高級英語課文翻譯

精選文庫Lesson two 青年人的四種選擇 Lesson 2: Four Choices for Young People 在畢業(yè)前不久，斯坦福大學四年級主席吉姆?賓司給我寫了一封信，信中談及他的一些不安。 Shortly before his graduation, Jim Binns, president of the senior class at Stanford University, wrote me about some of his misgivings. 他寫道：“與其他任何一代人相比，我們這一代人在看待成人世界時抱有更大的疑慮同時越來越傾向于全盤否定成人世界?！?“More than any other generation,” he said, “our generation views the adult world with great skepticism there is also an increased tendency to reject completely that world.” 很明顯，他的話代表了許多同齡人的看法。 Apparently he speaks for a lot of his contemporaries. 在過去的幾年里，我傾聽過許多年輕人的談話，他們有的還在大學讀書，有的已經(jīng)畢業(yè)，他們對于成人的世界同樣感到不安。 During the last few years, I have listened to scores of young people, in college and out, who were just as nervous about the grown world. 大致來說，他們的態(tài)度可歸納如下：“這個世界亂糟糟的，到處充滿了不平等、貧困和戰(zhàn)爭。對此該負責的大概應(yīng)是那些管理這個世界的成年人吧。如果他們不能做得比這些更好，他們又能拿什么來教育我們呢？這樣的教導，我們根本不需要。” Roughly, their attitude might be summed up about like this: “The world is in pretty much of a mess, full of injustice, poverty, and war. The people responsible are, presumably, the adults who have been running thing. If they cant do better than that, what have they got to teach our generation? That kind of lesson we can do without.” 我覺得這些結(jié)論合情合理，至少從他們的角度來看是這樣的。 There conclusions strike me as reasonable, at least from their point of view. 對成長中的一代人來說，相關(guān)的問題不是我們的社會是否完美（我們可以想當然地認為是這樣），而是應(yīng)該如何去應(yīng)付它。 The relevant question for the arriving generation is not whether our society is imperfect (we can take that for granted), but how to deal with it. 盡管這個社會嚴酷而不合情理，但它畢竟是我們惟一擁有的世界。 For all its harshness and irrationality, it is the only world weve got. 因此，選擇一個辦法去應(yīng)付這個社會是剛剛步入成年的年輕人必須作出的第一個決定，這通常是他們一生中最重要的決定。 Choosing a strategy to cope with it, then, is the first decision young adults have to make, and usually the most important decision of their lifetime. 根據(jù)我的發(fā)現(xiàn)，他們的基本選擇只有四種： So far as I have been able to discover, there are only four basic alternatives: 1）脫離傳統(tǒng)社會 1）Drop Out 這是最古老的方法之一，任何年齡的人無論在任何地方，也無論是否使用迷幻劑都可以采用。 This is one of the oldest expedients, and it can be practiced anywhere, at any age, and with or without the use of hallucinogens. 那些認為這個世界殘酷、復(fù)雜得令人難以忍受的人通常會選擇這個辦法。 It always has been the strategy of choice for people who find the world too brutal or too complex to be endured. 實質(zhì)上，這是一種寄生式的生活方式，采取此策略的人通過這樣或那樣的方式寄生于這個他們蔑視的社會，并且拒絕對這個社會承擔責任 By definition, this way of life is parasitic. In one way or another, its practitioners batten on the society which they scorn and in which they refuse to take any responsibility. 我們中的一些人對此很厭惡認為這種生活方式很不光彩。 Some of us find this distasteful an undignified kind of life. 但對于那些卑微、懶惰又缺乏自尊的人來說，這也許是可行的最可以忍受的選擇了。 But for the poor in spirit, with low levels of both energy and pride, it may be the least intolerable choice available. 2）逃避現(xiàn)實社會 2) Flee 這個策略早在遠古就有先例。 This strategy also has ancient antecedents. 自文明誕生以來，就有人企圖逃避文明社會，希望尋求一種更為樸素、更富田園風情、更為寧靜的生活。 