青城山要玩多久:To Be an Individual Or to Be in a Body?

“Universities are, of course, hostile to geniuses.”

                                               ——Ralph Waldo Emerson

Those exciting episodes are still haunting me today even if I saw Dead Poets Society a long time ago. Almost every spectator’s face was glistening with tears… Indeed, the movie touched us to the heart, but what impressed us most was some empathy which set me off in pondering about a problem: does the school aim at teaching its students to be an individual or to be in a body?

In Dead Poets Society, several inspired guys recreated Dead Poet’s Society, a secret club found by their English teacher Keating when he was a student. Gradually, their horizons were broadened, their eyesights were deepened and their minds were cultivated. Every guy’s life was booming with passions and cordiality. Neil dreamed of being an actor, and he demonstrated that he was overwhelmingly successful; Todd, an egghead, shut himself in the restricted world created by tradition, turned out to be imaginative, active, courageous and rebellious; Knox, recoiling from wearing his heart to Chris, became intrepid and pressing, thus moving Chris thereafter…… They had all got somewhere when inspired by their revealing English teacher Keating. However, they reached a dead end. Mr. Keating, dismissed, was deprived of opening the keen students’ eyes to a new and poetic world. Ardent and genuine as the students were, they surrendered in a sense in the end. Why did they fail in their pursuit of their own dreams? Because it was the environment steeped in the old tradition that drove them to the wall. The students were all geniuses , minds blooming with wisdom, but as Emerson said,“School is hostile to geniuses.” Would it be an auspicious picture that everyone was moulded the same as the others who thought, talked, and acted alike? Thanks to the unique people, the world is colourful. Thanks to the distinct minds, society is prosperous. But school, functioning as a medium shaping useful power for the development of society, is nipping creative and novel ideas in the bud! The whole thing is paradoxical: the expected are being miserably made unexpected. So should students stand up for their own pursuits or surrender to the authorities? Should geniuses are born with freedom and passion, or restriction and stolidity? Should students claim themselves to be unique individuals or emerge into the background?

To be sure, not every outstanding and amazing person can eventually be a talent, but only threatening and controlling hand is bound to produce fools at last. Education had been intended for cultivating man’s mind, but conventions can only render mankind’s mind drying up! If human were encouraged to be an individual rather than to emerge, the world would be exhilaratingly picturesque…