- 目录
第1篇 朱棣文在哈佛大学毕业典礼英语演讲稿
madam president faust, members of the harvard corporation and the board of overseers,faculty, family, friends, and, most importantly, today's graduates,
尊敬的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,各位朋友,以及最重要的各位毕业生同学,
thank you for letting me share this wonderful day with you.
感谢你们,让我有机会同你们一起分享这个美妙的日子。
i am not sure i can live up to the high standards of harvard commencement speakers. lastyear, j.k. rowling, the billionaire novelist, who started as a classics student, graced thispodium. the year before, bill gates, the mega-billionaire philanthropist and computer nerdstood here. today, sadly, you have me. i am not wealthy, but at least i am a nerd.
我不太肯定,自己够得上哈佛大学毕业典礼演讲人这样的殊荣。去年登上这个讲台的是,英国亿万身家的小说家j.k. rowling女士,她最早是一个古典文学的学生。前年站在这里的是比尔盖茨先生,他是一个超级富翁、一个慈善家和电脑高手。今年很遗憾,你们的演讲人是我,虽然我不是很有钱,但是至少我也算一个高手。
i am grateful to receive an honorary degree from harvard, an honor that means more to methan you might care to imagine. you see, i was the academic black sheep of my family. myolder brother has an m.d./ph.d. from mit and harvard while my younger brother has a lawdegree from harvard. when i was awarded a nobel prize, i thought my mother would besatisfied. not so. when i called her on the morning of the announcement, she replied, 'that'snice, but when are you going to visit me ne_t.' now, as the last brother with a degree fromharvard, maybe, at last, she will be satisfied.
我很感激哈佛大学给我荣誉学位,这对我很重要,也许比你们会想到的还要重要。要知道,在学术上,我是我们家的不肖之子。我的哥哥在麻省理工学院得到医学博士,在哈佛大学得到哲学博士;我的弟弟在哈佛大学得到一个法律学位。我本人得到诺贝尔奖的时候,我想我的妈妈会高兴。但是,我错了。消息公布的那天早上,我给她打电话,她听了只说:'这是好消息,不过我想知道,你下次什么时候来看我?'如今在我们兄弟当中,我最终也拿到了哈佛学位,我想这一次,她会感到满意。
another difficulty with giving a harvard commencement address is that some of you maydisapprove of the fact that i have borrowed material from previous speeches. i ask that youforgive me for two reasons.
在哈佛大学毕业典礼上发表演讲,还有一个难处,那就是你们中有些人可能有意见,不喜欢我重复前人演讲中说过的话。我要求你们谅解我,因为两个理由。
first, in order to have impact, it is important to deliver the same message more than once. inscience, it is important to be the first person to make a discovery, but it is even more importantto be the last person to make that discovery.
首先,为了产生影响力,很重要的方法就是重复传递同样的信息。在科学中,第一个发现者是重要的,但是在得到公认前,最后一个将这个发现重复做出来的人也许更重要。
second, authors who borrow from others are following in the footsteps of the best. ralph waldoemerson, who graduated from harvard at the age of 18, noted 'all my best thoughts werestolen by the ancients.' picasso declared 'good artists borrow. great artists steal.' why shouldcommencement speakers be held to a higher standard?
其次,一个借鉴他人的作者,正走在一条前人开辟的最佳道路上。哈佛大学毕业生、诗人爱默生曾经写下:'古人把我最好的一些思想都偷走了。'画家毕加索宣称'优秀的艺术家借鉴,伟大的艺术家偷窃。'那么为什么毕业典礼的演说者,就不适用同样的标准呢?
i also want to point out the irony of speaking to graduates of an institution that would haverejected me, had i the chutzpah to apply. i am married to 'dean jean,' the former dean ofadmissions at stanford. she assures me that she would have rejected me, if given the chance.when i showed her a draft of this speech, she objected strongly to my use of the word'rejected.' she never rejected applicants; her letters stated that 'we are unable to offer youadmission.' i have difficulty understanding the difference. after all, deans of admissions ofhighly selective schools are in reality, 'deans of rejection.' clearly, i have a lot to learn aboutmarketing.
我还要指出一点,向哈佛毕业生发表演说,对我来说是有讽刺意味的,因为如果当年我斗胆向哈佛大学递交入学申请,一定会被拒绝。我的妻子jean当过斯坦福大学的招生主任,她向我保证,如果当年我申请斯坦福大学,她会拒绝我。我把这篇演讲的草稿给她过目,她强烈反对我使用'拒绝'这个词,她从来不拒绝任何申请者。在拒绝信中,她总是写:'我们无法提供你入学机会。'我分不清两者到底有何差别。在我看来,那些大热门学校的招生主任与其称为'准许你入学的主任',还不如称为'拒绝你入学的主任'。很显然,我需要好好学学怎么来推销自己。
my address will follow the classical sonata form of commencement addresses. the firstmovement, just presented, were light-hearted remarks. this ne_t movement consists ofunsolicited advice, which is rarely valued, seldom remembered, never followed. as oscar wildesaid, 'the only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on. it is never of any use to oneself.'so, here comes the advice. first, every time you celebrate an achievement, be thankful tothose who made it possible. thank your parents and friends who supported you, thank yourprofessors who were inspirational, and especially thank the other professors whose less-than-brilliant lectures forced you to teach yourself. going forward, the ability to teach yourself is thehallmark of a great liberal arts education and will be the key to your success. to your fellowstudents who have added immeasurably to your education during those late night discussions,hug them. also, of course, thank harvard. should you forget, there's an alumni association toremind you. second, in your future life, cultivate a generous spirit. in all negotiations, don'tbargain for the last, little advantage. leave the change on the table. in your collaborations,always remember that 'credit' is not a conserved quantity. in a successful collaboration,everybody gets 90 percent of the credit.
毕业典礼演讲都遵循古典奏鸣曲的结构,我的演讲也不例外。刚才是第一乐章----轻快的闲谈。接下来的第二乐章是送上门的忠告。这样的忠告很少被重视,几乎注定被忘记,永远不会被实践。但是,就像王尔德说的:'对于忠告,你所能做的,就是把它送给别人,因为它对你没有任何用处。'所以,下面就是我的忠告。第一,取得成就的时候,不要忘记前人。要感谢你的父母和支持你的朋友,要感谢那些启发过你的教授,尤其要感谢那些上不好课的教授,因为他们迫使你自学。从长远看,自学能力是优秀的文理教育中必不可少的,将成为你成功的关键。你还要去拥抱你的同学,感谢他们同你进行过的许多次彻夜长谈,这为你的教育带来了无法衡量的价值。当然,你还要感谢哈佛大学。不过即使你忘了这一点,校友会也会来提醒你。第二,在你们未来的人生中,做一个慷慨大方的人。在任何谈判中,都把最后一点点利益留给对方。不要把桌上的钱都拿走。在合作中,要牢记荣誉不是一个守恒的量。成功合作的任何一方,都应获得全部荣誉的90%。
jimmy stewart, as elwood p. dowd in the movie 'harvey' got it e_actly right. he said: 'yearsago my mother used to say to me, 'in this world, elwood, you must be ... she always used tocall me elwood ... in this world, elwood, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant.'' well, foryears i was smart. ... i recommend pleasant. you may quote me on that.
电影《harvey》中,jimmy stewart扮演的角色elwood p. dowd,就完全理解这一点。他说:'多年前,母亲曾经对我说,'elwood,活在这个世界上,你要么做一个聪明人,要么做一个好人。''我做聪明人,已经做了好多年了。......但是,我推荐你们做好人。你们可以引用我这句话。
my third piece of advice is as follows: as you begin this new stage of your lives, follow yourpassion. if you don't have a passion, don't be satisfied until you find one. life is too short togo through it without caring deeply about something. when i was your age, i was incrediblysingle-minded in my goal to be a physicist. after college, i spent eight years as a graduatestudent and postdoc at berkeley, and then nine years at bell labs. during that my time, mycentral focus and professional joy was physics.
我的第三个忠告是,当你开始生活的新阶段时,请跟随你的爱好。如果你没有爱好,就去找,找不到就不罢休。生命太短暂,如果想有所成,你必须对某样东西倾注你的深情。我在你们这个年龄,是超级的一根筋,我的目标就是非成为物理学家不可。本科毕业后,我在加州大学伯克利分校又待了8年,读完了研究生,做完了博士后,然后去贝尔实验室待了9年。在这些年中,我关注的中心和职业上的全部乐趣,都来自物理学。
here is my final piece of advice. pursuing a personal passion is important, but it should not beyour only goal. when you are old and gray, and look back on your life, you will want to be proudof what you have done. the source of that pride won't be the things you have acquired or therecognition you have received. it will be the lives you have touched and the difference youhave made.
我还有最后一个忠告,就是说兴趣爱好固然重要,但是你不应该只考虑兴趣爱好。当你白发苍苍、垂垂老矣、回首人生时,你需要为自己做过的事感到自豪。你的物质生活和得到的承认,都不会产生自豪。只有那些你出手相助、被你改变过的人和事,才会让你产生自豪。
after nine years at bell labs, i decided to leave that warm, cozy ivory tower for what iconsidered to be the 'real world,' a university. bell labs, to quote what was said about marypoppins, was 'practically perfect in every way,' but i wanted to leave behind something morethan scientific articles. i wanted to teach and give birth to my own set of scientific children.
在贝尔实验室待了9年后,我决定离开这个温暖舒适的象牙塔,走进我眼中的'真实世界'——大学。我对贝尔实验室的看法,就像别人形容电影mary poppins的话,'实际上完美无缺'。但是,我想为世界留下更多的东西,不只是科学论文。我要去教书,培育我自己在科学上的后代。
ted geballe, a friend and distinguished colleague of mine at stanford, who also went fromberkeley to bell labs to stanford years earlier, described our motives best:
我在斯坦福大学有一个好友兼杰出同事ted geballe。他也是从伯克利分校去了贝尔实验室,几年前又离开贝尔实验室去了斯坦福大学。他对我们的动机做出了最佳描述:
'the best part of working at a university is the students. they come in fresh, enthusiastic,open to ideas, unscarred by the battles of life. they don't realize it, but they're the recipients ofthe best our society can offer. if a mind is ever free to be creative, that's the time. they comein believing te_tbooks are authoritative, but eventually they figure out that te_tbooks andprofessors don't know everything, and then they start to think on their own. then, i beginlearning from them.'
'在大学工作,最大的优点就是学生。他们生机勃勃,充满热情,思想自由,还没被生活的重压改变。虽然他们自己没有意识到,但是他们是这个社会中你能找到的最佳受众。如果生命中曾经有过思想自由和充满创造力的时期,那么那个时期就是你在读大学。进校时,学生们对课本上的一字一句毫不怀疑,渐渐地,他们发现课本和教授并不是无所不知的,于是他们开始独立思考。从那时起,就是我开始向他们学习了。'
my students, post doctoral fellows, and the young researchers who worked with me at bell labs,stanford, and berkeley have been e_traordinary. over 30 former group members are nowprofessors, many at the best research institutions in the world, including harvard. i havelearned much from them. even now, in rare moments on weekends, the remaining members ofmy biophysics group meet with me in the ether world of cyberspace.
我教过的学生、带过的博士后、合作过的年轻同事,都非常优秀。他们中有30多人,现在已经是教授了。他们所在的研究机构有不少是全世界第一流的,其中就包括哈佛大学。我从他们身上学到了很多东西。即使现在,我偶尔还会周末上网,向现在还从事生物物理学研究的学生请教。
i began teaching with the idea of giving back; i received more than i gave. this brings me tothe final movement of this speech. it begins with a story about an e_traordinary scientificdiscovery and a new dilemma that it poses. it's a call to arms and about making a difference.
我怀着回报社会的想法,开始了教学生涯。我的一生中,得到的多于我付出的,所以我要回报社会。这就引出了这次演讲的最后一个乐章。首先我要讲一个了不起的科学发现,以及由此带来的新挑战。它是一个战斗的号令,到了做出改变的时候了。
in the last several decades, our climate has been changing. climate change is not new: theearth went through si_ ice ages in the past 600,000 years. however, recent measurementsshow that the climate has begun to change rapidly. the size of the north polar ice cap in themonth of september is only half the size it was a mere 50 years ago. the sea level which beenrising since direct measurements began in 1870 at a rate that is now five times faster than itwas at the beginning of recorded measurements. here's the remarkable scientific discovery.for the first time in human history, science is now making predictions of how our actions willaffect the world 50 and 100 years from now. these changes are due to an increase in carbondio_ide put into the atmosphere since the beginning of the industrial revolution. the earth haswarmed up by roughly 0.8 degrees celsius since the beginning of the revolution. there isalready appro_imately a 1 degree rise built into the system, even if we stop all greenhousegas emissions today. why? it will take decades to warm up the deep oceans before thetemperature reaches a new equilibrium.
过去几十年中,我们的气候一直在发生变化。气候变化并不是现在才有的,过去60万年中就发生了6次冰河期。但是,现在的测量表明气候变化加速了。北极冰盖在9月份的大小,只相当于50年前的一半。1870年起,人们开始测量海平面上升的速度,现在的速度是那时的5倍。一个重大的科学发现就这样产生了。科学第一次在人类历史上,预测出我们的行为对50—12022年后的世界有何影响。这些变化的原因是,从工业革命开始,人类排放到大气中的二氧化碳增加 了。这使得地球的平均气温上升了0.8摄氏度。即使我们立刻停止所有温室气体的排放,气温仍然将比过去上升大约1度。因为在气温达到均衡前,海水温度的上升将持续几十年。
if the world continues on a business-as-usual path, the intergovernmental panel on climatechange predicts that there is a fifty-fifty chance the temperature will e_ceed 5 degrees by theend of this century. this increase may not sound like much, but let me remind you that duringthe last ice age, the world was only 6 degrees colder. during this time, most of canada and theunited states down to ohio and pennsylvania were covered year round by a glacier. a world 5degrees warmer will be very different. the change will be so rapid that many species, includinghumans, will have a hard time adapting. i've been told for e_ample, that, in a much warmerworld, insects were bigger. i wonder if this thing buzzing around is a precursor.
