Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream 重申美国梦 中英文对照.docx

1、Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream 重申美国梦 中英文对照Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream重申美国梦“We hold theses 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

2、Happiness.”“我们认为这些事实是不言自明的，所有人生来都是平等的，他们被造物主赋予了不可剥夺的权力，分别是生存、自由和追求幸福的权力。”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 th

3、e genesis of the Declaration of Independence to its roots in eighteenth-century liberal and republican thought. But the essential idea behind the Declarationthat we are born into this world free, all of us; that each of us arrives with a bundle of rights that cant be taken away by any person or any

4、state without just cause; that through our own agency we can, and must, make of our lives what we willis one that every Americanunderstands. It orients us, sets our course, each and every day.这些简洁的言语表达了美国人的基本权利，它们不仅描述了我们政府建立的基础，还说明了我们共同信念的实质。不是每一个美国人能够背诵下这些句子，如果问起，我相信只有少许人能够理解当初通过独立宣言的原因，那扎根于18世纪自由和

5、共和主义思想。但是，宣言表达的基本概念是，我们所有人降生到这个世界上都是自由的；除了公正的理由，没有任何人或任何国家可以剥夺我们每个人与生俱来的众多权利；我们通过自己的行为能够而且应当使我们的生活达到预期水平，这是每个美国人都了解的。每天，这个信念为我们指引方向，设定我们的人生路线。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 nations

6、 founding this idea was entirely radical in its implications, as radical as Martin Luthers posting on the church door. It is an idea that some portion of the world still rejectsand for which an even larger portion of humanity finds scant evidence in their daily lives.的确，个人的自由价值观如此根深蒂固地扎根于我们心中，我们往往认为

7、这是理所当然的。很容易忽视曾几何时，在我们的国家创造这个理念时，它代表的意义是极度激进的，就像马丁.路德（Martin Luther，16世纪欧洲宗教改革倡导者，新教路德宗创始人）在教堂门上贴出对神学的质问一样激进。他的这种思想现在仍不被世界上的某些地方所接受，而由此，更多的人们发现他们在日常生活中缺少足够的意义。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

8、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

9、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.事实上，我对国家颁布的人权法案（1971年增加的用以保护公民的某些权利的美国宪法前十个修正案）感激的很大一部分，是由于我的童年曾在印尼呆过一段时间，而且我在肯尼亚还有

10、亲人，在这些国家，公民的个人权利几乎完全掌控在军队将军或腐败官僚手上。我记得在我和米歇尔结婚后不久，我第一次带她去肯尼亚。作为非裔美国人，她对拜访先祖生活的大陆这个主意感到十分激动，而且我们度过了一段美好旅程，看望了住在内地的我的祖母，在内罗毕（Nairobi，肯尼亚首都，位于肯尼亚中南部的高原地区）的街上闲逛，在塞伦盖提平原（Serengeti）宿营，在拉姆（Lamu）岛外钓鱼。But during our travels Michelle also heardas I had heard during my first trip to Africathe terrible sense on

11、 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

12、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 wa

13、s,” she said. She hadnt realized just how free she wasor how much she cherished that freedom.但是，在我们的旅途中，米歇尔也听到了（我第一次来非洲时所听到的）大多数肯尼亚人背负着令人害怕的宿命，他们的命运并不由他们自己决定。我堂兄弟们告诉她，如果不行贿在那里是很难找到工作或经营生意的。政治激进分子向我们讲述了有关发表反对政府政策的言论而被关进监狱的事。即使在我的家族中，米歇尔看到了亲人们对维系家庭纽带，并且要求我们对宗族忠贞达到了多么令人难以忍受的程度，关系疏远的堂兄弟们不断地要我们提供帮助，叔伯和姑姨

14、们没有提前通知就突然出现。在返回芝加哥的航班上，米歇尔向我承认她急于想回国，“我从未意识到自己是如此的美国主义思想，”她说。她那时才明白到自己是如此地自由，或是明白到她有多么地珍惜这种自由。At its most elemental level, we understand our liberty in a negative sense. As a general rule we believe in the right to be left alone, and are suspicious of thosewhether Big Brother or nosy neighborswho w

15、ant 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 opportunityall those homespun virtues that Benjamin Franklin first popularized in Poor Richards Almanack and that have continued to in

16、spire 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.在其最基本的层面上，我们了解到我们的自由权利有其消极的一面。作为一个一般准则，我们坚信自己的权利应该不受侵扰，并且怀疑那些想插手干预我们事务的人

