Chapter Ⅳ 接过墨客的衣钵摇旗呐喊（17）（2/2）
《最震撼人心的声音》作者：姜宇 2017-02-11 10:27
hoose 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 to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to know.
我可能会受到诱惑，去羡慕那样生活的人。但我不认为他们做的噩梦会比我更少。选择生活在狭窄的空间，可以给自己带来恐惧感，导致一种心理上的恐旷症。我认为不愿展开想象的人会看到更多的怪兽，他们往往感到更害怕。
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 can lead to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors. I think the wilfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid.
更甚的是，那些选择不去同情的人，可能会激活真正的怪兽。因为尽管我们自己没有犯下罪恶，但我们却通过我们自己的冷漠与之勾结。
What is more, those who choose not to empathise may enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy.
我18岁开始从古典文学中汲取许多知识，到学习结束时，我对其中的一个问题当时并不完全理解，那就是希腊作家普鲁塔克所说：我们内心获得的，将改变外在的现实。
One of the many things I learned at the end of that Classics corridor down which I ventured at 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.
那是一个惊人的论断，在我们生活的每一天里被无数次证实。它指明我们与外部世界有无法脱离的联系，我们以自身的存在接触着他人的生命。
That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times 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.
但是，哈佛大学的2008届毕业生们，你们多少人有可能去触及他人的生命？你们的智慧，你们努力工作的能力，以及你们所受到的教育，给予你们独特的地位和责任。甚至你们的国籍也让你们与众不同，你们绝大部分人属于这个世界上唯一的超级大国。你们表决的方式，你们生活的方式，你们抗议的方式，你们给政府带来的压力，具有超乎寻常的影响力。这是你们的特权，也是你们的责任。
我可能会受到诱惑，去羡慕那样生活的人。但我不认为他们做的噩梦会比我更少。选择生活在狭窄的空间，可以给自己带来恐惧感，导致一种心理上的恐旷症。我认为不愿展开想象的人会看到更多的怪兽，他们往往感到更害怕。
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 can lead to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors. I think the wilfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid.
更甚的是，那些选择不去同情的人，可能会激活真正的怪兽。因为尽管我们自己没有犯下罪恶，但我们却通过我们自己的冷漠与之勾结。
What is more, those who choose not to empathise may enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy.
我18岁开始从古典文学中汲取许多知识，到学习结束时，我对其中的一个问题当时并不完全理解，那就是希腊作家普鲁塔克所说：我们内心获得的，将改变外在的现实。
One of the many things I learned at the end of that Classics corridor down which I ventured at 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.
那是一个惊人的论断，在我们生活的每一天里被无数次证实。它指明我们与外部世界有无法脱离的联系，我们以自身的存在接触着他人的生命。
That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times 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.
但是，哈佛大学的2008届毕业生们，你们多少人有可能去触及他人的生命？你们的智慧，你们努力工作的能力，以及你们所受到的教育，给予你们独特的地位和责任。甚至你们的国籍也让你们与众不同，你们绝大部分人属于这个世界上唯一的超级大国。你们表决的方式，你们生活的方式，你们抗议的方式，你们给政府带来的压力，具有超乎寻常的影响力。这是你们的特权，也是你们的责任。