Unit 12

Confessions of a Miseducated Man

Life Storywriter,

editor,

citizen diplomat,

promoter of holistic healing,

unflagging optimist

Life Storyborn in New Jersey, on June 24, 1915.

a fine athlete and a fine writer.

writer and editor with brief stints at the New York Evening Post and Current History.

executive editor of the Saturday Review of Literature (later Saturday Review)

"Inevitably, an individual is measured by his or her largest

concerns."

-from Human Options, by Norman Cousins

Lifelong concernsWar and peace, world governance, justice, human freedom, the human impact on the environment, and health and wholeness. His primary platform for promoting his views: editor of Saturday Review for the better part of forty years.

Belief in world governanceDuring World War II Cousins was a member of the editorial board for the Overseas Bureau of the Office of War Information and was cochairman of the 1943 Victory Book Campaign.

He also came to believe that enduring world peace could only be achieved through effective world governance.

Belief in World Governance

In Saturday Review, Cousins affirmed that “The need for world government was clear before August 6, 1945, but Hiroshima( 广岛 ) and Nagasaki （长崎） raise that need to such dimensions that it can no longer be ignored."

Belief in World FederalismIn Who Speaks for Man, Cousins expanded his arguments for world federalism and for a world no longer based on the supremacy of nationalism and other superficial differences: "The new education must be less concerned with sophistication than compassion. It must recognize the hazards of tribalism. It must teach man the most difficult lesson of all—to look at someone anywhere in the world and be able to see the image of himself. The old emphasis upon superficial differences that separate peoples must give way to education for citizenship in the human community. "With such an education and with such self-understanding, it is possible that some nation or people may come forward with the vital inspiration that men need no less than food. Leadership on this higher level does not require mountains of gold or thundering propaganda. It is concerned with human destiny. Human destiny is the issue. People will respond." He concluded the book with this hopeful affirmation: "War is an invention of the human mind. The human mind can invent peace with justice."

Contribution to Peace and Human Well-being

His concern, for the victims of Hiroshima, following a postwar visit to that devastated city, became quite personal. He arranged, with funding from Saturday Review readers, for medical treatment in the United States for twenty-four young Japanese women who came to be known as the "Hiroshima Maidens." Saturday Review readers also supported the medical care of 400 Japanese children orphaned by the atomic bomb. In the 1950s Cousins and his wife legally adopted one of the "Maidens." A few years later, again with the support of Saturday Review readers, Cousins helped create a program for the " thirty-five Polish women who had been victims of Nazi medical experiments during the war.

Criticism of Atmospheric Nuclear Testing

During the 1950s Cousins was outspoken in his criticism of atmospheric nuclear testing. In 1957 he was among the founders and became the first cochairman of the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy (SANE). In the early 1960s he became an unofficial citizen diplomat, facilitating communication between the Vatican, the Kremlin, and the White House which helped to lead to the Soviet-American nuclear test ban treaty. Upon ratification of the treaty in 1963, President Kennedy publicly thanked Cousins for his help with the treaty, and Pope John XXIII awarded Cousins his personal medallion.

Anti-war voiceoppose the American role in Vietnam; oppose the nuclear arms race, argue for a strengthened United Nations leading to world government.

As he wrote: "The essential lesson most people still resist is that they are members of one species. It is this that we all share—the emergence of a common destiny and the beginning of the perception, however misty, that something beyond the nation will have to be brought into being if the human race is to have any meaning."

Attitude towards Disease

a regimen （养生法） :high doses of vitamin Cpositive emotions (including daily doses of belly laughter)

"the life force may be the least understood force on earth“Books:

“Anatomy （剖析） of an Illness as Perceived by the Patient: Reflections on Healing and Regeneration,”“The Healing Heart: Antidotes to Panic and Helplessness.”

Reflection on Atomic Bomb

I wonder if we might go back to that day in August when the world learned of the dropping of the atomic bomb. As editor of a leading magazine in the United States, what was your reaction? What were your thoughts, and what did you do?

•And one had a feeling, or at least I did, that a curtain had dropped on human history and that a new curtain was going up, and that no one quite knew what the new script would be. But the fact that the old play had ended seemed rather clear. It also seemed to me that a blanket of obsolescence( 荒废，退化 ) had been thrown over human history, because all the things that human beings did, in terms of civilization, suddenly seemed to have no validity because there was now no mechanism by which human beings could provide for a reasonably secure future. We had always lived with the habits of war, and now methods for fighting war represented an entirely new dimension in warfare which threatened the species as a whole. But the habits of war, and the habits of thinking about relations among nations, hadn't changed, and so we were trapped. And so I say there was a sense that the curtain had come down on one stage in human history and a new curtain was going up, the script for which had not been written.

Reflection on Atomic Bomb

And you became an even more intense an advocate of world government and world federalism as a way out. Since I am opposed to anarchy, and since the principle danger in the world was anarchy on a world level, I couldn't take leave of my convictions about the dangers of anarchy just because nations created this situation.

