JK罗琳在哈佛毕业典礼的演讲(精选6篇)
《哈利.波特》的作者罗琳于6月5日参加了哈佛大学2008年的毕业典礼,被授予荣誉学位,并作为特邀嘉宾做了标题为《The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination》(失败的额外收益与想象力的重要性)的演讲。以下,是译言的翻译。
标题:《失败的额外收益与想象力的重要性》(原文)
作者:J.K.罗琳
浮士德主席,哈佛公司和监察委员会的各位成员,大学的员工,自豪的父母,以及所有的毕业生们:
首先我想说的是“谢谢你们”。这不仅因为哈佛给了我非比寻常的荣誉,而且为了这几个礼拜以来,由于想到这次毕业典礼演说而产生的恐惧与恶心让我减肥成功。这真是一个双赢的局面!现在我需要做的就是一次深呼吸,眯着眼看着红色的横幅,然后欺骗自己,让自己相信正在参加世界上受到最好教育群体的哈立波特大会。
做毕业典礼演说是一个重大的责任,我的思绪回到了自己的那次毕业典礼。那天的演讲者是一位英国的杰出哲学家 Baroness Marry Warnock.对她演讲的回忆对我写这篇演讲稿帮助巨大,因为我发现她说的话我居然一个字都没有记住。这个发现让我释然,使我得以继续写完演讲稿,我不用再担心,那种想成为“gay wizard”(harry porter中的魔法大师)的眩晕的愉悦,可能会误导你们放弃在商业、法律、政治领域的大好前途。
你们看,如果你们在若干年后能记住“gay wizard”这个笑话,我就比Barkoness Mary Warnock有进步了。所以,设定一个可以实现的目标是个人进步的第一步。
实际上,我已经绞尽脑汁、费劲心思去想今天我应该讲什么好。我问自己:我希望在自己毕业那天已经知道的是什么,而又有哪些重要的教训是我从那天开始到现在的21年间学会的。
我想到了两个答案。在今天这个愉快的日子,我们聚在一起庆祝你们学习上的成功时,我决定和你们谈谈失败的收益。另外,当你们如今处于“现实生活”的入口处时,我想向你们颂扬想象力的重要性。
我选择的这两个答案似乎如同歌德式幻想一样不切实际,或者显得荒谬,但是请容忍我讲下去。
对于我这样一个已经42岁的人来说,回头看自己21岁毕业时的情景,并不是一件舒服的事情。我的前半生之前,我一直在自己内心的追求与最亲近的人对我的要求之间进行不自在的抗争。
我曾确信我自己唯一想做的事情是写小说。但是我的父母都来自贫穷的家庭,都没有上过大学,他们认为我的异常活跃的想象力只是滑稽的个人怪癖,并不能用来付抵押房产,或者确保得到退休金。
他们希望我再去读个专业学位,而我想去攻读英国文学。最后,达成了一个双方都不甚满意的妥协:我改学外语。可是等到父母一走开,我立刻报名学习古典文学。
我忘了自己是怎么把学古典文学的事情告诉父母的了,他们也可能是在我毕业那天才第一次发现。在这个星球上的所有科目中,我想他们很难再发现一门比希腊神学更没用的课程了。
我想顺带着说明,我并没有因为他们的观点而抱怨他们。现在已经不是抱怨父母引导自己走错方向的时候了,如今的你们已经足够大来决定自己前进的路程,责任要靠自己承担。而且,我也不能批评我的父母,他们是希望我能摆脱贫穷。他们以前遭受了贫穷,我也曾经贫穷过,对于他们认为贫穷并不高尚的观点我也坚决同意。贫穷会引起恐惧、压力,有时候甚至是沮丧。这意味着小心眼、卑微和很多艰难困苦。通过自己的努力摆脱贫穷确实是件很值得自豪的事情,但只有傻瓜才对贫穷本身夸夸其谈。
我在你们这个年龄的时候,最害怕的不是贫穷,而是失败。
在你们这个年龄,尽管我明显缺少在大学学习的动力,我花了很多时间在咖啡吧写故事,很少去听课,但是我知道通过考试的技巧,当然,这也是好多年来评价我,以及我同龄人是否成功的标准。
我想说,并不是我太迟钝,我觉得你们还不曾知道什么是艰难困苦,或者什么是心碎的感觉,因为你们还年轻,而且天资聪明,受到良好教育。但是天赋和智商还未能使任何人免于命运无常的折磨,我从来不认为这里的每个人已经享有平静的恩典和满足。
然而,你们能从哈佛毕业这个现实表明,你们对失败还不是很熟悉,对于失败的恐惧与对于成功的渴望可能对你们有相同的驱动力。确实,你们对于失败的概念可能与普通人的成功差不了太多。你们在学习这方面已经站得相当高了!
当然,最终我们所有人不得不为自己决定什么是失败的组成元素,但是如果你愿意的话,世界很愿意给你一堆的标准。基于任何一种传统标准,我可以说,仅仅在我毕业7年后,我经历了一次巨大的失败。我突然间结束了一段短暂的婚姻,失去了工作。作为一个单身妈妈,而且在这个现代化的英国,除了不是无家可归,你可以说我有多穷就有多穷。我父母对于我的担心,以及我对自己的担心都成了现实,从任何一个通常的标准来看,这是我知道的最大失败。
现在,我不会站在这里和你们说失败很好玩。我生命的那段时间非常的灰暗,那时我还不知道我的书会被新闻界认为是神话故事的革命,我也不知道这段灰暗的日子要持续多久。那时候的很长一段时间里,任何出现的光芒只是希望而不是现实。
那么我为什么还要谈论失败的收益呢?仅仅是因为失败意味着和非我的脱离,失败后我找到了自我,不再装成另外的形象,我开始把我所有的精力仅仅放在我关心的工作上。如果我在其他方面成功过,我可能就不会具备要求在自己领域内获得成功的决心。我变得自在,因为我已经经历过最大的恐惧。而且我还活着,我有一个值得我自豪的女儿,我有一个陈旧的打字机和很不错的写作灵感。我在失败堆积而成的硬石般的基础上开始重筑我的人生。
你们可能不会经历像我那么大的失败,但生活中面临失败是不可避免的。永远不失败是不可能,除非你活得过于谨慎,这样倒还不如根本就没有在世上生活过,因为你从一开始就失败了。
失败给了我内心的安宁,这种安宁是顺利通过测验考试获得不了的。失败让我认识自己,这些是没法从其他地方学到的。我发现自己有坚强的意志,而且,自我控制能力比自己猜想的还要强,我也发现自己拥有比红宝石更真的朋友。
从挫折中获得的知识越充满智慧、越有力,你在以后的生存中则越安全。除非遭受磨难,你们不会真正认识自己,也没法知道你们之间关系有多铁。这些知识才是真正的礼物,他们比我曾经获得的任何资格证书更为珍贵,因为这些是我经历过痛苦后才获得的。
如果给我一个时间机器,我会告诉21岁的自己,个人的幸福建立在自己能够认识到:生活不是拥有的物品与成就的清单。虽然你们会碰到很多和你们一样大或年长的人分不清楚生活与清单的区别,但你们的资格证书、简历,都不能等价于你们的生活。生活是困难的,也是复杂的,它完全超出任何人的控制,谦虚的认识到这些能使你们在生命的沉浮中得以顺利生存。
你们可能认为我选择想象力作为第二个演讲主题是因为它在重筑我人生的过程中起了作用,但这不是全部原因。虽然我会不遗余力地为床边故事的价值做辩护,但我已学会从更广泛的意义来评价想象力的价值。想象力不仅是一种能促使人类预想不存在事物的独特能力,从而成为所有发明和创新的源泉;从想象力或许是最具改革性和启示作用的能力这点讲,它更是一种能使我们同没有分享过他们经历的人产生共鸣的力量。
我最伟大的生活经历之一发生在写《哈利波特》前,当然我在后来书中写的很多东西与这个经历有关。这个启示来源于我最早期工作之一。我在伦敦的国际特赦组织总部的研究部门工作,虽然我在中饭的时间逃出来写小说,但我需要这份工作来支付我20多岁时的房租。(注:国际特赦组织是一个全球性的志愿组织,致力于为释放由于信仰而被监禁的人以及给他们的家庭发放救济等方面的工作。)
在那儿我的狭小的工作室内,我匆忙得读着从各地集权政权内传出来的潦草信件,这些信件是那些冒着进监狱风险而向外传播发生在他们身上惨剧的人偷运出来。我看到了无影无踪就消失的人的相片,这些相片是家里人或朋友送来的。我读着被酷刑折磨的受害者的证据和他们受伤的照片;我打开手写的,目击者对审讯和处决的摘要记录,以及对绑架和强奸的叙述。
我的许多同事以前是政治犯人,他们因为勇于不附和政府而独立思考,以致被赶出自己的家,或者被放逐。来拜访我们办公室的人包括那些传递消息的,或者尝试弄清楚那些被迫离开的人身后的真相。
我永远不会忘记那个非洲来的被酷刑折磨的受害者,他是一个和我那时候年龄相仿的年轻男子,但在他家乡经受过的拷打后,他已经有了精神病。当他向录像机讲述强加在他身上的暴行时,他无法控制地发抖。他比我高一英尺,但像一个小孩一样脆弱。后来我的工作是护送他去地下站,这个整个生活被野蛮摧毁的男子礼貌地握着我的手,祝福我一生幸福。
只要我活着,我就能记住我沿着一个空旷的走廊走,突然从后面关闭的一扇门传来我从没听到过的充满痛苦和恐怖的尖叫。门打开了,有个研究人员探出头,让我快点跑去弄点热饮料给坐在她旁边的那个年轻男子。原来,她刚告诉那个男子,为了报复他对他国家的政权做了公开的反对演讲,他的妈妈被抓住、处决了。
在我20多岁时工作的每一天,我提醒我自己我是多么的幸运啊,能生活在一个民主选举产生的政府的国家,在这里合法的陈述和公共审判是每一个人的权利。
每一天,我看到更多的证据,证明邪恶的人类为了获得、维持权利而加害与他们同样的人类。我开始为这些我看到的、听到的、读到的东西做恶梦,是文字恶梦。
然而,我也在国际特赦组织学到了比我以前知道的更多的人类善良的一面。
国际特赦组织动员了数千位没有因为信仰问题而被拷问或入狱的人,让他们来代表那些经历过这些的人行动起来。人类的同理心具有能引导集体行动的力量,这种力量能拯救生命,让囚徒获得自由。在这种活动中,那些拥有受到保护的个人福址和安全的普通人聚在了一起,来拯救他们不认识、也永远不会见面的人。我在这个过程中小小的参与是我生命中最卑微,也是最令人振奋的经历之一。
人类和在这个星球上的其他生物不同,人类能够在没有自我经历的情况下学习和理解。他们可以设身处地的思他人所思,想他人所想。
当然,这是一种力量,如同我虚构的魔法,这种力量是道德中立的。有人可能常运用这种能力去操作和控制,就像用于理解和同情一样。
而且,许多人根本不喜欢训练他们的想象力。他们宁愿在自己的经验范围内维持舒适的状态,也不愿麻烦地去思考这样的问题:如果他们不是现在的自己,那么应该是什么感觉呢?他们拒绝听到尖叫,拒绝关注囚牢,他们可以对任何与他们自身无关的苦难关上思维与心灵的大门,他们可以拒绝知道这些。
我可能会羡慕那些以这种方式生活的人,但我不认为他们的噩梦比我少。选择在狭小的空间生活会导致精神上的恐旷症(对于陌生人、事物的恐惧),而且会带来它自身形成的恐怖。我想那些任性固执的缺乏想象力的人会看到更多的怪物,他们常常更容易感到害怕。
甚至于,那些选择不去想他人所想的人可能激活真正的恶魔。因为,虽然我们没有亲手犯下那些昭然若揭的恶行,我们却以冷漠的方式和邪恶在串谋。
我在那个经典走廊(harry potter书内的一个地点?)的末端学到的,也是我18岁时在那冒险搜寻但不知道怎么定义的重要事情之一就是,如古希腊作家普卢塔克所写的:“我们对内在修养的追求将会改变外在现实。”
这是一个令人惊讶的说法,然而它在我们生命中每一天会被证明一千多次。这句话部分地说明了我们和外部世界不可分离的联系,我们只能通过生命存在来接触别人生命的事实。
但是你们,2008哈佛大学的毕业生们,到底有多么得愿意来感受他人的生命呢?你们对付困难工作的智慧与能力,你们赢得和接受的教育,给了你们独特的地位和责任。甚至你们的国籍也使你们与众不同。你们中的很大一部分人属于这个世界剩下的唯一超级大国(美国)。你们投票、生活、抗议的方式,你们给政府施加的压力,会产生超越国界的影响。那是你们的特权,更是你们的负担。
如果你们选择用你们的地位和影响力来为没法发出声音的人说话;如果你们选择不仅认同有权的强势群体,也认同无权的弱势群体;如果你们保留你们的能力,用来想象那些没有你们这些优势的人的现实生活,那么不仅是你们的家庭为你们的存在而感到自豪,为你们庆祝,而且那些因为你们的帮助而生活得更好的数以千万计的人,会一起来为你们祝贺。我们不需要魔法来改变世界,我们已经在我们的内心拥有了足够的力量:那就是把世界想象成更好的力量。