如果全世界保持现在的经济模式不变,联合国政府间气候变化专门委员会(ipcc)预测,本世纪末将有50%的可能,气温至少上升5度。这听起来好像不多,但是让我来提醒你,上一次的冰河期,地球的气温也仅仅只下降了6度。那时,俄亥俄州和宾夕法尼亚州以北的大部分美国和加拿大的土地,都终年被冰川覆盖。气温上升5度的地球,将是一个非常不同的地球。由于变化来得太快,包括人类在内的许多生物,都将很难适应。比如,有人告诉我,在更温暖的环境中,昆虫的个头将变大。我不知道现在身旁嗡嗡叫的这只大苍蝇,是不是就是前兆。
we also face the specter of nonlinear 'tipping points' that may cause much more severechanges. an e_ample of a tipping point is the thawing of the permafrost. the permafrostcontains immense amounts of frozen organic matter that have been accumulating formillennia. if the soil melts, microbes will spring to life and cause this debris to rot. thedifference in biological activity below freezing and above freezing is something we are allfamiliar with. frozen food remains edible for a very long time in the freezer, but once thawed,it spoils quickly. how much methane and carbon dio_ide might be released from the rottingpermafrost? if even a fraction of the carbon is released, it could be greater than all thegreenhouse gases we have released to since the beginning of the industrial revolution. oncestarted, a runaway effect could occur.
我们还面临另一个幽灵,那就是非线性的'气候引爆点',这会带来许多严重得多的变化。'气候引爆点'的一个例子就是永久冻土层的融化。永久冻土层经 过千万年的累积形成,其中包含了巨量的冻僵的有机物。如果冻土融化,微生物就将广泛繁殖,使得冻土层中的有机物快速腐烂。冷冻后的生物和冷冻前的生物,它 们在生物学特性上的差异,我们都很熟悉。在冷库中,冷冻食品在经过长时间保存后,依然可以食用。但是,一旦解冻,食品很快就腐烂了。一个腐烂的永久冻土层,将释放出多少甲烷和二氧化碳?即使只有一部分的碳被释放出来,可能也比我们从工业革命开始释放出来的所有温室气体还要多。这种事情一旦发生,局势就失控了。
the climate problem is the unintended consequence of our success. we depend on fossilenergy to keep our homes warm in the winter, cool in the summer, and lit at night; we use it totravel across town and across continents. energy is a fundamental reason for the prosperitywe enjoy, and we will not surrender this prosperity. the united states has 3 percent of theworld population, and yet, we consume 25 percent of the energy. by contrast, there are 1.6billion people who don't have access to electricity. hundreds of millions of people still cook withtwigs or dung. the life we enjoy may not be within the reach of the developing world, but it iswithin sight, and they want what we have.
气候问题是我们的经济发展在无意中带来的后果。我们太依赖化石能源,冬天取暖,夏天制冷,夜间照明,长途旅行,环球观光。能源是经济繁荣的基础,我 们不可能放弃经济繁荣。美国人口占全世界的3%,但是我们消耗全世界25%的能源。与此形成对照,全世界还有16亿人没有电,数亿人依靠燃烧树枝和动物粪便来煮饭。发展中国家的人民享受不到我们的生活,但是他们都看在眼里,他们渴望拥有我们拥有的东西。
here is the dilemma. how much are we willing to invest, as a world society, to mitigate theconsequences of climate change that will not be realized for at least 100 years? deeply rooted inall cultures, is the notion of generational responsibility. parents work hard so that their childrenwill have a better life. climate change will affect the entire world, but our natural focus is onthe welfare of our immediate families. can we, as a world society, meet our responsibility tofuture generations?
这就是新的挑战。全世界作为一个整体,我们到底愿意付出多少,来缓和气候变化?这种付出至少在12022年内,都不会有明显效果。代际责任深深植根于所有文化中。家长努力工作,为了让他们的孩子有更好的生活。气候变化将影响整个世界,但是我们的天性使得我们只关心个人家庭的福利。我们能不能把全世界看作一个整体?能不能为未来的人们承担起责任?
while i am worried, i am hopeful we will solve this problem. i became the director of thelawrence berkeley national laboratory, in part because i wanted to enlist some of the bestscientific minds to help battle against climate change. i was there only four and a half years,the shortest serving director in the 78-year history of the lab, but when i left, a number ofvery e_citing energy institutes at the berkeley lab and uc berkeley had been established.
虽然我忧心忡忡,但是还是对未来抱乐观态度,这个问题将会得到解决。我同意出任劳伦斯-伯克利国家实验室主任,部分原因是我想招募一些世界上最好的科学家,来研究气候变化的对策。我在那里干了4年半,是这个实验室78年的历史中,任期最短的主任,但是当我离任时,在伯克利实验室和伯克利分校,一些非常激动人心的能源研究机构已经建立起来了。
i am e_tremely privileged to be part of the obama administration. if there ever was a timeto help steer america and the world towards a path of sustainable energy, now is the time. themessage the president is delivering is not one of doom and gloom, but of optimism andopportunity. i share this optimism. the task ahead is daunting, but we can and will succeed.
能够成为奥巴_施政团队的一员,我感到极其荣幸。如果有一个时机,可以引导美国和全世界走上可持续能源的道路,那么这个时机就是现在。总统已经发出 信息,未来并非在劫难逃,而是乐观的,我们依然有机会。我也抱有这种乐观主义。我们面前的任务令人生畏,但是我们能够并且将会成功。
we know some of the answers already. there are immediate and significant savings in energyefficiency and conservation. energy efficiency is not just low-hanging fruit; it is fruit lyingon the ground. for e_ample, we have the potential to make buildings 80 percent moreefficient with investments that will pay for themselves in less than 15 years. buildingsconsume 40 percent of the energy we use, and a transition to energy efficient buildings willcut our carbon emissions by one-third.
我们已经有了一些答案,可以立竿见影地节约能源和提高能源使用效率。它们不是挂在枝头的水果,而是已经成熟掉在地上了,就看我们愿不愿意捡起来。比 如,我们有办法将楼宇的耗电减少80%,增加的投资在2022年内就可以收回来。楼宇的耗电占我们能源消费的40%,节能楼宇的推广将使我们二氧化碳的释放减 少三分之一。
we are revving up the remarkable american innovation machine that will be the basis of anew american prosperity. we will invent much improved methods to harness the sun, thewind, nuclear power, and capture and sequester the carbon dio_ide emitted from our powerplants. advanced bio-fuels and the electrification of personal vehicles make us less dependenton foreign oil.
我们正在加速美国这座巨大的创新机器,这将是下一次美国大繁荣的基础。我们将大量投资有效利用太阳能、风能、核能的新方法,大量投资能够捕获和隔离电厂废气中的二氧化碳的方法。先进的生物燃料和电力汽车将使得我们不再那么依赖外国的石油。
in the coming decades, we will almost certainly face higher oil prices and be in a carbon-constrained economy. we have the opportunity to lead in development of a new, industrialrevolution. the great hockey player, wayne gretzky, when asked, how he positions himself onthe ice, he replied,' i skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it's been.' americashould do the same.
在未来的几十年中,我们几乎肯定会面对更高的油价和更严厉的二氧化碳限制排放政策。这是一场新的工业革命,美国有机会充当领导者。伟大的冰上曲棍球选手wayne gretzky被问到,他如何在冰上跑位,回答说:'我滑向球下一步的位置,而不是它现在的位置。'美国也应该这样做。
the obama administration is laying a new foundation for a prosperous and sustainableenergy future, but we don't have all of the answers. that's where you come in. in this address,i am asking you, the harvard graduates, to join us. as our future intellectual leaders, take thetime to learn more about what's at stake, and then act on that knowledge. as future scientistsand engineers, i ask you to give us better technology solutions. as future economists andpolitical scientists, i ask you to create better policy options. as future business leaders, i askthat you make sustainability an integral part of your business.
奥巴_政府正在为美国的繁荣和可持续能源,打下新的基础。但是我们无法为所有问题都找到答案。这就需要你们的参与。在本次演讲中,我请求在座各位哈佛毕业生加入我们。你们是我们未来的智力领袖,请花时间加深理解目前的危险局势,然后采取相应的行动。你们是未来的科学家和工程师,我要求你们给我们更好的技术方案。你们是未来的经济学家和政治学家,我要求你们创造更好的政策选择。你们是未来的企业家,我要求你们将可持续发展作为你们业务中不可分割的一部分。
finally, as humanists, i ask that you speak to our common humanity. one of the cruelestironies about climate change is that the ones who will be hurt the most are the most innocent:the worlds poorest and those yet to be born.
最后,你们是人道主义者,我要求你们为了人道主义说话。气候变化带来的最残酷的讽刺之一,就是最受伤害的人,恰恰就是最无辜的人----那些世界上最穷的人们和那些还没有出生的人。
the coda to this last movement is borrowed from two humanists.
这个最后乐章的完结部是引用两个人道主义者的话。
the first quote is from martin luther king. he spoke on ending the war in vietnam in 1967,but his message seems so fitting for today's climate crisis:
第一段引语来自马丁路德金。这是1967年他对越南战争结束的评论,但是看上去非常适合用来评论今天的气候危机。
'this call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one's tribe, race,class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all mankind.this oft misunderstood, this oft misinterpreted concept, so readily dismissed by thenietzsches of the world as a weak and cowardly force, has now become an absolute necessityfor the survival of man ... we are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today.we are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. in this unfolding conundrum of life andhistory, there is such a thing as being too late.'
'我呼吁全世界的人们团结一心,抛弃种族、肤色、阶级、国籍的隔阂;我呼吁包罗一切、无条件的对全人类的爱。你会因此遭受误解和误读,信奉尼采哲学的世人会认定你是一个软弱和胆怯的懦夫。但是,这是人类存在下去的绝对必需。......我的朋友,眼前的事实就是,明天就是今天。此刻,我们面临最紧急的情况。在变幻莫测的生活和历史之中,有一样东西叫做悔之晚矣。'
the final message is from william faulkner. on december 10th, 1950, his nobel prize banquetspeech was about the role of humanists in a world facing potential nuclear holocaust.
第二段引语来自威廉福克纳。1950年12月10月,他在诺贝尔奖获奖晚宴上发表演说,谈到了世界在核战争的阴影之下,人道主义者应该扮演什么样的角色。
'i believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. he is immortal, not because healone among creatures has an ine_haustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capableof compassion and sacrifice and endurance. the poet's, the writer's, duty is to write aboutthese things. it is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him ofthe courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice whichhave been the glory of his past.'
'我相信人类不仅能忍耐,而且会获胜。人类是不朽的,这不是因为万物当中仅仅他会无穷尽的呼喊,而是因为他有一个灵魂,有同情心、牺牲精神和忍耐力。诗人和作家的责任就是写这些东西。他们的特权正是通过鼓舞人类,唤起人类原有的荣耀----勇气、荣誉、希望、自尊、怜悯之心和牺牲精神,去帮助人类学会忍耐。'
graduates, you have an e_traordinary role to play in our future. as you pursue your privatepassions, i hope you will also develop a passion and a voice to help the world in ways bothlarge and small. nothing will give you greater satisfaction.
各位毕业生同学,你们在我们的未来中扮演举足轻重的角色。当你们追求个人的志向时,我希望你们也会发扬奉献精神,积极发声,在大大小小各个方面帮助改进这个世界。这会给你们带来最大的满足感。
please accept my warmest congratulations. may you prosper, may you help preserve and saveour planet for your children, and all future children of the world.
