It is customary to regard the course of history as a great river, (31) its source in some small rivulet of the distant past, taking its rise (32) the plains of Asia, and flowing slowly down through the ages, gathering water fi’om new tributaries on the way, (33) finally in our own days broadens majestically over the whole world. Men have even personified this (34) , made of it a being (35) develops of its own volition, following its own laws (36) the achievement of some preconceived goal. They have spoken of the "dialectic of ideas," and regarded men and whole civilizations (37) the passive instruments employed by this great being (38) the working-out of its purposes. The observer not already committed to faith in such an interpretation finds (39) difficult to discern any such steady sweep in the course of human events, (40) above all he feels that to look upon humanity as a passive tool to which things are done and with which ends are (41) , is a falsification of the cardinal fact that it is men (42) have made history and not history which has made men. Men have built up civilization, men have patiently and laboriously found (43) every way of doing things and toilingly worked out every idea that is today a part of our (44) from the past men working (45) every turn, to be sure, under the influences of their environment and with the materials at (46) , individual men and races and not even some such being as humanity. The complex of beliefs and ideals by (47) the modern world lives and with which it works is not a gift from the gods, (48) ancient myth had it, (49) an achievement of a long succession of (50) . 45().
In face of the numbers of people who are suffering anxiety attacks over AIDS, global warming, ozone sharp decline, and the proliferation of chemical weapons, you have a disturbingly large population easily influenced by the madness aroused with the arrival of the period of the second thousand years.Even supposedly sober observers are taking positions in the millenarian parade. Novelist, poet, and science writer Brad Leithauser is convinced the second millennium is going to bring a "psychological shift" that will "literally redefine what it means to be a human being."Leithauser believes that global weather patterns will undergo random, even chaotic, changes produced by the dreaded greenhouse effect. In his novel Hence set around 2000, Leithauser visualizes religious leaders seizing on the resultant disturbances -flooded cities, soaring cancer rates, and what have you -and taking them as a sign that the end is near.At the same time, Leithauser thinks, a combination of high-speed living and runaway technology will serve further to alienate people from themselves. He predicts that invasive media will bring an inescapable large number of stimuli. In this atmosphere of "evershortening collective memory," books will become pass. Indeed, any form of reflective solitude will become "quietly sinful," says a character in Leithauser’s novel, and seeking it out will require "almost an act of social defiance."Economic expert Ravi Bartra is equally convinced that by the dawn of the second millennium people will have undergone a thorough spiritual and economic transformation. He warns that the voices of the rich will soon superheat the global economy to the point of explosion and collapse, in the wake of which "society will border on chaos. There will be a polarization of society into two classes -the haves and the have-nots -and there will be a lot of crime and street demonstrations" as the angry have-nots make strong claim for food, shelter, and social justice.But Batra, unlike Leithauser, sees the coming bimillennial breakdown as a sort of getting rid of sin by fire on the way to a better world. From the ashes of economic and social collapse, he says, will rise a "higher consciousness"--a climate in which pornography, selfishness, and extreme concentration of wealth are reproached and society becomes "more concerned with the handicapped and the weaker." On the job, he foresees "far more democratic large factories, where employees not only sit on boards of directors but actually run companies." Meanwhile, discipline will capture the home-and-family front, with "children obeying their parents more, and more family stability, fewer divorces.\ Ravi Batra is different in attitude toward the arrival of the second millennium from Brad Leithauser in that().
A. Leithauser is more positive.
Batra is more optimistic.
C. the former thinks more of the breakdown
D. the latter tends to look at the bright side of things