在我的演说快要结束的时候,我对大家还有最后一个希望,这是我在自己21岁时就明白的道理。毕业那天和我坐在一起的朋友后来成了我终生的朋友。他们是我孩子的教父母;他们是我碰到麻烦时能求助的人;他们是非常友善的,不会为了我在死亡复活节那天用他们名字而控告我的朋友。在我们毕业的时候,我们沉浸在巨大的情感冲击中;我们沉浸于这段永不能重现的共同时光内;当然,如果我们中的某个人将来成为国家首相,我们也沉浸于能拥有极其有价值的相片作为证据的兴奋中。
所以今天,我最希望你们能拥有同样的友情。到了明天,我希望即使你们不记得我说过的任何一个字,但能记住塞内加,我在逃离那个走廊,回想进步的阶梯,寻找古人智慧时碰到的另一个古罗马哲学家,说过的一句话:“生活如同小说,要紧的不是它有多长,而在于它有多好。”
我祝愿你们都有幸福的生活。
说到西方修辞学,我们自然会想到古典修辞学和新修辞学,古典修辞学的鼻祖是亚里士多德,他认为修辞是“劝说”;而新修辞学的代表人物则是美国的肯尼斯·伯克,他认为修辞是“同一”,这是对亚里士多德修辞学的继承与发展。
本文拟从伯克的同一理论出发,分析英国最畅销小说作家JK罗琳2008年在哈佛大学毕业典礼演讲,旨在揭示其背后的修辞动机。
二、伯克的同一理论
伯克认为修辞是“人使用词语形成态度或导致他人采取行动”,其本质是“同一”。受众与修辞者能否“同一”是修辞成功的关键。他说:“只有当我们能够讲另一个人的话,在言辞、姿势、语调、语序、形象、态度和思想等方面做到和他一致,我们才说得动他”。伯克提出了三种同一手段:同情同一、对立同一和不准确同一。同情同一是修辞者强调与受众享有共同的情感而达到同一的一种手段。比如政客为了赢得选票,亲吻投票人的小孩。对立同一是一种“通过分裂而达成凝聚的最迫切的形式”,修辞者与受众由于共同反对某种东西而组成联合。抗日期间国共两党合作共同对抗日本侵略就是个对立同一的例子。不准确同一是一种无意识的认同,这种同一把我们带到了修辞情景的根源。比如我们在电视上看见做洗发水广告的美女的头发很柔顺,似乎自己也拥有这样一头柔顺的头发,自然就会产生购买这款洗发水的意愿。
三、从伯克同一理论分析JK罗琳2008年哈佛大学毕业典礼演讲
JK罗琳凭借《哈利·波特》系列小说一举成名,成为英国有史以来最畅销作家。但鲜为人知的是,她曾经历过一段艰辛岁月——30岁时,她差点流落街头。在2008年的哈佛大学毕业典礼的演讲中,JK罗琳分享了这些经历,告诉毕业生们失败也有好处。同时,她还强调了保持想象力的重要性。演讲意境深邃,丝丝入扣。伯克的同一理论也可以很好地阐释这次演讲。
1、同情同一的运用
首先,JK罗琳在开篇表达了对哈佛大学邀请的感谢。她的致谢与台下的听众达成情感同一,听众更容易接受她下面的演说。
接着,罗琳讲述了成名前的困惑与失败,得出人生感悟:失败会带来好处,它使你看清人生的本质是什么;设身处地为他人着想,体察他人的苦乐。哈佛毕业生们,作为人中骄子,其学业辉煌,但同样要面对未知的将来,此时,他们很需要像罗琳一样的成功人士的指引和鼓励。这些话体现了她对哈佛毕业生价值观的认同,情感上的同一。
2、对立同一的运用
对立同一的对立面可以是人,可以是物,也可以是人的生存环境。对于自己那段最悲惨的日子,罗琳也很坦然的讲了出来:“An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded,and I was jobless,a lone parent,and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain,without being homeless.”当听众听到这些悲惨的事情的时候,肯定也为罗琳曾经历的日子感到悲痛。但演讲者的目的不是悲天悯人,而是如何调整心态,这对于即将毕业的大学生们来说更为重要。罗琳试图通过这些逆境唤起毕业生们对对立面的思考,于是对立同一建立,听众改变态度,接受罗琳的观点。
失败作为演讲者和听众共同的对立面,罗琳也提出了经历失败所带来的好处:“gave me an inner security”、“taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way”、“I discovered that I had a strong will,and more disciplined than I had suspected;I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above the price of rubies.”为了应对失败,听众与演讲者暂时联合起来,认识到失败也会带来优势,这也是对立同一的有效运用。
3、不准确同一的运用
JK罗琳的演讲中也不乏不准确同一的例子。她在演讲中大量使用第一人称“I”,听众情不自禁地进入演讲者的角色,发生在演讲者身上的故事就像发生在自己身上一样。例如在讲到一个非洲酷刑的受害者,罗琳使用第一人称“I”做了叙述。而作为受众的哈佛毕业生们仿佛自己就是那个罗琳,面对那个还没有我大的年轻男子,因在故乡的经历而精神错乱。我护送他到地铁站,他小心翼翼地握着我的手,祝我未来生活幸福。似乎自己就在体验这次经历,听众无意识地与罗琳达成了共识,接受了演讲者的观点。
另外一个不准确同一的运用就是第一人称复数“we”,罗琳的演讲中也有这样的例子:“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.”听众会不自觉地认为“we”也包括自己,不准确同一达成。
四、结语
本文利用伯克的同一理论对JK罗琳2008年在哈佛大学毕业典礼演讲进行了分析,揭示演讲者是如何通过同情同一、对立同一和不准确同一这三种方式达到与听众取得同一,并实现自己的修辞动机。
参考文献
[1]Burke,K.A Rhetoric of Motives[M].New York:Prentice-Hall,1950
[2]张晶.修辞的核心:不是说服而是认同[J].修辞学习,2009
北京时间5月26日,哈佛大学2016年毕业典礼上,来自中国的学生何江,作为优秀毕业生代表之一登上毕业典礼演讲台,讲述中国故事。而这相当于哈佛大学给予毕业生的最高荣誉,何江成为第一位享此殊荣的中国大陆学生,与他同台演讲的,还有著名导演史蒂芬·斯皮尔伯格。
从“郭奖”得主到哈佛毕业典礼演讲人
七年前,刚刚大学毕业的何江,带着象征中国科学技术大学学生最高荣誉—“郭沫若奖学金”的光环,来到哈佛大学继续深造。初到哈佛的何江发现,校园里经常能偶遇一些诺贝尔奖得主、学术“大咖”,而这些耳熟能详的名字,原来都是在教科书里才能看到的。
随着留学生活的展开,在课堂上,在讲座中,何江发现,学生可以大胆地对“大咖”们的观点提出质疑,相互讨论,还能与他们相约一起啃汉堡、喝咖啡、泡酒吧,谈论学术问题,时不时地还会受到他们的鼓励。在这样的环境中,学生成长得很快,也变得非常自信。
正是在一位教授的鼓励下,何江决定申请毕业演讲的资格。经过精心准备,何江凭借比较新颖的题材和流利的英语口语一路过关斩将,从全校数万名毕业生中脱颖而出。
申请哈佛大学的毕业典礼演讲,程序很严格,要通过3轮测试。第一轮,递交个人材料和演讲初稿;第二轮,从12名入选者中挑选4人,申请者可以对着演讲稿念稿;第三轮,从4人中选出1人,进行脱稿模拟演讲。最终,校方从申请者中各选出一名本科生和研究生。
何江的准备很充分,从题材到具体内容,细细打磨,加上多年苦练的流利口语,他顺利入选。在哈佛毕业典礼的演讲台上,华人面孔很少,而几乎被文科生占据的演讲舞台,理科生更是凤毛麟角。何江的想法很简单,就是“想让美国大学生听听来自中国的声音”。演讲中,何江从科技与知识在社会的不均衡分布入手,结合自己的成长经历,阐述了对科技的思考。“在未来,我相信将会有更多的中国人在类似的舞台上发出中国声音”。
“大学教会我独立思考的能力”
时间退回到2005年,何江高中毕业,坚定地报考了以学风淳朴著称的中国科技大学。入学的前两年,根据学校教学要求,生物专业的何江学习了很多数学、物理学科的专业课程。当时的何江很有些不解,多年后,当远在大洋彼岸的他攻读博士学位,将研究方向定为跨学科领域的生物物理研究时,他在中国科大打下的扎实的数理基础优势很快就显现了出来。
在一个人的求学过程中,大学阶段是塑造人生观和价值观的重要时期。何江在中国科技大学的四年,学业上精进勤勉,课余广泛涉猎各种社团活动。
大二时,作为中国科大学生自然保护协会的一员,何江跟随社团前往江西鄱阳湖湿地进行越冬水鸟调研。那是他第一次参与野外考察,缺乏经验的他,与团队紧密配合、努力学习。那个冬天,何江与团队记录了很多珍稀鸟类的行踪。在与保护区村民接触的过程中,他也深深地了解到科技知识在普通大众中传播的重要性。
直到今天,何江对科学知识的传播依旧非常关注。就像他在毕业演讲中所说的,“比以往任何时候,我们的社会都更强调科学和创新。但我们的社会同样需要关注的一个重心是将知识传递到那些真正需要的地方”。
何江在哈佛的导师,是34岁就晋升哈佛大学正教授的青年科学家庄小威,二人本科都毕业于中国科技大学。“在她身上,我深切感受到什么是对科研的热情和喜爱,这是一脉相承的科大血液”。
科学知识可以随时学习,而科学精神的培养、独立思考的能力对个人发展至关重要。何江一直心怀感激,“大学教育对我的影响,除了学业成长外,最重要的就是教会了我独立思考的能力,明确了自己的兴趣所在”。
将压力转换为动力
1988年,何江出身于湖南省长沙市宁乡县一个普通农村家庭。在那个经济相对比较落后的地区,何江的父母都很重视孩子的学习。每天晚上的“睡前故事”是父亲给孩子的必修课,而必修课的主题,就是“好好学习”。在父母的影响下,何江始终明白,教育和不断学习的重要性。
2005年,互联网在中国已经进入快速发展期。城市里的孩子,几乎家家都拥有了电脑。而何江在上大学之前,连电脑都没怎么“摸过”。大一下学期,学校开了一门计算机程序设计课程,连键盘都不怎么会用的何江,学习的困难可想而知。
怎么办?克服困难,将压力转换为动力。何江找同学借了一个键盘,整整一个月的时间,何江有空就在宿舍里用键盘拼命练习打字,遇到不懂的地方,就主动向同学请教。学期末,何江这门课得了高分。
“一个人只有了解、认清了自己,才能在未来的路上走得更远”。成长于一个经济相对落后的地方,何江对很多新鲜的事物都“不懂”,而恰是因为“不懂”,更促使他主动涉猎不同领域的知识,“取长补短”。
刚到哈佛时,何江一口“中国英语”,为了找机会练习口语,他硬着头皮申请给哈佛的本科生当辅导员。“也不知道自己哪里来的勇气,反正就是想多讲讲英语。”从入学第二年开始,何江给哈佛的本科生做辅导员,这种方法让他的英语表达方式很快从“中式”转到了纯正的“美式”。到了读博士期间,何江就可以给哈佛本科学生上课了。
哈佛毕业后,何江将前往麻省理工学院从事生物工程方向的博士后研究,利用2D或3D打印肝脏细胞技术,进行药物筛选、疾病模拟以及癌症早期的灵敏检测。
(本文转自《中国科学报》)
J.K.罗琳2008哈佛毕业典礼演讲