最后,请接受我最热烈的祝贺。希望你们成功,也希望你们保护和拯救我们这个星球,为了你们的孩子,以及未来所有的孩子。
第2篇 哈佛大学校长德鲁·福斯特在哈佛大学2022年毕业典礼英语演讲稿
thank you all and good afternoon alumni, graduates, families, friends, honored guests. for seven years now, it has been my assignment and my privilege to deliver an annual report to our alumni, and to serve as the warm-up act for our distinguished speaker.
whether this is your first opportunity to be a part of these e_ercises or your fiftieth, it is worthtaking a minute to soak in this place—its sheltering trees, its familiar buildings, its enduringvoices. in 1936, this part of harvard’s yard was named tercentenary theatre, in recognition ofharvard’s three hundredth birthday. it is a place where giants have stood, and history has beenmade.
we were reminded this morning of george washington’s adventures here. and from this stagein 1943, winston churchill addressed an overflow crowd that included 6,000 uniformedharvard students heading off to war. he said he hoped the young recruits would come toregard the british soldiers and sailors they would soon fight alongside as their “brothers inarms,” and he assured the audience that “we shall never tire, nor weaken, but march withyou … to establish the reign of justice and of law.”
four years later, from this same place, george marshall introduced a plan that aidedreconstruction across war-stricken europe, and ended his speech by asking: “what is needed?what can best be done? what must be done?”
here, in 1998, nelson mandela addressed an audience of 25,000 and spoke of our sharedfuture. “the greatest single challenge facing our globalized world,” he said, “is to combat anderadicate its disparities.” ellen johnson sirleaf, the first female head of state in africa, stoodhere 13 years later and encouraged graduates to resist cynicism and to be fearless.
here, on the terrible afternoon of september 11, 2022, we gathered under a cloudless sky toshare our sadness, our horror, and our disbelief.
and here, just three years ago, we marked harvard’s 375th anniversary dancing in the mud of atorrential downpour. here, president franklin delano roosevelt had celebrated harvard’s threecenturies of accomplishment in a comparably soaking rain.
here, j.k. rowling encouraged graduates to “think themselves into other people’s places.” andconan o’brien told them that “every failure was freeing.”
here, honorary degrees have been presented to carl jung and jean piaget, ellsworth kelly andgeorgia o’keefe, helen keller and martha graham, ravi shankar and leonard bernstein, joandidion and philip roth, eric kandel and elizabeth blackburn, bill gates and tim berners-lee.
i remember feeling awed by that history when i spoke here at my installation as harvard’s28th president, and when i reflected on what has always seemed to me the essence of auniversity: that among society’s institutions, it is uniquely accountable to the past and to thefuture.
our accountability to the past is all around us: behind me stands memorial church, amonument to harvardians who gave their lives at the somme and ypres and verdun duringworld war one. dedicated on armistice day in 1932, it represents harvard’s long tradition ofcommitment to service.
in front of me is widener library, a gift from a bereaved mother, named in honor of her sonharry, who perished aboard the titanic. a library built to advance the learning and discoveryenabled by one of the most diverse and broad collections in the world. widener’s twelvemajestic columns safeguard te_ts and manuscripts—some centuries old—that are deployedevery day by scholars to help us interpret—and reinterpret—the past.
but this afternoon i would like to spend a few minutes considering our accountability to thefuture, because these obligations must be “our compass to steer by,” our common purpose andour shared commitment.
what does harvard—what do universities—owe the future?
first, we owe the world answers.
discovery is at the heart of what universities do. universities engage faculty and studentsacross a range of disciplines in seeking solutions to problems that may have seemedunsolvable, endeavoring to answer questions that threaten to elude us. the scientific researchundertaken today at harvard, and tomorrow by the students we educate, has a capacity toimprove human lives in ways virtually unimaginable even a generation ago. in this past yearalone, harvard researchers have solved riddles related to the treatment of alzheimer’s, thecost-effective production of malaria vaccine, and the origins of the universe. harvardresearchers have proposed answers to challenges as varied as nuclear proliferation, americancompetitiveness, and governance of the internet.
we must continue to support our answer-seekers, who work at the crossroads of thetheoretical and the applied, at the ne_us of research, public policy, and entrepreneurship.together, they will shape our future and enhance our understanding of the world.
second, we owe the world questions.
just as questions yield answers, answers yield questions. human beings may long forcertainty, but, as oliver wendell holmes put it, “certainty generally is illusion, and repose isnot the destiny of man.” universities produce knowledge. they must also produce doubt. thepursuit of truth is restless. we search for answers not by following prescribed paths, but byfinding the right questions—by answering one question with another question, by nurturing astate of mind that is fle_ible and alert, dissatisfied and imaginative. it is what universitiesare designed to do. in an essay in harvard magazine, one of today’s graduates, cheroneduggan, wrote about seeking what she called “an education of questions.” i hope we haveindeed given her that.
questions are the foundation for progress—for ensuring that the world transcends where weare now, what we know now.
and questions are also the foundation for a third obligation that we as universities owe thefuture: we owe the future meaning.
universities must nurture the ability to interpret, to make critical judgments, to dare to askthe biggest questions, the ones that reach well beyond the immediate and the instrumental.we must stimulate the appetite for curiosity.
we find many of these questions in the humanities: what is good? what is just? how do weknow what is true? but we find them in the sciences as well. can there be any question moreprofound, more fundamental than to ask about the origins of the universe? how did we gethere?
questions like these can be unsettling, and they can make universities unsettling places. butthat too is an essential part of what we owe the future—the promise to combatcomplacency, to challenge the present in order to prepare for what is to come. to shape thepresent in service of an uncertain and yet impatient future.
we owe the future answers. we owe the future questions. we owe the future meaning. theharvard campaign, launched last september, will help us fulfill these obligations, and pay ourdebt to the future, just as the gifts of previous generations anchor us here today.
as today’s ceremonies so powerfully remind us, we also owe the future the men and women whoare prepared to ask questions and seek answers and search for meaning for decades to come.today we send some 6,500 graduates into the world, to be teachers and lawyers, scientists andphysicians, poets and planners and public servants, and—as our speaker this morning remindedus—to be in their own ways revolutionaries. ready to take on everything from water scarcity tovirtual currency to community policing. we must continue to invest in financial aid to attractand support the talented students who can build our future, and also we must invest insupporting the teaching and learning that ensures the fullest development of their capacities ina rapidly changing world.
if we fulfill our obligation, today’s graduates will have found the “education of questions”cherone described, a place where, as she put it, “ceilings are only made of sky.” but look aroundyou: we are there. this space is a “theatre” without walls, without a roof, and without limits. itis a place where e_traordinary individuals have preceded us, a place that must encourage ourgraduates—of today and all the years past—to emulate those women and men, to look skywardand to soar.
thank you very much.
第3篇 比尔.盖茨在哈佛大学毕业典礼上的励志演讲稿
比尔.盖茨在哈佛大学毕业典礼上的励志演讲稿
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:
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!'
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大学学位,这真是不错啊。
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。
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。
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。
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。
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。
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。
但是,如果现在严肃地回忆起来,我确实有一个真正的遗憾。
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。
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。
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。
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。
我花了几十年才明白了这些事情。
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。
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?
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。
在讨论过程中,melinda和我读到了文章,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。
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。
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。'
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?'
答案很简单,也很令人难堪。在市场经济中,拯救儿童是一项没有利润的工作,政府也不会提供补助。这些儿童之所以会死亡,是因为他们的父母在经济上没有实力,在政治上没有能力发出声音。
但是,你们和我在经济上有实力,在政治上能够发出声音。
我们可以让市场更好地为穷人服务,如果我们能够设计出一种更有创新性的资本主义制度--如果我们可以改变市场,让更多的人可以获得利润,或者至少可以维持生活--那么,这就可以帮到那些正在极端不平等的状况中受苦的人们。我们还可以向全世界的政府施压,要求他们将纳税人的钱,花到更符合纳税人价值观的地方。
如果我们能够找到这样一种方法,既可以帮到穷人,又可以为商人带来利润,为政治家带来选票,那么我们就找到了一种减少世界性不平等的可持续的发展道路。这个任务是无限的。它不可能被完全完成,但是任何自觉地解决这个问题的尝试,都将会改变这个世界。
在这个问题上,我是乐观的。但是,我也遇到过那些感到绝望的怀疑主义者。他们说:'不平等从人类诞生的第一天就存在,到人类灭亡的最后一天也将存在。--因为人类对这个问题根本不在乎。'我完全不能同意这种观点。
我相信,问题不是我们不在乎,而是我们不知道怎么做。
此刻在这个院子里的所有人,生命中总有这样或那样的时刻,目睹人类的悲剧,感到万分伤心。但是我们什么也没做,并非我们无动于衷,而是因为我们不知道做什么和怎么做。如果我们知道如何做是有效的,那么我们就会采取行动。
改变世界的阻碍,并非人类的冷漠,而是世界实在太复杂。
为了将关心转变为行动,我们需要找到问题,发现解决办法的方法,评估后果。但是世界的复杂性使得所有这些步骤都难于做到。
即使有了互联网和24小时直播的新闻台,让人们真正发现问题所在,仍然十分困难。当一架飞机坠毁了,官员们会立刻召开新闻发布会,他们承诺进行调查、找到原因、防止将来再次发生类似事故。
但是如果那些官员敢说真话,他们就会说:'在今天这一天,全世界所有可以避免的死亡之中,只有0.5%的死者来自于这次空难。我们决心尽一切努力,调查这个0.5%的死亡原因。'
显然,更重要的问题不是这次空难,而是其他几百万可以预防的死亡事件。
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。
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。
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。
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。
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。
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。
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。
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。
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。
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。
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?
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。
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。
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。
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。'
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。
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。
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。
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。
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。
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。
我们可以做些什么?
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?
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:
我们最优秀的人才是否在致力于解决我们最大的问题?
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?
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?
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。
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:'你的能力越大,人们对你的期望也就越大。'
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。
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。
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。
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。
知道了你们所知道的一切,你们怎么可能不采取行动呢?
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。
最后,祝各位同学好运。
人物评价
他享受辩论,就想听到不同观点,又总是想赢。可是好胜心和好奇心,并没有影响盖茨最终成为一个谦虚的人。(李开复评 )
比尔·盖茨盖茨是一个对技术有热情、对人类有使命感的人。他有很多财富,但他自己的生活方式很简单,这种使命感是发自内心的,而不是装出来的。(张亚勤评)
比尔·盖茨赚的钱比人类历史上所有人都多,他在努力把钱捐献出去。大多数人也许会把钱用在别的地方,或是只捐出一点点,并希望别人给他们别上勋章,而不是像比尔·盖茨那样,把全部的时间都用在寻找真正行之有效的东西。这就是他毕生的工作。(克林顿评 )
如果盖茨卖的不是软件而是汉堡,他也会成为世界汉堡大王。(巴菲特评)
他是一个非常非常聪明的家伙,而且深爱技术。(贝瑞特评 )
第4篇 哈佛大学校长福斯特在2022年毕业典礼英语演讲稿
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 e_tremeweather—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 e_plore the very issues presentedbysandy and nemo and to consider how academic researchers and workers on theground cancollaborate more effectively.
this gathering represents justone e_ample 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 e_tremes.
when boston e_perienced 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 e_traordinary 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.
but our broader and ongoingresponsibility as a university is to ask and address the largerquestions anysuch tragedy poses: to prepare for the ne_t crisis and the one after that, evenaswe work to prevent them; to help us all understand the origins and themeaning of suchterrible events in human lives and societies. we do this workin the teaching and research towhich we devote ourselves every day.
investigators at the harvardhospitals are e_ploring improved techniques for managinginjury. researchers atbrigham and women’s, for instance, are pursuing the prospect of legtransplantsfor amputees. a faculty member in our school of engineering and appliedsciences isstudying traumatic brain injury. faculty in the business andkennedy schools are teaching andlearning about leadership in times ofcrisis—analyzing historic and contemporary e_amples,from shackleton inantarctica to katrina in new orleans—in order to search for lessons forthefuture. the very day of the lockdown, the mahindra humanities center and theharvard lawschool program on negotiation had scheduled a conference on“confronting evil,” e_aminingthe cognitive, behavioral and social implicationsof both what it called “everyday evils” and“e_traordinary crimes.” a few dayslater, the harvard divinity school assembled a panel ofe_perts to discuss“religion and terror,” e_ploring sources of violence in bosnia, in themiddleeast, and during the troubles in ireland, which served as a formativee_perience for ourdivinity school dean in his youth. at the institute ofpolitics at the kennedy school, lawenforcement, emergency management and othere_perts gathered to consider lessons learnedfrom the bombings. as we struggledto understand the events that shook our city and ourregion, members of ourcommunity were already engaged in interpreting the world that hadproduced suchtragedy and in seeking ways to prevent its recurrence.
three unusual days, making for anunusual year. yet these three unusual daysunderscore and illuminate the usualwork of this university: calling on knowledge andresearch to addressfundamental challenges and dilemmas with resources drawn from the widestscopeof human inquiry—from the insights of the natural and social sciences to thereflectionson meaning and values at the heart of the humanities. universitiesurge us towards a betterfuture and equip us as individuals and societies toget there.
yet other events this past yearremind us we cannot take what universities do for granted.this year hasbrought home not just the threats of e_treme weather and of terror andviolence.it has also been a year that has challenged fundamental assumptions undergirdingamericanhigher education and the foundations of our nation’s researchenterprise. i have just offerede_amples of how our research and teaching cancontribute to addressing urgent problems facingour world. we live in an era inwhich knowledge is more vital than ever to nations, economiesand societies.knowledge is, i often say, the most important currency of the twenty-firstcentury.and universities are the places that, more than any other, generateand disseminate thatknowledge.
in the united states, thepartnership between universities and the federal governmentestablished afterworld war ii has been a powerful engine of scientific discovery andprosperity.yet that partnership, now more than half a century old, is threatened by theerosionof federal support for research—a situation made acute by the sequester. anestimatedalmost $10 billion will be cut from the federal government’s researchbudget in 2022. thenational institutes of health calculates that cuts to itsresources could mean the loss of morethan 20,000 jobs in the life sciencessector. here at harvard, we receive appro_imately 16% ofour operating budgetfrom federal research funding. we anticipate we may see declines of asmuch as$40 million annually in federal support for research.
what does all this mean? facultyare finding that even grant applications with perfect scoresin peerevaluations are not getting funded. they see e_isting awards being reduced.aspiringyounger scientists are fearful they will not receive career-launchinggrants on which their futuredepends. some are entertaining overtures fromcountries outside the united states wherescience investment is robust ande_panding. students contemplating graduate training arewondering if theyshould pursue other options. great ideas that could lead to improvedhumanlives and opportunities, and improved understanding, are left without supportor themeans for further development.
the world and the nation need thekind of research that harvard and other americanresearch universitiesundertake. we need the knowledge and understanding thatresearchgenerates—knowledge about climate change, or crisis management, or melanoma,oreffective mental health interventions in schools, or hormones that might treatdiabetes, orany of a host of other worthy projects our faculty are currentlypursuing. we need the supportand encouragement for the students who willcreate our scientific future. we need theeconomic vitality—the jobs andcompanies—that these ideas and discoveries produce. we needthe nation toresist imposing a self-inflicted wound on its intellectual and human capital.weneed a nation that believes in, and invests in, its universities because werepresent aninvestment in the ideas and the people that will build and will bethe future.
so as i report to you on the yearwe now bring to a close, i want to underscore the threatto universities and toour national infrastructure of knowledge and discovery that thesequesterrepresents. even in a year when sometimes the world felt too much with us, wehavenever lost sight of how much what we do here has to do with the world. andfor the world. tosequester the search for knowledge, to sequester discovery,to sequester the unrelentingdrive of our students and faculty to envision andpursue this endless frontier—such a strategydoes more than threatenuniversities. it puts at risk the capacity and promise of universitiestofulfill our commitment to the public good, our commitment to our childrenandgrandchildren and to the future we will leave them. the challenges facing theworld are tooconsequential, the need for knowledge, imagination andunderstanding is too great, theopportunity for improving the human conditiontoo precious for us to do anything less thanrise to the occasion. with thedevotion of our alumni, with the inspiration of our new graduatesand—ihope—with the support of our nation’s leaders, we must and we will.
