems to guide both analysis and policy. Some even go so far as to invite outside intervention, presumable in the belief that only outside powers have the capacity to make and enforce decisions. A case in point is the constant appeal to the United States to involve itself in the Arab Israel conflict, oddly coupled with the repeated accusation of "American imperialism. "
This state of mind is likely to continue for some time, with appeals for support or even intervention to the United States, to Russia and even to the European Union. In time, no doubt, Middle Eastern governments and people will learn how to use this window of opportunity to the best advantage—that is, of course, if the window remains open long enough.
A:the departure of the imperial powers B:the final responsibility of the Middle Eastern countries for their own affairs C:the consequence created by the departure of the imperial powers D:the fact that the Middle Eastern countries have to be responsible for their own affairs
A:only for purification in Eastern Mediterranean region and India. B:only for purification in America. C:"after philosophical awakenings in America. D:alter philosophical awakenings in Eastern Mediterranean region and Indi