英语辩论手册

1 Index TOC \o "1-3" \h \z \u 1. It’s high time men ceased to regard women as second-class citizens 2 2. World governments should conduct serious campaigns against smoking 3 3. Television is doing irreparable harm 4 4. Any form of education other than co-education is simply unthinkable 5 5.Camping is the ideal way of spending a holiday 6 6. New fashions in clothing are created solely for the commercial exploitation of women 7 7. We should all grow fat and be happy 8 8.The younger generation knows best 8 9.only stricter traffic laws can prevent accidents 9 10.Parents are too permissive with their children nowadays 10 11.Advertiers perform a useful service to the community 11 12.Pop stars certainly earn their money 12 13.Vicious and dangerous sports should be banned by law 13 14.Transistor radios should be prohibited in public places 13 15.The only thing people are interested in today is earning more money 14 16.Compulsory military service should be abolished in all countries 15 17.Childhood is certainly not the happiest time of your life 16 18.Untidy people are not nice to know 17 19.The only way to travel is on foot 18 20.Examinations exert a pernicious influence on education 18 21.Books,plays and films should be censored 19 22.People should be rewarded according to ability, not according to age and experience 20 23. The tourist trade contributes absolutely nothing to increasing understanding between nations 21 24. Only a madman would choose to live in a large modern city 22 25.Equality of opportunity in the twentieth century has not destroyed the class system 23 26. No one wants to live to be a hundred 24 27.Capital punishment is the only way to deter criminals 24 28. The space race is the world’s biggest money waster 25 29.Violence can do nothing to diminish race prejudice 26 30. The most important of all human qualities is a sense of humour 27 1. It’s high time men ceased to regard women as second-class citizens This is supposed to be an enlightened age, but you wouldn’t think so if you could hear what the average man thinks of the average woman. Women won their independence years ago. After a long, bitter struggle, they now enjoy the same educational opportunities as men in most parts of the world. They have proved repeatedly that they are equal and often superior to men in almost every field. The hard-fought battle for recognition has been won, but it is by no means over. It is men, not women who still carry on thee sex war because their attitude remains basically hostile. Even in the most progressive societies, women continue to be regarded as second-rate citizens. To hear some men talk, you’d think that women belonged to a different species! On the surface, the comments made by men about women’s abilities seem light-hearted. The same tired jokes about women heartedness does not conceal the real contempt that men feel for women. However much men sneer at women, their claims to superiority are not borne out by statistics. Let’s consider the matter of driving, for instance. We all know that women cause far fewer accidents than men. They are too conscientious and responsible to drive like maniacs. But this is a minor quibble. Women have succeeded in any job you care to name. As politicians, soldiers, doctors, factory-hands, university professors, farmers, company directors, lawyers, bus-conductors, scientists and presidents of countries they have often put men to shame. And we must remember that they frequently succeed brilliantly in all these fields in addition to bearing and rearing children. Yet men go on maintaining the fiction that there are many jobs women can’t do. Top-level political negotiation between countries, business and banking are almost entirely controlled by men, who jealously guard their so-called ‘rights’. Even in otherwise enlightened places like Switzerland women haven’t even been given the vote. This situation is preposterous! The arguments that men put forward to exclude women from these fields are all too familiar. Women, they say, are unreliable and much on intuition and instinct to arrive at decisions. They are not even capable of thinking clearly. Yet when women prove their abilities, men refuse to acknowledge them and give them their due. So much for a man’s ability to think clearly! The truth is that men cling to their supremacy because of their basic inferiority complex. They shun real competition. They know in their hearts that women are superior and they are afraid of being beaten at their own game. One of the most important can be sure that if women were allowed to sit round the conference table, they would succeed brilliantly, as they always do, where men have failed for centuries. Some things are too important to be left to men! 2. World governments should conduct serious campaigns against smoking If you smoke and you still don’t believe that there’s a definite link between smoking and bronchial troubles, heart disease and lung cancer, then you are certainly