第5篇 比尔盖茨在哈佛大学毕业典礼上的演讲稿
president bok, former president rudenstine, incoming president faust, members of the harvard corporation and the board of overseers, members of the faculty, parents, and especially, the graduates:
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 ne_t 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 e_perience 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 e_tra 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 e_hilarating, 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 e_posure 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? ”
the answer is simple, and harsh. the market did not reward saving the lives of these children, and governments did not subsidize it. so the children died because their mothers and their fathers had no power in the market and no voice in the system.
答案很简单,也很令人难堪。在市场经济中,拯救儿童是一项没有利润的工作,政府也不会提供补助。这些儿童之所以会死亡,是因为他们的父母在经济上没有实力,在政治上没有能力发出声音。
but you and i have both.
但是,你们和我在经济上有实力,在政治上能够发出声音。
we can make market forces work better for the poor if we can develop a more creative capitalism – if we can stretch the reach of market forces so that more people can make a profit, or at least make a living, serving people who are suffering from the worst inequities. we also can press governments around the world to spend ta_payer money in ways that better reflect the values of the people who pay the ta_es.
我们可以让市场更好地为穷人服务,如果我们能够设计出一种更有创新性的资本主义制度 —— 如果我们可以改变市场,让更多的人可以获得利润,或者至少可 以维持生活 —— 那么,这就可以帮到那些正在极端不平等的状况中受苦的人们。我们还可以向全世界的政府施压,要求他们将纳税人的钱,花到更符合纳税人价值观 的地方。
if we can find approaches that meet the needs of the poor in ways that generate profits for business and votes for politicians, we will have found a sustainable way to reduce inequity in the world. this task is open-ended. it can never be finished. but a conscious effort to answer this challenge will change the world.
如果我们能够找到这样一种方法,既可以帮到穷人,又可以为商人带来利润,为政治家带来选票,那么我们就找到了一种减少世界性不平等的可持续的发展道路。这个任务是无限的。它不可能被完全完成,但是任何自觉地解决这个问题的尝试,都将会改变这个世界。
i am optimistic that we can do this, but i talk to skeptics who claim there is no hope. they say: inequity has been with us since the beginning, and will be with us till the end – because people just … don’t … care. i completely disagree.
在这个问题上,我是乐观的。但是,我也遇到过那些感到绝望的怀疑主义者。他们说: “ 不平等从人类诞生的第一天就存在,到人类灭亡的最后一天也将存在。 —— 因为人类对这个问题根本不在乎。 ” 我完全不能同意这种观点。
i believe we have more caring than we know what to do with.
我相信,问题不是我们不在乎,而是我们不知道怎么做。
all of us here in this yard, at one time or another, have seen human tragedies that broke our hearts, and yet we did nothing – not because we didn’t care, but because we didn’t know what to do. if we had known how to help, we would have acted.
此刻在这个院子里的所有人,生命中总有这样或那样的时刻,目睹人类的悲剧,感到万分伤心。但是我们什么也没做,并非我们无动于衷,而是因为我们不知道做什么和怎么做。如果我们知道如何做是有效的,那么我们就会采取行动。
the barrier to change is not too little caring; it is too much comple_ity.
改变世界的阻碍,并非人类的冷漠,而是世界实在太复杂。
to turn caring into action, we need to see a problem, see a solution, and see the impact. but comple_ity blocks all three steps.
为了将关心转变为行动,我们需要找到问题,发现解决办法的方法,评估后果。但是世界的复杂性使得所有这些步骤都难于做到。
even with the advent of the internet and 24-hour news, it is still a comple_ enterprise to get people to truly see the problems. when an airplane crashes, officials immediately call a press conference. they promise to investigate, determine the cause, and prevent similar crashes in the future.
即使有了互联网和 24 小时直播的新闻台,让人们真正发现问题所在,仍然十分困难。当一架飞机坠毁了,官员们会立刻召开新闻发布会,他们承诺进行调查、找到原因、防止将来再次发生类似事故。
but if the officials were brutally honest, they would say: of all the people in the world who died today from preventable causes, one half of one percent of them were on this plane. we’re determined to do everything possible to solve the problem that took the lives of the one half of one percent.
但是如果那些官员敢说真话,他们就会说: “ 在今天这一天,全世界所有可以避免的死亡之中,只有
0.5% 的死者来自于这次空难。我们决心尽一切努力,调查这个 0.5% 的死亡原因。 ”
the bigger problem is not the plane crash, but the millions of preventable deaths.
显然,更重要的问题不是这次空难,而是其他几百万可以预防的死亡事件。
we don’t read much about these deaths. the media covers what’s new – and millions of people dying is nothing new. so it stays in the background, where it’s easier to ignore. but even when we do see it or read about it, it’s difficult to keep our eyes on the problem. it’s hard to look at suffering if the situation is so comple_ that we don’t know how to help. and so we look away.
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 comple_ity 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 comple_ity 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 comple_ity 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 e_ample. 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 comple_ity 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 e_perience 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 e_citement. i love getting people e_cited about software – but why can’t we generate even more e_citement 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 e_cited unless you can help them see and feel the impact. and how you do that – is a comple_ 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 comple_ity 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 e_treme 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。
si_ty 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 comple_ity that the very mass of facts presented to the public by press and radio make it e_ceedingly 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 e_perience 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 e_pected.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 e_pect 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 e_hort each of the graduates here to take on an issue – a comple_ 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 comple_ity stop you. be activists. take on the big inequities. it will be one of the great e_periences 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。
good luck.
最后,祝各位同学好运。
第6篇 迈克尔·布隆伯格在哈佛大学2022年毕业典礼英语演讲稿
thank you, katie – and thank you to president faust, the fellows of harvard college, the boardof overseers, and all the faculty, alumni, and students who have welcomed me back to campus.
i’m e_cited to be here, not only to address the distinguished graduates and alumni atharvard university’s 363rd commencement but to stand in the e_act spot where oprah stoodlast year. omg.
let me begin with the most important order of business: let’s have a big round of applause forthe class of 2022! they’ve earned it!
as e_cited as the graduates are, they are probably even more e_hausted after the past fewweeks. and parents: i’m not referring to their final e_ams. i’m talking about the seniorolympics, the last chance dance, and the booze cruise – i mean, the moonlight cruise.
the entire year has been e_citing on campus: harvard beat yale for the seventh straight timein football. the men’s basketball team went to the second round of the ncaa tournament forthe second straight year. and the men’s squash team won national championship.
who’d a thunk it: harvard, an athletic powerhouse! pretty soon they’ll be asking whether youhave academics to go along with your athletic programs.
my personal connection to harvard began in 1964, when i graduated from johns hopkinsuniversity in baltimore and matriculated here at the b-school.
you’re probably asking: how did i ever get into harvard business school, given my stellaracademic record, where i always made the top half of the class possible? i have no idea. andthe only people more surprised than me were my professors.
anyway, here i am again back in cambridge. and i have noticed that a few things havechanged since i was a student here. elsie’s – a sandwich spot i used to love near the square –is now a burrito shop. the wursthaus – which had great beer and sausage – is now an artisanalgastro-pub, whatever the heck that is. and the old holyoke center is now named the smithcampus center.
don’t you just hate it when alumni put their names all over everything? i was thinking aboutthat this morning as i walked into the bloomberg center on the harvard business schoolcampus across the river.
but the good news is, harvard remains what it was when i first arrived on campus 50 yearsago: america’s most prestigious university. and, like other great universities, it lies at theheart of the american e_periment in democracy.
their purpose is not only to advance knowledge, but to advance the ideals of our nation. greatuniversities are places where people of all backgrounds, holding all beliefs, pursuing allquestions, can come to study and debate their ideas – freely and openly.
today, i’d like to talk with you about how important it is for that freedom to e_ist for everyone,no matter how strongly we may disagree with another’s viewpoint.
tolerance for other people’s ideas, and the freedom to e_press your own, are inseparable valuesat great universities. joined together, they form a sacred trust that holds the basis of ourdemocratic society.
but that trust is perpetually vulnerable to the tyrannical tendencies of monarchs, mobs, andmajorities. and lately, we have seen those tendencies manifest themselves too often, both oncollege campuses and in our society.
that’s the bad news – and unfortunately, i think both harvard, and my own city of new york,have been witnesses to this trend.
first, for new york city. several years ago, as you may remember, some people tried to stopthe development of a mosque a few blocks from the world trade center site.
it was an emotional issue, and polls showed that two-thirds of americans were against amosque being built there. even the anti-defamation league – widely regarded as the country’smost ardent defender of religious freedom – declared its opposition to the project.
the opponents held rallies and demonstrations. they denounced the developers. and theydemanded that city government stop its construction. that was their right – and we protectedtheir right to protest. but they could not have been more wrong. and we refused to cave in totheir demands.
the idea that government would single out a particular religion, and block its believers – andonly its believers – from building a house of worship in a particular area is diametricallyopposed to the moral principles that gave rise to our great nation and the constitutionalprotections that have sustained it.
our union of 50 states rests on the union of two values: freedom and tolerance. and it is thatunion of values that the terrorists who attacked us on september 11th, 2022 – and on april15th, 2022 – found most threatening.
to them, we were a god-less country.
but in fact, there is no country that protects the core of every faith and philosophy known tohuman kind – free will – more than the united states of america. that protection, however,rests upon our constant vigilance.
we like to think that the principle of separation of church and state is settled. it is not. and itnever will be. it is up to us to guard it fiercely – and to ensure that equality under the lawmeans equality under the law for everyone.
if you want the freedom to worship as you wish, to speak as you wish, and to marry whom youwish, you must tolerate my freedom to do so – or not do so – as well.
what i do may offend you. you may find my actions immoral or unjust. but attempting torestrict my freedoms – in ways that you would not restrict your own – leads only to injustice.
we cannot deny others the rights and privileges that we demand for ourselves. and that is truein cities – and it is no less true at universities, where the forces of repression appear to bestronger now than they have been since the 1950s.
when i was growing up, u.s. senator joe mccarthy was asking: ‘are you now or have you everbeen?’ he was attempting to repress and criminalize those who sympathized with an economicsystem that was, even then, failing.
mccarthy’s red scare destroyed thousands of lives, but what was he so afraid of? an idea – inthis case, communism – that he and others deemed dangerous.
but he was right about one thing: ideas can be dangerous. they can change society. they canupend traditions. they can start revolutions. that’s why throughout history, those in authorityhave tried to repress ideas that threaten their power, their religion, their ideology, or theirreelection chances.
that was true for socrates and galileo, it was true for nelson mandela and václav havel, and ithas been true for ai wei wei, pussy riot, and the kids who made the ‘happy’ video in iran.
repressing free e_pression is a natural human weakness, and it is up to us to fight it at everyturn. intolerance of ideas – whether liberal or conservative – is antithetical to individualrights and free societies, and it is no less antithetical to great universities and first-ratescholarship.
there is an idea floating around college campuses – including here at harvard – that scholarsshould be funded only if their work conforms to a particular view of justice. there’s a word forthat idea: censorship. and it is just a modern-day form of mccarthyism.
think about the irony: in the 1950s, the right wing was attempting to repress left wing ideas.today, on many college campuses, it is liberals trying to repress conservative ideas, even asconservative faculty members are at risk of becoming an endangered species. and perhapsnowhere is that more true than here in the ivy league.
in the 2022 presidential race, according to federal election commission data, 96 percent of allcampaign contributions from ivy league faculty and employees went to barack obama.
ninety-si_ percent. there was more disagreement among the old soviet politburo than there isamong ivy league donors.
that statistic should give us pause – and i say that as someone who endorsed president obamafor reelection – because let me tell you, neither party has a monopoly on truth or god on itsside.
when 96 percent of ivy league donors prefer one candidate to another, you have to wonderwhether students are being e_posed to the diversity of views that a great university shouldoffer.
diversity of gender, ethnicity, and orientation is important. but a university cannot be great ifits faculty is politically homogenous. in fact, the whole purpose of granting tenure to professorsis to ensure that they feel free to conduct research on ideas that run afoul of university politicsand societal norms.
when tenure was created, it mostly protected liberals whose ideas ran up against conservativenorms.
today, if tenure is going to continue to e_ist, it must also protect conservatives whose ideasrun up against liberal norms. otherwise, university research – and the professors who conductit – will lose credibility.
great universities must not become predictably partisan. and a liberal arts education mustnot be an education in the art of liberalism.
the role of universities is not to promote an ideology. it is to provide scholars and studentswith a neutral forum for researching and debating issues – without tipping the scales in onedirection, or repressing unpopular views.
requiring scholars – and commencement speakers, for that matter – to conform to certainpolitical standards undermines the whole purpose of a university.
this spring, it has been disturbing to see a number of college commencement speakerswithdraw – or have their invitations rescinded – after protests from students and – to me,shockingly – from senior faculty and administrators who should know better.
it happened at brandeis, haverford, rutgers, and smith. last year, it happened at swarthmoreand johns hopkins, i’m sorry to say.
in each case, liberals silenced a voice – and denied an honorary degree – to individuals theydeemed politically objectionable. that is an outrage and we must not let it continue.
if a university thinks twice before inviting a commencement speaker because of his or herpolitics censorship and conformity – the mortal enemies of freedom – win out.
