Satire exists because there is need for it. It has lived because readers appreciate a refreshing stimulus, an irreverent reminder that they live in a world of platitudinous thinking, cheap moralizing, and foolish philosophy. Satire serves to prod people into an awareness of truth, though rarely to any action on behalf of truth. Satire tends to remind people that much of what they see, hear, and read in popular media is sanctimonious, sentimental, and only partially true. Life resembles in only a slight degree the popular image of it. Soldiers rarely hold the ideals that movies attribute to them, not do ordinary citizens devote their lives to unselfish service of humanity. Intelligent people know these things but tend to forget them when they do not hear them expressed.

　　答案

　　諷刺作品之所以存在是因為人們需要它。它存續(xù)至今，是因為讀者欣賞爽身怡心的刺激和不拘謙恭的告誡，它提醒讀者，他們生活的世界里充滿了陳腐的思想意識、低俗的道德說教和愚蠢的哲學理念。諷刺作品雖然很少代表真理促成行動，但它卻能使人們感悟到真理。諷刺作品常常告訴人們，他們在大眾媒體中所看到的、聽到的、讀到的大多是偽裝善良、多愁善感或只有部分真實。生活只在很小的程度上與大眾對它的印象相符。士兵們很少擁有電影賦予他們的理想，而普通老百姓也決不會把自己的生命無私地奉獻給人道主義服務。聰明人知道這些事實，但是當周圍人不談起時，他們常常會忘記掉。