President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, members of the faculty, proud parents, and, above all, graduates.The first thing I would like to say is ‘thank you.’ Not only has Harvard given me an extraordinary honour, but the weeks of fear and nausea I have endured at the thought of giving this commencement address have made me lose weight.A win-win situation!Now all I have to do is take deep breaths, squint at the red banners and convince myself that I am at the world’s largest Gryffindor reunion.Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility;or so I thought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation.The commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock.Reflecting on her speech has helped me enormously in writing this one, because it turns out that I can’t remember a single word she said.This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in business, the law or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard.You see? If all you remember in years to come is the ‘gay wizard’ joke, I’ve come out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock.Achievable goals: the first step to self improvement.Actually, I have wracked my mind and heart for what I ought to say to you today.I have asked myself what I wish I had known at my own graduation, and what important lessons I have learned in the 21 years that have expired between that day and this.I have come up with two answers.On this wonderful day when we are gathered together to celebrate your academic success, I have decided to talk to you about the benefits of failure.And as you stand on the threshold of what is sometimes called ‘real life’, I want to extol the crucial importance of imagination.These may seem quixotic or paradoxical choices, but please bear with me.Looking back at the 21-year-old that I was at graduation, is a slightly uncomfortable experience for the 42-year-old that she has become.Half my lifetime ago, I was striking an uneasy balance between the ambition I had for myself, and what those closest to me expected of me.I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do, ever, was to write novels.However, my parents, both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal quirk that would never pay a mortgage, or secure a pension.I know that the irony strikes with the force of a cartoon anvil, now.So they hoped that I would take a vocational degree;I wanted to study English Literature.A compromise was reached that in retrospect satisfied nobody, and I went up to study Modern Languages.Hardly had my parents’ car rounded the corner at the end of the road than I ditched German and scuttled off down the Classics corridor.I cannot remember telling my parents that I was studying Classics;they might well have found out for the first time on graduation day.Of all the subjects on this planet, I think they would have been hard put to name one less useful than Greek mythology when it came to securing the keys to an executive bathroom.I would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that I do not blame my parents for their point of view.There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction;the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you.What is more, I cannot criticise my parents for hoping that I would never experience poverty.They had been poor themselves, and I have since been poor, and I quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling experience.Poverty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression;it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships.Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is indeed something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticised only by fools.What I feared most for myself at your age was not poverty, but failure.At your age, in spite of a distinct lack of motivation at university, where I had spent far too long in the coffee bar writing stories, and far too little time at lectures, I had a knack for passing examinations, and that, for years, had been the measure of success in my life and that of my peers.I am not dull enough to suppose that because you are young, gifted and well-educated, you have never known hardship or heartbreak.Talent and intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the Fates, and I do not for a moment suppose that everyone here has enjoyed an existence of unruffled privilege and contentment.However, the fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that you are not very well-acquainted with failure.You might be driven by a fear of failure quite as much as a desire for success.Indeed, your conception of failure might not be too far from the average person’s idea of success, so high have you already flown.Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it.So I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure, a mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale.An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless.The fears that my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew.Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun.That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution.I had no idea then how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential.I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me.Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged.I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea.And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable.It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations.Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way.I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected;I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above the price of rubies.The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive.You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity.Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more than any qualification I ever earned.So given a Time Turner, I would tell my 21-year-old self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement.Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two.Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone’s total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.Now you might think that I chose my second theme, the importance of imagination, because of the part it played in rebuilding my life, but that is not wholly so.Though I personally will defend the value of bedtime stories to my last gasp, I have learned to value imagination in a much broader sense.Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation.In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared.One of the greatest formative experiences of my life preceded Harry Potter, though it informed much of what I subsequently wrote in those books.This revelation came in the form of one of my earliest day jobs.Though I was sloping off to write stories during my lunch hours, I paid the rent in my early 20s by working at the African research department at Amnesty International’s headquarters in London.There in my little office I read hastily scribbled letters smuggled out of totalitarian regimes by men and women who were risking imprisonment to inform the outside world of what was happening to them.I saw photographs of those who had disappeared without trace, sent to Amnesty by their desperate families and friends.I read the testimony of torture victims and saw pictures of their injuries.I opened handwritten, eye-witness accounts of summary trials and executions, of kidnappings and rapes.Many of my co-workers were ex-political prisoners, people who had been displaced from their homes, or fled into exile, because they had the temerity to speak against their governments.Visitors to our offices included those who had come to give information, or to try and find out what had happened to those they had left behind.I shall never forget the African torture victim, a young man no older than I was at the time, who had become mentally ill after all he had endured in his homeland.He trembled uncontrollably as he spoke into a video camera about the brutality inflicted upon him.He was a foot taller than I was, and seemed as fragile as a child.I was given the job of escorting him back to the Underground Station afterwards, and this man whose life had been shattered by cruelty took my hand with exquisite courtesy, and wished me future happiness.And as long as I live I shall remember walking along an empty corridor and suddenly hearing, from behind a closed door, a scream of pain and horror such as I have never heard since.The door opened, and the researcher poked out her head and told me to run and make a hot drink for the young man sitting with her.She had just had to give him the news that in retaliation for his own outspokenness against his country’s regime, his mother had been seized and executed.Every day of my working week in my early 20s I was reminded how incredibly fortunate I was, to live in a country with a democratically elected government, where legal representation and a public trial were the rights of everyone.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.And yet I also learned more about human goodness at Amnesty International than I had ever known before.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.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 understand or sympathise.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 to any suffering that does not touch them personally;they can refuse to know.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 form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors.I think the wilfully 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.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.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.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.If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no 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.I am nearly finished.I have one last hope for you, which is something that I already had at 21.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 to sue 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.So today, I wish you nothing better than similar friendships.And tomorrow, I hope that even if 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.I wish you all very good lives.Thank you very much.