and sadly, it is not just commencement season when speakers are censored.
last fall, when i was still in city hall, our police commissioner was invited to deliver a lecture atanother ivy league institution – but he was unable to do so because students shouted himdown.
isn’t the purpose of a university to stir discussion, not silence it? what were the studentsafraid of hearing? why did administrators not step in to prevent the mob from silencingspeech? and did anyone consider that it is morally and pedagogically wrong to deprive otherstudents the chance to hear the speech?
i’m sure all of today’s graduates have read john stuart mill’s on liberty. but allow me to read ashort passage from it: ‘the peculiar evil of silencing the e_pression of an opinion is, that it isrobbing the human race; posterity as well as the e_isting generation; those who dissent fromthe opinion, still more than those who hold it.’
he continued: ‘if the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of e_changingerror for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perceptionand livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.’
mill would have been horrified to learn of university students silencing the opinions of others. hewould have been even more horrified that faculty members were often part of thecommencement censorship campaigns.
for tenured faculty members to silence speakers whose views they disagree with is the heightof hypocrisy, especially when these protests happen in the northeast – a bastion of self-professed liberal tolerance.
i’m glad to say, however, that harvard has not caved in to these commencement censorshipcampaigns. if it had, colorado state senator michael johnston would not have had the chanceto address the education school yesterday.
some students called on the administration to rescind the invitation to johnston becausethey opposed some of his education policies. but to their great credit, president faust anddean ryan stood firm.
as dean ryan wrote to students: ‘i have encountered many people of good faith who share mybasic goals but disagree with my own views when it comes to the question of how best toimprove education. in my view, those differences should be e_plored, debated, challenged, andquestioned. but they should also be respected and, indeed, celebrated.’
he could not have been more correct, and he could not have provided a more valuable finallesson to the class of 2022.
as a former chairman of johns hopkins, i strongly believe that a university’s obligation is notto teach students what to think but to teach students how to think. and that requires listeningto the other side, weighing arguments without prejudging them, and determining whether theother side might actually make some fair points.
if the faculty fails to do this, then it is the responsibility of the administration and governingbody to step in and make it a priority. if they do not, if students graduate with ears and mindsclosed, the university has failed both the student and society.
and if you want to know where that leads, look no further than washington, d.c.
down in washington, every major question facing our country – involving our security, oureconomy, our environment, and our health – is decided.
yet the two parties decide these questions not by engaging with one another, but by trying toshout each other down, and by trying to repress and undermine research that runs counterto their ideology. the more our universities emulate that model, the worse off we will be as asociety.
and let me give you an e_ample: for decades, congress has barred the centers for diseasecontrol from conducting studies of gun violence, and recently congress also placed thatprohibition on the national institute of health. you have to ask yourself: what are they afraidof?
this year, the senate has delayed a vote on president obama’s nominee for surgeon general –dr. vivek murthy, a harvard physician – because he had the audacity to say that gunviolence is a public health crisis that should be tackled. the gall of him!
let’s get serious: when 86 americans are killed with guns every single day, and shootingsregularly occur at our schools and universities – including last week’s tragedy at santa barbara– it would be almost medical malpractice to say anything else.
but in politics – as it is on too many college campuses – people don’t listen to facts that runcounter to their ideology. they fear them. and nothing is more frightening to them thanscientific evidence.
earlier this year, the state of south carolina adopted new science standards for its publicschools – but the state legislature blocked any mention of natural selection. that’s liketeaching economics – without mentioning supply and demand.
again, you have to ask: what are they afraid of?
the answer, of course, is obvious: just as members of congress fear data that underminestheir ideological beliefs, these state legislators fear scientific evidence that undermines theirreligious beliefs.
and if you want proof of that, consider this: an 8-year old girl in south carolina wrote tomembers of the state legislature urging them to make the woolly mammoth the official statefossil. the legislators thought it was a great idea, because a woolly mammoth fossil was foundin the state way back in 1725. but the state senate passed a bill defining the woolly mammothas having been ‘created on the 6th day with the beasts of the field.’
you can’t make this stuff up.
here in 21st century america, the wall between church and state remains under attack – andit’s up to all of us to man the barricades.
unfortunately, the same elected officials who put ideology and religion over data and sciencewhen it comes to guns and evolution are often the most unwilling to accept the scientificdata on climate change.
now, don’t get me wrong: scientific skepticism is healthy. but there is a world of differencebetween scientific skepticism that seeks out more evidence and ideological stubbornness thatshuts it out.
given the general attitude of many elected officials toward science it’s no wonder that thefederal government has abdicated its responsibility to invest in scientific research, much ofwhich occurs at our universities.
today, federal spending on research and development as a percentage of gdp is lower than ithas been in more than 50 years which is allowing the rest of the world to catch up – and evensurpass – the u.s. in scientific research.
the federal government is flunking science, just as many state governments are.
we must not become a country that turns our back on science, or on each other. and yougraduates must help lead the way.
on every issue, we must follow the evidence where it leads and listen to people where theyare. if we do that, there is no problem we cannot solve. no gridlock we cannot break. nocompromise we cannot broker.
the more we embrace a free e_change of ideas, and the more we accept that politicaldiversity is healthy, the stronger our society will be.
now, i know this has not been a traditional commencement speech, and it may keep mefrom passing a dissertation defense in the humanities department, but there is no easy timeto say hard things.
graduates: throughout your lives, do not be afraid of saying what you believe is right, nomatter how unpopular it may be, especially when it comes to defending the rights of others.
standing up for the rights of others is in some ways even more important than standing up foryour own rights. because when people seek to repress freedom for some, and you remainsilent, you are complicit in that repression and you may well become its victim.
do not be complicit, and do not follow the crowd. speak up, and fight back.
you will take your lumps, i can assure you of that. you will lose some friends and make someenemies. but the arc of history will be on your side, and our nation will be stronger for it.
now, all of you graduates have earned today’s celebration, and you have a lot to be proud ofand a lot to be grateful for. so tonight, as you leave this great university behind, have one lastscorpion bowl at the kong – on second thought, don’t – and tomorrow, get to work making ourcountry and our world freer than ever, for everyone.
good luck and god bless.
第7篇 哈佛大学校长在北大演讲:如何造就一流大学
哈佛大学校长劳伦斯·萨默斯教授北大演讲
闵校长、许校长,感谢你们热情洋溢的讲话,感谢你们对我所表示的热情友好,也感谢你们对哈佛大
学代表团表示出的热情友好.
我相信,哈佛大学代表团这次北京之行是有史以来我们访问中国最大的代表团.我认为,这表明了中
国在 21 世纪的世界舞台上的重要性.这也表明了我们共同的努力:追求知识,教书育人.能来到中国和
全世界最好的大学之一访问,我感到万分激动.更令我高兴的是我能有机会与这么多的学子谈谈他们将要继
承的这个世界.
如果你们认真思考我们在大学所做的一切,如果你们能认真思考全球化这一现象,我想我们今天的特
殊地位和全球化现象已清楚地表明全世界正在进行一种深刻的转变.这就是:与以前相比,知识对人类活动
的每一方面来说都变得越来越重要.想想我们周围的一些例子.我坚信,两个世纪以后,当今天所发生的一
切被载入史册的时候,柏林墙的倒塌和冷战的结束只能在历史书中被放在第二位.被放在第一位的应该是二
十世纪后五十年中,十几亿或者是近二十亿人迈入了现代化的社会;是十年之内人们的生活水平双倍的增长
,而且又是在十年之内亿万人们的生活水平发生了增长.我相信,在人类历史的第二个千年,这一事件足以
与文艺复兴和工业革命相媲美.
这些增长的中心是什么?这个中心是中国.中国在近两个世纪以来,发生了巨大的变化.这个中心也
是知识,是知识的传播和扩散,因为在欧洲和北美洲根本找不到一个国家能象中国一样在上一个十年之中以
及上上一个十年中有如此快的增长速度.
这反映了现代科技为融合提供了巨大的机会.这也反映了知识的力量.有些事是值得我们思考的:我
们现在生活在这样一个人类历史阶段,科学有能搞明白疾病产生过程的潜力.在我们在座的人能看到的日子
里,科学有潜力在每一个分子的层面上搞明白是什么地方出了毛病,是什么让人类痛苦和死亡,并且能发现
一些可操作的方式,找到治疗这些疾病的办法.在我们活着的这一时代,我们能够比其它任何人类历史上的
时代更有能看到医学进步发展的潜力.
这一切还与什么有关呢?它还与知识的增加有关.我们知道知识是在不断增加,知道学术研究的过程
,也知道知识在寻找其并不明显的用途的过程.我们知道善于发现新奇事物这种天赋的作用;我们也知道各
种机构的作用.
让我对知识进行一个总的评论,这就是,你根本没有办法说出最有用的知识是从何而来的,你无法预
测它来自何处;你也无法设计一些程序来找到最有用的知识的形式是什么.
让我给大家举两个截然不同的例子.也许从某些方面来说,我们在大学教授的最抽象的科目是数学.
也许在数学领域中被运用的最少的是数字理论,即对数字的研究.你们中间任何一个发过 email 的人都会
从在近二十五年中发现的数字理论中获益,因为关于素数(译者注,术语:只能被 1 和该数本身整除的数
)的研究是编码计算程序的基础,这种计算程序是今天每一方面的电子通讯和电子交流的基础.这些,都来
自于我们所拥有的最抽象的一类知识.
我再给大家举一个与此完全不同的例子.这个例子来自于局势很困难的那部分世界,而且,从某种意
义上来说,今天我们举这个例子似乎有些奇怪.这些年来,美国对世界和平所做出的巨大贡献之一就是
1978 年在戴维营就中东冲突在以巴双方达成的协议.很显然,我们并不是今天中东地区和平的唯一途径,
但是那是通向稳定的重要的一步,据参与过这次谈判的人说,我们的总统所具有的一种能力是他能促成以巴
和平的关键.这种能力就是他能从每一个被争议地点的《圣经》名称及其在《圣经》中的作用谈起.对宗教
的研究和对 20__ 年前历史的研究,看来抽象和深奥,然而,这些知识对一个关键的、实际的成就来说是
很重要的.
人们可以不停地从大学的几乎每一知识领域来谈论知识的重要性,但是,我认为有一类知识是我们很
难掌握的,那就是预测哪一类型的研究、哪一类型的纯理论的探索会对未来社会做出最巨大的贡献.但是,
同样地,正因为我们不能预言到哪一类型的知识会对我们的社会做出巨大贡献,我们才能有信心地预言 ,
新知识、新观点、新方法和聪明的想法对我们的未来是很重要的.
很显然,这种对知识创新的追求不只是越来越多地出现在大学里,而且出现在商业机构的运作中,这
些非常实际并为利润驱动的机构在我们这个社会里为自己做着筹划.不久以前有一次,我与美国一个名牌大
学的天体物理学教授聊天,他问我,哪个机构雇用的博士毕业生最多.我认为,有可能是哈佛大学,也有可
能是某个天文台.而他给我的答案是摩根·斯坦利,美国最大的投资银行.这家银行过去一直在搜寻那些极
其有资质,非常有能力做数量研究的人才,因为这些人能在金融市场上发挥很大的作用.
的确,如果我们看看这些一流的商业机构,我们就会发现他们正在不断地寻找非常有创造力、受过最
好的教育、资质超群的人.的确,如果我们看看世界上一流的机构,我们就会发现他们越来越多地开始具有
一流大学的一些特质.
那么,一流大学最典型的特色是什么?首先:思想的价值是通过思想者所拥有的品质来判断的,而不
是通过他们的地位来判断的.哈佛大学的教授希望他们的学生能做一些创新的东西.当学生做研究验证某一
教授提出的假设或理论时,这个教授当然希望这项研究结果出来后会证实他的假设而不是推翻它.教授也是
人.然而,无论研究的结果是什么,这个教授会坚持认为这项研究很重要,值得一做,值得提出,也值得发
表.我们哈佛大学有些教授对进化论的本质、环境问题和经济问题有他们独特的见解;但是每一个教授都坚
持认为大学的职责就是雇佣一流的、最有发展前途的学者加入他们的院系,无论这些学者是否赞同他们的研
究成果.
这种强调以质量来判断思想的做法正在走向全世界.商业领域的人们谈到统治集团的消亡、谈到团队
精神的重要性在增加、谈到强调创造力的重要性.我敢说,这种通过质量而不是来源来判断思想的方法对近
二十几年发生在中国的革命至关重要,它也对中国社会所取得的巨大进步至关重要.
大学所承担的第二个重要的任务是对视角多样化的承诺,不管这个人来自于什么背景,只要他能为我们
的卓越做出贡献,我们就愿意招徕他.这一点也正在被更广泛的世界努力赶上.这也一直是我们哈佛大学不
断追求探索的东西.一个世纪以前,哈佛大学是一个出身富裕家庭的绅士培育来自新英格兰富裕家庭的年轻
绅士的地方.它不向上过公立学校的学生开放;也不向黑人学生开放,也不向女生开放;也不向出生在美国
大部分地方的学生开放.就在半个世纪以前,有些哈佛教员由于他们的宗教信仰不同而被迫离开学校.哈佛
大学对某些团体也有限制,因为如果不限制这些团体,它们就会变得太多,会使人们觉得不舒服.
现在,哈佛是一所非常开放的大学,无论是男生或是女生、无论你的信仰是什么、无论你来自哪个种
族、无论你来自美国的哪个州,也无论你来自世界上的哪个国家,任何人都可以进入哈佛大学.但是,如果
我们想更加包容和开放,如果我们想从多样化视角所带来的好处中受益,或者更进一步地说,如果我们想把
最优秀的学生和老师吸引到哈佛大学来,我们仍然还有很远的路要走.我们必须把我们抛向杰出人材的网张
的越大越好.
