新视野研究生英语读说写2课文加翻译分析解析

1.College lectures: Is Anybody Listening?

大学课堂：还有人在听吗？

A former teacher of mine, Robert A. Fowkes of New York University, likes to tell the story of a class he took in Old Welsh while studying in Germany during the 1930s. On the first day the professor strod e up to the podium shuffled his notes, coughed, and began, ― Guten Tag, Meine Damen und Herren‖(―Good day, ladies and gentlemen‖). Fowkes glanced around uneasily. He was the only student in the course.

纽约大学的Robert A Fowkes是我过去的一位老师。他喜欢讲在上世纪30年代他在德国上，古威尔士语课的故事。第一天上课，教授大步走上讲台，翻了翻笔记，咳嗽了一声，开始说道：“早上好，女士们、先生们。”Fowkes不安地扫视一番。他是上这门课的唯一学生。

Toward the middle of the semester, Fowkes fell ill and missed a class. When he returned, the professor nodded vaguely and, to Fowkes‘s astonishment, began to deliver not the next lecture in the sequence but the one after. Had he, in fact, lectured to an empty hall in the absence of his solitary student? Fowkes thought it perfectly possible.

在学期中间，Fowkes因病缺了一次课。他回到课堂的时候，教授毫无表情地向他点了点头。接着令Fowkes大吃一惊的是，教授没有按照顺序讲下一课，而是讲了后面一课。难道他真的在他唯一的学生缺席的情况下对着空教室讲了一课？Fowkes认为这太有可能了。

Today American colleges and universities ( originally modeled on German ones) are under strong attack from many quarters. Teachers, it is charged, are not doing a good job of teaching, and students are not doing a good job of learning. American businesses and industries suffer from unenterprising, uncreative executives educated not to think for themselves but to mouth outdated truisms the rest of the world has long discarded. College graduates lack both basic skills and general culture. Studies are conducted and reports are issued on the status of higher education, but any changes that result either are largely cosmetic or make a bad situation worse.

今天美国的大学受到了各方面的严厉指责。人们指责老师没有教好，学生没有学好。美国的商业和工业饱受无进取心的，缺乏创造力的管理人员之苦，这些人受的教育是自己不要思考，而是说一些时时的、在世界上其他地方早已抛弃的陈词滥调。大学毕业生既没有基本技能也没有全面修养。有人对高等教育的状况做了研究并发表了报告，但由此引发的变化在很大程度上不是表面的，就是使已经糟糕的情形变得更糟。

One aspect of American education too seldom challenged is the lecture system. Professors continue to lecture and students to take notes much as they did in the thirteenth century, when books were so scarce and expensive that few students could own them. The time is long overdue for us to abandon the lecture system and turn to methods that really work.

美国教育中很少被挑战的方面是讲课制度。教授不停地讲，学生不停地记笔记，就像十三世纪时的情形一样，那时是因为书本匮乏又昂贵，很少有学生买得起。我们早就该舍弃讲课制度，开始使用真正有用的方法。

To understand the inadequacy of the present system, it is enough to follow a single imaginary first-year student —let‘s call her Mary -- through a term of lectures on. Say, introductory psychology (although any other subject would do as well ). She arrives on the first day and looks around the huge lecture hall, taken a little aback to see how large the class is. Once the hundred or more students enrolled in the course discover that the professor never takes attendance (how can he? – calling the roll would take far too much time), the class shrinks to a less imposing size.

想要了解现行体制的不足只要跟着一个假设的一年级学生就行了。我们暂且称她为玛丽，我们还是跟她去上一个学期的心理学导论。她到的第一天环顾巨大的课堂，看到班级这

么大有些吃惊。一旦一百或一百多个注册的学生发现教授从不点名，班级就缩小到不那么吓人的规模了。

Some days Mary sits in the front row, from where she can watch the professor read from a stack of yellowed notes that seem nearly as old as he is. She is bored by the lectured, and so are most of the other students, to judge by the way they are nodding off or doodling in their notebooks. Gradually she realizes the professor is as bored as his audience. At the end of each lecture he asks, ―Are there any questions?‖in a tone of voice that makes it plain he would much rather there weren‘t. He needn‘t worry – the students are as relieved as he is that the class is over.

有几天玛丽坐在前排，她可以看到教授在读一叠几乎和他的年纪一样老的发黄的讲义。她听课烦了，其他大部分同学也听烦了，这从他们的行为中可以判断出：他们要么在打盹，要么在笔记本上涂鸦。渐渐地她意识到教授和他的听众一样感到无聊。每次课结束时他都问道：“有问题吗？”他的语气明显表明他更希望没有问题。他不必担心，学生和他一样感到下课是一种解脱。

Mary knows very well she should read an assignment before every lecture. However, as the professor gives no quizzes and asks no questions, she soon realizes she needn‘t prepare. At the end of the term she catches up by skimming her notes and memorizing a list of facts and dates. After the final exam, she promptly forgets much of what she has memorized. Some of her fellow students, disappointed at the impersonality of it all. Drop out of college altogether. Others, like Mary, stick it out, grow resigned to the system and await better days when, as juniors and seniors, they will attend smaller classes and at last get the kind of personal attention real learning requires. 玛丽清楚地知道她应该在每次上课前阅读布置的作业。但是，因为教授不做小测验也不提问，她很快就认识到她不必准备。学期末她只要看看笔记，再记记一些事件、年代就可以跟上进度。期末考试后她会立刻忘掉她背下来的大部分内容。她的有些同学对这种无人情味的学习很失望，干脆辍学。其他人像玛丽一样坚持下来，无奈地接受了这种制度，等待着到大三、大四时的好日子，那时他们就会有较小的班级，最终也会得到真正的学习所需要的那种针对个人的关注。

I admit this picture is overdrawn –most universities supplement lecture courses with discussion groups, usually led by graduate students, and some classes such as first – year English, are always relatively small. Nevertheless, far too many courses rely principally or entirely on lectures, an arrangement much loved by faculty and administrators but scarcely designed to benefit the students.

我承认上面的描述言过其实。大多数大学有讨论课补充听讲课，通常讨论课是由研究生主持的。而且有些班级，如一年级的英语课，也总是相对较小的。但是，还是有太多的课主要或者完全依赖于讲课，这种安排受到教师和管理人员的青睐，但绝不是为学生的利益而设计的。

One problem with lectures is that listening intelligently is hard work. Reading the same material in a textbook is a more efficient way to learn because students can proceed as slowly as they need to until the subject matter becomes clear to them. Even simply paying attention is very difficult; people can listen at a rate of four hundred to six hundred words a minute, while the most impassioned professor talks at scarcely a third of that speed. This time lag between speech and comprehension leads to daydreaming. Many students believe years of watching television have sabotaged their attention span, but their real problem is that listening attentively is much harder than they think.

听课存在的一个问题是：会听是件很难的事。阅读课本中的相同内容是更有效的学习方

法，因为学生可以根据其需要慢慢阅读直到他们理解这些内容。甚至仅仅做到专心听讲都很难。人听的速度可以达到每分钏400-600个词，而最富有激情的教授说话的速度也很难达到这个速度的1/3。讲话的理解之间的时间差导致开小差。很多学生认为多年来看电视已经削弱了他们保持注意力的能力。但是他们真正的问题是专心听课比他们认为的要难得多。

Worse still, attending lectures is passive learning, at least for inexperienced listeners. Active learning in which students write essays or perform experiments and then have their work evaluated by an instructor, is far more beneficial for those who have not yet fully learned how to learn. While it‘s true that techniques of active listening, such as trying to anticipate the speaker‘s next point or taking notes selectively, can enhance the value of a lecture, few students possess such skills at the beginning of their college careers. More commonly, students try to write everything down and even bring tape recorders to class in a clumsy effort to capture every word. 更糟的是，听课是被动学习，至少对没有经验的听众如此。主动学习时学生写文章或做实验，然后由教师评价他们的作业，因此主动学习对那些还没有完全学会如何学习的学生来说益处要大得多。的确，积极听讲的技巧，如设法预测说话人的下一个要点或有选择地记笔记，能够提高听课的价值，但是很少有学生在大学学习的开始阶段就已经学握了这些技巧。更为常见的是学生试图写下所有内容，甚至还带着录音机去听课，以这咱笨拙的方式来记录每个词。

Students need to question their professors and to have their ideas taken seriously. Only then will they develop the analytical skills required to think intelligently and creatively. Most students learn best by engaging in frequent and even heated debate, not by scribbling down a professor‘s often unsatisfactory summary of complicated issues. They need small discussion classes that demand the common labors of teacher and students rather than classes in which one person, however learned propounds his or her own ideas.

