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

而且我在肯尼亚还有亲人，

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，

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（< /p>

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

（

Sere ngeti

）宿营，在拉姆（

Lamu

）岛外钓鱼。

But

during

our

travels

Michelle

also

heard

—

as

I

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 usabout

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.

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。

< br>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，< /p>

关系疏远的堂兄弟们不断地要我们提供帮助，

叔伯和姑姨们没有< /p>

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，

”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 those

—

whether Big Brother or nosy neighbors

—

who want to meddle inour 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

andself- 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

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（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

（

BenjaminFranklin

，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》

（

PoorRichard< /p>

’

sAlmanack

）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

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

ofequal

opportunity

and

nondiscrimination 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 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 society depends. We value the imperatives

of

family

and

thecross-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

behalfof

our

nation.

We

value

a

faith

in

something

bigger

than

ourselves,whether

that

something

expresses

itself

in

formal

religion

orethical

precepts.

And

we

value

the

constellation

of

behaviors

that

express

our

mutual

regard

for

one

another:honesty,fairness,humility,

kindness,

courtesy,

and

compassion. < /p>

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 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

circumstances

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.

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，

< br>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

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

the impulse toward charity can drift into a stifling paternalism, an unwillingness to

acknowledge the ability of othersto do for themselves.

但是我们并不能完全对这些冲击视而不见。