Ever since civilization began, certain individuals have tried to run away from it in hopes of finding a simpler, more pastoral, and more peaceful life. 與那些脫離傳統(tǒng)社會的人不同，這些人不是寄生者。他們愿意自食其力，愿意為社會作出貢獻，可是他們就是不喜歡這個文明世界的環(huán)境。確地說，不喜歡這充滿丑惡和緊張的大都市。 Unlike the dropouts, they are not parasites. They are willing to support themselves and to contribute something to the general community, but they simply dont like the environment of civilization; that is, the city, with all its ugliness and tension. 這種方法的問題在于無法大規(guī)模地進行實踐。 The trouble with this solution is that it no longer is practical on a large scale. 不幸的是，在我們的地球上，高尚的野蠻人和未被破壞的自然景色已越來越少；除了兩極地區(qū)以外已經(jīng)沒有未開發(fā)的土地了。 Our planet, unfortunately, is running out of noble savages and unsullied landscaped; except for the polar regions, the frontiers are gone. 少數(shù)富有的鄉(xiāng)紳還可以逃避現(xiàn)實去過田園生活但總的說來，遷移的潮流是向相反的方向流動。 A few gentleman farmers with plenty of money can still escape to the bucolic life but in general the stream of migration is flowing the other way. 3）策劃革命 Plot a Revolution 在對民主進程單調(diào)乏味的運作方式毫無耐心或相信只有武力才能改變基本社會制度的那些人中，這一策略頗受歡迎。 This strategy is always popular among those who have no patience with the tedious working of the democratic process or who believe that basic institutions can only be changed by force. 它吸引了每一代年輕人中那些更為活躍和更具理想主義的人。 It attracts some of the more active and idealistic young people of every generation. 對他們來說，這種策略具有浪漫的吸引力，通常以某位魅力非凡且令人振奮的人物為其象征。 To them it offers a romantic appeal, usually symbolized by some dashing and charismatic figure. 這一策略簡單明了并具有更大的吸引力：“既然這個社會已經(jīng)無可救藥，那就讓我們砸碎它，在它的廢墟上面建一個更好的社會?！?It has the even greater appeal of simplicity: “Since this society is hopelessly bad, lets smash it and build something better on the ruins.” 我最好的朋友中有些是革命者，他們中的一些人過得相當滿足。 Some of my best friends have been revolutionists, and a few of them have led reasonably satisfying lives. 這部分人其實是那些革命并未成功的人，他們可以繼續(xù)興高采烈地策劃大屠殺，直至老態(tài)龍鐘。 These are the ones whose revolutions did not come off; they have been able to keep on cheerfully plotting their holocausts right into their senescence. 另外一些人年紀輕輕就死了，死在監(jiān)獄里或街壘旁。 Others died young, in prison or on the barricades. 但最不幸的是那些革命成功的人。 But the most unfortunate are those whose revolutions have succeeded. 他們極度失望，看到他們推翻的權(quán)力機構(gòu)又被新機構(gòu)所替代，而新機構(gòu)依舊是那樣冷酷，那樣毫無生機。 They lived in bitter disillusionment, to see the establishment they had overthrown replaced by a new one, just as hard-faced and stuffy. 當然，我并不是說革命一無所成。 I am not, of course, suggesting that revolutions accomplish nothing. 一些革命（美國革命，法國革命）確實將事情變得越來越好。 Some (The American Revolution, the French Revolution) clearly do change things for the better. 我只是想說革命無論成敗，那些策劃革命的革命者們都注定要失望。 My point is merely that the idealists who make the revolution are bound to be disappointed in either case. 因為勝利的曙光無論如何也不會照耀在他們夢想中的那個擺脫了人類一切卑劣的燦爛的新世界上。 For at best their victory never dawns on the shining new world they had dreamed of, cleansed of all human meanness. 相反，它照在了一個熟悉的平庸的地方，這個地方仍舊需要食品雜貨和污水排放。 Instead it dawns on a familiar, workaday place, still in need of groceries and sewage disposal. 