学生需要向教授提问，也需要别人重视他们的想法。只有这样他们才能开发出聪明的、创造性的思考所必需的分析能力。大多数学生通过参加频繁的、甚至是激烈的辩论才会学得最好，而不是通过胡乱记下教授对复杂事件所做出的常常不能令人满意的总结。他们需要小型讨论课，这种课需要老师和学生的共同努力，他们不需要那种让一个人提出自己观点的课堂，无论这个多么有学识。

The lecture system ultimately harms professors as well. It reduces feedback to a minimum, so that the lecturer can neither judge how well students understand the material nor benefit from their questions or comments. Questions that require the speaker to clarify obscure points and comments that challenge sloppily constructed arguments are indispensable may not be able to make telling contributions very often, but lecturing insulates a professor even from the beginner‘s na?ve question that could have triggered a fruitful line of thought.

讲课制度最终会危害到教授们。反馈减少到了最低点，因此讲课者既不能判断学生对材料的了解程度，也不能受益于学生的提问或评论。学生要求说话者澄清模糊论点所提的问题，以及挑战结构松散的论据的评论，这对于学术是必不可少的。没有这些，最活跃的头脑也会萎缩。大学生或许还不能够常常做出显著的贡献，但是讲课把教授同新生天真的问题阻隔开了，而这些问题很可能会引起一系列思考。

If lectures make so little sense, why have they been allowed to continue? Administrators love them, of course. They can cram far more students into a lecture hall than into a discussion class, and for many administrators that is almost the end of the story. But the truth is that faculty members, and even students, conspire with them to keep the lecture system alive and well. Lectures are easier on everyone than debates. Professors can pretend to teach by lecturing just as

students as students can pretend to learn by attending lectures, with no one the wiser, including the participants. Moreover, if lectures afford some students an opportunity to sit back and let the professor run the show, they offer some professors an irresistible forum for showing off. In a classroom where everyone contributes, students are less able to hide and professors less tempted to engage in intellectual exhibitionism.

如果说讲课如此不通情理，为什么还一直允许继续下去呢？当然是因为教学管理者喜欢了。他们可以把更多的学生塞进演讲厅，而无法把这么学生塞进讨论班。对许多管理者而方，这基本上就是他们所关心的了。但是，事实上，老师、甚至学生和管理者联合起来使得这一制度继续存在，且运行得很好。对任何人来说，讲课都比辩论容易。教授可以通过讲课假装在教，就像学生可以通过听课假装在学，这一点没有人意识到，包括参与者。此外，如果听课给某些学生袖手旁观、而让老师唱主角的机会，这也给一些教授提供了炫耀其才学的不可抗拒的舞台。如果课堂上人人参与，学生就无法躲藏，教授也不会被吸引去进行学识上的自我表现。

Smaller classes in which students are required to involve themselves in discussion put an end to students‘ passivity. Students become actively involved when forced to question their own ideas as well as their instructor‘s. Their listening skills improve dramatically in the excitement of intellectual give-and-take with their instructors and fellow students. Such interchanges help professors do their job better because they allow them to discover who knows what – before final exams, not after. When exams are given in this type of course, they can require analysis and synthesis from the students, not empty memorization. Classes like this require energy, imagination, and commitment from professors, all of which can be exhausting. But they compel students to share responsibility for their own intellectual growth.

如果班级较小又要求学生参加讨论，这就会消除学生的被动性。学生被迫对他们的和老师的思想表示怀疑时，他们就变得主动参与了。他们听的技巧在与老师和同学的学术交流所带来的刺激中大大得到提高。这种交替互动能帮助教师做得更好，因为他们会发现谁知道什么----在期末考试前，而不是之后。这种形式的课程考试要求学生分析和综合，而不是空洞的记忆。这样的课需要教授们的活力、想象力和投入，所有这些都会令人精疲力竭的。但是，这也使得学生为他们自己的学术成长分担责任。

Lectures will never entirely disappear from the university scene both because they seem to be economically necessary and because they spring from a long tradition in a setting that values tradition for its own sake. But the lectures too frequently come at the wrong end of the students‘educational careers –during the first two years, when they most need close, even individual, instruction. If lecture classes were restricted to juniors and seniors, who are less in need of scholarly nurturing and more able to prepare work on their own, they would be far less destructive of students‘interests and enthusiasms than the present system. After all, students must learn to listen before they can listen to learn.

讲课这一方式不会完全从大学消失。一是因为讲课似乎从经济角度考虑是必需的，二是讲课起源于悠久的传统，而且人们又把传统本身看得很重。但是，讲课通常出现在学生接受教育生涯的错误的那一端----在大学的第一和第二年，那时他们是需要密切的，甚至是针对个体需要的指导。如果讲课这一形式局限于三四年级的学生，则对学生的兴趣和热情的破坏力会比目前的制度小得多，因为三四年级的学生不太需要学科上的指导与帮助，而且更有能力自己制定学习计划毕竟，学生在能够从听讲课中学到知识之前必须先要学会去听。

2. Home and Travel家与旅行

For many people, moving is one kind of thing and travel is something very different. Travel means going away from home and staying away from home; it is an antidote to the humdrum activities of everyday life, a prelude to a holiday one is entitled to enjoy after months of dullness. Moving means breaking up a home, sadly or joyfully breaking with the past; a happy venture or a hardship, something to be endured with good or ill grace.

对许多人来说，搬家和旅行是截然不同的两回事。旅行意味着离开家外出一段时日。它是摆脱日常单调生活的一种手段，是经过数月乏味的生活之后一个人应该开始享有的度假生活。而对于搬家，有人喜爱有人厌恶，因为它意味着破坏一个家园，或悲伤或兴高采烈地摆脱过去而踏上也许幸福也许艰难的历险征途。

For me, moving and staying at home, traveling and arriving, are all of a piece. The world is full of homes in which I have lived for a day, a month, a year, or, much longer. How much I care about a home is not measured by the mean more to me than many months in a room a fireplace, a room in which my life has been paced less excitingly.

对我来说，搬家和待在家里，旅行到达某处是一样的。世界各处都有我的家，可能我住过一天，一个月，一年或更长的时间。我在一个家居住的时间长短并不是衡量我是否喜欢它的标准。在一个有跳跃火苗的房间里仅住一题名带给我的意义也行远远大于在一个没有壁炉的房间里生活数月，因为在这样的房间里我的生活节奏会缺少一些刺激。

From the time I can first remember, I knew that we had not always lived where we were living then – in Hammonton, New Jersey, where we had moved so that Mother could work on her doctoral thesis. I knew that I had spent my first summer at a resort called Lavallette, a place I did not visit again unit I was seventeen, there to have the only authentic attack of homesickness I have ever had, brought on by the sound of the pounding surf. I knew also that we had lived on St. Marks square, Philadelphia, because the next winter we lived near St. Marks Square and still knew people who lived there.

从我记事时起，我就知道，我们全家并不是一直住在当时居住的地方----新泽西州的哈蒙顿。我们搬到那里是为了让母亲能撰写博士论文。我知道我的第一个夏天是在一个叫lavallette的避暑胜地度过的。到了17岁时我才故地重游，而且海浪拍岸的声音让我惟一一次真切地感受到想家的滋味。我还知道，我们曾经在费城的圣马可广场居住过，因为第二年冬天我们住在圣马可广场附近的时候，还认识住在那里的人们。

Every winter we went to live in or near Philadelphia so that Father would not have to travel too stay in the city on the nights that he lectures at the University, From the time I was seven years old, we went somewhere for the summer, too. So we moved four times a year, because for the fall and spring we returned to the house in Hammonton.

每年冬天我们都会去费城或附近居住，这样父亲到大学讲学就不必走很远的路，也不必在城里过夜。从我7岁起，每年夏天我们也会去其他地方居住。这样，我们一年要搬4次家，因为秋天和春天我们会搬回到哈蒙顿的家。

All the other houses were strange –houses that had to be made our own as quickly as possible so that they no longer would be strange. This did not mean that they were frightening, but only that we had to learn about every nook and corner, for otherwise it was hard to play hide-and-go –seek. As soon as we arrived, I ran ahead to find a room for myself as far away as possible from everyone else, preferably at the top of the house where I would always be warned by footsteps that someone was coming. After that until we were settled in, I was busy exploring, making my own the new domain. Later, when I was about fourteen, I was in charge of unpacking, getting beds made, food in the icebox, and the lamps filled and lit before nightfall.

