现代大学英语精读第二版（第六册）学习笔记（原文及全文翻译）——10 - Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream（重拾美国梦）

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Unit 10 - Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream

Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream

Barack Obama

We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Those simple words are our starting point as Americans; they describe not only the foundation of our government but the substance of our common creed. Not every American may be able to recite them; few, if asked, could trace the genesis of the Declaration of Independence to its roots in eighteenth-century liberal and republican thought. But the essential idea behind the Declaration-that we are born into this world free, all of us; that each of us arrives with a bundle of rights that can't be taken away by any person or any state without just cause; that through our own agency we can, and must, make of our lives what we will-is one that every American understands. It orients us, sets our course, each and every day.

Indeed, the value of individual freedom is so deeply ingrained in us that we tend to take it for granted. It is easy to forget that at the time of our nation's founding this idea was entirely radical in its implications, as radical as Martin Luther's posting on the church door. It is an idea that some portion of the world still rejects-and for which an even larger portion of humanity finds scant evidence in their daily lives.

In fact, much of my appreciation of our Bill of Rights comes from having spent part of my childhood in Indonesia and from still having family in Kenya, countries where individual rights are almost entirely subject to the self-restraint of army generals or the whims of corrupt bureaucrats. I remember the first time I took Michelle to Kenya, shortly before we were married. As an African American, Michelle was bursting with excitement about the idea of visiting the continent of her ancestors, and we had a wonderful time, visiting my grandmother up-country, wandering through the streets of Nairobi, camping in the Serengeti, fishing off the island of Lamu.

But during our travels Michelle also heard-as had heard during my first trip to Africa-the terrible sense on the part of most Kenyans that their fates were not their own.

My cousins told her how difficult it was to find a job or start their own businesses without paying bribes. Activists told us about being jailed for expressing their opposition to government policies. Even within my own family, Michelle saw how suffocating the demands of family ties and tribal loyalties could be, with distant cousins constantly asking for favors, uncles and aunts showing up unannounced. On the flight back to Chicago, Michelle admitted she was looking forward to getting home. "I never realized just how American I was," she said. She hadn't realized just how free she was-or how much she cherished that freedom.

At its most elemental level, we understand our liberty in negative sense. As a general rule we believe in the right to be left alone, and are suspicious of those-whether Big Brother or nosy neighbors-who want to meddle in our business. But we understand our liberty in a more positive sense as well, in the idea of opportunity and the subsidiary values that help realize opportunity all those homespun virtues that Benjamin Franklin first popularized in Poor Richard's Almanack and that have continued to inspire our allegiance through successive generations. The values of self-reliance and self-improvement and risk-taking. The values of drive, discipline, temperance, and hard work. The values of thrift and personal responsibility.

These values are rooted in a basic optimism about life and a faith in free will-a confidence that through pluck and sweat and smarts, each of us can rise above the circumstances of our birth. But these values also express a broader confidence that so long as individual men and women are free to pursue their own interests, society as a whole will prosper. Our system of self-government and our free-market economy depend on the majority of individual Americans adhering to these values. The legitimacy of our government and our economy depend on the degree to which these values are rewarded, which is why the values of equal opportunity and nondiscrimination complement rather than impinge on our liberty.

If we Americans are individualistic at heart, if we instinctively chafe against a past of tribal allegiances, traditions, customs, and castes, it would be mistake to assume that this is all we are.

Our individualism has always been bound by set of communal values, the glue upon which every healthy society depends. We value the imperatives of family and the cross-generational obligations that family implies. We value community, the neighborliness that expresses itself through raising the barn or coaching the soccer team. We value patriotism and the obligations of citizenship, a sense of duty and sacrifice on behalf of our nation. We value a faith in something bigger than ourselves, whether that something expresses itself in formal religion or ethical precepts. And we value the constellation of behaviors that express our mutual regard for one another: honesty, fairness, humility, kindness, courtesy, and compassion.

