课文阅读

Confessions of a Miseducated Man--Norman Cousins

These notes are in the nature of a confession. It is the confession of a miseducated man.
I have become most aware of my lack of a proper education whenever I have had the chance to put it to the test. The test is a simple one: am I prepared to live and comprehend a world in which there are 3 billion people? Not the world as it was in 1850 or 1900, for which my education might have been adequate, but the world today. And the best place to apply that test is outside the country — especially Asia or Africa.

Not that my education was a complete failure. It prepared me very well for a bird's-eye view of the world. It taught me how to recognize easily and instantly the things that make one place or one people different from another. Geography had instructed me in differences of terrain, resources, and productivity.

Comparative culture had instructed me in the differences of background and group interests. Anthropology had instructed me in the differences of facial bone structure, skin color and general physical aspect. In short, my education protected me against surprise. I was not surprised at the fact that some people lived in mud huts and others in bamboo cottages; or that some used wood for fuel and others dung; or that some enjoyed music with a five-note scale and others with twelve; or that some people were vegetarian by religion and others by preference.

In those respects my education had been more than adequate. But what my education failed to do was to teach me that the principal significance of such differences was that they were largely without significance. The differences were all but wiped out by the similarities. My education had by-passed the similarities. It had failed to grasp and define the fact that beyond the differences are realities scarcely comprehended because of their very simplicity.

And the simplest reality of all was that the human community was one — greater than any of its parts, greater than the separateness imposed by the nations, greater than the different faiths and loyalties or the depth and color of varying cultures. This larger unity was the most important central fact of our time — something on which people could build at a time when hope seemed misty, almost unreal.

As I write this, I have the feeling that my words fail to give force to the idea they seek to express. Indeed, the idea itself is a truth which all peoples readily accept even if they do not act on it. Let me put it differently, then. In order to be at home anywhere in the world I had to forget the things I had been taught to remember. It turned out that my ability to get along with other peoples depended not so much upon my comprehension of the uniqueness of their way of life as my comprehension of the things we had in common. It was important to respect these differences, certainly, but to stop there was like clearing the ground without any idea of what was to be built on it. When you got through comparing notes, you discovered that you were both talking about the same neighborhood, i.e., this planet, and the conditions that made it pleasant or hostile to human life.

参考译文

下面这段文字是一篇自白，是一个受到错误教育的人的自白。
每当我有机会检验我所受到的教育，我都会异常清醒地认识到它的不当之处。测验很简单：在这个有三十多亿人口的世界上生存并理解它，我真的准备好了吗？是今天这个世界，而不是1850年或1990年的那个世界；我受到的教育对那时的世界可能已经足够。实行这项测验的最佳地点是国外--尤其是在亚洲或非洲。

我的意思不是说我受的教育彻底的失败了。它让我对这个世界有了很好的大致了解。它教我如何简便地找出地区之间和人们之间的差异；地理教给我地形、资源和生产力方面的差异；比较文化教给我背景和群体利益方面的差异；人种学教给我面部骨骼结构、肤色和人体大致构造方面的差异。总之，我的教育让我对事物不感到新奇。不论是有人住茅草棚，有人住竹制平房；还是有人烧木头，有人烧动物粪便；或者有人听五音阶音乐，有人听十二音阶的；还是有人因为宗教信仰而食素，有人因为个人爱好而食素：这些都不让我感到惊讶。

在那些方面，我的教育已经多得不必要了。但是它失败的地方在于它并没有教我知道注重差异是毫无意义的。差异几乎早就被共性取代了。而我的教育恰恰没有讲到共性，它没有理解更没有解释这样一个事实：差异之外，都是因为太显而易见反而不为人理解的现实社会。而且最简单的现实就是，人类社会是一个整体--比它任何一部分都更为重要，比一些民族人为强加的分割更为重要，比不同的信仰和效忠对象或者不同文化的深度和颜色都更为重要。这个更大的统一体是当代最重要的中心事实--它能够使人类在希望渺茫、甚至不存在希望的时候共同取得进步。

在写这些文字的时候，我觉得我说的这些还不能完全表达出我的意思。其实，这个观点本身就是一条真理，即使人们不把它当做自己的行为准则，还是很乐于接受的。好，让我换种方式来说吧。为了使自己在世界各地都无拘无束，我必须忘记脑海里那些过去学过的东西，结果证明，我与别人相处的能力不是取决于我对他们独特生活方式的理解，而是取决于我对我们共同之处的理解。当然，尊重差异是非常重要的；但若就此停滞不前，那就如同你们双方谈的是同一个问题，那就是这个星球以及决定它是否适宜人类生存的环境。

词汇释义

1.confession n. 承认, 坦白, 招供

例句：

They forced a confession from him.
他们从强迫他招供。

2.anthropology n.人类学

例句：

Social anthropology is one of the social sciences.
社会人类学是社会科学之一。

3.vegetarian n. 素食者, 食草动物

例句：

I've become used to a vegetarian diet.
我已经习惯了吃素。

4.misty a. 有雾的, 模糊的, 笼罩着雾的

例句：

A misty recollection of a dream.
一个梦的朦胧的回忆

5.uniqueness n.唯一性; 单值性; 独特性

例句：

Appreciate yourself and your own uniqueness.
欣赏自己和你的独特之处。