正如大学的演变一样,最优秀和最尖端的商业机构、领导的最好的一些国家的政府,都不再根据人际
关系来挑选少数的精英,而是转向发现最有才能的人、最能给他们做出贡献的人.在这方面,我们也有很长
的路要走.但是,我们正在进步,我们的进步在很大一部分上是基于大学的模式.
第三个区别是大学里最真实、最特殊的一点,但是这一点在各种各样的机构中也越来越重要.在这一
点上,也许大学和中国有一些相似之处,这也就是:强调从长远的眼光来看问题.当我们考虑一项学术研究
时,我们追求的不只是判断它明天的影响、下一周、下一个月或下一年的影响,我们追求的是从长远来看,
为最终能产生最大影响的知识做贡献.
越来越多的一流的商业机构、社会中一流的团体,不仅在尽量快速地前进来利用各种各样的机会,而
且还重视长期效益,他们都在投资一些不只在明天,而是在将来会产生影响的思想.
让我给大家举一个例子来说明三十年前在美国根本不可能发生的事情.美国的生物工程如果从其市场
价值来看,现在值几千亿美元.在美国的历史上,从来没有哪一年创造过这么高的利润.这一切是怎么发生
的?这是因为人们看到了它将会带来的潜能,他们有长远的眼光.他们进行了投资,正如大学所在做的一样
.当大学引进一流的学者,让他们充分发挥其想象力时,尽量不去指挥他们,依靠这种想法,从长远来看,
正是这些一流学者的知识才会有价值.
这是大学最根本的信仰,这是在美国已经成功的信仰,而且,我认为,它会给任何想追随这一信仰的
人带来成功.美国所授予的主要专利中大约有 75 %,从很重要的方面来讲,是从以大学为基础的研究中
获得灵感的.
来自世界各地在美国大学学习的学生的愿望就是让不为谋求利润、自然也不用“竟争”一词的
大学,同美国所拥有的任何一种出口业务比起来一样成功.
那么,是什么促使美国大学成功?我们现在关于创办一流大学的最佳见解是什么?我想就这个问题的
几个方面进行探讨,我还想就大学未来发展所面临的一些挑战进行探讨.
首先,大学应该不受政治和外界控制的干扰.在哈佛大学,无论是马萨诸塞州的州长还是美国总统都
根本没有权力决定谁应该被任命为经济学教授、工程学教授或医学教授,他们根本没有权力为他们的朋友或
自己的目的在哈佛大学指手划脚.
让我告诉大家一些其它的重要的东西,我认为这也是为什么大学能够成功的很重要的一部分.我们有
一些人在赚钱这方面非常成功.他们在经济方面为哈佛大学做出过巨大的贡献.有时,我们用他们的名字来
命名学校的建筑物;有时我们用他们的名字来命名一些项目;有时我们还用他们的名字来命名一些教授职位
.今天早上当介绍我的一些同事时,你们可能已经注意到他们中很多人的教授职位前都有挂名:有人被称作
克芬斯汀数学教授,有人被称为斯蒂姆森法学教授,还有其他一些教授职位也被提到过.但是有一点我是可
以明确告诉大家的:你可以到哈佛大学,提出承诺要为一个数学教授、政治学教授或法学教授提供资助;但
是你无权告诉哈佛大学谁应该被任命为这一教授,或这个教授必须信奉什么.如果你这么做,我们就会说,
而且我们也曾经说过:“把你的钱拿到其他学校去.把你的钱拿到别的地方去.”我之所以强调这一点是因
为,我认为,要理解创造智力卓越的源泉,这是创办一流大学最基础的东西.
对创办一流大学至关重要的第二点是:这些大学在极力地争夺最优秀的人材.早些时候,在中国的一
次聚会上,有人问我,对于想创建世界一流大学的人,我能给点什么建议.我说,从长远来看,要想创建一
流大学,只有一件事是非常重要的,那就是要拥有最具创造力、最积极思考、最聪明的师资.我说,如果一
个大学能够成功地找到一流的年轻学者,吸引他们留在大学工作,他们就会发现一些一流的学者和一流的学
生就会朝这些一流学者涌去;很多研究基金也会涌向这些一流学者.最终,成为一流大学的承诺是一定会实
现的.
创造一流意味着不能有完全同等对待每个人的观念;创造一流意味着要有这样一种观念,那就是:拥
有最新思想的人一定是那些拥有最具威胁思想的人,而且学校还得学会化解这种威胁.创造一流意味着要接
受最优秀的人,因为最优秀的人并不总是最容易相处的人.的确,事实是能使人们最具创造力、使他们最富
挑战性、并使他们的思想令人振奋的特点同时也是这些人难以以最顺畅的方式适应社会的特点,而一流的大
学能理解这一点,他们尽力去寻找这些最优秀的人.
对保持一流大学很重要的第三点是:这些大学必须不断寻找方式来衡量自己,不断寻找方式来给自己
追求卓越的压力.在商界,在追求经济效益的领域中,毕竟,大多数的机构都是如此,他们有一种现成的方
式来衡量他们是否是一流的.这就是账本底线.这就是利润.而大学却没有这样的衡量标准.因此,大学需
要寻找其他的方式来确保自己总是朝一流大学的方向去努力.
那么,这些方式是什么呢?其中之一就是鼓励学者们去寻找外面的研究基金.在哈佛大学,我们的科
学家所进行的很大一部分的研究并没有得到学校的资助.部分理由是因为我们的经费紧缺.我们想确保这些
有限的经费能被用来支持那些如果大学不提供资金,其他人也不会资助的领域,这样,我们就能把我们的资
金用在刀刃上.另一个很重要的原因是:有些能够提供研究基金的机构也在做他们自己的调查、做他们自己
的监管,他们对什么是最出色的研究项目会做出自己的评判.当他们进行这些评判时,资金就会流向那些能
不断出成果的人,而不会再流向那些成果很少的人那里去.
在大学,我们还做其他一些很重要的事,而且,我们还会在以后会更加积极地去做这些事.这就是:
对于学校的每一部门,我们都会邀请世界上顶尖级的专家来评审我们的项目,告诉我们这项管理进展的如何
、它的作用发挥的怎样.我们用这些评审来作为我们确定未来方向的基础.我们不允许那些正在负责某一项
目的人来选择谁来评审这一项目.相反,我们会从外面寻找那些最挑剔的人来做评审.
这一原则不只适用于各种项目,而且也适用于个人.在一个人被任命为哈佛大学的教授之前,他需要
得到的不只是其所在领域将会成为其同事的人的认可,我们还会发信给他所在领域的各方面的顶尖级专家.
这些专家要把这个人与同一领域的其他人进行比较,在任命任何人为哈佛大学教授之前,我们都会对这些评
审进行仔细考虑.比较和竞争是给自己压力去不断追求一流的重要方式.
大学的第四个方面是非常微妙和复杂的.那就是:大学以集体价值观的名义把自己置于很强的领导之
下,这一点很具有讽刺意味.我曾强调过美国的总统也无权任命任何一个人作哈佛大学的教授.但是,同时
,美国一流大学的目标就是要产生很强的领导人物.试想如果哈佛大学的一个学院有一个新院长的空缺.这
个新院长产生的程序是什么?在世界很多地方,在全世界很多大学里,新院长往往都是由这个学院的教员投
票选出来的,或新院长是基于某一学院大多数教授的同意而被选出来的.这种方式是很有效的.当一群教授
做得很成功时,他们会从自己中间选出一个能使他们的成功最有效地延续的人.但是,这样做也会常常产生
平庸的人,出现不少弊病,因为,当一个机构运作的不是很好的时候,如果要选出一个新的领导,人们选出
的常常是一个不具威胁性的新领导,而不是一个能承诺创造出卓越的新领导.这也就是为什么,在哈佛大学
,我们给予大学校长这个权力来任命各个学院的新院长.这也就是为什么,在一流大学里,大学董事会来选
择大学校长,而不是通过大多数学生和教工的同意来选择校长.
如果说我在哈佛大学作为世界一流大学之际,非常荣幸地当上了哈佛大学校长,我确信其中很重要的
一个原因是:我只是自 1860 年美国内战结束后第七个成为哈佛大学校长的人.确实,让有很强的领导才
能的人长期担任职务的这一传统,使得大学能在不断变化的时代持续更新自己.
我认为以上列举的每一方面:很强的领导层、竞争、外来的审察、对人才的无情竞争、与政治的分离
,都非常重要,因为其中的每一条都不容易做到,每一条都很难.但是,在知识变得越来越重要的这一时代
,这些方面不只在大学,而且在全社会,都变得很常见.
摆在我的大学、美国的大学、还有,依我之见,全世界其他大学面前的主要挑战是什么?我将重点谈
论五个大的挑战,五个我认为是非常重要的大问题.我想,对这些问题,我们有一些答案,但是,可以肯定
,我们并不是对每一个问题都有答案.
首先,努力设法解决全球化的问题,把我们最优秀的东西传播出去.从很多方面来讲,世界与从前相
比已经变得越来越小了.正如我在演讲刚开始的时候提到的,十年前中国发展的状况,那时人们没有办法从
中国往美国打电话,这表明我们现在比二十年前交流的机会多多了.一年前,如果你让美国人说出世界哪一
个地方非常遥远、非常落后,而且对美国无足轻重,他们很有可能会选阿富汗,这是袭击纽约的本·拉登恐
怖分子的大本营.我们需要调整大学的的教育来促进学生不光是对他们所居住的社区的了解,而且要促使他
们了解全世界.我们应该保持一种社会感,这会极大地促进大学的成功.
想达到这种平衡并不容易.哈佛大学与中国的紧密合作很重要,但是,如果这些合作只在中国进行,
那它就很难使远在马萨诸塞州剑桥区的哈佛学生受益.因此,促进我们对全球化的参与、对全球化的理解、
同时又保持我们的社会感,这些都是首要的、关键的挑战.
第二个关键的挑战是保持大学的社区感,大学的自治感,因为知识已经变得越来越有用和实际,而且
被更广大的社会需要.我,作为一个经济学教授,一直被认为是做抽象研究的的人,也都有机会担任我们国
家的财政部长.当我以部长这一身份访问世界时,我也遇到了许多其他曾经是教授的人在他们各自的国家担
任着类似的职务.一个接一个的领域,出于实际的原因,人们对一流思想的需求为大学创造了巨大的、充分
发挥其贡献的机会,但是,同时,也产生了巨大的挑战.
第三点,我们现在面临的挑战是保持我们对那些从目前来看不是很有实用价值的知识领域的承诺.我
认为,正如我在这个演讲的刚开头提到的,人们无法预测未来什么知识领域会很有价值,对此我深信不疑.
适当的起作用的思考会使我们探索的范围更大、更广.
但是,当我们急急忙忙地处理一些被每一代人再度提出的问题时,我们又遇到一个挑战,那就是:我
们不应该忘记一些永恒的问题,如人性的本质、人类的冲突、人类家庭以及许多传统文学名著中所描述到的
一些进退两难的困境.在我们下决心要变得精明和目的明确时,我们不应该牺牲培养学生博学睿智的机会.
这是大学非常重要的义务,因为,如果大学在管理方面的训练做得少一点,社会上其他的机构会在这方面做
得更多一点.如果大学不全面考虑未来商业的行为准则,其他机构会考虑这一点.但是如果大学不研究古代
的手稿,如果大学不寻求对历史的理解,那么这些东西很可能就会失传.这将会是人类的悲剧性的损失,也
是我们造成的悲剧性的牺牲.
第四,大学必须适应不断变化的知识结构.我们必须以某种方式调整我们的大学设置.这就是为什么
我们会有法学院;这就是为什么我们有教育学院;这就是为什么我们有物理和化学系;这也就是为什么我们
有社会学和经济学系.但是,尽管存在着一个人类传统的知识结构,然而,没有任何知识是一模一样的
——没有知识,是永恒不变的.当学者变得越来越专业化,这一点就变得越来越有道理.以前,据说有一些
人可以掌握所有的知识;后来,据说有一些人可以掌握某一学科,如物理和经济学,中所有的知识;今天,
要掌握一个学科中的一个分支学科,如宏观经济学的知识,都已经变得越来越难了.但是,同时,很多非常
重要的发现都是跨越传统学科界限的,无论是在化学和生物之间,还是在考虑应用于音乐研究和文学研究的
共同主题,或是在把教学的广泛应用扩大到人类探寻的越来越多的领域.我们必须准备去利用这些重要的边
缘学科领域的研究.
最后,大学需要适应这一不断变幻的世界所带来的变化的机会.在未来,教育将会变成一个终生的需
求.我们已经看到被人们称之为“燃料箱”的这一教育模式的结束,在这种教育模式下,人们年轻时用知识
来给自己填充燃料,接下来在其一生的工作中逐渐消耗所学的知识,直到退休.现在,通过英特网向数千英
里以外的人传送知识的机会大大地增加了.因此,教学本身、教学对象和教学方法都要改变.在一个重要科
学领域,如粒子物理,的主要研究论文现在有三百个合著者.诸如人类基因组测序之类的研究项目耗资数十
亿美元.这种工作规模的变化、合作本质的变化都会改变或迫使我们改变大学的这种我行我素的传统.但是
,同时,正是我们对最有创造力的个人的尊重才会常常产生重大的成就.使大学适应这些新的机会,但是又
保存它最有特色的地方,这也是我们这个时代所面临的另一挑战.
今天,我在此尝试着谈论了一些我认为对大学来说至关重要的几个方面和大学面临的一些挑战.我希
望我表达的观点是正确.但是,我更希望我提出了正确的问题,因为我坚持认为,如果,在一个时代,一个
社会的富裕和成功是建立在如何更好地生产粮食上;而在另一个时代,一个社会的富裕和成功是建立在如何
更好地生产和运用钢铁;那么,在我们正在前进的当今世界上,一个社会的富裕和成功是建立在如何产生和
运用知识.在这点上,没有什么机构能与大学相比.
