GRE作文范文 Issue-23

"What is called human nature is really a reflection of the human condition: if all people had a reasonable share of territory and resources, such products of 'human nature' as war and crime would be extremely rare."

嘉文博譯Sample Essay

At first glance, this would appear to be a reasonable and correct statement. If every person in the world could share all of the world's territory and resources on a reasonable basis, there would seem to be no need for crime or war or for that matter, any relational problems between human beings. To a certain extent, human nature probably is a reflection of the inequality of the human condition. But this would seem to exclude other aspects of human nature such as ethnocentricity and racism, religious conflicts and two of mankind's greatest troublemakers: envy and greed.

Ethnocentricity is the natural favoritism of one's own ethnic group over other ethnic groups wherein the individual cultural group's values, norms and beliefs are seen as superior to all others. While not as overt as racism, it can still cause problems between members of different races or ethnic groups simply due to the fact that the person simply believes that his or her culture is better than the other. Racism obviously causes problems in a similar but more open manner. The person that looks down upon another person simply because of his or her race is bound to cause problems any time he or she interacts with another race. Neither of these problems would disappear with the equal sharing of territory and resources. A world that shares territory and resources must interact as the territory and resources are not equally distributed in every part of the world. It is within the context of that interaction that ethnocentricity and racism would continue to cause such problems as crime and war.

Religious conflicts would also not be excluded by the sharing of territory and resources. Throughout the ages, wars have been fought based almost purely on religious beliefs. The early Muslim holy wars or "jihads", the Christian Crusades and various other wars based almost entirely on a desire to convert the rest of the world to a particular religious faith have raged throughout history. There are various reasons that otherwise religious people believe that they must make war in order to fulfill their religious beliefs. Some religious writings, particularly the Quran, specifically mention making war on all "infidels" that do not believe in its teachings. An example of this is found in the Islamic extremism of Osama Bin Laden and other Islamic militants who have vowed to kill all "infidels" in declaring "jihad" on all nonbelievers. Others can take religious writings out of context to find that they "require" them to convert others by whatever means are necessary. Certainly there are many religions that focus on peace and harmony, too many to mention here. But the sheer presence of any religion that believes that others must be converted at all costs ensures that even a world with equally divided territory and resources will continue to suffer from crime and war.

Finally, mankind as a species too often suffers from the twin evils of envy and greed. From the earliest days of humans, envy and greed have caused conflict even when the two parties involved don't really have anything that the other party needs. Greed could probably be best defined as the desire to have more than you actually need. Envy can be defined as wanting something that someone else has, whether you need it or not. In a perfect world, an equal division among the world's population of both territory and resources would solve these two problems. But humans are not perfect and are not infallible. The saying "the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence" is popular for a reason. It is simply human nature to want what you don't have. Dividing all territory and resources equally cannot solve this problem.

The human condition is part of what makes up human nature but it cannot be considered as the full cause of the various actions of human beings. History has shown that there are other motivations for war and crime that spring not only from an unequal division of territory and resources. The distinctly human problems of ethnocentricity and racism, religious conflicts, envy and greed will most likely always give rise to crime and war.

(695 words)

參考譯文

"所謂人性實(shí)際上是人類生存條件的反映：如果所有的人都可以適當(dāng)?shù)胤窒硗恋睾唾Y源，那么諸如戰(zhàn)爭、犯罪這樣一些'人性'的產(chǎn)物就會(huì)極其罕見了"

乍一看，這似乎是個(gè)很有道理、很正確的論斷。如果全世界的人都能夠在適當(dāng)程度上共享全世界的土地和資源，似乎確實(shí)沒有戰(zhàn)爭和犯罪的必要，因而也就沒有人際關(guān)系上的種種問題了。在某種程度上，人性可能是人類生存條件不平等的反映。然而這一說法似乎排除了人性的其他方面，比如種族優(yōu)越感、種族差異論、宗教斗爭以及人類兩個(gè)最大的麻煩制造者：嫉妒和貪婪。

