Directions: Read the passage and answer the question. Faith in progress is deep within our culture. We have been taught to believe that our lives are better than the lives of those who came before…
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Directions: Read the passage and answer the question.
Faith in progress is deep within our culture. We have been taught to believe that our lives are better than the lives of those who came before us. The ideology of modern economics suggests that material progress has yielded enhanced satisfaction and well-being. But much of our confidence about our own well-being comes from the assumptions that our lives are easier than those of earlier generations. The lives of the so- called primitive peoples are thought to be harsh-their existence dominated by the incessant quest for food. In fact, primitives did very little work. By contemporary standards we’d have to judge them very lazy. The key to understanding by the stone-age people failed to act like us increasing their work effort to get more things- is that they had limited desires. In the race between wanting and having, they had kept their wanting low-and, in this way ensured their own kind of satisfaction. They were materially poor by contemporary standards, but in at least one dimension-time-we have to count them richer.
Faith in progress is deep within our culture. We have been taught to believe that our lives are better than the lives of those who came before us. The ideology of modern economics suggests that material progress has yielded enhanced satisfaction and well-being. But much of our confidence about our own well-being comes from the assumptions that our lives are easier than those of earlier generations. The lives of the so- called primitive peoples are thought to be harsh-their existence dominated by the incessant quest for food. In fact, primitives did very little work. By contemporary standards we’d have to judge them very lazy. The key to understanding by the stone-age people failed to act like us increasing their work effort to get more things- is that they had limited desires. In the race between wanting and having, they had kept their wanting low-and, in this way ensured their own kind of satisfaction. They were materially poor by contemporary standards, but in at least one dimension-time-we have to count them richer.
How does the writer appreciate the primitives?
- They worked harder than modern people
- They are the masters of their time owing to their contentedness
- They are materially poor
- They had abundant possessions
Answer and explanation
Correct answer: B - They are the masters of their time owing to their contentedness
The writer says that by keeping their wants low they ensured their own kind of satisfaction, and "in at least one dimension - time - we have to count them richer". So he appreciates them as masters of their time owing to their contentedness. They did very little work (so they did not work harder), were materially poor (a description, not praise) and had few possessions (not abundant ones).
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CUSAT Three-Year LL.B.
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