無論貼著什么樣的政治標簽，革命后的國家都不是由激進的浪漫主義者來治理，而是由市場營銷、衛(wèi)生工程和管理官僚機構(gòu)的專家來治理。 The revolutionary state, under whatever political label, has to be run-not by violent romantics-but by experts in marketing, sanitary engineering, and the management of bureaucracies. 對一些決心改造社會，但同時又希望能找到一種比武裝革命更可行的方法的理想主義者來說，還有另外一種選擇。 For the idealists who are determined to remake society, but who seek a more practical method than armed revolution, there remains one more alternative. 4）循序漸進，逐步改變社會 Try to Change the World Gradually, One Clod at a Time 乍一看，這一途徑毫無吸引力。 At first glance, this course is far from inviting. 它缺乏魅力，并且見效很慢。 It lacks glamour. It promises no quick results. 它依靠勸說和民主決策這些令人惱火且不可靠的方法來實現(xiàn)。 It depends on the exasperating and uncertain instruments of persuasion and democratic decision making. 它需要耐心，可我們卻總是缺乏耐心。 It demands patience, always in short supply. 它惟一的好處是有時這方法行得通在這個特定的時間和地點，它比其他的任何策略都更有可能制止世界上的某些惡行。 About all that can be said for it is that it sometimes works that in this particular time and place it offers a better chance for remedying some of the worlds outrages than any other available strategy. 至少歷史事實似乎證明了這一點。 So at least the historical evidence seems to suggest. 我大學畢業(yè)的時候，我們這一代人也發(fā)現(xiàn)世界亂得一團糟。 When I was graduating from college, my generation also found the world in a mess.幾乎所有地方的經(jīng)濟機構(gòu)都已崩潰，在美國幾乎四分之一的人口失業(yè)。 The economic machinery had broken down almost everywhere: In this country nearly a quarter of the population was out of work. 一場大戰(zhàn)似乎在所難免。 A major was seemed all too likely. 當時作為校報編輯，對這些我曾經(jīng)猛烈地抗議過，像今天的學生積極分子一樣。 As a college newspaper editor at that time, I protested against this just as vehemently as student activists are protesting today. 與此同時，我們這一代人漸漸發(fā)現(xiàn)改造世界有點像在亞平寧山區(qū)打仗一樣。你剛剛占領(lǐng)一條山脈，另一條山脈又在前方隱現(xiàn)。 At the same time, my generation was discovering that reforming the world is a little like fighting a military campaign in the Apennines, as soon as you capture one mountain range, another one looms just ahead. 當20世紀30年代的大問題剛剛勉強得到控制，新的問題又出現(xiàn)了富足社會中出現(xiàn)的嶄新問題，如種族平等，保證城市環(huán)境適于居住，應(yīng)付各種陌生偽裝下的戰(zhàn)爭等等。 As the big problems of the thirties were brought under some kind of rough control, new problems took their place the unprecedented problems of an, affluent society, of racial justice, of keeping our cities from becoming uninhabitable, of coping with war in unfamiliar guises. 最令人不安的是我們發(fā)現(xiàn)了人口爆炸這一問題。 Most disturbing of all was our discovery of the population explosion. 我們突然意識到我們這艘載人小飛船上的乘客數(shù)目大約每40年翻一倍。 It dawned on us rather suddenly that the number of passengers on the small spaceship we inhabit is doubling about every forty years. 只要地球上的人口持續(xù)地按這個可怕的速度增長，其他所有問題都將無法解決。 So long as the earths population keeps growing at this cancerous rate, all of the other problems appear virtually insoluble. 我們的城市會變得越來越擁擠，景色會變得更加雜亂，空氣和水也會變得愈發(fā)骯臟。 Our cities will continue to become more crowded and noisome. The landscape will get more cluttered, the air and water even dirtier. 所有人的生活質(zhì)量都會不斷惡化。 