除了哈蒙顿的家外，其他的家教很陌生。我们要尽快把它们变成像自己的家一样，这样就不会再有陌生感了。这并不是说这些房子有多可怕，而是我们要了解房子的每个角落以便我们孩子玩捉迷藏。每到一处，我都会先跑进去为自己挑一间尽可能远离大家的房间，如果能在顶层就最好了。这样，如果有人来，脚步声就能提前告诉我。之后，我就会一直忙于四处考察，以建立自己的新领地，直到我们大家都安顿下来。等我14岁后，我已开始负责打开行李，铺床，把食物放进冰箱，并在夜色降临前加油点灯。

The next step was to explore the neighborhood. I had to find out what other children lived nearby and whether there were woods, wild flowers, tangles, or jungles –any hidden spot that could be turned into a miniature primeval forest where life could e quickly shaped to an imaginary world.

接下来就是考察周边的情况了。我得了解附近住着什么样的小孩，周围有没有小树林呀，野花丛呀，蔓草或丛林之类的任何隐蔽的地方，而且这种地方可以变成一个小型的原始森林，能让人迅速融入一个幻化的世界。

In Hammonton we had five whole acres, a good part of which was second-growth bush, studded with blueberries, which the little Italian children who were our neighbors picked and sold back to us. In Lansdowne and Swarthmore there were bits of woodlot. But in Philadelphia there was nothing, only stone walls of different heights on which to walk. Nothing, except for the winter when we lived at the edge of the park near the zoo.

在哈蒙顿，我们拥有整整5英亩土地，其中很大一部分是再生灌木丛，里面点缀着蓝莓邻居的意大利孩子会采摘蓝莓的果实再卖给我们。在lansdowne和swartthmore我们有些植林地。但在费城却什么也没有，只有高高矮矮的石头墙，上面可以走路，其它什么都没有了。不过冬天当我们住在动物园附近公园边上的时候是要除外的。

However far away we moved and however often, we always came home again to Hammonton and the familiar and loved things that were too fragile to take with us –although Mother was very permissive about allowing us to carry along all the objects each of us wanted. In Hammonton there was the same blueberry thicket in which to wander along old paths and make new ones, the same surrey, which we hired from the livery stable, and the same door which was never opened – a second door on the front porch which was used only on one occasion, on the night the neighbors pounded on it to tell us that our chimney had caught fire.

不管我们搬得多远，也不管多频繁，我们总是会回到哈蒙顿的家，回到那些我们熟悉并喜爱但是因为易碎而无法带走的东西身边，虽然母亲每次都宽容地让我们自己想带的东西带着。在汉蒙顿的家，一切都不曾改变：相同的蓝莓灌木丛，我们仍可以在原来的小路上漫步或另辟新径；马车还是那一辆，是从马房雇来的；前廊的第二扇门也没有变，是一扇从未开启过的门。这扇门只用过一次：就是有天晚上，邻居用力砸门告诉我们烟囱着火了。

There was the great tree from which a hornets‘ nest blew down in a storm. I had been dancing in the wind when it blew down and, still dancing, plunged my hands into it. I can still remember the wind but not the stings with which I was said to have been covered. There were the tall evergreen arborvitae that divided the lawn into little squares, where Grandma played games with us until one day she put here hand to her heart and then she did not play running games anymore, And outside the mock-orange hedge we once found faeces, and Mother said, in a tone of disgust close to horror, that they were human faeces.

附近有棵大树，树上的黄蜂窝在一次暴雨中被吹落了下来。当时我正在风中跳舞，当蜂窝掉上来时，我仍然在跳着，不还把手伸进了蜂窝里。现在我仍然记得那场大风。但是据说我被蛰得满身是包，这点我却记不得了。附近还有高大常青的罗汉柏，它们把草坪分割成一

块一块的。祖母曾和我们在那里玩游戏，直到有一天她发现自己心脏有问题后，就再也不和我们玩追赶的游戏了。还有一次我们在桑橙篱笆墙外看到了一些粪便，母亲带着近乎恐惧的厌恶口吻说那是人的粪便。

There was the well with a pump that we used to prime with hot water, until one day my five-year-old brother and a desperado friend a year younger threw everything detachable down the well, and then it was never used again. There was an old dinghy in which we grew flowers until the boys tore it up. And once, when the barn had been reshingled the old shingles had been piled in the barn for the winter, the two little boys threw all of them out. Grandma said it just showed how two children, each one quite good by himself, could get into mischief. You never could tell, when you put two children together, what the outcome would be. This enlarged my picture of what boys were like.

我们有口井带碰上一个用热水可以启动的抽水泵。但是有一天我5岁的弟弟和他一个4岁的淘气的朋友把抽水泵能卸的部分都卸下来扔到了井里，这口井从此再也没有被用过。我们还有一块旧的用来种花的小舢板，但也被这两个男孩给搞烂了。还有一次，我家马厩的屋顶翻新，旧的盖板被堆在马厩里准备留到冬天以备不时之需，但是这两个男孩却把它们全扔了出去。祖母说这恰恰表明了一点：两个孩子，独处是都是好孩子，呆在一起就会调皮捣蛋。两个孩子呆在一起会有什么后果谁都无法预料。这更增进了我对男孩的了解。

It was contrapuntal to an engraving in a homemade copper frame that stood o the mantelpiece. This showed a pair of children, a little girl diligently sewing a fine seam and a boy, beautiful and remote, simply sitting and looking out at the world. Long years later, the same picture provided the central image in a bitter little verse of feminine protest that I wrote when Edward Sapir told me I would do better to stay at home and have children than to go off to the South Seas to study adolescent girls:

Measure your thread and cut it

To suit your little seam,

Stitch the garment tightly, tightly,

And leave no room for dream.

…

Head down, be not caught looking

Where the restless wild geese fly.

这和壁炉架上一幅镶在自制的铜框架中的版画所表现的情景恰好相反。画中有两个孩子：小女孩在认真地缝东西，而那漂亮却显孤高的男孩只是坐在那里似乎在看着外面的世界。多年后，同样的画面也体现在我写的一首略带苦涩的小诗里。当时爱德华.萨丕尔告诉我：与其去南太平洋研究十多岁的少女还不如待在家里相夫教子。于是我写了这首诗以表达我作为女性的抗议（略）：

There were treasures on Mother‘s dressing table, too –a Wedgwood pin dish, a little porcelain Mary and her lamb, the pale green, flowered top a rose bowl that had broken, and Mother‘s silver-backed comb and brush and mirror. All these things held meaning for me. Each was – and still is -- capable of evoking a rush of memories.

母亲的梳妆台上摆放着一些珍藏的物品----一个韦奇伍德的放别针的小碟，一个小小的玛丽和她的小绵羊的瓷器制品，一个里面镶花但已破碎的浅绿色的玫瑰碗，以及母亲那把镀银的梳子，刷子和镜子。所有这些对我都深有含义，每件东西曾经并且仍然能够勾起我串串回忆.

Take altogether, the things that mattered a great deal to me when I was a child are very few

when I compare them to the overloaded tables and overcrowded shelves through which they be able to weave together into memories the ill-assorted mass of gadgets, toys, and easily forgotten objects, objects without a past or a future, and piles of snapshots that will be replaced by new, brightly colored snapshots next year.

现在的孩子书桌和书架上都堆满了东西。和他们比起来，童年时对我有意义的东西加在一起也没有几件。但是只有当他们非常幸运的时候，他们记忆中才有可能出现那些杂乱无章的小玩意、玩具、容易被人遗忘的没有过和未来的东西和一叠叠第二年就会被更新更好看的照片所取代的照片。

The difficulty, it seems to me, is not – as so many older people claim – that in the past life was simple and there were fewer things, and so people were somehow better, as well as more frugal. It is, rather, that today‘s children have to find new ways of anchoring the changing moments of their lives, and they have to try to do this with very little help from their elder, who grew up in an extraordinarily different world. How want to strip their lives down to contents of a rucksack, can remember and name the things that lay on their mother‘s dress table or can describe every toy and book they had as a child?