In every society (and in every individual), these twin strands-the individualistic and the communal, autonomy and solidarity-are in tension, and it has been one of the blessings of America that the circumstance of our nation's birth allowed us to negotiate these tensions better than most. We did not have to go through any of the violent upheavals that Europe was forced to endure as it shed its feudal past. Our passage from an agricultural to an industrial society was eased by the sheer size of the continent, vast tracts of land and abundant resources that allowed new immigrants to continually remake themselves.

But we cannot avoid these tensions entirely. At times our values collide because in the hands of men each one is subject to distortion and excess. Self-reliance and independence can transform into selfishness and license, ambition into greed and a frantic desire to succeed at any cost. More than once in our history we've seen patriotism slide into jingoism, xenophobia, the stifling of dissent; we've seen faith calcify into self-righteousness, closed-mindedness, and cruelty toward others. Even the impulse toward charity can drift into a stifling paternalism, an unwillingness to acknowledge the ability of others to do for themselves.

When this happens-when liberty is cited in the defense of a company's decision to dump toxins in our rivers, or when our collective interest in building an upscale new mall is used to justify the destruction of somebody's home—we depend on the strength of countervailing values to temper our judgment and hold such excesses in check.

Sometimes finding the right balance is relatively easy. We all agree, for instance, that society has a right to constrain individual freedom when it threatens to do harm to others. The First Amendment doesn't give you the right to yell "fire" in a crowded theater; your right to practice your religion does not encompass human sacrifice. Likewise, we all agree that there must be limits to the state's power to control our behavior, even if it's for our own good. Not many Americans would feel comfortable with the government monitoring what we eat, no matter how many deaths and how much of our medical spending may be due to rising rates of obesity.

More often, though, finding the right balance between our competing values is difficult. Tensions arise not because we have steered a wrong course, but simply because we live in a complex and contradictory world. I firmly believe, for example, that since 9/11, we have played fast and loose with constitutional principles in the fight against terrorism. But I acknowledge that even the wisest president and most prudent Congress would struggle to balance the critical demands of our collective security against the equally compelling need to uphold civil liberties. I believe our economic policies pay too little attention to the displacement of manufacturing workers and the destruction of manufacturing towns. But I cannot wish away the sometimes competing demands of economic security and competitiveness.

Unfortunately, too often in our national debates we don't even get to the point where we weigh these difficult choices. Instead, we either exaggerate the degree to which policies we don't like to impinge on our most sacred values, or play dumb when our own preferred policies conflict with important countervailing values. Conservatives, for instance, tend to bristle when it comes to government interference in the marketplace or their right to bear arms. Yet many of these same conservatives show little to no concern when it comes to government wiretapping without a warrant or government attempts to control people's sexual practices. Conversely, it's easy to get most liberals riled up about government encroachments on freedom of the press or a woman's reproductive freedoms. But if you have a conversation with these same liberals about the potential costs of regulation to a small-business owner, you will often draw a blank stare.  

In country as diverse as ours, there will always be passionate arguments about how we draw the line when it comes to government action. That is how our democracy works. But our democracy might work a bit better if we recognized that all of us possess values that are worthy of respect: if liberals at least acknowledged that the recreational hunter feels the same way about his gun as they feel about their library books, and if conservatives recognized that most women feel as protective of their right to reproductive freedom as evangelicals do of their right to worship.

Much of the confusion surrounding the value debate arises out of a misperception on the part of both politicians and the public that politics and government are equivalent. To say that a value is important is not to say that it should be subject to regulation or that it merits a new agency. Conversely, just because a value should not or cannot be legislated doesn't mean it isn't a proper topic for public discussion.

I value good manners, for example. Every time I meet a kid who speaks clearly and looks me in the eye, who says "yes, sir" and thank you" and "please" and excuse me," feel more hopeful about the country. I don't think I am alone in this. I can't legislate good manners. But I can encourage good manners whenever I'm addressing a group of young people.

The same goes for competence. Nothing brightens my day more than dealing with somebody, anybody, who takes pride in their work or goes the extra mile-an accountant, a plumber, a three-star general the person on the other end of the phone who actually seems to want to solve your problem. My encounters with such competence seem more sporadic lately; I seem to spend more time looking for somebody in the store to help me or waiting for the deliveryman to show (up). Other people must notice this; it makes us all cranky, and those of us in government, no less than in business, ignore such perceptions at our own peril.

