Informal essay

      My mood was very bothersome recently,I have not gone to attend class,Stays continuously in the library,While helps my friend to look for some things conveniently,I had read a rticle, I felt it was significant very much.I did not know my that comes fervor,I copied down it.I place it in my blog ,for everybody share.

 Personal experience has convinced me that books are both the greatest tool for empathy we have created and totally inadequate to the task . Some of the best-read people I know are among the nastiest and most selfish individuals I’ve never wanted to meet .For every person I’ve met whose character was edified by the written word , scores more leave me wondering how someone who has devoured so much wishdom can be so small-minded.

     I know this to be true: Books do not make us better people .They may show us the big picture , but they inspire precious few of us to put away our petty personal concerns. Even the best books can not make us replace selfishness with empathy.

     I also know this to be true: All that is dead wrong. Books make our world a far kinder, more just and empathetic place.

     To reconcile these conflicting beliefs , consider the paradox of reading : Through books make none of us better people, they make all of us better-----even people who do not read.

     Western history makes this strange notice clear. Remember the world into which Johann Gutenberg introduced his printing press around 1453: Slavery was rampant, women were treated as men’s property, and stiff class structures stifled almost everyone’s aspirations.

     Gutenberg’s invention changed that . As his press enabled the relatively cheap and easy dissemination of ideas, the status quo came under intense scrutiny . Writers began asking lofty questions about how people should interact. The Renaissance flourished, then the Englishtenment . Rights , equality and freedom became topics of discussion.

     The writings of philosophers such as John Locke inspired our Founding Fathers to imagine a nation in which every citizen would be treated with dignity. Of course, we are all painfully aware of how far the founders fell short of that goal. Western history since Gutenberg is filled with bloody wars and vicious ideologies----including colonialism and Nazism---that have chanllenged this story of progress, urging us to see others as less than human.

     However , progress doesn’t follow a straight line . Our instinct to look, out for ourselves , to only consider our needs, is powerful.

     What’s striking is not that this selfishness endures, but that we’ve made such strides in neutralizing it. It is no coincidence that have transformed America in the past 60 years occurred at the same time that we expanded access to higher education. When I look at the great stides made by woman and Africa-Americans, as I watch gays and lesbians move toward full equality, I am amazed. Our world is a better place, getting better all the time .

     And books are the chief cause. This point is overlooked because while our minds act locally, books work globally. Our instinct is to measure books by their power to transform us personally. What can you do for me? But books operate on a wider scale-slowly, but surely changing the values of the larger culture. We, in turn, inherit these ideas, which shape our standards and expectations.