尊敬的 Bok 校长,Rudenstine 前校长,即将上任的 Faust 校长,哈佛集团的各位成员,监管理事会的各位理事,各位老师,各位家长,各位同学:
I’ve been waiting more than 30 years to say this: Dad, I always told you I’d come back and get my degree.有一句话我等了三十年,现在终于可以说了: “ 老爸,我总是跟你说,我会回来拿到我的学位的!”
I want to thank Harvard for this timely honor.I’ll be changing my job next year … and it will be nice to finally have a college degree on my resume.我要感谢哈佛大学在这个时候给我这个荣誉。明年,我就要换工作了(注:指从微软公司退休)…… 我终于可以在简历上写我有一个本科学位,这真是不错啊。
I applaud the graduates today for taking a much more direct route to your degrees.For my part, I’m just happy that the Crimson has called me Harvard’s most successful dropout.I guess that makes me valedictorian of my own special class … I did the best of everyone who failed.我为今天在座的各位同学感到高兴,你们拿到学位可比我简单多了。哈佛的校报称我是 “ 哈佛大学历史上最成功的辍学生 ”。我想这大概使我有资格代表我这一类学生发言 …… 在所有的失败者里,我做得最好。
But I also want to be recognized as the guy who got Steve Ballmer to drop out of business school.I’m a bad influence.That’s why I was invited to speak at your graduation.If I had spoken at your orientation, fewer of you might be here today.但是,我还要提醒大家,我使得 Steve Ballmer(注:微软总经理)也从哈佛商学院退学了。因此,我是个有着恶劣影响力的人。这就是为什么我被邀请来在你们的毕业典礼上演讲。如果我在你们入学欢迎仪式上演讲,那么能够坚持到今天在这里毕业的人也许会少得多吧。
Harvard was just a phenomenal experience for me.Academic life was fascinating.I used to sit in on lots of classes I hadn’t even signed up for.And dorm life was terrific.I lived upat Radcliffe, in Currier House.There were always lots of people in my dorm room late at night discussing things, because everyone knew I didn’t worry about getting up in the morning.That’s how I came to be the leader of the anti-social group.We clung to each other as a way of validating our rejection of all those social people.对我来说,哈佛的求学经历是一段非凡的经历。校园生活很有趣,我常去旁听我没选修的课。哈佛的课外生活也很棒,我在 Radcliffe 过着逍遥自在 的日子。每天我的寝室里总有很多人一直待到半夜,讨论着各种事情。因为每个人都知道我从不考虑第二天早起。这使得我变成了校园里那些不安分学生的头头,我们互相粘在一起,做出一种拒绝所有正常学生的姿态。
Radcliffe was a great place to live.There were more women up there, and most of the guys were science-math types.That combination offered me the best odds, if you know what I mean.This is where I learned the sad lesson that improving your odds doesn’t guarantee success.Radcliffe 是个过日子的好地方。那里的女生比男生多,而且大多数男生都是理工科的。这种状况为我创造了最好的机会,如果你们明白我的意思。可惜的是,我正是在这里学到了人生中悲伤的一课:机会大,并不等于你就会成功。
One of my biggest memories of Harvard came in January 1975, when I made a call from Currier House to a company in Albuquerque that had begun making the world’s first personal computers.I offered to sell them software.我在哈佛最难忘的回忆之一,发生在 1975 年 1 月。那时,我从宿舍楼里给位于 Albuquerque 的一家公司打了一个电话,那家公司已经在着手制造世界上第一台个人电脑。我提出想向他们出售软件。
I worried that they would realize I was just a student in a dorm and hang up on me.Instead they said: We’re not quite ready, come see us in a month, which was a good thing, because we hadn’t written the software yet.From that moment, I worked day and night on this little extra credit project that marked the end of my college education and the beginning of a remarkable journey with microsoft.我很担心,他们会发觉我是一个住在宿舍的学生,从而挂断电话。但是他们却说: “ 我们还没准备好,一个月后你再来找我们吧。” 这是个好消息,因为那时 软件还根本没有写出来呢。就是从那个时候起,我日以继夜地在这个小小的课外项目上工作,这导致了我学生生活的结束,以及通往微软公司的不平凡的旅程的开 始。
What I remember above all about Harvard was being in the midst of so much energy and Intelligence.It could be exhilarating, intimidating, sometimes even discouraging, but always challenging.It was an amazing privilege – and though I left early, I was transformed by my years at Harvard, the friendships I made, and the ideas I worked on.不管怎样,我对哈佛的回忆主要都与充沛的精力和智力活动有关。哈佛的生活令人愉快,也令人感到有压力,有时甚至会感到泄气,但永远充满了挑战性。生 活在哈佛是一种吸引人的特殊待遇 …… 虽然我离开得比较早,但是我在这里的经历、在这里结识的朋友、在这里发展起来的一些想法,永远地改变了我。
But taking a serious look back … I do have one big regret.但是,如果现在严肃地回忆起来,我确实有一个真正的遗憾。
I left Harvard with no real awareness of the awful inequities in the world – the appalling disparities of health, and wealth, and opportunity that condemn millions of people to lives of despair.我离开哈佛的时候,根本没有意识到这个世界是多么的不平等。人类在健康、财富和机遇上的不平等大得可怕,它们使得无数的人们被迫生活在绝望之中。
I learned a lot here at Harvard about new ideas in economics and politics.I got great exposure to the advances being made in the sciences.我在哈佛学到了很多经济学和政治学的新思想。我也了解了很多科学上的新进展。
But humanity’s greatest advances are not in its discoveries – but in how those discoveries are applied to reduce inequity.Whether through democracy, strong public education, quality health care, or broad economic opportunity – reducing inequity is the highest human achievement.但是,人类最大的进步并不来自于这些发现,而是来自于那些有助于减少人类不平等的发现。不管通过何种手段 —— 民主制度、健全的公共教育体系、高质量的医疗保健、还是广泛的经济机会 —— 减少不平等始终是人类最大的成就。
I left campus knowing little about the millions of young people cheated out of educational opportunities here in this country.And I knew nothing about the millions of people living in unspeakable poverty and disease in developing countries.我离开校园的时候,根本不知道在这个国家里,有几百万的年轻人无法获得接受教育的机会。我也不知道,发展中国家里有无数的人们生活在无法形容的贫穷和疾病之中。
It took me decades to find out.我花了几十年才明白了这些事情。
You graduates came to Harvard at a different time.You know more about the world’s inequities than the classes that came before.In your years here, I hope you’ve had a chance to think about how – in this age of accelerating technology – we can finally take on these inequities, and we can solve them.在座的各位同学,你们是在与我不同的时代来到哈佛的。你们比以前的学生,更多地了解世界是怎样的不平等。在你们的哈佛求学过程中,我希望你们已经思考过一个问题,那就是在这个新技术加速发展的时代,我们怎样最终应对这种不平等,以及我们怎样来解决这个问题。
Imagine, just for the sake of discussion, that you had a few hours a week and a few dollars a month to donate to a cause – and you wanted to spend that time and money where it would have the greatest impact in saving and improving lives.Where would you spend it?
