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J·K·罗琳 : 人世间,有谁活得不像是一场炼狱?(三)

J·K·罗琳 : 人世间,有谁活得不像是一场炼狱?(三)

作者: 8243ec3abb02 | 来源:发表于2018-12-19 17:49 被阅读9次

    听英美国家政治家、名人的演讲发言,经常有非常精彩独到之处,我们可以学习借鉴,为我们的口语表达和写作等增色。

    今天我们来看看《哈利波特》的作者J.K.罗琳女士2008年6月5日在哈佛大学的毕业典礼的演讲的精彩后半部分。

    Every day, I saw more evidence about the evils humankind will inflict on their fellow humans,to gain or maintain power. I began to have nightmares, literal nightmares, about some of the things I saw, heard, and read.

    inflict sth upon sb/sth 使…蒙受…

    或许正是这段经历,让罗琳开始初步构想权利熏心伏地魔和食死徒的形象。

    每天,我看到越来越来的证据表明人类同类相残,就为了攫取或巩固权力。我开始做噩梦,真真正正的噩梦,梦里都是我的所见、所闻和所读。

    And yet I also learned more about human goodness at Amnesty International than I had ever knownbefore. Amnesty mobilises thousands of people who have never been tortured or imprisoned for their beliefs to act on behalf of those who have. The power of human empathy, leading to collective action, saves lives, and frees prisoners. Ordinary people, whose personal well-being and security are assured, join together in huge numbers to save people they do not know, and will never meet. My small participation in that process was one of the most humbling and inspiring experiences of my life.

    act on behalf of… 代表…行动

    但在国际特赦组织,我也更加了解人性善良的一面。国际特赦组织动员数千名未曾因信仰遭受折磨或者监禁的人们,代受此之苦之人行动。人类的同理心让人们能够采取一致的行动,拯救生命,释放囚犯。许多生活幸福,安全无虞的普通人团结在一起,拯救未曾相识,也永远不会谋面的人。我只是其中微不足道的一份子,这段人生经历让我倍感谦逊,深受启发。

    Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced.They can think themselves into other people’s places. Of course, this is a power, like my brand of fictional magic, that is morally neutral. One might use such an ability to manipulate, or control, just as much as to understandor sympathise.

    与地球上其他生物所不同的是,人类即使未曾亲身经历,也能学习和理解。人们能站在别人的角度上思考。当然,这是一种能力,正如我写的小说里的魔法一般,在道德上是中立的。人们有可能使用这种能力操纵或者控制别人,也有可能用以理解和同情别人。

    And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages; they can close their minds and hearts toany suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to know.

    当然有许多人宁愿让想象力荒废。他们选择舒适地沉浸在自身体验中,从不费心想象如果出身不同,会有何种感受。他们可以拒绝聆听尖叫或者往监牢里看一眼;他们可以对不触及自身的苦难充耳不闻,视若无睹;他们可以拒绝当知情者。

    I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think they have any fewer nightmares than I do. Choosing to live in narrow spaces leads to a formof mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors. I think the willfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid. What is more, those who choose not to empathise enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy.

    agoraphobia  旷野恐怖症; 广场恐怖症

    罗琳表达了这样一种理念,那就是个人自扫门前雪,只会导致社会的灾难,对恶行视而不见,充当冷漠的旁观者,就是在助长恶行。即使闭门不问天下事,谁知道有一天伏地魔会不会来敲门呢?

    我可能也曾一度羡慕这些人的生活方式,只是我觉得他们的噩梦也不会比我的少。选择缩小自己的生活范围,会导致心理上的旷野恐怖症,招致自身的恐惧。我认为特意抑制想象力的人会看到更多的恶魔。他们常常担心害怕。此外,那些毫无同情心的人导致了真正的恶魔的产生。因为即使我们自己没有犯下滔天罪行,我们的冷漠相当于让我们成了为共犯。

    One of the many things I learned at the end of that Classics corridor down which I venturedat the age of 18, in search of something I could not then define, was this, written by the Greek author Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality. That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousandtimes every day of our lives. It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other people’s lives simply by existing.

    in part 部分地,在某种程度上

    人的内心体会会改变现实,这一点在《哈利·波特》小说最后一部有所体现。哈利终于打倒伏地魔,又见到了已故的校长邓布利多,两人的对话:

    哈利:“告诉我最后一点,”“这是真事吗?还是发生在我脑子里的事?”

