2. 职称英语
  3. That Orientals and Westerners think in different ways is not mere prejudice.

That Orientals and Westerners think in different ways is not mere prejudice.

游客2024-02-05  36
问题     That Orientals and Westerners think in different ways is not mere prejudice. Many psychological studies conducted over the past two decades suggest Westerners have a more individualistic and abstract mental life than do East Asians. Several explanations are proposed to account for different ways of thinking.
    One explanation is that stepping into the modern social, economic and technological situation promotes individualism. However, in Japan, a pretty modern country, its people have retained a collective outlook. A second proposal is that if a place is liable to a higher frequency of infectious disease, it is more dangerous to make contact with strangers, which causes groups in this place to turn inward and tend to be collective. This explanation is also been questioned. Europe has had its share of plagues; probably more than either Japan or Korea. And though in southern China, a source of infection often starts there, this is not true of other parts of that enormous country.
    That led Thomas Talhelm of the University of Virginia and his colleagues to look into a third suggestion; that the crucial difference is agricultural. The West’s staple (主食)is wheat, while the East’s rice. Before the mechanical revolution of agriculture, a farmer who grew rice had to spend twice as many hours doing so as one who grew wheat. To promote efficient agricultural production, especially at times of planting and harvesting, rice-growing societies as far apart as India, Malaysia and Japan all developed cooperative labor exchanges. That is, neighbors arranged their farms’ schedules one after another in order to assist each other during these significant periods. Since, until recently, almost everyone was a farmer, it is a reasonable proposal that such a collective outlook would enjoy a controlling position in a society’s culture and behavior, and might prove so deep rooted that even now, when most people earn their living in other ways, it helps to define their lives. This proposal that the different ways of thinking of East and West are, at least in part, a consequence of their agriculture is worth further exploration. [br] The author’s attitude towards Thomas Talhelm and his colleagues’ suggestion is________.
选项 A、indifferent
B、objective
C、critical
D、disappointed
答案 B
解析 本题考查本文作者对托马斯.托尔赫姆和他的同事们关于东西方思维方式差异的解释的态度。原文第三段末句提到，这种假说，即东西方思维方式的差异至少部分可归因于农业，是值得进一步探究的。由此推测，作者对这种解释持客观的态度，故答案为B。A“漠不关心的”、C“批判的”和D“失望的”均与作者觉得这种解释值得进一步探究的态度相矛盾，故排除。
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