我认为问题的症结并不是许多年纪大的人所认为的那样：认为过去生活很简单，物质也不够丰富，所以人们反而生活得比现在更好更简补。关键是现在的孩子不得不找到新的方式来适应他们生活中变化的时刻，而且他们还不得不尝试着在没有得到家长多少帮助的情况下做到这点，因为家长们的成长环境和他们的环境大相径庭。这些年轻人正在反抗着控制他们的专治。他们想把生活简单到只需一个帆布背包就能容纳。他们中有多少人能记得并说出他们母亲梳妆台上的东西，又有多少人能描绘孩提时所拥有的每一个玩具和每一本书呢？

It has been found that when desperate. Unhappy youngsters are preparing to break away from a disordered, drug-ridden commune in which they have been living for months, they first gather together in one spot their few possessions and introduce a semblance of order among them. The need to define who you are by the place in which you live remains intact, even when that place is defined by a single object, like the small blue vase that used to mean home to one of my friends, the daughter of a widowed trained nurse who continually moved from one place to another. The Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert often build no walls when they camp in the desert. They simply hollow out a small space in the sand. But then they bend a slender sapling into an arch to make a doorway, an entrance to a dwelling as sacrosanct from invasion as the walled estates of the wealthy are or as Makati, in Manila, is , where watchmen guard the rich against the poor.

人们已经发现，当绝望的不幸少年打算摆脱他们曾经生活过数月的毫无秩序、充斥着毒品的社区时，他们通常会先把他们有限的财产聚集到某个地方并按顺序摆放起来。人们需要靠自己生活的地方来定义自己怕身份的做法没有改变，即使那个地方只是用一件物品定义。就比如我的一个朋友----她的母亲是一位经过门训练的护士，寡居但是需要经常搬家----一个小小的蓝色花瓶对她的含义就是家。卡拉哈里沙漠里的居民在沙漠中露营时通常是不建围墙的。他们仅仅是在沙漠中挖出一块小空间，然后把一棵小树弯曲起来做成拱形当作入口。这个入口是神圣不可侵犯的，就好比有钱人用墙围起来的地产或者是在马尼拉的马卡提，有保安人员为富人提防穷人一样。

I realized how few things are needed to make a ―home‖when I took my seven-year-old daughter on her first sea voyage. The ship – the Marine Jumper, an unrenovated troopship with iron decks –was crowded with over a thousand students. They were bunked below where the troops had slept, while Cathy and I shared one cabin with six other members of the staff. Cathy climbed into her upper berth, and arranged them in a circle around her. Then she leaned over the

side of the berth and said, ―Now I am ready to see the ship.

当我带着7岁的女儿踏上她的每一次海上之旅时，我意识到要建造一个家其实并不需要多少东西。那船名叫manne jumper，是一艘破旧的军用运输船，甲板是铁制的，挤满了1000多名学生。这些学生就睡在以前士兵们睡过的通铺上，而我和凯西则和其他6名船员分享了一间船舱。凯西爬上她的上铺，打开临行时人们作为礼物送给好怕小包装袋，把它们围着自己摆了一圈，然后她靠在睡铺的旁边说道：“现在我准备好看这艘船了。”

Home, I learned, can be anywhere you make it. Home is also the place to which you come back again and again. The really poignant parting is the parting that may be forever. It is this sense that every sailing may be a point of no return that haunts the peoples of the Pacific islands. On the very day I arrived in Samoa, people began to ask, ―when will you leave?‖ When I replied, ―In a year,‖ they sighed, ―Alas, talofai‖– our love to you – with the sadness of a thousand partings in their voices. Their islands were peopled by voyagers who set off on a short known journey and whose canoes were blown hundreds of miles off course. But even when a fishing canoe goes out there is a chance that it will upset on the dangerous reef and that someone will be drowned. The smallest journey may be forever.

我领悟到一点：家可以是在任何地方，家也是你一次次回来的地方。真正让人难过的分是那种有可能的永远的分别。正是这种感觉一直困扰着南太平洋岛上的人们。对他们来说，每一次出海都可能不再回来。在我到达萨摩亚群岛的居民都曾是航海者，他们出发时只是为了一次短途航行，但大风却把他们的小船吹离了航线数百英里。然而即使是一艘打鱼船出海，它都有可能撞上危险的暗礁而使人溺水身亡，因此最短的航行都可能意味着永别。

I have seen something similar on the seacoast of Portugal, where every year for four hundred years fishermen set out in their frail boats for the fishing banks across the treacherous Atlantic and no one could tell when – or whether – they would return. Portugal is still a widow‘s walk. The old women, dressed in black, still seem to be looking out to sea for the men who disappeared into the distance and an unknown fate.

同样的情形我在葡萄牙的海岸边也见过。400年来，那里的渔民们驾着他们不堪一击的小船穿越变化莫测的大西洋去浅水渔场。但是没有人知道他们什么时候或者说能否回来。现在葡萄牙仍然像是望台。身着黑衣的老妇们似乎仍在远眺着大海，搜寻她们消失在远方丈夫，揣测他们未知的命运。

In all my years of field work, each place where I have lived has become home. Each small object I have brought with me, each arrangement on a shelf of tin cans holding beads or salt for trade or crayons for the children to draw with becomes the mark of home. When it is dismantled on the last morning – a morning that is marked by the greed of those who have little and hope for a share of whatever is left behind, as well as by the grief of feeling that someone is leaving forever – on that morning, I weep, I, too, know that this departure, unlike my forays from home as a child, is likely to be forever.

在我多年实地考察的工作生涯中，我所生活过的每个地方都是家。我所带的每一样小东西，架子上的每一件摆设----装着用来换东西的珠子或盐的各种锡罐，或是孩子们用来画画的蜡笔----都成了家的印记。最终有个早晨，我的这个家消失了。地个早晨溜下了穷人的贪婪的印记，他们希望分享你所留下的任何东西；那个早晨也留下了悲伤的印记，因为他们感到有人即将永远离别----在那个早晨，我哭了。而且我知道，这次离别，和我儿时一次次离家探险有所不同，它可能是永远的。

3. Endangered Species vs. Human Needs涉危物种VS.人类需求

The most famous endangered species on earth were the dinosaurs. They died out in one of

five ―great extinctions‖ that have occurred in the millions of years since life began on this planet -- periods in which, for natural causes, a large percentage of the species that existed simply disappeared. We are now in the middle of a sixth great extinction, but this one has been caused by human activity. Consequently, the importance of preserving species is a popular topic today, particularly in the industrialized world.

地球上最著名的濒危动物是恐龙。自从地球上有生命以来，发生过5次“大灭绝”，每次都是由于自然的原因使得曾经存在的很多物种消失。恐龙就在几百万年中5次“大灭绝”中的其中一次中灭绝。现在我们正处在第六次“大灭绝”的中期，但这次是人类活动造成的。因此，物种保护的重要性成了当今的热门话题，尤其是在当今工业化世界。

But no discussion of endangered. Species is complete without an examination of the reasons behind its causes, which are human needs. In Africa, where the world‘s population is growing the fastest, forests are shrinking as people clear lands for homes and farms and cut wood for fuel. Herds of goats and sheep eat the vegetation, leaving the bare soil to be carried away by wind and water. Humans kill wildlife to protect their crops, and may also kill them for the illegal trade in ivory, rhinoceros horns, furs. In Latin America and Southeast Asia, rainforests are cleared for farmlands and for fuel and timber. The loss of the forest endangers many species of plants and destroys many animals‘habitats, or natural homes. And in the oceans, fish supplies have been greatly reduced by overfishing and by pollution.

但是，如果不考察导致物种濒危背后的原因而去讨论物种灭绝是不全面的。其背后的原因就是人类需要。在全球人口增长速度最快的非洲，森森在不断萎缩，因为人们为了住房和农场而开垦土地，为了燃料而砍伐树木。成群的山羊和绵羊吃掉草皮，造成土壤裸露而被风和水流带走。人们杀害野生动物以保护农作物，或去做非法象牙、犀牛角、皮毛贸易。在拉丁美洲和东南亚，为了农田、燃料和木材，雨林被砍伐。森林减失危及许多植物，并破坏许多动物的栖息环境或自然家园。而在海洋，过度捕鱼和污染已使鱼的供应大大减少。

Humans want to survive just as every other species does. We need food, shelter, and a place to rear our young. So how do our activities endanger other species? Specifically, there are three major ways. We kill off animals directly in some cases. We may want their meat, bones, skins, tusks, horns, or feathers; or we may want to protect our crops and livestock from them. By overhunting, Euro-Americans endangered the buffalo in North America, and in the nineteenth century drove to ectinction the passenger pigeon, which was probably the most populos bird species that have ever lived.

人类和其他物种一样都渴望生存。我们需要食物、住所和哺育后代的地方。那么，我们的行为是怎样危及其他物种的呢？具体说来，主要有三种途径。我们有时直接杀死动物，或许是因为希望得到它们的肉、骨头、皮、牙、角、或羽毛；或许是为了保护农作物和牲畜。由于过度狩猎，欧裔美国人使北美的野牛濒于灭绝。19世纪灭绝的旅鸽就是由于过渡狩猎所致，而旅鸽曾经可能是生活在地球上的数量最多的鸟类。

Another way that we endanger native life-forms is by introducing foreign species into their habitat. A prime example of this was the introduction of European rabbits into Australia, where they multiplied until they endangered the native species of grazing animals by eating all the vegetation. This became a terrible problem that has finally been brought under some control, though not completely solved.