    邓布利多:“当然是发生在你脑子里的事,哈利,但为什么那就意味着不是真的呢?

    我在18岁时,为了寻找当时不知如何定义之物,畅游经典著作的长廊后学会的一件事是,正如希腊作家普鲁塔克所写的:“内心的体悟,将会改变外在现实”。这是一个惊人的论断,但是在我们日常生活中已经得到无数次验证。这句话某种程度上是在说,我们与外部世界有着藕断丝连的关系,我们存在本身就在影响着别人的生活。

    But how much more are you, Harvard graduates of 2008, likely to touch other people’s lives?Your intelligence, your capacity for hard work, the education you have earned and received, give you unique status, and unique responsibilities. Even your nationality sets you apart. The great majority of you belong to the world’s only remaining superpower. The way you vote, the way you live, the way you protest, the pressure you bring to bear on your government, has an impact way beyond your borders. That is your privilege, and your burden.

    set apart 使…凸显

    但是各位哈佛2008届毕业生,是否更有可能影响别人的生活呢?你们的智慧、努力工作的能力以及获取和接受的教育赋予了你们特殊的地位和特殊的责任。即使是你们的国籍也让你们与众不同。你们中的大多数人来自世界上仅存的超级大国。你们投票、生活、抗议的方式,以及对政府的施压,所产生的影响力远远超越了国界。这是你们的特权,也是你们的担当。

    If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who haveno voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped change. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.

    identify with 认同,同情

    如果你们选择利用你们的地位和影响力,为没有发言权的人们而疾呼呐喊;如果你们选择不仅仅认同有权有势之人,还能与弱势群体产生共鸣;如果你们保有想象力,想象条件远不如自己的人过的生活,那么不仅仅是你们的家庭会为你们感到自豪,赞扬你们的存在,无数你们帮助过的,改变现实生活的人们也会如此。我们不需要魔法来改变世界,我们自身就具备所需要的所有能力:我们有能力更好地想象。

    I am nearly finished. I have one last hope for you, which is something that I already had at21. The friends with whom I sat on graduation day have been my friends for life. They are my children’s godparents, the people to whom I’ve been able to turn in times of trouble, people who have been kind enough not tosue me when I took their names for Death Eaters. At our graduation we were bound by enormous affection, by our shared experience of a time that could never come again, and, of course, by the knowledge that we held certain photographic evidence that would be exceptionally valuable if any of us ran for Prime Minister.

    我的演讲即将结束了。我最后提出一点希望,这也是我21岁时就已经拥有的。毕业日和我坐在一起的朋友成为了我终生的朋友。他们是我的孩子的教父教母,是我困难时求助的对象。他们很宽厚,我把他们的名字拿来命名食死徒时,他们都没起诉我。毕业时,将我们紧密联系在一起的,是激动的情绪,共同经历一段一去不复还的时光,以及我们的拍照留念——如果日后有人竞选首相,这些影像资料将尤为珍贵。

    So today, I wish you nothing better than similar friendships. And tomorrow, I hope that evenif you remember not a single word of mine, you remember those of Seneca, another of those old Romans I met when I fled down the Classics corridor, in retreat from career ladders, in search of ancient wisdom: As is a tale,so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.

    因此今日,祝愿各位也能拥有这样的友谊。希望明天,即使你们记不得我说过的一个字,你们能记住塞内卡的话:“生活正如故事一般:不是长度,而是质量起着决定作用。”他是我放弃职业发展,为寻取古人智慧,在经典著作的长廊上游走时遇到的另一位古罗马人。

    I wish you all very good lives. Thank you very much.

    祝各位生活美满。非常感谢。

    罗琳最后再次强调了借助想象力,人们表现同情心的重要性,这是这一点才让社会变得温情而有希望。在讲友谊的部分,她又展现了独特的罗氏幽默,用朋友的名字命名食死徒和竞选首相时照片的珍贵性。

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