Progressives in particular seem confused on this point, which is why we so often get our clocks cleaned in elections. I recently gave a speech at the Kaiser Family Foundation after they released a study showing that the amount of sex on television has doubled in recent years. Now I enjoy HBO as much as the next guy, and I generally don't care what adults watch in the privacy of their homes. In the case of children, I think it's primarily the duty of parents to monitor what they are watching on television, and in my speech I even suggested that everyone would benefit if parent-heaven forbid-simply turned off the TV and tried to strike up a conversation with their kids.

Every parent I know, liberal or conservative, complains about the coarsening of the culture, the promotion of easy materialism and instant gratification, the severing of sexuality from intimacy. They may not want government censorship, but they want those concerns recognized, their experiences validated. When, for fear of appearing censorious, progressive political leaders can't even acknowledge the problem, those parents start listening to those leaders who will-leaders who may be less sensitive to constitutional constraints.

Of course, conservatives have their own blind spots when it comes to addressing problems in the culture. Take executive pay. In 1980, the average CEO made forty-two times what an average hourly worker took home. By 2005, the ratio was 262 to 1. Conservative outlets like The Wall Street Journal editorial page try to justify outlandish salaries and stock options as necessary to attract top talent, and suggest that the economy actually performs better when America's corporate leaders are fat and happy. But the explosion in CEO pay has had little to do with improved performance. In fact, some of the country's most highly compensated CEOs over the past decade have presided over huge drops in earnings, losses in shareholder value, massive layoffs, and the underfunding of their workers' pension funds.

What accounts for the change in CEO pay is not any market imperative. It's cultural. At a time when average workers are experiencing little or no income growth, many of America's CEOs have lost any sense of shame about grabbing whatever their pliant, handpicked corporate boards will allow. Americans understand the damage such an ethic of greed has on our collective lives; in a recent survey, they ranked corruption in government and business, and greed and materialism, as two of the three most important moral challenges facing the nation ("raising kids with the right values" ranked first). Conservatives may be right when they argue that the government should not try to determine executive pay packages. But conservatives should at least be willing to speak out against unseemly behavior in corporate boardrooms with the same moral force, the same sense of outrage, that they direct against dirty rap lyrics.

Of course, there are limits to the power of the bully pulpit. Sometimes only the law can fully vindicate our values, particularly when the rights and opportunities of the powerless in our society are at stake. Certainly this has been true in our efforts to end racial discrimination; as important as moral exhortation was in changing hearts and minds of white Americans during the civil rights era, what ultimately broke the back of Jim Crow and ushered in a new era of race relations were the Supreme Court cases culminating in Brown v. Board of Education, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. As these laws were being debated, there were those who argued that government should not interject itself into civil society, that no law could force white people to associate with blacks. Upon hearing these arguments, Dr. King replied, "It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me but it can keep him from lynching me and I think that is pretty important, also.

Sometimes we need both cultural transform and government action-a change in values and a change in policy-to promote the kind of society we want. The state of our inner-city schools is a case in point. All the money in the world won't boost student achievement if parents make no effort to instill in their children the values of hard work and delayed gratification. But when we as society pretend that poor children will fulfill their potential in dilapidated, unsafe schools without dated equipment and teachers who aren't trained in the subjects they teach, we are perpetrating lie on these children, and on ourselves. We are betraying our values.

That is one of the things that makes me a Democrat, I suppose, this idea that our communal values, our sense of mutual responsibility and social solidarity, should express themselves not just in the church or the mosque or the synagogue; not just on the blocks where we live, in the places where we work, or within our own families; but also through our government.

Like many conservatives, I believe in the power of culture to determine both individual success and social cohesion, and I believe we ignore cultural factors at our peril. But I also believe that our government can play a role in shaping that culture for the better-or for the worse.

A sense of empathy is one that I find myself appreciating more and more as I get older. It is at the heart of my moral code, and it is how I understand the Golden Rule-not simply as a call to sympathy or charity, but as something more demanding, a call to stand in somebody else's shoes and see through their eyes.