deceiving yourself. No one will accuse you of hypocrisy. Let us just say that you are suffering from a bad case of wishful thinking. This needn’t make you too uncomfortable because you are in good company. Whenever the subject of smoking and health is raised, the governments of most countries hear no evil, see no evil an smell no evil. Admittedly, a few governments have taken timid measures. In Britain, for instance, cigarette advertising has been banned on television continues to puff its way to smoky, cancerous death. You don’t have to look very far to find out why the official reactions to medical findings have been so lukewarm. The answer is simply money. Tobacco is a wonderful commodity to tax. It’s almost like a tax on our daily bread. In tax revenue alone, the government of Britain collects enough from smokers to pay for its entire educational facilities. So while the authorities point out ever so discreetly that smoking may, conceivably, be harmful, it doesn’t do to shout too loudly about it. This is surely the most short-sighted policy you could imagine. While money is eagerly collected in vast sums with one hand, it is paid out in increasingly vaster sums with the other. Enormous amounts are spent on cancer research and on efforts to cure people suffering from the disease. Countless valuable lives are lost. In the long run, there is no doubt that everybody would be much better-off if smoking were banned altogether. Of course, we are not ready for much drastic action. But if the governments of the world were honestly concerned about welfare of their peoples, you’d think they’d conduct aggressive anti-smoking campaigns. Far from it! The tobacco industry is allowed to spend staggering sums on advertising. Its advertising is as insidious as it is dishonest. We are never shown pictures of real smokers coughing up their lungs early in the morning. That would never do. The advertisements always depict virile, clean-shaven young men. They suggest it is manly to smoke ,even positively healthy! Smoking is associated with the great open-air life, with beautiful girls, true love and togetherness. What utter nonsense! For a start, governments could begin by banning all cigarette and tobacco advertising and should then conduct anti-smoking advertising campaigns of their own. Smoking should be banned in all public places like theatres, cinemas and restaurants. Great efforts should be made to inform young people especially of warning-say, a picture of a death’s head-should be included in every packet of cigarettes that is sold. As individuals we are certainly weak, but if governments acted honestly and courageously, they could protect us from ourselves. 3. Television is doing irreparable harm ‘Yes, but what did we use to do before there was television?’ How often we hear statements like this! Television hasn’t been with us all that long, but we are already beginning to forget what the world was like without it. Before we admitted the one-eyed monster into our homes, we never found it difficult to occupy our spare time. We used to enjoy civilized pleasures. For instance, we used to have hobbies, we used to entertain our friends and be entertained by them, we used to go outside for our amusements to theatres, cinemas, restaurants and sporting events. We even used to read books and listen to music and broadcast talks occasionally. All that belongs to the past. Now all our free time is regulated by the ‘goggle box’. We rush home or gulp down our meals to be in time for this or that programme. We have even given up sitting at table and having a leisurely evening meal, exchanging the news of the day. A sandwich and a glass of beer will do ---anything, providing it doesn’t interfere with the programme. The monster demands and obtains absolute silence and attention. If any member of the family dares to open his mouth during a programme, he is quickly silenced. Whole generations are growing up addicted to the telly. Food is left uneaten, homework undone and sleep is lost. The telly is a universal pacifier. It is now standard practice for mother to keep the children quiet by putting them in the living-room and turning on the set. It doesn’t matter that the children will watch rubbishy commercials or spectacles of sadism and violence---so long as they are quiet. There is a limit to the amount of creative talent available in the world. Every day, television consumes vast quantities of creative work. That is why most of the programme are so bad: it is impossible to keep pace with the demand and maintain high standards as well. When millions watch the same programmes, the whole world becomes a village, and society is reduced to the conditions which obtain in pre - literate communities. We become utterly dependent on the two most primitive media of communication: pictures and the spoken word. Television encourages passive enjoyment. We become content with second-hand experiences. It is so easy to sit in our armchairs watching others working. Little by little, television cuts us off from the real world. We get so lazy, we choose to spend a fine day in semi-darkness, glued to our sets, rather than go out into the world itself. Television may be a splendid medium of communication, but it prevents us from communicating with each other. We only becoe aware how totally irrelevant television is to real living when we spend a holiday by the sea or in the mountains, far away from civilization. In quiet, natural surrounding, we quickly discover how little we miss the hypnotic tyranny of King Telly. 