Of course, the intended purpose of expanding this dialogue cannot be to foist(5) religion upon business, or any other social institution. Such an attitude runs counter to the fundamentals of inter-religious dialogue. In fact, it is important to recognize that the traditional ―osmotic‖(6) wall of separation between ―the religions‖ and the enterprises of business, science, and technology preserves a civic value that is as crucial as the separation of church and state. However, we should also recognize that the religions-in-dialogue are a potential source of knowledge and wisdom—a valuable resource that can aid in defining and implementing a global ethic.
Here again, the parallel efforts of business leaders and the religions-in-dialogue to develop a global ethic, as well as the dialogical confluence (7) of their efforts, represents an important opportunity. Expanding the dialogue among the world‘s diverse religious traditions, so the conversation concerning a global ethic includes businesses that are entering a new stage in the development of social responsibility, should help prepare the way for the emergence of something like a recalibrated social matrix(8), which will necessarily reflect a global consciousness and a newly complexified global ethos.
Notes:
(1) ecosphere—生物圈，生态圈
(2)calibrate—调整，调节
(3)holistically— 全面的，全盘的
(4) template—模板，样板
(5)foist—（暗中）把……强加
(6)osmotic—渗透（作用）的
(7)confluence—汇合，聚集
(8)matrix—母体，策源地
Questions (Give brief answers):
1. What are the two functions of inter-religious dialogue the author discusses in paragraph 2?
2. The author makes an analogy between the living ecosystem and healthy social structure in
paragraph 3. What is the major similarity between them?
3. What could be a good subtitle for paragraph 4?
4. What are the three functions of a dialogical co-evolution in an ecosystem in paragraph 5?
5. In paragraph 6, the author says that a dialectical dialogue is different from a dialogical
dialogue. What is the major difference between them?
IV. Reading the following story, then answer the questions: (40ps)
Growing up fast
This girl, this Susan Reed, was an orphan. She lived with a family named Burchett that had some more children, two or three more. Some said that Susan was a niece or a cousin or something; others cast the usual aspersions on the character of Burchett and even of Mrs. Burchett:
基础英语(2004年)
you know. Women mostly, these were.
She was about five when Hawkshaw first came to town. It was his first summer behind that chair in Maxey‘s barber shop that Mrs. Burchett brought Susan in for the first time. Maxey told me about how him and the other barbers watched Mrs. Burchett trying for three days to get Susan (she was a thin little girl then, with big scared eyes and this straight, soft hair not blonde and not brunette) into the shop. And Maxey told how at last it was Hawkshaw that went out into the street and worked with the girl for about fifteen minutes until he got her into the shop and into his chair – him that hadn‘t never said more than Yes or No to any man or woman in the town that anybody ever saw. Be durn if it didn‘t look like Hawkshaw had been waiting for her to come along,‘ Maxey told me. But six months after that she was coming to the shop by herself and letting Hawkshaw cut her hair, still looking like a little old rabbit, with her scared face and those big eyes and that hair without any special name showing above the cloth. If Hawkshaw was busy, Maxey said she would come in and sit on the waiting bench close to his chair with her legs sticking straight out in front of her until Hawkshaw got done. Maxey says they considered her Hawkshaw‘s client the same as if she had been a Saturday night shaving customer. He says that one time the other barber, Matt Fox, offered to wait on her, Hawkshaw being busy, and that Hawkshaw looked up like a flash. I‘ll be done in a minute,‘ he says. I‘ll tend to her.‘ Maxey told me that Hawkshaw had been working for him for almost a year then, but that was the first time he ever heard him speak positive about anything.
That fall the girl started to school. She would pass the barber shop each morning and afternoon. She was still shy, walking fast like little girls do, with that yellow-brown head of hers passing the window level and fast like she was on skates. She was always by herself at first, but pretty soon her head would be one of a clump of other heads, all talking, not looking towards the window at all, and Hawkshaw standing there in the window, looking out. Maxey said him and Matt would not have to look at the clock at all to tell when five minutes to eight and to three o‘or three of those peppermints where he would give the other children just one, Maxey told me.
No; it was Matt Fox, the other barber, told me that. He was the one who told me about the doll Hawkshaw gave her on Christmas. I don‘t know how he found it out. Hawkshaw never told him. But he knew some way; he knew more about Hawkshaw than Maxey did. He was a married man himself, Matt was. A kind of fat, flabby fellow, with a pasty face and eyes that looked tired or sad – something. A funny fellow, and almost as good a barber as Hawkshaw. He never talked much either, and I don‘t know how he could have known so much about Hawkshaw when a talking man couldn‘t get much out of him. I guess maybe a talking man hasn‘t got the time to ever learn much about anything except words.