为了讨论的方便,请想象一下,假如你每个星期可以捐献一些时间、每个月可以捐献一些钱 —— 你希望这些时间和金钱,可以用到对拯救生命和改善人类生活有最大作用的地方。你会选择什么地方?
For Melinda and for me, the challenge is the same: how can we do the most good for the greatest number with the resources we have.对 Melinda(注:盖茨的妻子)和我来说,这也是我们面临的问题:我们如何能将我们拥有的资源发挥出最大的作用。
During our discussions on this question, Melinda and I read an article about the millions of children who were dying every year in poor countries from diseases that we had long ago made harmless in this country.Measles, malaria, pneumonia, hepatitis B, yellow fever.One disease I had never even heard of, rotavirus, was killing half a million kids each year – none of them in the United States.在讨论过程中,Melinda 和我读到了一篇文章,里面说在那些贫穷的国家,每年有数百万的儿童死于那些在美国早已不成问题的疾病。麻疹、疟疾、肺
炎、乙型肝炎、黄热病、还有一种以前我从未听说过的轮状病毒,这些疾病每年导致 50 万儿童死亡,但是在美国一例死亡病例也没有。
We were shocked.We had just assumed that if millions of children were dying and they could be saved, the world would make it a priority to discover and deliver the medicines to save them.But it did not.For under a dollar, there were interventions that could save lives that just weren’t being delivered.我们被震惊了。我们想,如果几百万儿童正在死亡线上挣扎,而且他们是可以被挽救的,那么世界理应将用药物拯救他们作为头等大事。但是事实并非如此。那些价格还不到一美元的救命的药剂,并没有送到他们的手中。
If you believe that every life has equal value, it’s revolting to learn that some lives are seen as worth saving and others are not.We said to ourselves: This can’t be true.But if it is true, it deserves to be the priority of our giving.如果你相信每个生命都是平等的,那么当你发现某些生命被挽救了,而另一些生命被放弃了,你会感到无法接受。我们对自己说: “ 事情不可能如此。如果这是真的,那么它理应是我们努力的头等大事。”
So we began our work in the same way anyone here would begin it.We asked: How could the world let these children die?
所以,我们用任何人都会想到的方式开始工作。我们问: “ 这个世界怎么可以眼睁睁看着这些孩子死去? ”
我们并没有很多机会了解那些死亡事件。媒体总是报告新闻,几百万人将要死去并非新闻。如果没有人报道,那么这些事件就很容易被忽视。另一方面,即使 我们确实目睹了事件本身或者看到了相关报道,我们也很难持续关注这些事件。看着他人受苦是令人痛苦的,何况问题又如此复杂,我们根本不知道如何去帮助他 人。所以我们会将脸转过去。
If we can really see a problem, which is the first step, we come to the second step: cutting through the complexity to find a solution.就算我们真正发现了问题所在,也不过是迈出了第一步,接着还有第二步:那就是从复杂的事件中找到解决办法。
Finding solutions is essential if we want to make the most of our caring.If we have clear and proven answers anytime an organization or individual asks How can I help?, then we can get action – and we can make sure that none of the caring in the world is wasted.But complexity makes it hard to mark a path of action for everyone who cares — and that makes it hard for their caring to matter.如果我们要让关心落到实处,我们就必须找到解决办法。如果我们有一个清晰的和可靠的答案,那么当任何组织和个人发出疑问 “ 如何我能提供帮助 ” 的时 候,我们就能采取行动。我们就能够保证不浪费一丁点全世界人类对他人的关心。但是,世界的复杂性使得很难找到对全世界每一个有爱心的人都有效的行动方法,因此人类对他人的关心往往很难产生实际效果。
Cutting through complexity to find a solution runs through four predictable stages: determine a goal, find the highest-leverage approach, discover the ideal technology for that approach, and in the meantime, make the smartest application of the technology that you already have — whether it’s something sophisticated, like a drug, or something simpler, like a bednet.从这个复杂的世界中找到解决办法,可以分为四个步骤:确定目标,找到最高效的方法,发现适用于这个方法的新技术,同时最聪明地利用现有的技术,不管它是复杂的药物,还是最简单的蚊帐。
The AIDS epidemic offers an example.The broad goal, of course, is to end the disease.The highest-leverage approach is prevention.The ideal technology would be a vaccine that gives lifetime immunity with a single dose.So governments, drug companies, and foundations fund vaccine research.But their work is likely to take more than a decade, so in the meantime, we have to work with what we have in hand – and the best prevention approach we have now is getting people to avoid risky behavior.艾滋病就是一个例子。总的目标,毫无疑问是消灭这种疾病。最高效的方法是预防。最理想的技术是发明一种疫苗,只要注射一次,就可以终生免疫。所以,政府、制药公司、基金会应该资助疫苗研究。但是,这样研究工作很可能十年之内都无法完成。因此,与此同时,我们必须使用现有的技术,目前最有效的预防方法 就是设法让人们避免那些危险的行为。
pursuing that goal starts the four-step cycle again.This is the pattern.The crucial thing is to never stop thinking and working – and never do what we did with malaria and tuberculosis in the 20th century – which is to surrender to complexity and quit.要实现这个新的目标,又可以采用新的四步循环。这是一种模式。关键的东西是永远不要停止思考和行动。我们千万不能再犯上个世纪在疟疾和肺结核上犯过的错误,那时我们因为它们太复杂,而放弃了采取行动。
The final step – after seeing the problem and finding an approach – is to measure the impact of your work and share your successes and failures so that others learn from your efforts.在发现问题和找到解决方法之后,就是最后一步 —— 评估工作结果,将你的成功经验或者失败经验传播出去,这样其他人就可以从你的努力中有所收获。
You have to have the statistics, of course.You have to be able to show that a program is vaccinating millions more children.You have to be able to show a decline in the number of children dying from these diseases.This is essential not just to improve the program, but also to help draw more investment from business and government.当然,你必须有一些统计数字。你必须让他人知道,你的项目为几百万儿童新接种了疫苗。你也必须让他人知道,儿童死亡人数下降了多少。这些都是很关键的,不仅有利于改善项目效果,也有利于从商界和政府得到更多的帮助。
But if you want to inspire people to participate, you have to show more than numbers;you have to convey the human impact of the work – so people can feel what saving a life means to the families affected.但是,这些还不够,如果你想激励其他人参加你的项目,你就必须拿出更多的统计数字;你必须展示你的项目的人性因素,这样其他人就会感到拯救一个生命,对那些处在困境中的家庭到底意味着什么。
I remember going to Davos some years back and sitting on a global health panel that was discussing ways to save millions of lives.Millions!Think of the thrill of saving just one person’s life – then multiply that by millions.… Yet this was the most boring panel I’ve ever been on – ever.So boring even I couldn’t bear it.几年前,我去瑞士达沃斯旁听一个全球健康问题论坛,会议的内容有关于如何拯救几百万条生命。天哪,是几百万!想一想吧,拯救一个人的生命已经让人何等激动,现在你要把这种激动再乘上几百万倍 …… 但是,不幸的是,这是我参加过的最最乏味的论坛,乏味到我无法强迫自己听下去。
What made that experience especially striking was that I had just come from an event where we were introducing version 13 of some piece of software, and we had people jumping and shouting with excitement.I love getting people excited about software – but why can’t we generate even more excitement for saving lives?