種族優(yōu)越感是一種對自己種族的自然偏愛，它認(rèn)為自己的種族比其他種族優(yōu)越，因而自己所屬文化群體的價(jià)值觀、準(zhǔn)則和信仰也要高于別的文化群體。盡管種族優(yōu)越感并不像種族主義那么公開，但只要有人認(rèn)為自己的文化高于其他人種的文化，它仍然會(huì)引發(fā)不同種族或不同種族群體成員之間的種種問題。種族主義引發(fā)的問題與此相似，只是表現(xiàn)得更為明顯而已。單純因?yàn)榉N族差異就輕視別人的人在處理與其他種族相關(guān)的問題時(shí)肯定會(huì)產(chǎn)生麻煩。這些由于種族優(yōu)越感或種族主義產(chǎn)生的問題是不會(huì)由于土地和資源的共享而消亡的。當(dāng)土地和資源不能夠在世界上的每一個(gè)地方平均分配時(shí)，世界各國就必須要進(jìn)行彼此交流。在這種交流中，種族優(yōu)越感和種族主義仍將繼續(xù)引發(fā)犯罪、戰(zhàn)爭等問題。

宗教戰(zhàn)爭也不會(huì)因土地和資源的共享而消失?？v觀各個(gè)歷史年代，有許許多多的戰(zhàn)爭純粹是由于宗教信仰的不同而激發(fā)的。早期的穆斯林圣戰(zhàn)或稱"吉哈德"、基督教的"十字軍東征"以及各種其他戰(zhàn)爭(幾乎全部基于一種想要迫使全世界的其他所有地方都皈依到某一特定宗教信仰這一欲望)在人類歷史長河中風(fēng)起云涌。有著不同宗教信仰的信徒也出于不同原因相信他們必須通過戰(zhàn)爭成就自己的宗教追求。一些宗教文獻(xiàn)，尤其是古蘭經(jīng)，特別指出要與異教徒戰(zhàn)斗到底。本·拉登和其他伊斯蘭好戰(zhàn)分子等極端主義者就是一個(gè)例子。他們以"吉哈德"的名義向所有不信伊斯蘭教的人宣戰(zhàn)，發(fā)誓殺凈一切異教徒。還有些人斷章取義地理解宗教文獻(xiàn)，認(rèn)為為了使別人皈依自己的宗教就可以不擇手段。當(dāng)然，有很多很多宗教是強(qiáng)調(diào)和平與和睦的，這里就不一一列舉。然而，即使實(shí)現(xiàn)了土地和資源的共享，只要還存在著一種認(rèn)為可以不擇手段轉(zhuǎn)變別人信仰的宗教，世界就仍然會(huì)有犯罪和戰(zhàn)爭。

最后，整個(gè)人類，作為一個(gè)物種，在太多的時(shí)候極易為嫉妒和貪婪這對孿生罪惡所累。從人類最早的歷史開始，嫉妒和貪婪就常使兩方相互爭斗，即使他們之間并沒有什么東西值得你爭我奪。對貪婪最好的解釋可能就是一個(gè)人想要擁有比實(shí)際需求更多的東西，而嫉妒可以被定義為對別人擁有的東西的一種覬覦，無論你對這個(gè)東西有沒有實(shí)際上的需要。在一個(gè)按照世界人口平均分配土地和資源的完美世界，這兩個(gè)問題都有可能得到解決。然而，人無完人，孰能無錯(cuò)。俗話說："柵欄那邊的草總比自己這邊的綠"，這句話如此流行是有道理的。想要得到自己沒有的東西就是人類的天性。平均分配土地和資源也無法根除這個(gè)問題。

人類的生存條件是構(gòu)成人類本性的一個(gè)部分，但它不足以成為人類諸多行為的解釋。歷史表明，除了領(lǐng)土和資源劃分上的不平等，戰(zhàn)爭和犯罪還有其它的原因。種族優(yōu)越感、種族差異論、宗教斗爭、嫉妒和貪婪等等這些人類存在的突出問題很可能會(huì)一直導(dǎo)致犯罪和戰(zhàn)爭。