我们危及当地生态的另一种方式是引进外来物种。一个突出的例子是把欧洲的兔子引入澳洲。它们的数量们增，以至吃掉所有植被，危及当地其他的吃草动物。这就造成了一个可怕的问题。虽然这一问题最扣得到了一定的控制，但并没有完全解决。

The most common way that we endanger other species is by destroying their natural habitats. We do this when we cut down forests, clear land for crops, build towns, dam rivers, drain swaplands of water and then fill them with dirt for construction, and when we pollute the air, the water, the soil. Most species are habitat-specific; that is, they depend on the particular offerings of a specific environment, and they cannot simply move to the next provice or state and adapt as we can. The greatest diversity of life-forms on our planet are found in the tropical rainforests, yet they are disappearing faster than any other habitat – at the rate of about 50 million acres (20 million hectares ) per year. The loss of the rainforest would mean the loss of most of the species that make their homes in them.

我们危及其它物种最通常的方式是毁坏他们的自然生存环境。当我们砍伐森林、开垦耕地、建造城镇、修筑水坝，为了建设房屋而排掉沼泽地里的水，填土造地；或者当我们污染空气、水、土壤的时候，我们都是在毁坏其他物种的自然生存环境。大多数物种需要特定的生存环境，也就是说它们依赖特定的环境所提供的特定的东西而生存。它们不能象我们人类一样能到另一个省或州去适应新的生活。地球上物种最多的地方是热带雨林，但是它们的消失速度比其它任何生存环境都快----每年大约5千万英亩（2千万公顷）。雨林的消失也许意味着大多数以雨林为栖息地的物种的消失。

But so what? The majority of the animal species on earth are insects and worms anyway, and how important are they to us? And tiny populations of tropical plants – the world is covered with vegetation, so what difference does it make, how many kinds there are?

但是，那又怎样呢？无论如何，地球上大多数动物物种都是昆虫和小虫，它们对我们到底有多重要呢？热带植物只占很小一部分----世界上到处都覆盖着植被，至于有多少种又有什么有关系呢？

Many people‘s answer is that every life-form has a right to exist, and that no other reason is needed for preserving it. A more common reason is the beauty of many species. Certain species also provide humans with economic value. But scientists identify two additional reasons which may not be obvious to most of us.

许多人回答是：每个生物都有生存的权利，因而保护它们不需要其它任何理由。而是一个更加普遍的理由是物种多化可使地球更加美丽。况且某些物种对人类还有经济价值。然而科学家却给出了另外两个我们大多数人可能都没有意识到的理由。

One of these reasons is that each life-form occupies a special place within its ecosystem –that is, its community of plant and animal life, in combination with the nonliving components of its environment such as the climate, soil, water, and air. For instance, within a forest the larger trees drop off little twigs and debris, making a layer that holds water in the soil for other plants to use. The roots hold the soil and prevent it from washing away in rainstorms. Whether living or dead, the tree provides shelter for animals and birds and food for insects. As the dead tree rots away, it enriches the soil of the forest floor, enabling other plants to spring up in its place. Such large trees are an example of what we call keystone species; if they disappeared from their ecosystem, the consequences would be felt throughout the community of other species living in the forest. ―The loss of a keystone species is like a drill accidentally striking a powerline,‖ says biologist Edward Wilson of Harvard University. ―It causes lights to go out all over.‖ During the current sixth great extinction, three species of life-forms are dying out every hour, or 74 per day, which equals 27000 each year. Some of there –and we don‘t even know which ones –are undoutedly keystone species.

理由之一是，每个物种在它所处的由所有动植物和无生命的气候、土壤、水、和空气等

组成的生态系统中都占有一个特殊的地位。例如，在森林中，较大的树掉下的残枝在土壤中形成一个水分保持层，供其它植物利用。它们的根可以固定土壤，防止土壤被暴雨冲走。无论是活树还是枯树都可以为动物和鸟提供栖息地，为昆虫提供食物。枯树腐烂以后还可以肥沃森林地里的土壤，得以使其它植物从原处拔地而出。这样的大树就是我们所说的主要物种；如果它们从生态系统中消失，其影响会遍及所有生长在森林里的其它物种。哈佛大学的生物学家爱德华.威尔逊说：“一个主要物种的消失就像钻头意外地钻断电线，导致四处断电。”在当前第六次大灭绝时期，每小时平均有三个物种灭绝，也就是每天有74个物种灭绝，每年合计过27000个。其中有些物种毫无疑问是主要物种。

Natural ecosystems are characterized by their biodiversity, which means that a good variety of plant and animal life are present there. In many parts of today‘s world, humans have replaced naturally diverse environments with monocultures, in which only one species lives – one that we humans valie. A prime example in forested regions of the world is the monocultural ―tree farms‖that have been planted after the original forests have been cut down. The character of these tree farms is very different from that of the original forests.

自然界的生态系统以物种多样性为特征，这意味着种类繁多的动植物在其中生存。当今在世界许多地区，人类用单一环境替换本来自然形成的不同环境。在这些单一环境中，只有我们人类看重的某一个物种得以生存。在世界上的森林地区就有一个突出的例子：在原森林被砍伐之后，人们在原处建造了林场，但只栽种了某单一品种的树木。这样的林场和以前的森林是有很大差别的。

In the case of forests, another extremely important reason for preserving species is illustrated by the Pacific yew tree, which people used to cut down and never replant because they thought it had no particular value. But recently medical researches discovered that a substance called taxol, produced naturally in the bark of this tree, is an effective medication for treating certain kinds of cancer. Suddenly harvesters began flocking to the forests of the North American Pacific Northwest insearch of this tree. If it had become extinct before its value had been discovered, many cancer patients would have died needlessly.

谈到森林，还要再提一个极其重要的保护物种的理由。太平洋紫杉的例子就很好地说明了这一点。人们过去认为紫杉没有特殊价值，因而砍伐以后就不再重栽。但最近医学研究发现，一种从紫杉树皮中自然产生的叫作紫杉醉的物质是治疗某些癌症的有效药物。突然之间，人们开始大批聚集到北美靠近太平洋的西北部地区森林里寻找这种树。如果这种树在它的价值被发现之前就已灭绝，那么许多癌症患者就难逃厄运了。

Now, consider for a moment that there are around 1.6 million species that we have identified on earth ( plus uncounted others that we haven‘t identified ), and most of them have never been studied to see whether they might be able to provide us with food or medicine. American Pacific Northwest in search of this tree. If it had become extinct before its value had been discovered, many cancer patients would have died needlessly.

现在考虑一下，在地球上已经辩认的物种大约有160万个，它们当中大多数还未被研究，因而不知道它们是否可以为我们提供食物或药物。人类大约有15%的药物来自热带雨林，但我们现在能测试的只有我们所知道的植物的10%左右，深入研究过的还不到1%。一天内灭绝的74个物种，大多数是热带雨林植物。在许多情况上，我们甚至不知道我们所失去的物种的价值。

If we turn from medicines to food sources, we find that over 50 percent of today‘s global food supply consists of just three grains –wheat, rice, and corn. If climatic changes or a plant disease suddenly threatened one of these grains, many people would starve unless we could find

another species to strengthen or replace it. It is dangerous to be so dependent on such a small number of species. We are losing.

如果我们撇开医学而转谈食物来源，我们发现，目前全球食品供应的50%以上只包括三种谷类植物----麦子、稻子和玉米。如果气候变化或植物疾病突然威胁到这些谷类植物当中的一个，那么许多人就会挨饿，除非我们能找到其它物种来加强或替换它。人类对少数物种的过于依赖是很危险的。我们需要保护广泛的植物各类来作为食物来源。

Finally, a very important reason for preserving forestland is that plants produce the oxygen that animals ( like us ) breathe, and forests produce more of the world‘s oxygen than any other environment. Forests also make the air more humid, producing rain; and the loss of forests leads to the process of desertification – the creation of deserts where little will grow.

最后还有一个保护森林的非常重要的原因，就是植物生产动物呼吸的氧气，并且森林产出的氧气比其它任何环境都多。森林还使空气更加潮湿，并带来降雨；森林的消失会导致沙漠化，也就是形成几乎没有任何植物生长的沙漠。

Many methods of protecting endangered species are being practiced in different parts of the globe. Legislation is a common method: passing laws against killing endangered species or destroying their habitat. Worldwide, over 1200 parks and preserves have been set aside in whicn wildlife are protected. And certain endangered species are being raised in captivity for later release into their wild habitats.