(20__年)
第8篇 哈佛大学毕业典礼中国学生演讲稿
何江哈佛演讲中英文完整版:《蜘蛛咬伤轶事》
when i was in middle school, a poisonous spider bit my right hand。 i ran to my mom for help—but instead of taking me to a doctor, my mom set my hand on fire。
在我读初中的时候,有一次,一只毒蜘蛛咬伤了我的右手。我问我妈妈该怎么处理---我妈妈并没有带我去看医生,她而是决定用火疗的方法治疗我的伤口。
after wrapping my hand with several layers of cotton, then soaking it in wine, she put a chopstick into my mouth, and ignited the cotton。 heat quickly penetrated the cotton and began to roast my hand。 the searing pain made me want to scream, but the chopstick prevented it。 all i could do was watch my hand burn - one minute, then two minutes –until mom put out the fire。
她在我的手上包了好几层棉花,棉花上喷撒了白酒,在我的嘴里放了一双筷子,然后打火点燃了棉花。热量逐渐渗透过棉花,开始炙烤我的右手。灼烧的疼痛让我忍不住想喊叫,可嘴里的筷子却让我发不出声来。我只能看着我的手被火烧着,一分钟,两分钟,直到妈妈熄灭了火苗。
you see, the part of china i grew up in was a rural village, and at that time pre-industrial。 when i was born, my village had no cars, no telephones, no electricity, not even running water。 and we certainly didn’t have access to modern medical resources。 there was no doctor my mother could bring me to see about my spider bite。
你看,我在中国的农村长大,在那个时候,我的村庄还是一个类似前工业时代的传统村落。在我出生的时候,我的村子里面没有汽车,没有电话,没有电,甚至也没有自来水。我们自然不能轻易的获得先进的现代医疗资源。那个时候也没有一个合适的医生可以来帮我处理蜘蛛咬伤的伤口。
for those who study biology, you may have grasped the science behind my mom’s cure: heat deactivates proteins, and a spider’s venom is simply a form of protein。 it’s cool how that folk remedy actually incorporates basic biochemistry, isn’t it?
在座的如果有生物背景的人,你们或许已经理解到了我妈妈使用的这个简单的治疗手段的基本原理:高热可以让蛋白质变性,而蜘蛛的毒液也是一种蛋白质。这样一种传统的土方法实际上有它一定的理论依据,想来也是挺有意思的。
but i am a phd student in biochemistry at harvard, i now know that better, less painful and less risky treatments e_isted。 so i can’t help but ask myself, why i didn’t receive one at the time?
但是,作为哈佛大学生物化学的博士,我现在知道在我初中那个时候,已经有更好的,没有那么痛苦的,也没有那么有风险的治疗方法了。于是我便忍不住会问自己,为什么我在当时没有能够享用到这些更为先进的治疗方法呢?
fifteen years have passed since that incident。 i am happy to report that my hand is fine。 but this question lingers, and i continue to be troubled by the unequal distribution of scientific knowledge throughout the world。 we have learned to edit the human genome and unlock many secrets of how cancer progresses。 we can manipulate neuronal activity literally with the switch of a light。 each year brings more advances in biomedical research-e_citing, transformative accomplishments。
蜘蛛咬伤的事故已经过去大概十五年了。我非常高兴的向在座的各位报告一下,我的手还是完好的。但是,我刚刚提到的这个问题这些年来一直停在我的脑海中,而我也时不时会因为先进科技知识在世界上不同地区的不平等分布而困扰。现如今,我们人类已经学会怎么进行人类基因编辑了,也研究清楚了很多个癌症发生发展的原因。我们甚至可以利用一束光来控制我们大脑内神经元的活动。每年生物医学的研究都会给我们带来不一样突破和进步---其中有不少令人振奋,也极具革命颠覆性的成果。
yet, despite the knowledge we have amassed, we haven’t been so successful in deploying it to where it’s needed most。 according to the world bank, twelve percent of the world’s population lives on less than $2 a day。 malnutrition kills more than 3 million children annually。 three hundred million people are afflicted by malaria globally。 all over the world, we constantly see these problems of poverty, illness, and lack of resources impeding the flow of scientific information。 lifesaving knowledge we take for granted in the modern world is often unavailable in these underdeveloped regions。 and in far too many places, people are still essentially trying to cure a spider bite with fire。
然而,尽管我们人类已经在科研上有了无数的建树,在怎样把这些最前沿的科学研究带到世界最需要该技术的地区这件事情上,我们有时做的差强人意。世界银行的数据显示,世界上大约有12%的人口每天的生活水平仍然低于2美元。营养不良每年导致三百万儿童死亡。将近3亿人口仍然受到疟疾的干扰。在世界各地,我们经常看到类似的由贫穷,疾病和自然匮乏导致的科学知识传播的受阻。现代社会里习以为常的那些救生常识经常在这些欠发达或不发达地区未能普及。于是,在世界上仍有很多地区,人们只能依赖于用火疗这一简单粗暴的方式来治理蜘蛛咬伤事故。
while studying at harvard, i saw how scientific knowledge can help others in simple, yet profound ways。 the bird flu pandemic in the 2022s looked to my village like a spell cast by demons。 our folk medicine didn’t even have half-measures to offer。 what’s more, farmers didn’t know the difference between common cold and flu; they didn’t understand that the flu was much more lethal than the common cold。 most people were also unaware that the virus could transmit across different species。
在哈佛读书期间,我有切身体会到先进的科技知识能够既简单又深远的帮助到社会上很多的人。本世纪初的时候,禽流感在亚洲多个国家肆虐。那个时候,村庄里的农民听到禽流感就像听到恶魔施咒一样,对其特别的恐惧。乡村的土医疗方法对这样一个疾病也是束手无策。农民对于普通感冒和流感的区别并不是很清楚,他们并不懂得流感比普通感冒可能更加致命。而且,大部分人对于科学家所发现的流感病毒能够跨不同物种传播这一事实并不清楚。
so when i realized that simple hygiene practices like separating different animal species could contain the spread of the disease, and that i could help make this knowledge available to my village, that was my first “aha” moment as a budding scientist。 but it was more than that: it was also a vital inflection point in my own ethical development, my own self-understanding as a member of the global community。
于是,在我意识到这些知识背景,及简单的将受感染的不同物种隔离开来以减缓疾病传播,并决定将这些知识传递到我的村庄时,我的心里第一次有了一种作为未来科学家的使命感。但这种使命感不只停在知识层面,它也是我个人道德发展的重要转折点,我自我理解的作为国际社会一员的责任感。
harvard dares us to dream big, to aspire to change the world。 here on this commencement day, we are probably thinking of grand destinations and big adventures that await us。 as for me, i am also thinking of the farmers in my village。 my e_perience here reminds me how important it is for researchers to communicate our knowledge to those who need it。 because by using the science we already have, we could probably bring my village and thousands like it into the world you and i take for granted every day。 and that’s an impact every one of us can make!
哈佛的教育教会我们学生敢于拥有自己的梦想,勇于立志改变世界。在毕业典礼这样一个特别的日子,我们在座的毕业生都会畅想我们未来的伟大征程和冒险。对我而言,我在此刻不可避免的还会想到我的家乡。我成长的经历教会了我作为一个科学家,积极的将我们所会的知识传递给那些急需这些知识的人是多么的重要。因为利用那些我们已经拥有的科技知识,我们能够轻而易举的帮助我的家乡,还有千千万万类似的村庄,让他们生活的世界变成一个我们现代社会看起来习以为常的场所,而这样一件事,是我们每一个毕业生都能够做的,也力所能及能够做到的。
but the question is, will we make the effort or not?
但问题是,我们愿意来做这样的努力吗?
more than ever before, our society emphasizes science and innovation。 but an equally important emphasis should be on distributing the knowledge we have to where it’s needed。 changing the world doesn’t mean that everyone has to find the ne_t big thing。 it can be as simple as becoming better communicators, and finding more creative ways to pass on the knowledge we have to people like my mom and the farmers in their local community。 our society also needs to recognize that the equal distribution of knowledge is a pivotal step of human development, and work to bring this into reality。
比以往任何时候都多,我们的社会强调科学和创新。但我们社会同样需要注意的一个重心是分配知识到那些真正需要的地方。改变世界并不意味着每个人都要做一个大突破。改变世界可以非常简单。它可以简单得变成作为世界不同地区的沟通者,并找出更多创造性的方法将知识传递给像我母亲或农民这样的群体。同时,改变世界也意味着我们的社会,作为一个整体,能够更清醒的认识到科技知识的更加均衡的分布,是人类社会发展的一个关键环节,而我们也能够一起奋斗将此目标变成现实。
and if we do that, then perhaps a teenager in rural china who is bitten by a spider will not have to burn his hand, but will know to seek a doctor instead。
如果我们能够做到这些,或许,将来有一天,一个在农村被毒蜘蛛咬伤的少年或许不用火疗这样粗暴的方法来治疗伤口,而是去看医生得到更为先进的医疗护理。
第9篇 《哈利波特》作者:罗琳 在哈佛大学的演讲
立波特作家罗琳在哈佛大学的演讲:失败的额外收益与想象力的重要性
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堂吉诃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。
他们曾希望我去拿一个职业文凭,而我想读英国文学。最后,我们达成了一个回想起来双方都不甚满意的妥协:我改学现代语言。可是等到父母一走开,我立刻报名学习古典文学了。
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。
第10篇 布隆伯格在哈佛大学毕业典礼上的演讲
感谢凯蒂,感谢福斯特校长、哈佛大学理事会成员、监事会成员,还有迎接我回校的所有教职员工、校友及同学们。
站在这里,我非常激动,不仅是因为我能在哈佛大学第363届毕业典礼上面对各位优秀的毕业生及校友讲话,更是因为能站在去年奥普拉曾站过的地方。天啊。
下面让我从最重要的环节开始:让我们把最热烈的掌声送给2022届毕业生们,这是他们应得的。
不管怎样,今年的校园很令人振奋:哈佛橄榄球队连续第七次击败耶鲁,男子篮球队连续两年打入全国大学体育协会冠军赛的第二轮,还有男子壁球队则获得了全国冠军。
谁会想到:哈佛,竟然有如此强大的运动天团!(开个玩笑)不久后,可能就会有人问,你们的学术水平是否能和体育水平相媲美?