The quality of life is likely to become steadily worse for everybody. 如果過多的人必須為了爭奪日益減少的食物份額和生存空間而爭斗的話，戰(zhàn)爭的升級看來是無法避免的。 And warfare on a rising scale seems inevitable if too many bodies have to struggle for ever-dwindling shares of food and living space. 因此吉姆?賓司這代人要承擔一項艱巨的任務(wù)。 So Jim Binns generation has a formidable job on its hands. 但我認為這并不是無法克服的困難。 But not, I think, an insuperable one. 過去的事實證明，處理這項艱巨任務(wù)完全可采用以前解決困難問外時使用的方法從實際效果出發(fā)，一點一滴，通過大家不懈的努力來完成。 On the evidence of the past, it can be handled in the same way that hard problems have been coped with before-piecemeal, pragmatically, by the dogged efforts of many peopleLesson eight做黑人勝過做女人 成為第一個在國會立足的黑人女性使我變成某種現(xiàn)象人物。國會中還有9個黑人和另外10位女性。我是第一個同時克服了兩種阻礙（黑人，女人）的人。在這兩種阻礙下，作為一個黑人的阻礙要大大低于作一個女人。 如果我說作為一個黑人的阻力遠遠大于作為一個女人，或許沒有人會質(zhì)疑我。為什么？因為“我們都知道”在美國存在對黑人的偏見。對女性存在偏見這樣的想法在大多數(shù)男性看來恐怕也包括大部分女性是非常奇怪的。 許多年來對黑人的偏見對于大多數(shù)美國白人是隱形的。當黑人最終開始“關(guān)注”這個問題的時候，（發(fā)起了）入座運動、罷乘運動和自由騎車運動。美國人（對此）十分懷疑?！罢l？我們？”白人用受傷的語調(diào)問?！拔覀兤缫暎ê谌四兀俊保ㄓ谑切纬闪耍┮粋€對美國白人長時間的、陣痛的再教育。（這個教育）花了白人許多年時間包括那些自認為是自由主義者去探索和根除他們已經(jīng)作出的種族主義者的態(tài)度。 那么根除對女性的偏見有多難呢？我相信這是一個長時間的爭斗。部分問題在于美國女性大多數(shù)被洗腦和適應(yīng)了他們和黑人一樣作為二等公民的角色。 讓我解釋一下。我從政超過20載。所有時間但尤其是最后六年，我做了如下工作：能影響競選成敗的所有的無聊的細節(jié)工作，這是大部分從政女性不可避免的命運。男性收獲了勝利果實。 還是女性，大約有300萬自愿者，在美國的政治世界中從事這樣的工作。其中優(yōu)秀者有望獲得成為地區(qū)或者全國（競選）副主席的榮耀。這個象征性的位置是一個女性多年忠心地（為競選）做著郵政工作（回信之類）和組織卡牌聚會的獎賞。這樣的一份工作，女性免費獲得各州之間的旅行和時而的國家級會議。（會議上）女性也被認為是跟著他的男性上司進行投票。 在1963年，我嘗試突破女性固有的角色，（于是）代表Brooklyns Bedford-Stuyvesant（貧民窟）參加了紐約州議會競選，反對聲十分強烈。自從競選開始，因為我的性別，我面對毫無掩飾的敵意。 不過四年后，當我競選國會，性別成了最主要的問題。我所在的黨內(nèi)，也曾舉行過秘密會議商討如何阻止我。 我的對手，著名的民權(quán)領(lǐng)袖James Farmer試圖塑造一個充滿男性魅力的黑人形象。他的廣播車在鄰里間宣傳，車上滿是帶著非洲式頭發(fā)、穿著短袖套頭衫和帶著小胡子的年輕男性。當電視臺那群人無視我的時候，他們也沒意識到一個重要的數(shù)據(jù)，我和我的競選經(jīng)理Wesley MacD知道這個數(shù)。在我的選區(qū)，注冊投票的女性是男性的2.5倍。而女性多數(shù)在學生家長和教師聯(lián)誼會（PTAs）、教會、牌友和其他一些社會服務(wù)性組織中。我去找她們并且請求她們的幫助。Farmer先生一點都不知道是什么打敗了他。 當一個聰明的女大學畢業(yè)生開始找工作的時候，為什么第一個問題總是：“你會打字嗎？”藏在這個問題背后的是歷史的偏見。為什么女性總被認為是該做秘書而不是領(lǐng)導者？被認為是圖書管理員和老師而不是醫(yī)生和律師？因為女性被認為是不同的、低等的?？鞓返募彝ブ鲖D和（對生活）滿足的黑人的形象都是因為偏見。 女性甚至沒達到黑人表面上的水平（沒黑人好）。最高法院中沒有女性一席。內(nèi)閣中曾有兩位女性，但是現(xiàn)在一個沒有。大使地位級別的女性有兩位。女性“支配”著低收入（檔次），做著無聊的、沒有獎金的、沒有前途的工作，即使她們升到一個理想的職位，同樣的工作，她們的薪水也常常少于男性。 如果這都不是歧視，那么你們怎么這種現(xiàn)象呢？ 幾年前，我和一位政治領(lǐng)袖談?wù)撘粋€充滿前途的年輕女候選人，“為什么投入那么時間和精力來捧起她？”他問我?！澳阒?，他只能退出競選然后結(jié)婚生子，若我們沒讓他準備好參加市長競選?！?大量的人對我抱有相同的看法。當我試圖更進一步時，有許多人建議我回去教書，做回女性的本職工作，把政治留給男人。我熱愛教書，并且準備好回去，只要我被說服說是這個國家不再需要一位女性的貢獻。 不過在這種情況發(fā)生前至少我們都知道今明幾年是不會的我們需要的是更多的女性參政。因為我們能做出十分特別的貢獻。我希望我成功的事例能說服其他女性參政不僅僅是一些郵政工作，管管辦公室。 女性可以給政府帶來共鳴，容忍，遠見，耐心，堅韌這些天生就有的，也是在男性壓迫之下不得不發(fā)展的品質(zhì)。一國女性的生存狀況塑造了這個國家的道德，宗教和政治。目前，我們國家需要女性的理想主義和決心，或者在其他地方更多地參與政治中來。Lesson nine要擺脫電視的影響是困難的。 It is difficult to escape the influence of television. 假如統(tǒng)計的平均數(shù)字適用于你的話，那么你到20歲的時候就至少看過2萬個小時的電視了，從那以后每生活10年就會增加1萬小時。 If you fit the statistical averages, by the age of 20 you will have been exposed to at least 20,000 hours of television. You can add 10,000 hours for each decade you have lived after the age of 20. 比起看電視，美國人只有在工作和睡眠上花時間更多。 The only things Americans do more than watch television are work and sleep. 