在世界各地，人们实施着各种不同的保护濒危物种的办法。立法是一个普遍的方法：颁布法律来反对危害濒危物种或毁坏他们的栖息地。在全世界范围内，已建立了1200个国家公园和保护区保护野生动物。有些濒危动物还由人工饲养，然后再放归大自然。

An organization called theWorld Wildlife Fund recommends nine different methods that can be effective in protecting endangered species. They are:

1) Protect habitat

2) Protect individual species

3) Promote ecologically sound development

4) Support scientific investigation

5) Educate the public

6) Train local wildlife professionals

7) Encourage countries to design, fund, and carry out effective conservation activities.

8) Monitor the internatonal wildlife trade

9) Influence public opinion and the policies of governments and private institutions

世界野生动物基金会提出了9条不同的保护濒危动物的有效措施。它们是：

1）保护濒危动物的栖息地

2）保护每个濒危物种

3）提倡对生态无害的发展方式

4）支技科技调查研究

5）教育大众

6）培训当地的野生动物保护专家

7）鼓励国家设计、赞助、实施有效的保护物种的活动

8）监督国际野生动物交易

9）影响民意及政府、私人机构的政策。

Only time will tell how effective these attempts will be in slowing the speed of the current great extinction. And the most important factor in this controversy is the demands of a growing

human population for natural resources and living space to serve its own needs.

只有时间可以告诉我们这些措施是否可以减慢目前物种灭绝的速度。在这场争论中，最重要的因素是人口增长对自然资源和生存空间的需求。

4、When MTV Goes CEO

当看音乐电视长大的一代成为首席执行官

What happens when the ―unmanageables‖ become managers?

当这些“难以驾驭的”年轻人成为经理会发生什么样的情况呢？

―Who will take the helm?‖ is one question that will keep CEOs awake at night in the next millennium. Most wonder what corporate culture in services frims will look like when the 40 million Gen Xers in the work force – now twenty-and thirty- something employeses – take over as managers.

将来谁来掌舵呢？这个问题会使很多首席执行官在21世纪的晚上辗转难眠。他们大多想知道现在被称为X一代的近4000万的20多岁、30多负的员工如果担任经理职位，服务业的公司文化将会是什么样子。

Much has been written about Gen X employees, most of it negative. Early studies accused them of being arrogant, uncommitted, unmanageable slackers youths who ―just don‘t care.‖Recent interpretations, however, offer some new and somewhat different insights.

关于X一代员工的描述并不鲜见，但多数是负面的评价。早期的研究指责他们傲慢、不愿承担责任、难于管理、散漫懒惰。这些年轻人不尊重权威，对通过艰苦努力获得自己应得的权利嗤之以鼻，他们纹身或穿耳洞，一副无所谓的样子。但是，最近的解读却对他们提出了一些新的、有点不一样的看法。

Arrogance or Independence?

傲慢还是独立？

Gen Xers have been characterized as the ―latchkey kids‖ of the 70‘s and 80‘s; often left on their own by divorced and / or working parents, these young people became adept at handling things in their own and in their own ways. Many became self-motivating, self-sufficient, and creative problem-solvers. Their independence. Which baby-boom managers sometimes interpret arrogance, may also reflect a need to feel trusted to get a job done.

X一代人的一个特征是，他们是七、八十年代脖子上挂钥匙的孩子，经常被已经离异或双职工的父母单独留在家里，因此这些年轻人已经习惯了独立地以自己的方式处理事情。许多人自我激励、自给自足，解决问题时颇具创造性。他们的独立性—有时会被婴儿潮时期出生的经理们认为是一种傲慢自大—也许正体现了他们需要得到别人信任，信任他们可胜任某项工作。

As employees, Gen Xers enjoy freedom to manage their own schedules. The don‘t watch a clock and don‘t want their managers to do so. Whether work is done from nine-to-five or noon-to-eight – at home, in the office, or over lattes – is irrelevant to this group because Gen Xers are results-oriented. They seek guidance, inspiration, and vision from their managers but otherwise prefer to be left alone between goal-setting and deliverables.

作为员工，X一代人喜欢享有掌控自己时间表的自由。他们不愿意做事按部就班，也不希望他们的经理是这样的人。因为这代人更注重结果，因此对他们来说，工作的时间表是朝九晚五，还是从中午开始到晚上8点，是在家里、办公室或是在咖啡馆里都无所谓。他们会向经理们寻求指导、鼓励，听取他们的意见。但是从目标确立到完成这一过程中，他们却希望不受打扰。

Many Gen Xers excel at developing innovative solutions, but need clear, firm deadlines to set

boundaries on their creative freedom. They have been known to bristle under micromanagement but flourish with coaching and feedback.

许多X一代人擅长提出创新的解决方法，但是他们需要清楚明确的期限来约束他们创造的自由。众所周知的是：凡是必亲躬的微观管理会惹怒X一代人，但是施以指导和提供反馈信息却能使他们成功。

Techno-Babes技术时代的宝宝

Gen X grew up with rapidly changing technology and the availability of massive amounts of information. Many developed skills at parallel processing or sorting large amounts of information quickly ( which is sometimes interpreted as a short attention span ). Most are skilled at understanding and using technologies, adapt quickly to new platforms, and are practiced at learning through technological media. They value visual as well as verbal communicaiton.

X一代人的成长伴随着技术和快速变化和信息的大量涌现。他们中很多人都具有同时处理或迅速分类大量信息的技能。他们大多数都熟悉并善于使用技术，能快速适应新的技术平台，并且能熟练地通过科技媒体学习。他们对视觉和语言上的交流同等重视。

Gen X employees excel in a technologically advanced environment. They demand state-of-the-art capabilities, such as telecommuting, teleconferencing, and electronic mail, in order to work efficiently and effecticely, To baby-boom managers this may seem to be a preference for impersonal means of communicating, living and working, but Gen Xers do not see it that way; for example, they have modified electronic language and symbolism to express emotions such as surprise, anger and pleasure.

X一代员工在科技先进的环境中最能凸显自己。他们要求自己工作的地方具备最新的科这技术设施，例如远程办公、远程会义和电子邮件、这样他们工作会更有效果，也更有效率。在婴儿潮时期出生的经理们看来，这种做法似乎是对那种没有人情味的交流、生活和工作模式的偏好，但是X一代人并不这样认为，例如：他们已经修改了电子语言和符号来表达诸如吃惊、愤怒和喜悦等情感。

Get a Life

有自己的生活

Get X employees don‘t live to work, they work to live. They place a high value on prototypical family values that they feel they missed. Having pbserved their parents trade personal lives for ―the good of the company,‖ friends, and spirituality. Gen X employees are skeptical of forgoing the needs of today for a later, uncertain payoff.

X一代员工不是活着为了工作，而是为了生活而工作。他们非常重视他们认为曾经错过的典型家庭观念。曾经目睹他们的父母为了公司的利益而牺牲了个人生活，这代人想要的是生活的平衡。他们需要时间来满足工作、玩乐、家庭、朋友以及精神的需求。对于为了将来未知的回报而放弃现在的需求，X一代员工是深表怀疑的。

When on the job market, Gen Xers will openly ask life-balance questions. This can be a turnoff for unprepared interviewers used to classic baby-boomer scripts featuring such lines as ―How can I best contribute to the company?‖and “My greatest weakness is that I work too hard.‖在找工作时，X一代人会坦率地询问关于生活能否平衡的问题。没有思想准备的面试官也许会感到反感，因为他们已习惯婴儿潮时期出生的人的经典回答版本，例如：我怎样才能最好地为公司效力呢？还有“我最大的弱点就是我工作太努力了”。

In contrast, Gen Xers want to know ―What can you do to help me balance work, life, and family?‖They expect companies to understand and respect their needs as individuals with important personal lives. This focus on ―getting a life‖causes some to label them as slackers.

Viewed from another perspective, however, Gen Xers could be seen as balanced individuals who can set priorities within time limits.