Quotes by Norman Cousins

Hearty laughter is a good way to jog internally without having to go outdoors. The more serious the illness, the more important it is for you to fight back, mobilizing all your resources-spiritual, emotional, intellectual, physical.Your heaviest artillery will be your will to live. Keep that big gun going.Hope is independent of the apparatus of logic.

Quotes by Norman Cousins

History is a vast early warning system. Life is an adventure in forgiveness.A library, to modify the famous metaphor of Socrates, should be the delivery room for the birth of ideas - a place where history comes to life. If something comes to life in others because of you, then you have made an approach to immortality.

Quotes by Norman Cousins

Just as there is no loss of basic energy in the universe, so no thought or action is without its effects, present or ultimate, seen or unseen, felt or unfelt.

Wisdom consists of the anticipation of consequences.

Summary of his life"In June 1983 Cousins told the graduating class of Harvard Medical School that the "conquest of war and the pursuit of social justice... must become our grand preoccupation and magnificent obsession." These certainly were the concerns that obsessed him throughout his life, and over the years he battled through his writings and actions to make them matters of more general concern. Driven by the shock and portent of Hiroshima, he worked to combat unchecked nationalism, promote federalism, and build a sense of world citizenship, in the belief that people as a whole might yet construct a new world order of peace and justice. His optimism, intellectual curiosity, and commitment to the preservation of human life were equally unquenchable."

Words-ship表示“情况” , “ 状态” , “ 性质” , 如 :hardship, friendship ， sportsmanship 运动员的风度，精神 表示“身分” , “ 职业” , 如 :kingship ，王权，王位，君主政体； professorship; internship 实习医生； apprenticeship 学徒身份、期限 ; dictatorship 独裁，专政； membership 成员资格 / 身份表示“技巧” , “ 技能” , 如 :marksmanship 枪法； craftsmanship 技艺，技能；

Mis-Misapply, misaim, misinform, misinterprete曲解 , misunderstanding, mislead 误导

Secure a. v.Free from danger or attack: 安全的没有危险或免受攻击的：a secure fortress.Reliable, dependable 可靠的；可依赖的：secure investments. 可靠的投资

They ___ (Compression) two-month’s work into one.On the top of very high mountains snow ___ throughout the year. (Persistence)The boy tried to ___ the scene it was described. (visual)Some people fail to see the fallacy of “white ___” . (supreme)What is the difference between “____” and “publicize”? (propaganda)A teacher should not show ___ for any one of his pupils. (prefer)According to the treaty, some countries can enjoy ___ tariff rates. (prefer)

ParaphraseThe differences were all but wiped out by the similarities.

The differences became so insignificant compared with the similarities, they were almost completely pushed aside and forgotten.Wipe out:All but: almost, nearly

This larger unity was the most important central fact of our time – something on which people could build at a time when hope seemed misty, almost unreal.

What can we build? our hope in the future of the mainkind

What is “this larger unity”?The human community as a whole

But to stop there was like clearing the ground without any idea of what was to be built on it.

If we only respect differences but pay no attention to similarities, it will be aimless/unconstructive.

It was the mark of a rounded man to be well traveled.

Rounded man: someone who has received a well-rounded education. Not one-sided, but complete and varied.For tribalism had persisted from earliest times, though it had taken refined formsTribalism: nationalism if also a enlarged form of it. 部落主义 民族主义

The universe itself does not hold life cheaply. Life is a rare occurrence…

The earth is the only place where life can be found, so the universe seems to favor life more/take life seriously. And the respect of life is the very basis on which we must build the future world community.

Leadership on this higher level does not require mountains of gold or thundering propaganda.

This higher level: spiritual/moral level Leadership on the spiritual/moral level is not based on money or propaganda.

DiscussionWhat does the author think of the differences between races and nations? What do you think?Do you agree that tribalism is standing in our way to progress today?

1. Obviously, the Chairman’s remarks at the conference were ___ and not planned.

a. Substantial b. spontaneous

c. Simultaneous d. synthetic

2. For the success of the project, the company should ___ the most of the opportunities at hand.

a. obtain b. grasp

c. catch d. make

3. Failure to follow the club rules ___ him from the volleyball team.

a. disfavoured b. dispelled

c. disqualified d. dismissed

Vocabulary

4. The discovery of new oil-fields in various parts of the country filled the government with ____ hope.

a. eternal b. infinite

c. ceaseless d. everlasting

5. At first the company refused to purchase the equipment, but this decision was ____ revised.

a. subsequently b. successively

c. Predominantly d. preliminarily

6. The local police are authorized to ___ anyone’s movements as they think of it.

a. pause b. halt

c. repel d. keep

Vocabulary

7. The local authorities realized the need to make ___ for elderly people in their housing programs.

a. Preparation b. requirement

c. Specification d. provision

8. Twelve is to three __ four is to one.

a. what b. as

c. that d. like

9. Things went well for her during her early life but in her middle age her ___ seemed to change.

a. affair b. luck

c. event d. chanceVocabulary