Like most of my values, I learned about empathy from my mother. She disdained any kind of cruelty or thoughtlessness or abuse of power, whether it expressed itself in the form of racial prejudice or bullying in the schoolyard or workers being underpaid. Whenever she saw even a hint of such behavior in me she would look me square in the eyes and ask, "How do you think that would make you feel?"

It's not a question we ask ourselves enough, I think; as a country, we seem to be suffering from an empathy deficit. I believe a stronger sense of empathy would tilt the balance of our current politics in favor of those people who are struggling in this society. After all, if they are like us, then their struggles are our own. If we fail to help, we diminish ourselves. But that does not mean that those who are struggling-or those of us who claim to speak for those who are struggling-are thereby freed from trying to understand the perspectives of those who are better off. That's what empathy does-it calls us all to task, the conservative and the liberal, the powerful and the powerless, the oppressed and the oppressor. We are all shaken out of our complacency. We are all forced beyond our limited vision.

No one is exempt from the call to find common ground.

Of course, in the end a sense of mutual understanding isn't enough. After all, talk is cheap; like any value, empathy must be acted upon. When was a community organizer back in the eighties, I would often challenge neighborhood leaders by asking them where they put their time, energy, and money. Those are the true tests of what we value, I'd tell them, regardless of what we like to tell ourselves. If we aren't willing to pay a price for our values, if we aren't willing to make some sacrifices in order to realize them, then we should ask ourselves whether we truly believe in them at all.

By these standards at least, it sometimes appears that Americans today value nothing so much as being rich, thin, young, famous, safe, and entertained. We say we value the legacy we leave the next generation and then saddle that generation with mountains of debt. We say we believe in equal opportunity but then stand idle while millions of American children languish in poverty. We insist that we value family, but then structure our economy and organize our lives so as to ensure that our families get less and less of our time.

And yet, part of us knows better. We hang on to our values, even if they seem at times tarnished and worn; even if as a nation and in our own lives, we have betrayed them more often than we care to remember. What else is there to guide us? Those values are our inheritance, what makes us who we are as a people. And although we recognize that they are subject to challenge, can be poked and prodded and debunked and turned inside out by intellectuals and cultural critics, they have proven to be both surprisingly durable and surprisingly constant across classes, and races, and faiths, and generations. We can make claims on their behalf, so long as we understand that our values must be tested against fact and experience, so long as we recall that they demand deeds and not just words.

To do otherwise would be to relinquish our best selves.

参考译文——重拾美国梦

重拾美国梦

贝拉克·奥巴马

“我们认为下述真理是不言而喻的：人人生而平等，造物主赋予他们若干不可让与的权利，其中包括生存权、自由权和追求幸福的权利。”

这些简单的话语便是理解美国人的开端，不但表达了我国政府的根基，也表达了我们共同信条的实质。并不是每个美国人都能复述这句话；如果问及的话，很少有人能够将《独立宣言》的创立追溯到作为其根源的18世纪自由与共和思想。但是《独立宣言》隐含的基本思想我们生来自由，所有的人；我们每个人生来具有许多权利，若没有正当理由，任何人任何国家不能剥夺；我们通过自己的积极努力可以也一定能过上我们想要的生活一每个美国人都知道。这个思想日复一日地给我们指引方向、确定路线。

的确，个体自由的价值观在我们心里根深蒂固，以至于我们往往认为它是天经地义的。我们很容易忘记国家建立之初这一观念的含义全然是激进的，不亚于马丁·路德教堂门上张贴事件。这种观念在一些国家仍旧遭受排斥一这些国家的日常生活中连人道都很难找到。

事实上，我对《人权法案》的很多体会来自在印度尼西亚度过的部分童年，还有来自我的宗族肯尼亚。在这些国家，个人的权利几乎完全取决于军队统帅的自制，或者腐败官僚们一时的兴致。我记得我第一次带米歇尔去肯尼亚，是在我们准备结婚之前。作为一个非裔美国人米歇尔对拜访她先辈的大陆满怀兴奋；我们度过了美好的时光，拜访住在内陆的祖母，漫步内罗毕的街道，在塞伦盖蒂草原上宿营，在拉穆岛附近垂钓。