恰恰相反，X一代人想知道的是：你能做什么来帮我实现工作、生活和家庭的平衡？他们希望公司能理解并尊重他们作为个体在拥有重要的个人生活方面的需要。这种对“有自己的生活”的强调态度使得有些给他们贴上了“懒惰散漫的人”的标签。但是换一个角度，我们可以把X一代人看作是重视平衡的人，他们能够分清某一时限内事情的轻重缓急。

Just Do It讲求实干

Gen X grew up with scandals in politics ( Whitewatergate ), literatue ( The Education of Little Tree ), journalism ( Janet Cooke ), business ( Ivan Boesky, Michael Milliken ), entertainment ( Milli Vanalli ), professional sports ( Pete Rose, Tonya Harding ),and religion (Jim and Tammy Bakker ). It‘s not surprising that they‘re cynical about authority, irreverent about hierarchy, hate bureaucracy, Loathe hidden agendas, and disdain politicking. They demand honesty and clarity, and respect substance over style.

X一代人是在各种丑闻中长大的：政治界的、文学界的、新闻界的，商界的，娱乐界的，职业运动界的和宗教界的等各种丑闻。因此，毫不奇怪，这代人嘲讽权威、不尊敬等级制度、痛恨官僚潜规则并且鄙视政治活动。他们要求的是诚实和透明，他们尊重实质而非附庸风雅。

Gen X employees tend to focus on the big picture, to emphasize outcomes over process or protocol. They respect clear, unambiguous communication – whether good news or bad. Gen Xers prefer tangible rewards over soft words. Cash incentices, concert tickets, computer equipment, or sports outings go farther with this group than ―attaboys,‖ plaques, or promises of future rewards. X一代员关注的是整体，强调结果而不是过程或礼仪。不管消息是好是坏，他们都尊重清楚明确的交流。他们喜欢实质性的奖励而不是甜言蜜语。现金奖励、音乐会的门票、电脑设备或户外运动----这些远比夸他们是“好样的”授予勋章或许诺将来给予奖励更让他们喜欢。

Free Agents

自由人

Growing up in a period of corporate downsizing and right-sizing fostered Gen X beliefs that the future depends on their resumes rather than loyalty to any one company. Not surprisingly, Gen X employees seek challenging projects that help them develop a projects that help them develop a portfolio of skills.

在公司裁员和精简的氛围中成长起来的X一代人持有这样的信念：未来是靠自己的资历而不是靠对哪一家公司的忠诚得来的。因此，理所当然，X一代员工总是寻求具有挑战性的项目来培养自己的各项技能。

What might appear to a baby-boom manager as job-hopping can be interpreted as Gen Xer‘s pattern of skills acquisition. Similarly, arefusal to just ―do time‖in an organization, often interpreted as disloyalty and a lack of commitment, may come from an intolerance of busywork and wasted time.

在婴儿潮期出生的经理人眼里看来跳槽的行为，对X一代人来说可以理解为是他们学习技能的方式。同样，X一代人拒绝在公司里“恪守工作时间”通常被认为是他们不忠诚和缺乏责任感的表现。但其实这是他们出于对繁忙的工作的抗议和浪费时间的不满。

Gen Xers will thrive in learning organizations where they can embrace creative challenges and acquire new skills. Smaller companies and work units will be valued for the opportunities they provide for Gen X employees to apply their diverse array of skills and, thereby, prove their individual merit.

X一代人在仍处于学习阶段的公司中会发展很快，他们可以接受有创造性的挑战并且

获得新的技能。小型公司和单位会格外受到青睐，因为这们能够给X一代员工提供施展各种技能从而证明自己个体价值的机会。

Managers who enact their roles as teachers and facilitators rather than ―bosses‖ will get the most from their Gen X employees. Training is valued by this group but should be immediately relevant: the best training seems to be self-directed or tied to self-improvement, personal development, and skills building.

如果经理们扮演的不是老板，而是老师或辅助者的角色，他们则可以从X一休的员工身上获得最大利益。X一代人重视培训，但是培训对他们来说应该是直接相关的。最好的培训似乎是自我指导型的，或者是自我提高、个人发展和技能培养有关系的。

Some baby-boom managers hope that the differences between themselves and their Gen X employees will fade away as less-conforming behaviors are abandoned with age and experience. But what if the wished-for assimilation into corporate culture –as presently defined by baby-boomers – doesn‘t occur? Or, what if, more likely, the assimilation is less than complete? What vestiges of Gen X‘s culture will be maintained? What will be absorbed, what will fade away? 一些婴儿潮期出生的经理们希望看到随着年龄和经验的增长，X一代人会减少叛逆行为，他们之间的分歧也将逐步缩小。但是如果他们所希望的这种融入公司文化的方式没有发生，那怎么办呢？或者，更可能的是，这种同化不完全彻底又怎么办？X一代的文化会有哪些被保留？哪些会被吸收，又有哪些会渐渐衰退？

Unmanageable or Entrepreneurial?

难于管理还是具有创业精神？

As a group, Gen x was not predicted to become ―the establishment,‖ yet the establishment will claim them nevertheless. Having rebelled against standard business hours and micromanagement, they might find it difficult to make such demands of their subordinates. Having distained bosses, they might be uncomfortable being subordinates; having shunned hierarchy and titles, they may find their own managerial maonikers awkward to bear. 作为一个群体，X一代人并没有被指望将成为当权人物，但是权力机构总会找上他们。他们曾经抗议过标准的上下班时间和微观管理，因而他们也许会发现自己对下属很难提出此类要求。他们曾经鄙视过自己的老板，因而他们会地自己当老板不太适应；他们曾经逃避过等级制度和头衔，因而他们也许会对自己的管理头衔感到尴尬。

Their emphasis on independence, combined with technological expertise, suggested that Gen X managers will support continued growth in telecommuting. This trend could put particular stressed on services firms that require contact personnel on-site to service customers. However, the creative problem-solving excellence of Gen X managers, combined with their technological prowess, will support new approches to the issue of front-line service coverage. X一代强调独立和专业技术知识，这表明X一代经理人会支持远程通讯的持续发展。这种趋势会对服务业施加更多的压力，因为服务业要求提供服务人员现场为客户服务的业务。但是，X一代经理人擅于创造性解决问题的能力以及高超的技术能力将会使他们支持采用新的方法解决一线服务所覆盖的问题。

Their life-balance beliefs suggest that Gex X mangers will support family friendly corporate policies. Firms will experience a continued drive toward fexible work schedules and reduced hours that benefit both Gen Xers ( who strive for balance throughout their career ) and baby boomers ( who put off ―life‖ until their career dues were paid ). Firms will manage differences in needs for employee benefits with cafeteria plans that allow Gen Xers to select benefits that support early family concerns ( insurance, child care ) and allow baby boomers to focus on 401ks

and retirement plans. X一代经理人看重生活平衡，表明他们会拥护有利于家庭的公司政策。各公司会继续努力创建灵活弹性的工作制度，并且减少工作时间，这种做法会使X一代人和婴儿潮时期出生的人双方都受益。公司将采用员工自助式福利计划以解决需求上的差异，允许X一代人选择有利解决新家庭所关注的福利，允许婴儿潮时期出生的人专注于401K计划和退休计划。

Gen Xers‘―just do it‖ attitudes and impatience with corporate cultures that seem to support style over substance indicate that Gen X managers will support a more casual workplace. Expect ―dress-down Friday‖to expand to encompass the entire workweek, with formal business attire required on an asneeded basis such as in the presence of cuustomers. ( Gen Xers will respect social niceties when they agree that there‘s a good reason. X一代人讲求实干的态度以及重视风格而非实质的公司文化的不耐烦的态度表明X一代的经理会用拥有更轻松随意的工作环境。他们期待把星期五可以着便装的规定扩展到所有工作日，希望只有在必要的场合，例如有客户在声，才穿正装。

Some ―free-agent‖ Gen Xers will ultimately be unable or unwilling to make the transition to corporate manager. As Scott Adams‘ Silbert cartoons make painfully clear, many Gen Xers fear ending up in dead-end support jobs, especially when they see the road to the top clogged with baby-boom managers. We are likely to see many choose an alternative lifestyle by becoming entrepreneurs. Indeed, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports tha 80% of Americans starting their own businesses today are between ages 18 and 34. The trend may dilute corporate pools of promotable junior managers but provide a needed infrastruture for corporate outsourcing. 一些做自由人的X一代人最终也许不能或不愿过渡到公司经理的职位。正如dibert的卡通片中所作的痛苦的描述那样，许多X一代人，尤其是当他们看到通往高层职位的职业道路上还挤满了婴儿潮时期出生的经理们的时候，担心最终会落到从事无前途的下手工作的下场。我们很可能会看到许多人选择另外一种生活方式----成为企业家。实际，根据美国劳动统计局的报告，美国目前正在开始自主创业的群体中，有80%的人年龄在18-34岁之间。这种趋势会使公司中有提职潜力的年轻经理储备量减少，但是却为公司外包业务提供了必要的基础。