那次经历之所以让我难忘,是因为之前我们刚刚发布了一个软件的第 13 个版本,我们让观众激动得跳了起来,喊出了声。我喜欢人们因为软件而感到激动,那么我们为什么不能够让人们因为能够拯救生命而感到更加激动呢?
You can’t get people excited unless you can help them see and feel the impact.And how you do that – is a complex question.除非你能够让人们看到或者感受到行动的影响力,否则你无法让人们激动。如何做到这一点,并不是一件简单的事。
Still, I’m optimistic.Yes, inequity has been with us forever, but the new tools we have to cut through complexity have not been with us forever.They are new – they can help us make the most of our caring – and that’s why the future can be different from the past.同前面一样,在这个问题上,我依然是乐观的。不错,人类的不平等有史以来一直存在,但是那些能够化繁为简的新工具,却是最近才出现的。这些新工具可以帮助我们,将人类的同情心发挥最大的作用,这就是为什么将来同过去是不一样的。
The defining and ongoing innovations of this age – biotechnology, the computer, the Internet – give us a chance we’ve never had before to end extreme poverty and end death from preventable disease.这个时代无时无刻不在涌现出新的革新 —— 生物技术,计算机,互联网 —— 它们给了我们一个从未有过的机会,去终结那些极端的贫穷和非恶性疾病的死亡。
Sixty years ago, George Marshall came to this commencement and announced a plan to assist the nations of post-war Europe.He said: I think one difficulty is that the problem is one of such enormous complexity that the very mass of facts presented to the public by press and radio make it exceedingly difficult for the man in the street to reach a clear appraisement of the situation.It is virtually impossible at this distance to grasp at all the real significance of the situation.六十年前,乔治.马歇尔也是在这个地方的毕业典礼上,宣布了一个计划,帮助那些欧洲国家的战后建设。他说: “ 我认为,困难的一点是这个问题太复杂,报纸和电台向公众源源不断地提供各种事实,使得大街上的普通人极端难于清晰地判断形势。事实上,经过层层传播,想要真正地把握形势,是根本不可能的。”
Thirty years after Marshall made his address, as my class graduated without me, technology was emerging that would make the world smaller, more open, more visible, less distant.马歇尔发表这个演讲之后的三十年,我那一届学生毕业,当然我不在其中。那时,新技术刚刚开始萌芽,它们将使得这个世界变得更小、更开放、更容易看到、距离更近。
The emergence of low-cost personal computers gave rise to a powerful network that has transformed opportunities for learning and communicating.低成本的个人电脑的出现,使得一个强大的互联网有机会诞生,它为学习和交流提供了巨大的机会。
The magical thing about this network is not just that it collapses distance and makes everyone your neighbor.It also dramatically increases the number of brilliant minds we can have working together on the same problem – and that scales up the rate of innovation to a staggering degree.网络的神奇之处,不仅仅是它缩短了物理距离,使得天涯若比邻。它还极大地增加了怀有共同想法的人们聚集在一起的机会,我们可以为了解决同一个问题,一起共同工作。这就大大加快了革新的进程,发展速度简直快得让人震惊。
At the same time, for every person in the world who has access to this technology, five people don’t.That means many creative minds are left out of this discussion--smart people with practical intelligence and relevant experience who don’t have the technology to hone their talents or contribute their ideas to the world.与此同时,世界上有条件上网的人,只是全部人口的六分之一。这意味着,还有许多具有创造性的人们,没有加入到我们的讨论中来。那些有着实际的操作经验和相关经历的聪明人,却没有技术来帮助他们,将他们的天赋或者想法与全世界分享。
We need as many people as possible to have access to this technology, because these advances are triggering a revolution in what human beings can do for one another.They are making it possible not just for national governments, but for universities, corporations, smaller organizations, and even individuals to see problems, see approaches, and measure the impact of their efforts to address the hunger, poverty, and desperation George Marshall spoke of 60 years ago.lunwen001.cn provided
我们需要尽可能地让更多的人有机会使用新技术,因为这些新技术正在引发一场革命,人类将因此可以互相帮助。新技术正在创造一种可能,不仅是政府,还 包括大学、公司、小机构、甚至个人,能够发现问题所在、能够找到解决办法、能够评估他们努力的效果,去改变那些马歇尔六十年前就说到过的问题 —— 饥饿、贫 穷和绝望。
Members of the Harvard Family: Here in the Yard is one of the great collections of intellectual talent in the world.哈佛是一个大家庭。这个院子里在场的人们,是全世界最有智力的人类群体之一。
What for?
我们可以做些什么?
There is no question that the faculty, the alumni, the students, and the benefactors of Harvard have used their power to improve the lives of people here and around the world.But can we do more? Can Harvard dedicate its intellect to improving the lives of people who will never even hear its name?
毫无疑问,哈佛的老师、校友、学生和资助者,已经用他们的能力改善了全世界各地人们的生活。但是,我们还能够再做什么呢?有没有可能,哈佛的人们可以将他们的智慧,用来帮助那些甚至从来没有听到过 “ 哈佛 ” 这个名字的人?
Let me make a request of the deans and the professors – the intellectual leaders here at Harvard: As you hire new faculty, award tenure, review curriculum, and determine degree requirements, please ask yourselves:lunwen001.cn provided
请允许我向各位院长和教授,提出一个请求 —— 你们是哈佛的智力领袖,当你们雇用新的老师、授予终身教职、评估课程、决定学位颁发标准的时候,请问你们自己如下的问题:
Should our best minds be dedicated to solving our biggest problems?
我们最优秀的人才是否在致力于解决我们最大的问题?
Should Harvard encourage its faculty to take on the world’s worst inequities? Should Harvard students learn about the depth of global poverty … the prevalence of world hunger … the scarcity of clean water …the girls kept out of school … the children who die from diseases we can cure?
哈佛是否鼓励她的老师去研究解决世界上最严重的不平等?哈佛的学生是否从全球那些极端的贫穷中学到了什么 …… 世界性的饥荒 …… 清洁的水资源的缺乏 …… 无法上学的女童 …… 死于非恶性疾病的儿童 …… 哈佛的学生有没有从中学到东西?
Should the world’s most privileged people learn about the lives of the world’s least privileged?
那些世界上过着最优越生活的人们,有没有从那些最困难的人们身上学到东西?