17、（不管是主张专制政府的人还是好管闲事的邻居）。但是我们也了解它积极的一面，机遇和有助于获得机遇的次要价值观的概念本杰明.富兰克林（Benjamin Franklin，美国政府官员、作家、科学家和印刷业者。他在美国革命中起了重要作用）第一次在穷理查的历书（Poor Richards Almanack）中提到的所有这些朴实的美德得到了推广，而且继续鼓舞一代又一代人尽忠于我们的国家。它们是：自力更生，自我修养和敢于冒险的价值观。自我激励，自我磨练，自我克制和努力工作的价值观。节俭和勇于承担个人责任的价值观。These values are rooted in a basic optimism abo

18、ut life and a faith in free willa 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

19、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 nondi

20、scrimination complement rather than impinge on our liberty.这些价值观扎根于一种基础的乐观主义，即在自由意志下对生活和信念的乐观，一种经历了斗智斗勇，辛苦劳动和巨大痛苦后形成的自信，我们每个人都可以超越我们的出身环境。但是这些价值观也表达出一种更广泛的自信，只要每个公民都能够自由地去追求他们自己的利益，就会带来社会的整体繁荣。我们民主政府的机制和自由市场的经济体依靠的是多数美国人坚持着他们自己的价值观。我们的政府和经济体的合法性取决于对这些价值观的回报程度，这就是为什么平等的机遇和无歧视的价值观补足了我们的自由权利，而不是侵犯了。If

21、we Americans are individualistic at heart, if we instinctively chafe against a past of tribal allegiances, traditions, customs, and castes, it would be a mistake to assume that this is all we are. Our individualism has always been bound by a set of communal values, the glue upon which every healthy

22、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 a

23、nd sacrifice on be half 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,

24、 courtesy, andcompassion.如果我们美国人个个都是利己主义，如果我们本能地看不惯往日的宗族忠贞，传统，风俗和社会等级制度，想当然地认为这就是我们的本性，那就错了。我们的利己主义总是和一组公共价值观联系在一起，那是每个健全的社会所倚仗的凝聚力。我们重视家庭的职责和家庭包含的养育下一代的义务。我们重视社团交流，还有通过建造谷仓或执教足球队所表现出的睦邻友好。我们重视爱国精神和公民义务，职责感和为国献身的精神。我们重视信仰比我们更加强大的东西，无论这种信仰是正式宗教还是伦理说教。我们重视那些表达对彼此尊重的行为举止：诚实，正直，谦虚，善良，有礼貌和有同情心。In every s

25、ociety (and in every individual), these twin strandsthe individualistic and the communal, autonomy and solidarityare in tension, and it has been one of the blessings of America that the circumstances of our nations birth allowed us to negotiate these tensions better than most. We did not have to go

26、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 thems

27、elves.在每个社会中（和每个个体中），这两个孪生姐妹利己主义和共有主义，自治和联合在互相较量，我们国家诞生的环境使得我们与大多数国家相比处于更佳的位置，这是美国的幸事之一，我们可以成功地应对这些紧张局势。我们在从封建社会向资本社会转变时，没有必要经历任何激烈的动乱，而欧洲国家都不得已地经历了那些。由于我们国家的大陆的规模，辽阔的国土面积和丰富的自然资源，使得新移民能够继续实现梦想，并缓和了我们从农业社会向工业社会过渡的阵痛。But we cannot avoid these tensions entirely. At times our values collide because in

28、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 weve seen patriotism slide into jingoism,xenophobia, the stifling o

29、f dissent; weve 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.但是我们并不能完全对这些冲击视而不见。有时，人们的价值观会起冲突，因为人性是可以被歪曲和放纵的。自

30、力更生和独立自主可以转变为自私和放荡，雄心壮志可以变为贪婪和不计任何代价疯狂渴求成功的期望。在美国的历史中不止一次，我们看到爱国精神不知不觉地陷入侵略主义，仇视外国和扼杀政见不同的势力；我们看到信仰僵化地变为自以为是，封闭的思想和对残忍对待持不同意见者。甚至有心做慈善事业的人都会不由自主地掉入沉闷的家长式作风，不愿意承认其他人的能力，事事亲自参与。When this happenswhen liberty is cited in the defense of a companys decision to dump toxins in our rivers, or when our collec

31、tive interest in building an upscale new mall is used to justify the destruction of somebodys homewe depend on the strength of countervailing values to temper our judgment and hold such excesses in check.当这种转变发生时，当一个公司决定将有毒物质扔进河里，并辩解称这是它的自由权利时；或者当建造一家高消费的新购物中心时提出我们的集体利益，而认为拆掉他人的家园是正当行为时；我们就得考虑对立的价值观

32、，来进行正确的判断，并且阻止发生上述这些过分行径。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 doesnt 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 states power to control ourbehavior, even if its for our own good. Not many Americans would feel comfortable with the government monitoring what we eat, no