4. Any form of education other than co-education is simply unthinkable Imagine being asked to spend twelve or so years of your life in society which consisted only of members of your own sex. How would you react? Unless there was something definitely wrong with you, you wouldn’t be too happy about it, to say the least. It is all the more surprising therefore that so many parents in the world choose to impose such abnormal conditions on their children—conditions which they themselves wouldn’t put up with for one minute! Any discussion of this topic is bound to question the aims of education. Stuffing children’s heads full of knowledge is far from being foremost among them. One of the chief aims of education is to equip future citizens with all they require to take their place in adult society. Now adult society is mad up of men and women, so how can a segregated school possibly offer the right sort of preparation for it? Anyone entering adult society after years of segregation can only be in for a shock. A co-educational school offers children noting less than a true version of society in miniature. Boys and girls are given the opportunity to get to know each other, to learn to live together from their earliest years. They are put in a position where they can compare themselves with each other in terms of academic ability, athletic achievement and many of the extra-curricular activities which are part of school life. What a practical advantage it is to be able to put on a school play in which the male parts will be taken by boys and the female parts by girls! What nonsense co-education makes of the argument that boys are cleverer than girls or vice versa. When segregated, boys and girls are made to feel that they are a race apart. Rivalry between the sexes is fostered. In a co-educational school, everything falls into its proper place. But perhaps the greatest contribution of co-education is the healthy attitude to life it encourages. Boys don’t grow up believing that women are mysterious creatures-airy goddesses, more like book-illustrations to a fairy-tale, than human beings. Girls don’t grow up imagining that men are romantic heroes. Years of living together at school dispel illusions of this kink. There are no goddesses with freckles, pigtails, piercing voices and inky fingers. There are no romantic heroes with knobbly (粗糙的)knees, dirty fingernails and unkempt hair. The awkward stage of adolescence brings into sharp focus some of the physical and emotional problems involved in growing up. These can better be overcome in a co-educational environment. Segregated schools sometimes provide the right conditions for sexual deviation. This is hardly possible under a co-educational system. When the time comes for the pupils to leave school, they are fully prepared to enter society as well-adjusted adults. They have already had years of experience in coping with many of the problems that face men and women. 5.Camping is the ideal way of spending a holiday There was a time when camping was considered to be a poor way of spending a holiday: Ok for boy scouts and hard-up students, but hardly the thing for sophisticated, comfort-loving adults. The adults have at last discovered that the boy scouts havereally been on to a good thing all these years. If you go camping, it no longer means that you will be bitten to death by mosquitoes; suffocate or freeze in a sleeping-bag; hump gargantuan weights on your back. Camping has become the great pursuit of motorists the world over. All the discomforts associated with it have been miraculously whisked away. For a modest outlay, you can have a comfortable, insulated tent. For a not-so-modest outlay, you can have an elaborate affair which resembles a portable bungalow, complete with three bedrooms, a living-room, a kitchen and a porch. The portable furniture is light and comfortable; the gas stove brews excellent coffee or grills a tender steak; the refrigerator keeps the beer and ice-cream cold; and as for a good night’s rest, well, you literally sleep on air. What more could you want? No wonder the great rush is on. You see, camping has so much to offer. You enjoy absolute freedom. You have none of the headaches of advance hotel booking or driving round and round a city at midnight looking for a room. There are no cold hotel breakfasts, no surly staff to tip. For a ludicrously small sum, you can enjoy comforts which few