但是旅途中米歇尔也听说—正如我第一次非洲之行听到的那样大多数肯尼亚人具有一种恐惧感：他们的命运不在自己的手中。

我同辈的亲戚告诉她，如果不行贿，找份工作或者自己做生意将十分困难。活动家告诉我们，由于表达对政府政策的反对，他们被关进大牢。甚至在我们的家族内部，米歇尔也看到家族纽带和部族忠诚的需求是多么令人窒息，同辈亲戚不时地请求帮助，父辈亲戚们不期而至。回芝加哥的飞机上，米歇尔承认她盼着回家。“我从未意识到我有多美国化”她说。她从未意识到她有多么自由一或者她是多么珍爱那份自由。

我们从反面理解了我们最起码的自由权。我们通常相信这项权利不受干扰，怀疑那些干预我们事情的人，不管是老大哥还是吵闹的邻居。但是我们也从正面理解我们的自由权，体现在机会的理念和有助于实现机会的附属价值观中——所有那些本杰明·富兰克林在《穷理查年鉴》中第一次普及，一辈一辈持续激励我们忠诚的朴素美德，自力更生、自我修养和承担风险的价值观，奋发图强、严于律己、自我克制和努力工作的价值观，节俭和承担责任的价值观。

一些价值观植根于一种对生活的基本乐观态度和对自由意志的信念一一种这样的信心：通过勇气、汗水和智慧，我们每个人都可以不受命运的限制。但是这些价值观同样表达了一种更宽广的信心：只要每个男人和女人自由地追求自己的利益，整个社会就会欣欣向荣。我们的民主政治制度和自由市场经济的繁荣取决于国内占大多数的拥护这些价值观的美国人。我们政府和经济的合法性取决于这些价值观的实践程度，这就能够解释为什么机会均等和非歧视的价值观能够得到互补，而不是侵犯我们的自由权利。

如果我们美国人本质上是自由主义的，如果我们天生不满部族忠诚、传统、习俗和种姓制度的历史，那么认为这就是我们的全部将是个错误。

我们的个人主义始终和一套共有的价值观黏在一起，这种黏合剂每个健康的社会都会需要。我们重视家族规则和家族默契的代际责任。我们珍视社区，这种邻里关系体现在帮邻舍建谷仓和为足球队当教练。我们珍重爱国主义和国民责任，一种为国家的责任感和奉献精神。我们珍视超乎我们自己的信仰，不管它是以正式宗教还是以道德规范的形式表现出来。我们也珍视我们表达互相关注的一些行为表现：诚实、公正、谦虚、和善、礼貌和同情。

每个社会里（和每个人身上），这些成对的方面个人主义和集体主义，意志自由和团结都关系紧张。还好天佑美国，我们民族诞生的境遇使得我们能够更好地调解这种紧张关系。欧洲在破除封建历史的时候被迫经历激烈的动荡，我们连一个这样的动荡都不必经历。北美大陆广袤无垠，广阔的土地和丰富的资源使得新移民可以不断改造自己，我们得以从农业社会轻易地过渡到工业社会。

但是我们无法完全避免这种紧张关系。我们的价值观经常发生碰撞，因为在人们手里每种价值观都容易被扭曲和膨胀。自力更生和独立自主会变成自私自利和无法无天，雄心抱负会变成贪婪和一种不惜一切代价获取成功的狂热欲望。在我们的历史上我们不止一次地看到爱国主义渐渐变为侵略主义、恐外症、扼杀异见；我们看到信念僵化为自以为是、闭关排外和施暴于人。甚至做善事的冲动变成一种令人窒息的家长作风，不愿意承认别人自力更生的能力。

当这种情况发生时一当自由权被援引来为决定向我们的河道里倾倒有毒物质的公司进行辩护时，或者当我们建造一栋高品质的新购物中心这一共同利益被用来当作摧毁某人的房屋的理由时，我们靠的是与这种价值观相对的力量来调和我们的判断和抑制这种无度。

