The general welfare of a nation's people is a better indication of thatnation's greatness than are the achievements of its rulers, artists, orscientists.
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Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree ordisagree with the claim. In developing and supporting your position, be sure toaddress the most compelling reasons and/or examples that could be used tochallenge your position.
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The speaker avers that the general welfare of people in a nation is abetter indication of achievements of its rulers, artists or scientists to judgethe greatness of the nation. I totally concur with the speaker. Admittedly,achievements of elites in the nation are no doubt good indications of greatnessof a nation, but it's not as effective and persuasive as the well-being of thepeople in that nation. Because the welfare of people is consist of two levels,which are the material level and the mental level respectively. These twolevels of well-being can be easily judged and it's also convincing enough toindicate the greatness of nation.
There is no doubt that the achievements of elites in a nation can be agood scale to judge a nation. Sometimes, those elites are the representativesof a society. For instance, researches in military or astronautics are alwayssponsored the most by the government. Someone will say that missiles or space craftsare the things that people will not buy, so how can it function as lubricantsof the nation? Of course we denizens don't buy those things, but a new researchin these areas will threaten the countries who want to bully us. Theimprovement in military can make us feel safe and comfortable. In this sense,achievements of rulers, artists or scientists can be indications of the judgmentof a nation's greatness.
Nevertheless, indications based on achievements of elites are not aseffective as the welfare of people in that nation. We may know that the welfareof people is composed of the well-being in material and that of mentality. Inthe case of material goodness, people have the things they want to own, so theydon't need to worry about the food in their daily life. Once poverty andstarvation are eliminated, people will do things that they'd like to do, say,entertain or enjoy the union of family. Hence, people need mental satisfaction,which is still one of the parts consisting welfare. If the mental well-being ofpeople is basically satisfied, education, freedom of people and even arts mustbe at a pretty high level. This indicates that the welfare of people is morecomprehensive and wide than just judging the achievements of elites.
Furthermore, general welfare of a nation's people is much easier to beevaluated than other indicates. Grossly, which is also universally used by mostof countries in the planet is compare the GDP among nations. Real GDP isrelatively easy to calculate in a nation and also it can effectively reflectthe material satisfaction of people in that country. As for another part ofwelfare, GNH, which is Gross National Happiness index, is statistically evaluatedby social scientists each year. The higher the GNH is, the happier the peoplein that nation feel, and the successful the nation will be. On the other side,there is no such thing like GDP or GNH exist in the world to evaluateachievements of artists or scientists. Because many advanced scientificachievements are withheld by governments in case other countries will have easyaccess to it, and also everyone's judgment for art works can differ a lot. Thismeans achievements of elites in a nation cannot be easily compared betweennations while the welfare of a nation is approachable.
To sum up, although achievements of rulers, artists or scientists can beindications of the greatness of a nation, well-being of all the people seemsmuch better. No matter in which level, material or mental, the welfare ofpeople is more effective and approachable. | 
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发表于 2013-1-8 15:03:50
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