Task 1.Answer the following questions.

1. What is freedom?

2. What must people have to be free?

3. Can any organized society provide all these conditions at all times? Why? (Why not?)

4. What is society’s must?

5. In what way can most freedoms be divided?

6. What does political freedom mean?

7. What do most people realize now?

8. Provided what does the right to vote have no value?

9. What does social freedom include? (Dwell on each point)

10. What is economic freedom?

 

Task 2. Make a short summary of the text.

Task 3. Here are some opinions about freedom. Read and translate them. Choose one and make your comments. (You may work in pairs).

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

Martin Luther King

 

A society in which men recognize no check upon their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is a possession of only a savage few.

Juge Learned Hand

 

Do not believe in freedom in the philosophical sense. Everybody acts not only under external compulsion but also in accordance with inner necessity.

Albert Einstein

 

It is often safer to be in chains than to be free.

Franz Kafka

 

In our country we have three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience and the prudence never to practise either.

Mark Twain

 

Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.

George Bernard Shaw

 

Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.

George Orwell

Man is condemned to be free.

Jean-Paul Sartre

Task 4. Agree or disagree with the following statements – support your opinion by some facts or examples.

- Since freedom is responsibility, and young people are not responsible enough (due to their young age) they shouldn’t have all freedoms.

- It is necessary to defend the Rights of the Child.

- Pupils should be allowed to leave school whenever they or their parents like.

- Any ways (efforts) to strengthen the state inevitably lead to the suppression of political freedom.

- Today the media are being put on a short leash, the information space is being gradually brought under state control.

- The number of women in parliament should be equal to the number of men.

- To conscript (draft) to military service is to restrict freedom of the individual.

Task 5. Comment on the following “Matters of Fact”.

- Governance. More than 70% of the world’s people live under relatively democratic regimes. In Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States, almost all the countries have held multiparty elections since 1990. In South Asia, 15 parliamentary elections have taken place in the last decade. So far, 144 countries have ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Many countries have taken steps to increase women’s participation in economical and political arenas. Political parties in 34 countries have binding quotas for women in governing borders and in legislative elections.

(Human Development Report commissioned by the UNDP)

T E X T 2

Pre-reading Activity

Task 1. Answer the questions.

1. For people to have freedom, they must have the power to decide on the choices they make in life. Does this include “the right to die”?

2. Have you ever heard the word – euthanasia?

3. Can you explain what it means?

4. Are there any countries where euthanasia is considered to be legal, is not forbidden by the law?

Task 2. Look up the following words in the Glossary to make sure you know their meanings: euthanasia, decriminalize, hospice, terminally ill.

Reading Activity

Task 1. Scan this article and say if euthanasia is an important issue in our society.

FACE UP TO THE EUTHANASIA DEBATE

Voluntary euthanasia in Britain is an open secret in the Health Service. Each year, evidence mounts that doctors, nurses and relatives, often for the very best of motives, are helping patients to die with dignity rather than have their lives prolonged by medical technology for no clear purpose.

So what does the public think? Two surveys published last week provide some insights. The pensioners’ magazine, Yours, asked its 2,500 readers, whose average age is 69, for their views. Nine out of 10 thought that doctors should be allowed to end the lives of terminally ill people and wanted the law changed; eight out of 10 had told someone they preferred to die rather than suffer in pain. More than half said that they would help a friend, relative or spouse to die in such circumstances.

The issue is too sensitive and the ethical questions too profound to come to a simple conclusion. But events are forcing some kind of reform. The Government should appoint a Royal Commission now to ensure that such a sensitive debate is both well informed and conducted in a dignified manner.

 

 

Task 2. Read the arguments for and against euthanasia. Say what you think are the reasons for an increase in euthanasia.

Hospice physician, Dr Anthony Smith, explores the controversy

The case for...

Sometimes, to some people, death seems preferable to life.

We think of someone who requests termination of life because of terminal illness, incurable disability, pain, suffering and hopelessness.

Surely, they say, to assist such a person to commit suicide, or to help him die when he cannot bring it about for himself, is simply an extension of suicide and ought to be acceptable in a caring society where suicide has been decriminalized.

“You would not treat a dog like this,” they say.

Sometimes, indeed, it is argued that this is a final self-sacrifice that the aged, infirm or terminally ill wish to make on behalf of others.

The case against...

The answer to requests for euthanasia is that pain, sickness and other distres­sing symptoms can be effectively relieved these days.

Euthanasia would diminish a person’s self-worth. The request for termination of life often springs from a feeling that life is not worth living

But to respond with euthanasia is to agree that the person’s life is worthless. Everyone is inherently worth more than a dog or cow (or, even, many sparrows!) and his or her very life is worthy of respect.

For whatever motive itmay bedone, all religions and civilizationshave regarded this as morally wrong.

To expect the medical (or nursing) professions to undertake this action would seem an improper extension of their role as careers whose concern was to cure or alleviate suffering.

To expect this to happen in hos­pitals, hospices or nursing homes is to change the nature of these caring institutions into places of fear.

One of the sadnesses of the recent Dutch experience has been that, where as a large proportion of younger people have welcomed it, 64 % of elderly people in residential homes live in fear that they will be candidate.

Post-reading Activity

Task 1. Give your reasons why you are for or against euthanasia.

Task 2. Some people predict that active euthanasia will be a standard part of medical service. Organize a discussion between 2 groups to find out what effect it will have on society. Work under the mediator’s guidance, he will present the results of the discussion afterwords.

Task 3. Work in groups of 3 or 4. Discuss the situation below. Try to find the solution of the problem or at least give some advice. One of you will present the results of your discussion.

Situation: “The Trud” newspaper has recently published a letter of a mother who was asking to let the doctors to terminate her daughter’s life. The girl had terribly suffered in an automobile crash. And the mother sees no way out both for her and her daughter but to die.

 

T E X T 3

Pre-reading Activity

Answer the following questions.

1. What ideas or associations come to your mind when you hear the word “censorship”?

2. Can you give some examples.

3. Do you agree that censorship has got as long history as the printed word itself?

Reading Activity

(!) Read the text and

a) state its topic and main idea;

b) name the key-words or phrases to support the main idea.

CENSORSHIP

Censorship is universal. There is always someone trying to stop someone else doing, saying or showing something that the first person doesn’t like. Itcan be moral, political or religious censorship. It is a battle between those who believe that everyone should have the right to see, read, talk or write about what they choose. And those who believe that the State or Church or Party should decide what everyone is allowed to see, read, talk or write about.

The discussion usually centres on the amount of sex in films, books or TV programmes, but also concerns the use of bad language and excessive violence. The disagreement is usually between those who say erotic films or books are “obscene” and those who believe they are “realistic” or “artistic”. But these value judgments are more political. For the difference is really between those who believe “I don’t like this book or film or idea, but you can decide for yourself” and those who believe “I don’t like this book or film or idea, so you must not be allowed to find out about it.”

But censorship is not only concerned with sex or violence. It is concerned with ideas – social ideas, artistic ideas, political ideas. It concerns people’s right to freedom of speech, freedom of expression. And because people disagree about the meaning of freedom, there is disagreement about the meaning and necessity of censorship.

Post-reading Activity