有时候寻找恰当的平衡相对容易些。例如当个人自由可能危害他人时，我们都认同社会有权对其限制。宪法第一修正案没有赋予你在人头攒动的剧院里大叫“着火了”的权利；你有信奉宗教的权利，但不包括人的牺牲。同样，我们都赞同，国家控制我们行为的权力不能无度，哪怕是出于良好的愿望。很多美国人对政府监视我们的饮食感到不满，不管高肥胖率会导致多少人死亡和给我们带来多少医疗费用。

然而，在矛盾的价值观之间寻找恰当的平衡通常并不容易。紧张局势的出现不是因为我们走了一条错误的路，而仅是因为我们生活在一个复杂而矛盾的世界里。例如，我深信，自从“9·11”事件以来，我们在反恐斗争中对宪法原则时松时紧，变化无常。但我承认，即使是最英明的总统和最审慎的国会也会在我们对集体安全的必然要求和同样重要的对公民自由权的拥护之间艰难地寻找平衡。我认为，我们的经济政策极少关心产业工人的无家可归和产业城镇的破坏。但我不能凭我的主观愿望将有时出现的经济安全和竞争力的需求一笔勾销。

不幸的是，我们在全国性辩论中谈到这些艰难选择时常常不能切中要害。我们要么夸大我们讨厌的政策损害最神圣价值观的程度，要么对我们心仪的政策与一些相对立的重要价值产生冲突充耳不闻。例如，当政府干预市场或者质疑拥有武器权利时，保守主义者往往会怒发冲冠。然而恰恰就是这批保守主义者，他们大多数在遇到政府未经许可搭线窃听或者试图控制人的性行为时，采取了听之任之的态度。相反，多半自由主义者会因为政府对出版自由或者妇女生育自由的侵犯而发火；但是如果你再与这批自由主义者探讨管理一名小商户可能的成本时，你得到的是木然的凝视。

在我们这样一个多元的国家，政府采取措施时我们总会就界限划分的问题进行热烈争论。这就是我们的民主工作机制。如果我们意识到所有人都拥有值得尊重的价值观——如果自由主义者至少承认一个狩猎者对猎枪的感情和他们对馆藏图书的感情如出一辙；如果保守主义者已经意识到多数妇女保护其生育自由权如同福音派保护其祈祷权别无两样——我们的民主或许会起到更好的作用。

许多围绕价值观辩论的紊乱主要来自政治家和公众的一种误解：政治与政府等同。说某种价值重要，不是说它应该接受制约，或者应该得到一个新的机构的关注和研究。相反，正是因为一种价值不应该也不能用来立法，这意味着它很适合用作公众讨论的主题。

例如，我十分注重举止礼貌。每次我遇见口齿清楚、用真诚目光注视我的孩子说“是的，先生”“谢谢您”“请”和“对不起”时，我便对国家抱有更大的期望。我认为很多人持有同样的看法。我不能为礼貌立法，但我在为年轻人做讲演时，我会鼓励礼貌举止。

这同样适用于能力。没有什么比遇上一位以工作为荣或者乐于付出的人一会计师、管道工、三星上将，电话那头看来真的为你解决问题的人一能让我更感到高兴。但后来这样的相遇似乎十分少见；我似乎花更多的时间在商店里寻找人帮我，或者等待送货员出现。他人肯定注意到这点；它令我们所有人看上去十分古怪。我们政府里的人，和生意场上的人一样，忽略了这种自担风险的责任意识。

进步人士在这一点上尤其困惑，这就是我们经常在选举中被打得一败涂地的原因。我最近在凯塞家庭基金会发表演讲，该基金会发布过一项研究显示，近几年里，电视的性画面成倍增长。现在我跟大家都一样，喜欢有线电视网络媒体公司的电视节目，一般不关心成人在家中选择看什么电视。但对于孩子们就不同，我想家长有责任监督他们看什么节目。在讲演中我甚至建议，若家长此时——但愿不要这样——果断关上电视，与孩子就这个问题随意对话，这将对大家都有好处。

但是我所知道的每位家长，不管是自由主义者还是保守主义者，都对文化的粗俗化，物质追求和及时享乐，逢场作戏的性行为等现象深恶痛绝，怨声载道。这些人并不要求政府对此进行审查，但是他们希望他们的担忧得到认可，他们的感受得到证实。由于担心显得吹毛求疵，热衷改革的政治领导人甚至不承认这一问题，当出现这一情况时，家长们开始将注意力转向那些承认该问题的领导，可这些领导可能对宪法的局限性认识不足。