These are not rhetorical questions – you will answer with your policies.这些问题并非语言上的修辞。你必须用自己的行动来回答它们。
My mother, who was filled with pride the day I was admitted here – never stopped pressing me to do more for others.A few days before my wedding, she hosted a bridal event, at which she read aloud a letter about marriage that she had written to Melinda.My mother was very ill with cancer at the time, but she saw one more opportunity to deliver her message, and at the close of the letter she said: From those to whom much is given, much is expected.lunwen001.cn provided
我的母亲在我被哈佛大学录取的那一天,曾经感到非常骄傲。她从没有停止督促我,去为他人做更多的事情。在我结婚的前几天,她主持了一个新娘进我家的 仪式。在这个仪式上,她高声朗读了一封关于婚姻的信,这是她写给 Melinda 的。那时,我的母亲已经因为癌症病入膏肓,但是她还是认为这是又一个传播她 的信念的机会。在那封信的结尾,她写道: “ 对于那些接受了许多帮助的人们,他们还在期待更多的帮助。”
When you consider what those of us here in this Yard have been given – in talent, privilege, and opportunity – there is almost no limit to what the world has a right to expect from us.想一想吧,我们在这个院子里的这些人,被给予过什么 —— 天赋、特权、机遇 —— 那么可以这样说,全世界的人们几乎有无限的权力,期待我们做出贡献。
In line with the promise of this age, I want to exhort each of the graduates here to take on an issue – a complex problem, a deep inequity, and become a specialist on it.If you make it the focus of your career, that would be phenomenal.But you don’t have to do that to make an impact.For a few hours every week, you can use the growing power of the Internet to get informed, find others with the same interests, see the barriers, and find ways to cut through them.lunwen001.cn provided
同这个时代的期望一样,我也要向今天各位毕业的同学提出一个忠告:你们要选择一个问题,一个复杂的问题,一个有关于人类深刻的不平等的问题,然后你 们要变成这个问题的专家。如果你们能够使得这个问题成为你们职业的核心,那么你们就会非常杰出。但是,你们不必一定要去做那些大事。每个星期只用几个小 时,你就可以通过互联网得到信息,找到志同道合的朋友,发现困难所在,找到解决它们的途径。
Don’t let complexity stop you.Be activists.Take on the big inequities.It will be one of the great experiences of your lives.不要让这个世界的复杂性阻碍你前进。要成为一个行动主义者。将解决人类的不平等视为己任。它将成为你生命中最重要的经历之一。
You graduates are coming of age in an amazing time.As you leave Harvard, you have technology that members of my class never had.You have awareness of global inequity, which we did not have.And with that awareness, you likely also have an informed conscience that will torment you if you abandon these people whose lives you could change with very little effort.You have more than we had;you must start sooner, and carry on longer.在座的各位毕业的同学,你们所处的时代是一个神奇的时代。当你们离开哈佛的时候,你们拥有的技术,是我们那一届学生所没有的。你们已经了解到了世界 上的不平等,我们那时还不知道这些。有了这样的了解之后,要是你再弃那些你可以帮助的人们于不顾,就将受到良心的谴责,只需一点小小的努力,你就可以改变 那些人们的生活。你们比我们拥有更大的能力;你们必须尽早开始,尽可能长时期坚持下去。
Knowing what you know, how could you not?
知道了你们所知道的一切,你们怎么可能不采取行动呢?
And I hope you will come back here to Harvard 30 years from now and reflect on what you have done with your talent and your energy.I hope you will judge yourselves not on your professional accomplishments alone, but also on how well you have addressed the world’s deepest inequities … on how well you treated people a world away who have nothing in common with you but their humanity.我希望,30 年后你们还会再回到哈佛,想起你们用自己的天赋和能力所做出的一切。我希望,在那个时候,你们用来评价自己的标准,不仅仅是你们的专业
成就,而包括你们为改变这个世界深刻的不平等所做出的努力,以及你们如何善待那些远隔千山万水、与你们毫不涉及的人们,你们与他们唯一的共同点就是同为人 类。
It is always a pleasure to greeta sea of alumni on Commencement afternoon—even thoughmy role is that of thewarm-up act for the feature to come. Today I am especially aware of thetreatwe have in store as I look out on not a sea, but a veritable ocean ofanticipation.
But it is my customary assignmentand privilege to offer each spring a report to thealumni on the year that isending. And this was a year that for a number of reasons demandsspecial note.
“The world is too much with us”—the lines of Wordsworth’s well-known poem echoed in mymind as I thoughtabout my remarks today, for the world has intruded on us this year in wayswenever would have imagined. The University had not officially closed for a daysince 1978. Thisyear it closed three times. Twice it was for cases of extremeweather—first for superstorm Sandyand then for Nemo, the record-breakingFebruary blizzard. The third was of course the day ofBoston’s lockdown in theaftermath of the tragic Marathon bombings. This was a year thatchallengedfundamental assumptions about life’s security, stability and predictability.
Yet as I reflected on theseintrusions from a world so very much with us, I was struck by howwe at Harvardare so actively engaged in shaping that world and indeed in addressing somanyof the most important and trying questions that these recent events have posed.
Just two weeks ago, climatescientists and disaster relief workers gathered here for a two-day conferenceco-sponsored by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative and the HarvardUniversityCenter for the Environment. They came to explore the very issues presentedbySandy and Nemo and to consider how academic researchers and workers on theground cancollaborate more effectively.
This gathering represents justone example of the wide range of activities across theUniversity dedicated toaddressing the challenges of climate change. How can we advance thesciencethat helps us understand climate change—and perhaps avert it? How can wedevisesolutions—from new technologies to principles of urban design—that mightmitigate it?How can we envision the public policies to manage and respond toit? Harvard is deeplyengaged with the broad issues of energy andenvironment—offering more than 250 courses inthis area, gathering 225 facultythrough our environment center and its programs, enrolling100 doctoralstudents from 7 Schools and many different disciplines in a graduateconsortiumdesigned to broaden their understanding of environmental issues. Our facultyarestudying atmospheric composition and working to develop renewable energysources; theyare seeking to manage rising oceans and to reimagine cities foran era of increasinglythreatening weather; they are helping to fashionenvironmental regulations and internationalclimate agreements.
So the weather isn’t somethingthat simply happens at Harvard, even though it may haveseemed that way when wehad to close twice this year. It is a focus of study and of research, aswework to confront the implications of climate change and help shape nationalandinternational responses to its extremes.
When Boston experienced thetragedy of the Marathon bombings last month, the city andsurroundingmunicipalities went into lockdown on April 19 to help ensure the capture oftheescaped suspect, and Harvard responded in extraordinary ways. Within ourowncommunity, students, faculty and staff went well beyond their ordinaryresponsibilities tosupport one another and keep the University operatingsmoothly and safely underunprecedented circumstances. But we also witnessedour colleagues’ magnificent efforts tomeet the needs of Boston and our other neighborsin the crisis. The Harvard Police worked withother law enforcement agencies,and several of our officers played a critical role in saving thelife of thetransit officer wounded in Watertown. Doctors, nurses and other staff, manyfrom ouraffiliated hospitals, performed a near-miracle in ensuring that everyinjured person who arrivedat a hospital survived. Years of disaster planningand emergency readiness enabled theseinstitutions to act in a stunninglycoordinated and effective manner. I am deeply proud of thecontributions madeby members of the Harvard community in the immediate aftermath of thebombings.
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