hotels could provide. Modern camping sites are well equipped with hot and cold running water and even shops and dance floors! Low-cost holidays make camping an attractive proposition. But above all, you enjoy tremendous mobility. If you don’t like a place, or if it is too crowded, you can simply get up and go. Conversely, you can stay as long as you like. You’re the boss. And then there’s the sheer fun of it—especially if you have a family. Moping around a stuffy hotel room wondering what they are going to give you for dinner is a tedious business. By comparison, it’s so exciting to arrive at a camp site, put up your tent and start getting a meal ready. You are active all the time and you are always close to nature. Imagine yourself beside some clear stream with mountains in the background. Night is falling, everything is peaceful—except for the delightful sound of chops sizzling in the pan! Camping provides you with a real change from everyday living. You get up earlier, go to bed earlier, develop a hearty appetite. You have enormous opportunity to meet people of various nationalities and to share your pleasures with them. People are so friendly when they are relaxed. How remote the strained world of hotels seems when you are camping! How cold and unfriendly the formal greetings that are exchanged each day between the residents! For a few precious weeks in the year, you really adopt a completely different way of life. And that’s the essence of true recreation and real enjoyment. 6. New fashions in clothing are created solely for the commercial exploitation of women whenever you see an old film, even one made as little as ten years ago, you cannot help being struck by the appearance of the women taking part. Their hair-styles and make-up look dated; their skirts look either too long or too short; their general appearance is, in fact, slightly ludicrous. The men taking part in the film. On the other hand, are clearly recognizable. There is nothing about their appearance to suggest that they belong to an entirely different age. This illusion is created by changing fashions. Over the years, the great majority of men have successfully resisted all attempts to make them change their style of dress. The same cannot be said for women. Each year a few so-called’ top designers’ in Paris or London lay down the law and women the whole world over rush to obey. The decrees of the designers are unpredictable and dictatorial. This year, they decide in their arbitrary fashion, skirts will be short and waists will be high; zips are in and buttons are out. Next year the law is reversed and far from taking exception, no one is even mildly surprised. If women are mercilessly exploited year after year, they have only themselves to blame. Because they shudder at the thought of being seen in public in clothes that are out of fashion, they are annually blackmailed by the designers and the big stores. Clothes which have been worn only a few times have to be discarded because of the dictates of fashion. When you come to think of it, only a woman is capable of standing in front of a wardrobe packed full of clothes and announcing sadly that she has nothing to wear. Changing fashions are nothing more than the deliberate creation of waste. Many women squander vast sums of money each year to replace clothes that have hardly been worn. Women who cannot afford to discard clothing is this way, waste hours of their time altering the dresses they have. Hem-lines are taken up or let down; waist-lines are taken in or let out; neck-lines are lowered or raised, and so on. No one can claim that the fashion industry contributes anything really important to society. Fashion designers are rarely concerned with vital things like warmth, comfort and durability. They are only interested in outward appearance and they take advantage of the fact that women will put up with any amount of discomfort, providing they look right. There can hardly be a man who hasn’t at some time in his life smiled at the sight of a woman shivering in a flimsy dress on a wintry day., or delicately picking her way through deep snow in dainty shoes. When comparing men and women in the matter of fashion, the conclusions to be drawn are obvious. Do the constantly changing fashions of women’s clothes, one wonders, reflect basic qualities of fickleness and instability? Men are too sensible to let themselves be bullied by fashion designers. Do their unchanging styles of dress reflect basic qualities of stability and reliability? That is for you to decide. 7. We should all grow fat and be happy Here’s a familiar version of the boy-meets-girl situation. A young man has at last plucked up courage to invite a dazzling young lady out to dinner. She has accepted his invitation and he is overjoyed. He is determined to take her to the best restaurant in town, even if it means that he will have to live on memories and hopes during the month to come. When they get to the restaurant, he discovers th