当然，保守人士在讨论文化问题时可能会有他们自己的盲点。以公司执行官薪酬为例。1980年首席执行官的平均薪酬是每个小时工平均实得工资的42倍。2005年是262倍。一些保守派代言人，如《华尔街日报》社论版，试图为高得出奇的薪水和股票内购权做辩护，认为这是吸引高端人才之必需。他们甚至放出谬论，当美国大公司的老板身宽体胖、心旷神怡之际，便是美国经济运作良好之时。但是首席执行官工资的激增与业绩提高没有什么关系。事实上，在过去的十年里，一些全国收入最多的总裁，其公司主要表现是赢利陡降、股票贬值、失业率增升、员工养老金匮乏。

造成首席执行官工资变化的不是市场规则，原因在文化。工人的平均工资曾经一度很少或没有涨幅，而美国许多首席执行官在攫取和利用圆滑、温顺的公司董事会方面几乎到了厚颜无耻的地步。美国人懂得这种贪婪的道德观念对我们集体生活的危害；在最近的一份调查中，他们将政府和商业腐败以及贪婪和物质至上作为国家所面临的三项最重要的道德挑战中的两项（“用正确的价值观抚育孩子”居第一位）。如果保守人士认为政府不应该试图决定公司领导人一揽子工资，他们可能是对的。但是，他们至少应该愿意在董事局会议室里畅叙己见，如同将矛头对准肮脏的攻击话语一样，以同样的道德力量、同样的愤怒态度，抨击不合时宜的行为。

当然，对于作为最高权力的白宫讲坛，其权力应该有所限制。有时只有法律才能充分保护我们的价值观，特别是当我们社会中弱者的权利和机遇受到威胁的时候。当然，我们在努力结束种族歧视中一直如此；和道德规劝同样重要的是以布朗诉托皮卡教育局案为高潮的最高法院案件、1964年的《民权法案》和1965年的《选举权法案》，在民权运动时期美国人思想的脱胎换骨的过程中，它们最终摧垮种族歧视并迎来种族关系新时代。有关这些法律的辩论正在进行的时候，有些人主张政府不应该干预市民社会，没有法律可以将白人和黑人联系在一起。听到这些观点，金博士回答道，“法律不能使别人爱我，但是法律可以阻止别人对我动私刑，这或许是真的，我想这也非常重要。”

我们有时既需要文化转变又需要政府行动——一种是价值观的改变，一种是政策的改变——来创建我们想要的那种社会。内城区学校的情况就是个恰当的例子。父母如果没有不遗余力地给孩子灌输努力工作和延迟享乐的价值观，那么世上所有的金钱都不能提高孩子的成绩。但是，破烂危险的学校里，设备过时，教师所学和所教不符，如果我们作为社会宣称，穷孩子在这样的学校里会发挥自己的潜力，那么我们就是在对孩子撒谎，对自己撒谎。我们就是在背叛自己的价值观。

我想这就是使我成为一名民主党人的原因之一——这种思想即是，我们共同的价值观，我们彼此的责任感和社会团结不但应该体现在基督教教堂、清真寺或犹太教会；不但应该体现在我们居住的街区、工作的地点，或我们的家里，而且应该遍及政府内部。

我和许多保守人士一样，相信文化力量在个人成功和社会团结中的决定作用，相信我们若忽视文化因素就会自食其果。但是我也相信我们的政府能在塑造这种文化方面起作用，使之更好或者使之更坏。

同情心是一种随着年龄的增长我越来越欣赏的品质。它是我道德准则的核心，是我所遵循的“金箴”，不仅仅是呼唤同情或呼唤慈善，而是一种更高的要求，一种设身处地为别人着想和从他人的角度来认识事情的品质。

和我多数价值观一样，我从母亲那里学会了同情。种族歧视、学校殴斗，或者克扣工资——我母亲讨厌任何形式的残暴、冷漠无情或权力滥用。每次她看到我即使有一点这种行为，她就会直盯着我的眼睛问：“你认为这样让你感觉如何？”

