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."

嘉文博译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)

参考译文

"所谓人性实际上是人类生存条件的反映：如果所有的人都可以适当地分享土地和资源，那么诸如战争、犯罪这样一些'人性'的产物就会极其罕见了"

乍一看，这似乎是个很有道理、很正确的论断。如果全世界的人都能够在适当程度上共享全世界的土地和资源，似乎确实没有战争和犯罪的必要，因而也就没有人际关系上的种种问题了。在某种程度上，人性可能是人类生存条件不平等的反映。然而这一说法似乎排除了人性的其他方面，比如种族优越感、种族差异论、宗教斗争以及人类两个最大的麻烦制造者：嫉妒和贪婪。

种族优越感是一种对自己种族的自然偏爱，它认为自己的种族比其他种族优越，因而自己所属文化群体的价值观、准则和信仰也要高于别的文化群体。尽管种族优越感并不像种族主义那么公开，但只要有人认为自己的文化高于其他人种的文化，它仍然会引发不同种族或不同种族群体成员之间的种种问题。种族主义引发的问题与此相似，只是表现得更为明显而已。单纯因为种族差异就轻视别人的人在处理与其他种族相关的问题时肯定会产生麻烦。这些由于种族优越感或种族主义产生的问题是不会由于土地和资源的共享而消亡的。当土地和资源不能够在世界上的每一个地方平均分配时，世界各国就必须要进行彼此交流。在这种交流中，种族优越感和种族主义仍将继续引发犯罪、战争等问题。

宗教战争也不会因土地和资源的共享而消失。纵观各个历史年代，有许许多多的战争纯粹是由于宗教信仰的不同而激发的。早期的穆斯林圣战或称"吉哈德"、基督教的"十字军东征"以及各种其他战争(几乎全部基于一种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这一欲望)在人类历史长河中风起云涌。有着不同宗教信仰的信徒也出于不同原因相信他们必须通过战争成就自己的宗教追求。一些宗教文献，尤其是古兰经，特别指出要与异教徒战斗到底。本·拉登和其他伊斯兰好战分子等极端主义者就是一个例子。他们以"吉哈德"的名义向所有不信伊斯兰教的人宣战，发誓杀净一切异教徒。还有些人断章取义地理解宗教文献，认为为了使别人皈依自己的宗教就可以不择手段。当然，有很多很多宗教是强调和平与和睦的，这里就不一一列举。然而，即使实现了土地和资源的共享，只要还存在着一种认为可以不择手段转变别人信仰的宗教，世界就仍然会有犯罪和战争。

最后，整个人类，作为一个物种，在太多的时候极易为嫉妒和贪婪这对孪生罪恶所累。从人类最早的历史开始，嫉妒和贪婪就常使两方相互争斗，即使他们之间并没有什么东西值得你争我夺。对贪婪最好的解释可能就是一个人想要拥有比实际需求更多的东西，而嫉妒可以被定义为对别人拥有的东西的一种觊觎，无论你对这个东西有没有实际上的需要。在一个按照世界人口平均分配土地和资源的完美世界，这两个问题都有可能得到解决。然而，人无完人，孰能无错。俗话说："栅栏那边的草总比自己这边的绿"，这句话如此流行是有道理的。想要得到自己没有的东西就是人类的天性。平均分配土地和资源也无法根除这个问题。

人类的生存条件是构成人类本性的一个部分，但它不足以成为人类诸多行为的解释。历史表明，除了领土和资源划分上的不平等，战争和犯罪还有其它的原因。种族优越感、种族差异论、宗教斗争、嫉妒和贪婪等等这些人类存在的突出问题很可能会一直导致犯罪和战争。