稍微計算一下，使用這些時間的一部分能夠做些什么。 Calculate for a moment what could be done with even a part of those hours. 聽說一個大學生僅用5000小時就可以獲得學士學位。 Five thousand hours, I am told, are what a typical college undergraduate spends working on a bachelors degree. 在1萬個小時內(nèi)你能學成一個天文學家或工程師，流利掌握幾門外語。 In 10,000 hours you could have learned enough to become an astronomer or engineer. You could have learned several languages fluently. 如果你感興趣的話，你可能讀希臘原文的荷馬史詩或俄文版的陀思妥耶夫斯基 作品；如果對此不感興趣，那你可以徒步周游世界，撰寫一本游記。 If it appealed to you, you could be reading Homer in the original Greek or Dostoyevsky in Russian. If it didnt, you could have walked around the world and written a book about it. 電視的毛病在于它分散了人們的注意力。 The trouble with television is that it discourages concentration. 生活中幾乎一切有趣的、能給人以滿足的事都需要一定的建設(shè)性的、持之以恒的努力。 Almost anything interesting and rewarding in life requires some constructive, consistently applied effort. 即使是我們中間那些最遲鈍、最沒有天才的人也能做出一些事來，而這些事使那些從來不在任何事情上專心致志的人感到像是奇跡一般。 The dullest, the least gifted of us can achieve things that seem miraculous to those who never concentrate on anything. 但電視鼓勵我們不做出任何努力，它向我們兜售即時的滿足，它給我們提供娛樂，使我們只想娛樂，讓時間在毫無痛苦中消磨掉。 But Television encourages us to apply no effort. It sells us instant gratification. It diverts us only to divert, to make the time pass without pain. 電視節(jié)目的多樣化成了一種麻醉劑而不是促進思考的因素。 Televisions variety becomes a narcotic, nor a stimulus. 它那系列的、多變的畫面引著我們跟著它走。 Its serial, kaleidoscopic exposures force us to follow its lead. 觀眾無休無止地跟著導游游覽：參觀博物館30分鐘，看大教堂30分鐘，喝飲料30分鐘，然后上車去下一個參觀點，只是電視的特點是時間分配以分秒計算，而所選擇的內(nèi)容卻多為車禍和人們的互相殘殺。 The viewer is on a perpetual guided tour:cathedral, 30 for a drink, then back on the bus to the next attraction except on television, typically, the spans allotted are on the order of minutes or seconds, and the chosen delights are more often car crashes and people killing one another. 總之許多電視節(jié)目取代了人類最可貴的一種才能，即主動集中自己的注意力，而不是被動地奉送注意力。 In short, a lot of television usurps one of the most precious of all human gifts, the ability to focus your attention yourself, rather than just passively surrender it. 吸引并抓住人們的注意力是大多數(shù)電視節(jié)目安排的主要目的，它加強了電視是有利可圖的廣告的載體的作用。 Capturing your attention and holding itis the prime motive動機 of most television programming and enhances its role as a profitable advertising vehicle. 節(jié)目安排使人生活在無休止的恐懼之中，唯恐抓不住人們的注意力不管是什么人的注意力都擔心。 Programmers live in constant fear of losing anyones attentionanyones. 避免造成這一局面的最有把握的辦法就是使一切節(jié)目都保持簡短，不要使任何人的注意力過于集中而受到損害，而要通過多樣化、新奇性、動作和行動不斷地提供刺激。 The surest way to avoid doing so is to keep everything brief, not to strain the attention of anyone but instead to provide constant stimulation through variety, novelty, action and movement. 很簡單，電視的運作原則就是迎合觀眾的注意力跨度短這一特點。 Quite simply, television operates on the appeal to the short attention span. 這只是最簡單的解決辦法，但它逐漸被看作是電視這一宣傳媒體特定的，內(nèi)在固有的性質(zhì)，是必須履行的職責，似乎是司令薩爾諾夫或另一個令人敬畏的電視創(chuàng)始人給我們傳下了刻有銘文的石碑，命令電視上出現(xiàn)的一切節(jié)目均不得使觀眾需要片刻以上的注意力。 