这个问题我们只问自己是不够的，我想，作为一个国家，我们正遭受着同情心的缺失。随着同情心的增强，我们当前政治天平就会倾向于这个社会中正在抗争的人们。毕竟，他们和我们一样，那么他们的抗争也就是我们的努力方向，如果我们不伸出援助之手，我们将自取灭亡。但是这并不表示那些正在奋斗的人一或者我们当中那些声称要替这些人说话的人一因此不必试图了解富人的想法。这就是同情心的作用，它呼吁我们所有的人去行动：保守主义者和自由主义者，当权者和无权者，受压迫者和压迫者。我们必须将所有的自满抛弃，我们必须超越有限的视域。

在达成共识的号召下，没有人可以保持沉默。

当然，最后仅有相互理解的观念是不够的。毕竟，言说容易，而同情心和一切价值观一样必须付诸行动。我在20世纪80年代组织社区工作时经常质问邻区的领导，把时间、精力和金钱都花到哪里了。我告诉他们，不管我们要给自己找什么借口，这些是对我们的价值观的真正考验。如果我们不愿意为我们的价值观付出任何代价，如果我们不愿意做出牺牲来实现它们，那么我们应该问自己到底信不信它们。

至少根据这些标准，美国人如今看起来最看重的标准是富有、简朴、年轻、知名、安全，还有享乐。我们说我们重视留给下一代遗产，却让这一代背上如山的债务。我们说坚信机会平等，而数百万美国儿童在贫困中呻吟时，我们却袖手旁观。我们坚持认为我们珍惜家庭，而在构建我们的经济和组织我们的生活时，又为了让自己不为家庭所累，花在家庭的时间越来越少。

不过，我们仍然心如明镜。我们不放弃自己的价值观，即使它们有时黯淡无光、陈旧破碎；我们不放弃自己的价值观，即使作为一个国家和在我们自己的生命中，我们经常心不在焉地背叛它们。除了它们还有什么指导我们？这些价值观是我们的传承，是我们作为一个民族的特征。即使我们意识到它们面临挑战，知识分子和文化批评者可以对它们指指戳戳，对它们进行批判，把它们弄个底儿朝天，它们到头来还是出奇地持久，出奇地永恒，及阶级、种族、信念之中，代代相传。只要我们懂得我们的价值观必须经得起事实和经验的考验，只要我们记得它们需要的是行胜于言，我们就能以它们的名义进行诉求。

如果不这样做，我们将放弃最好的自我。

Key Words:

dissent    [di'sent] 

n. 异议 v. 持异议

uphold   [ʌp'həuld]     

v. 支撑，赞成，鼓励

compelling     [kəm'peliŋ]    

adj. 强制的，引人注目的，令人信服的

sporadic [spə'rædik]    

adj. 不定时发生的，零星的

gratification    [.grætifi'keiʃən]     

n. 满足，喜悦

vindicate ['vindikeit]     

v. 辩护，证明 ... 正确，维护（权利等），报仇

solidarity [.sɔli'dæriti]   

n. 团结

参考资料：

1. 现代大学英语精读(第2版)第六册:U10 Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream(1)_大学教材听力 - 可可英语
2. 现代大学英语精读(第2版)第六册:U10 Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream(2)_大学教材听力 - 可可英语
3. 现代大学英语精读(第2版)第六册:U10 Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream(3)_大学教材听力 - 可可英语
4. 现代大学英语精读(第2版)第六册:U10 Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream(4)_大学教材听力 - 可可英语
5. 现代大学英语精读(第2版)第六册:U10 Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream(5)_大学教材听力 - 可可英语
6. 现代大学英语精读(第2版)第六册:U10 Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream(6)_大学教材听力 - 可可英语
7. 现代大学英语精读(第2版)第六册:U10 Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream(7)_大学教材听力 - 可可英语
8. 现代大学英语精读(第2版)第六册:U10 Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream(8)_大学教材听力 - 可可英语
9. http://www.kekenet/daxue/202006/61101shtml

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