Culture Clash or Diversity文化冲突还是文化多样化？

Other Labor Bureau Statistics show that in the next decade one in three workers will be over age 55. This has tremendous implications for a burgeoning culture clash between Baby Boomers and Gen Xers within corporations. 劳动统计局其他数据表明：在未来10年中，将有1/3的员工年龄在55岁以上。这一数据对于公司内部婴儿潮时期出生的人和X一代人之间迅速加剧的文化冲突意义非凡。

Facing the issue squarely and approaching Gen X workplace issues as issues of cultural diversity are necessary to get the most from the two groups of managers. Firms must understand, respect, and respond to the needs of each group. Lines of communication must be opened and maintained. For example, mentoring programs that pair the institutional memory and experience of baby boomers with the technological prowess and creativity of Gen Xers can help to foster mutual respect between the two groups. 坦率地面对这一问题并且把X一代在工作中所产业的问题作为文化多样性的体现来处理，是挖掘这两代经理人最大潜力的必要手段。公司必须理解、尊重每个群体的不同需求并对此做出反应。沟通的渠道应该保持开放并加以维护。例如：把婴儿潮时期出生的人对传统的眷恋和他们的经验与X一代人的技术能力及创新能力结合起来形成培养计划，将会有助于培育双方的互相尊重。

The Vision Thing前景展望

Before mid-millennium, Gen Xers will be the CEOs of the future. This is a time when Gen

X‘s visionary qualities will be most valued by firm. Will their anger with pollution, devastation of natural resources, and waste inspire them to responsible environmental stewardship? Will their disgust with corruption and scandal stimulate ethical corporate leadership? Will their experiences as the forgotten generation motivate them to create supportive corporate cultures? Will their experiences as a marginal group help them to envision, and sponsor, corporate cultural diversity? Only time will tell. 到21世纪中叶，X一代人将成为未来的首席执行官。那时，X一代人的远见将最为最受到公司的重视。他们对于污染、自然资源遭到破坏及浪费等关题的愤怒是否会促使他们成为更负责任的环境保护者呢？他们对于腐败和丑闻的厌恶是否会激发他们成为更有职业道德的公司领导者呢？他们作为被遗忘的一代的经历是否会驱使他们创造对员工有更多支持和帮助的公司文化呢？他们作为边缘群体的经历是否会有助于他们设想并支持公司的多样性呢？只有时间可以回答这些问题。

5. Seven Tenets for Establishing New Marital Norms建立婚姻新规范的七条准则

I propose as a remedy for society‘s confusion over marital gender-role expectations, a pattern of late marriage followed, in the early childrearing years, by what one could call a ―modified traditional nuclear family.‖ The main elements of this pattern can be summarized as follows. ( I recognize, of course, that this pattern – being a set of normative expectations – is not something to which everyone can or should conform.) 为了解决社会对婚姻中性别角色期望的困惑，我提议一种婚姻模式：晚婚，然后在哺育小孩的前几年采纳一种可称作为“改良型传统核心家庭”的家庭模式。这个婚姻模式的主要部分可以归纳如下：

(1) Girls as well as boys should be trained according to their abilities for a socially useful paid job or career. It is important for women to be able to achieve the economic, social, and psychic rewards of the workplace that have long been reserved for men. It is important work contribution over the course of their lives. 不仅男孩而且女孩都应该根据他们的能力得到训练，以从事对社会有用的、并能获得报酬的工作或者职业。能够在长期以来是男性领地的工作获得经济的、社会的、心理的回报对女性非常重要。每个人都能够接受良好的教育并且在他们的生命历程中对所从事的工作做出重要的贡献，这对社会非常重要。

(2) Young people should grow up with the expectation that they will marry only once and for

a lifetime and that they will have children. Reproduction is a fundamental purpose of life, and marriage is instrumental to its success. Today, close to 90 percent of Americans actually marry, and about the same percentage of American women have children. Although these firgures have been dropping, the social expectation in these respects is currently quite will realized. Lifetime monogamy is not so well realized, however, with the divorce rate now standing at over 50 percent. 我们期望年轻人在长大成人后只结一次婚，并且这场婚姻能持续一生，我们还期望他们生儿育女。生命繁衍是人生的根本目的，而婚姻对于这一目标的实现至关重要。当前，接近90%的美国人确实结了婚，大约有相同比例的美国女性生育了孩子：虽然这些数字一直在下降，但是目前社会在这些方面的期望还是较好地得到了实现。然而对于当前的离婚率超过50%，社会对终生一夫一妻的期望就不如人意了。

(3)Young adults should be encouraged to marry later in life than is common now, with an average age at time of marriage in the late twenties or early thirties ( the average ages currently are twenty-six for men and twenty-four for women ). Even later might be better for men, but at older ages that this for women who want children, the ―biological clock‖ becomes a growing problem.应该鼓励年轻人比现在的普遍婚龄再晚一些结婚，平均年龄在30岁左右（男性26岁、女性24岁）。甚至再晚一些可能对男性晚好。但是如果超过这个年龄，对于想要小孩的女性来说，“生物钟”问题将越来越突出。

From society‘s viewpoint, the most important reasons why people should be encouraged to marry relatively late in life is that they are more established in their jobs or careers, and the men have begun to ―settle down‖ sexually ( partly due to a biological diminution of their sex drive). Age at marriage has proven to be the single most important predictor of eventual divorce, with the highest divorce rates found among those who marry in their teenage years. But we must also recognize that both women and men want to have time, when they are young, to enjoy the many opprtunities for personal expression and fulfillment that modern, affluent societies are able to provide. 从社会的角度看，鼓励人们相对晚些结婚的最重要的理由是，那时他们更成熟，更明白想从另一半那里得到什么，有更好的工作和事业基础，而且男性性生活趋于“平稳”。结婚年龄已经被证明是能够预测最终是否离婚的唯一的最重要的因素。离婚率最高的群体是那些十几岁就结婚的年轻人。但是我们也必须承认男性和女性都希望在年轻的时候有时间享有现代富裕社会所能够提供的表达自我，实现自我的诸多机会。

We should anticipate that many of these years of young adulthood will be spent in nonmarial cohabitation, an arrangement that often makes more sense than the alternatives to it, especialy living alone or continuing to live with one‘s family of origin, I am not implying, much less advocating, sexual promiscuity here, but rather serious, caring relationships which may involve cohabitation. 我们应该预料到成年期初期的不少年头将会在非婚同居中度过。比起其他选择，特别是独居或者继续生活在原来家里，这是一个更加合乎情理的生活安排。我这里不是暗示，更不是在倡导滥交，而是指严肃的、相互关爱的、可能涉及同居的恋爱关系。

(4) From the perspective of promoting eventual family life, however, the downside to late age of marriage is that people live for about a decade or more in a nonfamily, ―singles‖ environment which reinforces their personal drive for expressive individualism and conceivably reduces their impulse toward carrying out eventual family obligations, thus making the transition to marriage and childrearing more difficult. To help overcome the anti-family impact of these years, young unmarried adults should be encourage to save a substantial portion of their income for a ― family fund‖ with an eye toward offsetting the temporary loss of the wife‘s income after marriage and childbirth. 然而，从促进最终家庭生活的角度来看，结婚年龄大的缺点在于人们在10年或更长时间里生活在没有家庭的单身汉环境中，这段经历会强化他们追求表现型个人主义的倾向，还会减少他们履行最终家庭义务的愿望，从而使向婚姻和抚育小孩的过渡更加困难。为了帮助克服这些年形成的不利于家庭生活的影响，应当鼓励年轻的未婚成年人将收入的一大部分存起来作为“家庭基金”，以便抵消在结婚和生育之后妻子暂时失去收入的损失。

(5)Once children are born, wives should be encouraged to leave the labor market and become substantially full-time mothers for a period of at least a year to eighteen months per child. The reason for this is that mother-reared infants appear to have distinct advantages over those reared apart from their mothers. It is desirable for children to have full-time parenting up to at least age three, but after eighteen months –partly because children by then are more verbal –it is appropriate for fathers to become the primary caretakers, and some men may wish to avail themselves of the opportunity. At age three, there is no evidence that children in quality group care suffer any disadvantages (in fact, for most children there are significant advantages). Once children reach that age, therefore, the average mother could resume working part-time until the children are at least of school age, and preferably in their early to middle teen years, at which point she could resume work full-time. Alternatively, when the children reach the age of three the father could say home part-time, and the mother could resume work full-time. 小孩出生之后，应该鼓励妻子离开劳动力市场，为每个孩子切实地做至少一年到18个月的全职母亲。这样做