It is simply the easiest way out. But it has come to be regarded as a given, as inherent in the medium itself; as an imperative, as though General Sarnoff, or one of the other august pioneers of video, had bequeathed to us tablets of stone commanding that nothing in television shall ever require more than a few moments concentration. 要是運用得恰當，這倒也無可厚非。 In its place that is fine. 如此出色地把使人忘卻現(xiàn)實的娛樂作為大規(guī)模推銷工具加以包裝，誰又能反對這樣一種宣傳媒介呢？ Who can quarrel with a medium that so brilliantly packages escapist entertainment as a mass-marketing tool? 但是我看到了它的價值現(xiàn)已充斥于這個國家及其生活之中。 Rut I see its values now pervading this nation and its life. 認為快速思維和快餐食品一樣影響著生活節(jié)奏很快、性情急躁的公眾，這已成了時髦的看法。 It has become fashionable to think that, like fast food, fast ideas are the way to get to a fast-moving, impatient public. 在新聞方面，我認為這種做法不能進行很好的交流。 In the case of news, this practice, in my view, results in inefficient communication. 我懷疑電視每晚的新聞節(jié)目真正能夠被人吸收和理解的有多少。 I question how much of televisions nightly news effort is really absorbable and understandable. 其中許多被形象地描述為“機關(guān)槍不連貫地點射”。 Much of it is what has been aptly described as machine-gunning with scraps. 我認為這種技術(shù)是與連貫性作對的。 I think the technique fights coherence. 我認為它最終會使事情變得枯燥乏味、無足輕重（除非伴以恐怖的畫面），因為任何一件事，如果你對它幾乎一無所知，那么它差不多總會是枯燥乏味、使人覺得無足輕重的。 I think it tends to make things ultimately boring and dismissible (unless they are accompanied by horrifying pictures) because almost anything is boring and dismissible if you know almost nothing about it. 我認為，電視迎合觀眾注意力跨度短的做法不僅會造成交流不暢，而且還會降低文化水平。 I believe that TVs appeal to the short attention span is not only inefficient communication but decivilizing as well. 想一想電視要達到的那些極不慎重的原則吧：必須避免復(fù)雜性，用視覺刺激來代替思考，語言的精確早已是不合時宜的要求。 Consider the casual assumptions that television tends to cultivate達到that complexity must be avoided, that visual stimulation is a substitute for thought, that verbal precision is an anachronism. 它可能已過時，但我所受的教育告訴我思想就是語言，是按準確的語法規(guī)則組織起來的。 It may be old-fashioned, but I was taught that thought is words, arranged in grammatically precise. 在美國存在著讀寫能力的危機。 There is a crisis of literacy in this country. 據(jù)一項研究估計，約有3000萬美國成年人是“功能性文盲”。他們的讀寫能力無法回答招聘廣告，或讀懂藥瓶上的說明。據(jù)一項研究估計，約有3000萬美國成年人是“功能性文盲”。他們的讀寫能力無法回答招聘廣告，或讀懂藥瓶上的說明。 One study estimates that some 30 million adult Americans are functionally illiterate and cannot read or write well enough to answer the want ad or understand the instructions on a medicine bottle. 能讀寫可能算不上是一項不可剝奪的人權(quán)，但是我們學識淵博的開國元勛們并不感到它是不合理的或者甚至是達不到的。 Literacy may not be an inalienable human right, but it is one that the highly literate Founding Fathers might not have found unreasonable or even unattainable. 從統(tǒng)計數(shù)字上看，我們的國家不僅未達到人人能讀寫的程度，而且離這一目標越來越遠。 We are not only not attaining it as a nation, statistically speaking, but we are falling further and further short of attaining it. 盡管我不會天真到認為電視是造成這一情況的原因，但我卻相信它起了一定的作用，是有影響的。 And, while I would not be so simplistic as to suggest that television is the cause, 1 believes it contributes and is an influence. 美國的一切：社會結(jié)構(gòu)、家庭組織形式、經(jīng)濟、在世界上的地位，都變得更為復(fù)雜，而不是相反。 Everything about this n