李嘉迪：西南大学选手，第17届21世纪杯全国英语演讲比赛三等奖获得者。

自我介绍

我是来自西南大学的一名学生。我一直清楚地记得肖申克的救赎里的那句话——希望不死。是的，这次能有幸参加此次比赛让我在英语这条学习道路上更加充满动力。我也始终坚信“一个旅者，应对自己一路上该看到的哪些风景胸有成竹”，希望能在这次比赛中多多学习，多多经历，将美丽的风景尽收与心。

演讲稿：

Fears that today’s technologically advanced world will lead to a rejection of humanism have been debated for a quite long time. Actually , I do believe the humanism and the development of technology in today’s world are not mutually excusive. So what can not be ignored is the social role of technology, which means with humanism, we have to take certain responsibilities; we have to focus on the human values and concerns.

What we cannot deny is the incredible improvements brought by the development of technology. However, a bunch of problems arise from it like materialism, environmental pollution, nuclear crisis etc. Here is the question. Is it the wrong of the today’s technology. The answer is definitely not. It is the wrong that technology has been used in an improper way. It’s time to think for a second our humanist beliefs and values.

First of all , humanism balances technology. With the humanist beliefs, technology can serve people better. Barry Commoner, a famous American biologist, concerned about the radioactive fallout spreading from nuclear-weapon tests. He established the Committee for nuclear information so as to let the citizens know the results’ implication for the environment. Because at that time, the official government claimed that nuclear test posed little health risk to humans. In order to dispute this kind of idea, the committee made an analysis for children’s baby teeth, which demonstrated that such testing caused radioactive buildup in humans. And this demonstration was one of the factors that led to the 1963 Nuclear Test-ban Treaty. Only by realizing the important role of humanism, can the human’s sustainable development be maintained.

On the other hand, technology realizes humanism. There are many areas of life where technology used properly have been and will be absolutely essential for implementation of humanism. A typical example is reducing atmospheric pollution of all sorts. Three decades ago the world was largely ignorant of the causes and the extent of most atmospheric pollution. The ultimate cause of pollution, of course, was this very ignorance. As matter of fact, it is far more enough that we only have the awareness of  humanism. Actually, at the same time, we needed more and better technology. Today, thanks to the development of technology, we have become conscious of the nature and extent of atmospheric pollution, and the whole world is rapidly beginning to understand and even to visualize atmospheric pollution in a way not even have imagined a few years back.

Generally, today’s advanced world without humanism would be reckless and abusive and indeed be a nightmare. The humanism without technology would be ineffectual and helpless.

Therefore, human beings calls for a humanism that is profoundly attached to today’s technologically advanced world.