我个人与哈佛的关系缘起于1964年,当时我从巴尔地摩的约翰霍普金斯大学毕业并到这里的商学院就读。
你们或许在想,或者和身旁的人窃窃私语:这个人到底是怎么混入哈佛商学院的?而且他的学术成绩总能排在全班前列?我不知道,比我自己更惊讶的可能只有我的教授了。
总之,今天我又回到了剑桥[注:剑桥为哈佛大学所在地]。我注意到,这里跟我学生时代有了一些变化。广场附近我曾经很喜欢的三文治售卖点elsie’s,现在成了卷饼店。曾经提供美味啤酒和香肠的乌斯特豪斯,现在成了工艺美食酒吧,不知道这是啥。还有原来的霍利约克中心现在改名为史密斯校园中心。
你们难道不讨厌所有东西都用校友名字命名吗?今早经过河边的哈佛商学院彭博中心时,我就在想这个问题。
说点高兴的,哈佛仍然秉承着50年前我刚入校时的优良传统,依旧是美国最负盛名的大学。和其他顶尖学府一样,她处在美国民主实验的核心位置。这些顶尖大学的目的不仅是增长知识,还包括推进我们国家的理想。顶尖大学是让各种背景、各种信仰、探寻各种问题的人,能到此自由开放地学习和探讨想法的地方。
今天我想跟大家聊聊,这种自由的存在对于每个人来说是多么的重要,无论我们多么不认同别人的观点。
包容他人观点,以及表达自身言论的自由,是顶尖大学不可分割的价值。两者结合在一起,构成了支撑民主社会根基的神圣信赖。
不过我要告诉大家,这种信赖在君主、暴民、多数派的专制倾向下是很脆弱的。最近,大家频繁地看到这些倾向真实发生的事例,不管是在大学校园里还是社会上。这是个坏消息,而且很不幸的是,我认为哈佛以及我自己所在的城市纽约,也都目睹过这种倾向。
首先,来谈谈纽约。你们可能记得,几年前有些人试图阻止在世贸中心旧址几个街区远的地方建一座清真寺的计划。
这是个情感的议题,民意调查显示超过2/3的美国人反对在该地修建清真寺。即便是反诽谤联盟——这个被公认为全国宗教自由最狂热的捍卫者,也公然反对该项计划。反对者发动集会和请愿活动。他们谴责开发商,要求市政府终止这项工程。那是他们的权利,我们保障他们抗议的权利。但他们的观点绝对是错误的,我们拒绝向他们的要求妥协。求政府单独选出一个特定的宗教、阻止并且只阻止其信徒在特定区域建立其宗教活动场所的想法,这完全悖离伟大民族的道德原则,是宪法保护所不允许的。
我们这50州联邦的建立取决两大价值的结合:自由和包容。正是这两大价值的结合,震慑了2022年9月11日和2022年4月15日袭击我们的恐怖者。
在他们看来,我们是一个无神的国度。
但事实上,没有任何一个国家,比美国更能保护人类各种信仰和哲学认识的核心——自由意志。不过,这种保护需要依赖于我们时刻的警觉。
我们会这么认为:政教分离的原则已经确立。实际上并没有,而且永远不会。我们需要坚决地拥护它,以确保法律条文下规定的人人平等,对每个人都是平等的。
如果你希望你的信仰、言论和选择配偶的自由,如你所愿,你就必须包容我这样做或不这样做的自由。
我做的事可能会冒犯你,你可能觉得我的行为不道德或不正义。但你不能用你不会约束自身的方式来试图约束我,否则只会导致不公平。
我们在要求权利和特权的同时,不能否认其他人也同样拥有。这在城市中如此,对于大学亦然。我认为现今大学里对此原则的压制,似乎是自1950年代以来最为严重的。
在我成长的过程中,美国参议员乔·麦卡锡的红色的恐怖让数以千计的人失去了生命,他害怕的是什么呢?是一种思想,也就是共产主义,一种被他及其同僚们视为危险的思想。
不过还好他搞对了一件事——思想可以是危险的。思想能改变社会,思想能颠覆传统,思想能掀起革命。这就是为什么历史上,那些权贵企图抑制思想,避免这些思想威胁到他们的权力、宗教信仰、意识形态及连任机会。对苏格拉底与伽利略如此,对纳尔逊·曼德拉与瓦茨拉夫·哈维尔如此,对艾未未、造反猫咪乐队以及在伊朗制作《快乐》视频的孩子们也是如此。抑制言论自由是人类本性上的弱点,每次出现时我们都需要同它进行斗争。对思想的不包容,无论是自由派的还是保守派的思想,都是与个人权利和自由社会背道而驰的,同样与顶尖大学和一流学术相背离。
大学校园处处充斥着一种观念,我想哈佛也不例外,即学者只有在研究符合特定正义观念的前提下才应获得资助。这种观念就是现代版的“麦卡锡主义”。想想这有多么的讽刺,1950年代,右翼份子企图打压左翼思想。而如今,在许多大学校园,则是自由派正企图打压保守派思想,保守派教员正面临着成为濒危物种的风险。这种现象在常春藤盟校尤为突出,
2022年总统大选时,根据联邦选举委员会的数据,96%常春藤盟校教职员工的政治献金都捐给了巴拉克·欧巴马,
96%啊。与常春藤盟校的捐献者相比,前苏联政治局中的意见分歧高多了。这一统计数字发人深思,虽然我也支持总统的再次当选,但我认为任何派别都不能独占真理或让上帝总站在他一边。
96%常春藤盟校捐献者偏向于某一特定政治立场的候选人,你不得不怀疑,这些大学中的学生是否接触到了顶尖大学应当给予的多元化观点。性别、种族及定位的多元化很重要,但一所大学还应当有政治的多元化,否则称不上顶尖。实际上,为教授提供终身教职就是为了保证他们能够自由地进行研究,而不怕研究主题和学校政治及社会规范不一致。
终身教职创立初期,主要是为了保护与保守派准则相冲突的自由派思想。而现在,终身教职如果要继续存在,就必须保护与自由派准则相冲突的保守派思想,否则,大学研究和进行研究的教授将失去信誉。顶尖的大学绝不能偏向于特定(政治立场)的党派,而自由的人文教育不应当成为自由主义的人文教育。大学的角色不应当是推动某种意识形态,而应当是为学者与学生提供问题研究和辩论的中立论坛,不让天平朝任何一个方向倾斜,不抑制不得人心的的观点。
规定学者以及毕业典礼演讲者,遵循某些特定的政治标准,会破坏整个大学的宗旨。今年春季,令人不安地看到,一些大学毕业典礼演讲者被取销了,甚至连邀请函都被撤回了,仅仅因为学生以及资深教员和管理人员的反对,令我相当震惊。学生姑且不论,其他人显然应当明白事理一些。
这在布兰迪斯、哈沃福特、 罗格斯与史密斯等学校都曾发生过。我很遗憾地说,去年还发生在斯沃斯摩尔与约翰斯霍普金斯。
在这些例子中,自由派通过拒绝授予政治上与其相左的人荣誉学位,以此封杀不喜欢的声音。这是一种暴行,我们不应当让它继续发生。
如果一所大学,在邀请一位毕业典礼演讲嘉宾时,还要对其政治立场是否符合,进行一再地审查,自由的死敌就赢了。 可悲的是,并不只有毕业季的演讲嘉宾会被审查。
去年秋天,我还在市政府的时候,我们的警察局长应邀到另一所长春藤盟校进行演讲,但他未能如愿,因为学生把他轰下台。
难道大学的宗旨不是鼓励讨论,而是封杀不同的声音吗?学生到底害怕听到什么?为什么当局不介入,制止这群暴民破坏演讲?难道没人考虑过,剥夺其他学生听演讲的机会,在道德上和学理上都是大错特错的?
我相信,今天的毕业生都读过约翰·穆勒的《论自由》。请允许我朗读其中的一小段:“限制别人不能表达意见的罪恶,是对人类的掠夺,是对子孙后代及当代人类的掠夺,是对那些持不同意见的人掠夺更多。”
他继续写道:“假如那意见是对的,那么他们是被剥夺了以错误换真理的机会;假如那意见是错的,那么他们失去了一个几乎同样巨大的好处,那就是从真理与错误碰撞中产生出来的对真理的更加清晰的认知和更加强烈的影响。”
穆勒如果得知大学生压制别人发表意见肯定会毛骨悚然,他如果得知连教职员工都通常是毕业演讲者审查活动的一部分,肯定会更毛骨悚然。
如果享有终身职位的教授,压制那些持有他不赞同观点的人发声,那是高度的伪善,尤其是当那些抗议发生在自称自由宽容堡垒的新英格兰。我很高兴的是,哈佛没有屈服于这些毕业典礼审查的挑战中,否则的话,科罗拉多州参议员迈克尔·约翰斯顿昨天就没有机会在教育学院发表演讲了。
有些学生要求校方撤回对约翰斯顿的邀请,因为他们反对他的一些教育政策。所幸他们未能得逞,福斯特校长和院长立场都非常坚定。
正如莱恩院长写给这些学生的信所说:“我遇到过很多真诚的人,他们和我都有相同的目标,不过在如何改善教育的问题上,我们的观点存在分歧。在我看来,这些分歧应当经过探究、辩论,挑战和质疑。同时这些分歧也应获得尊重,确实应该被称颂。”他是完全正确的,他为2022届毕业生上了宝贵的最后一课。
作为约翰霍普金斯大学前任主席,我坚信一所大学的职责并非是教学生思考什么,而是教学生如何思考,这就需要倾听不同声音,不带偏见地衡量各种观点,冷静思考不同意见中是否也有公正的论点,
如果教员做不到这一点,行政官员和主管部门就有责任介入,并优先解决这一问题,否则的话,学生就带着封闭的耳朵与思维毕业,大学也就辜负了学生和社会的期望。如果想知道这会导致什么后果,看今日的华府就知道。我国面临的各类重大问题都在华府被裁定——包括我们的安全、经济、环境及健康,然而两党在处理所有问题时都没有考虑协作,而是看谁声音更大,以此压制对方,试图抑制和破坏与其意识形态相抵触的调研报告。我们的大学对这种模式仿效得越多,我们的社会就会变得越糟糕。
我来举一些例子,数十年来,国会都禁止疾病控制中心进行枪暴力的研究,最近国会又对国立卫生研究院颁发禁令。你得问问自己,他们到底在害怕什么?今年,参议院延迟对总统提名的卫生局局长——哈佛内科医师席菲克·莫西博士进行表决。原因是,他大胆地说,枪暴力是一大应当处理的公共卫生危机。他胆子太大了。
来点严肃的:每天都有86位美国人死于枪杀,枪击事件也经常发生在校园中,包括上周发生在加州大学圣巴巴拉分校的悲剧,除了说这是医疗失当,不知道该说什么了。
在政治上,就如在很多的大学校园中一样,人们不愿意听到与自己意识形态相抵触的事实,他们害怕这类事实。而且没有什么比科学证据更让他们恐惧的了。
年初的时候,南卡罗来纳州对其公立大学采用了新的科学教育标准,州议会尽然禁止在教学中提及自然选择,这就像教经济学却不讲供需。
你得重复那个问题,他们在害怕什么? 答案显而易见,和国会议员害怕数据会破坏他们意识形态一样,这些州议会议员害怕科学证据破坏他们的宗教信念。
若你想要证据,可以考虑这条:南卡罗来纳州一位8岁的女孩给州议员们写了一封信,请他们将猛犸象定位官方州化石,州议员认为这个主意很好,因为猛犸象化石早在1725年就在该州发现。然后参议院通过的法案中却将猛犸象定义为“第六天与其他陆生动物一同被(上帝)创造出来的”。这事你不能胡编乱造。
在21世纪的美国,教会和国家之间的壁垒仍在遭受攻击,这就需要靠我们来将两者分开。
很不幸的是,在遇到枪与进化论时将意识形态与宗教观念置于数据与科学证据之上的当选官员,大多都是不愿意接受气候变化科学证据的那些人。别误解我的意思,科学怀疑主义是合理的,但是寻求更多证据的科学怀疑主义和意识形态上拒绝科学证据的顽固不化,有着巨大的差别。
当选官员对科学都是这种态度,联邦政府没能尽到自己的职责,在大学投资科学研究也就不足为奇了。
如今,联邦政府用于研发的支出,在国民生产总值中的百分比是五十余年来最低的,这让世界其他国家有机会赶上,甚至超过美国的科学研究。
联邦政府在科学上是不及格的,跟很多州政府一样。
我们国家不应该背离科学,内部也不应该互相仇视。而各位毕业生你们有责任引领国家步入正轨,在每个问题上,我们都应该遵循有理有据的原则,倾听他人的不同意见,只要我们这样做,就没有不能解决的问题,没有打不破的僵局,没有达不成的妥协。
当我们能拥抱思想自由交流,接受政治的多元化,我们的社会就会更加健全,更加强盛。
我知道,我的演讲有别有于传统的毕业典礼演讲。事实上,这甚至可能让我无法通过人文系的论文答辩。但是,没有一个轻松的时刻,是说重话的好时机。
毕业生们,在你们一生中,不要害怕说出自己认为正确的事,不管这事有多么不受欢迎,特别是在捍卫他人权利的时候。
站出来捍卫他人的权利,有时比捍卫自身权利更为重要,因为当人们试图限制他人自由的时候,你可能会保持沉默,这样你将会助长这种限制,哪天你可能也会成为受害者。
不要沆瀣一气,不要人云亦云,大胆说出来,反击。
我敢肯定这样做,你会受到批评。我敢肯定这样做,你还会失去一些朋友,树立一些敌人。我敢肯定你还会这样做。历史的弧线会偏向你这一边,而我们的国家也会因此更加强盛。现在,各位毕业生经过努力赢得了今天的庆典,你们可以很自豪、很激动。明天,你们需要行动起来,让我们的国家和世界对每个人都更自由,并永远自由下去。上帝保佑你们好运!
第11篇 哈佛大学毕业典礼校长演讲稿
冬去春来,转眼间就到了一年一度的毕业典礼。六月初的天气清冷的反常,人们不得不穿薄毛衣或夹克。今年波士顿的天气变化无常,4月份有一两天气温高达32摄氏度以上,人们热得要开空调。随后的一个多月又冷得至少要穿两件衣服,但天气并不妨碍一系列的庆祝活动。
校园里照例彩旗飘飘,成群结队,欢声笑语,赠送鲜花,合影留念。主要庆祝活动集中在6月2日校长对毕业生的告别讲演(baccalaureate address),3日大学本科毕业生自己组织的告别活动(class day),和4日哈佛毕业生联谊会(harvard alumni association) 组织的毕业典礼(commencement)。
这是哈佛大学第358届毕业典礼。第一届毕业典礼是在1642年,由于战争或瘟疫等原因,有9年的毕业典礼被跳过去了。6月份第一周举行毕业典礼,今年会是最后一次。从下学年开始,开学时间从9月中旬提前到9月初,毕业典礼也会随之提前到5月下旬。
校长告别讲演
学生几年来日夜奋战,大好时光用在学习与消化老师讲的苦涩难懂的技术性问题上,到底会对今后的事业和生活有什么帮助呢光阴似箭,无论他们心理准备好了没有,他们必须走出校门,面对变幻莫测的大千世界。在成百上千的毕业生即将离开校园,忐忑不安地走向社会的时候,校长能给他们什么带有人生哲理的启示呢?
6月2日下午的校长告别讲演照例在校园中心的纪念教堂(memorial church)举行。虽然是大庭广众之下的书面发言,但并不完全是冠冕堂皇的做秀,其中不乏肺腑之言。
校长福斯特(drew gilpin faust)首先回忆了这批毕业生在过去四年的经历。
她说,你们进入校园时正好是卡特里亚娜(katrina)台风肆虐的时候,你们离开校园时正好是经济风暴席卷全球,改变这个国家和世界的时候。你们也目睹了哈佛的变化。你们在四年中经历了三位校长(萨默斯,代校长巴克( derek bok),和福斯特本人),你们经历了旧的教学大纲(core curriculum)的退出和新的教学大纲的引入(general education),和一些校舍的变化。福斯特然后列举了一些优秀毕业生取得的成绩(没有点名道姓)。
她说,很多过去四年的变化是四年前没有想到的:奥_马入主白宫,经济危机席卷全球,流感蔓延等等,这些都使未来更加难以预测。“我要和你们讲的不是如何追求优秀,在这方面你们已经知道怎么做了,而是要讲如何利用未来的不确定性(uncertainty)。”
去年这个时候,有很多哈佛毕业生选择了去华尔街工作。其中一个学生说,他这样选择的原因是不想进入“真实世界”(real world),而进入金融行业是最稳妥,最保守的选择。金融风暴对你们来说也是一件好事,因为你们没有最保守的选择了。你们当中的一个学生说,因为金融公司今年很少招人,他准备去教书,而教书才是他真正想做的,今年的就业形势让他没有理由不做自己热爱的事。当然,有一少部分毕业生仍然会去金融公司工作。这也是好事,因为你们还年轻,有弹性和韧性承受金融界的动荡。与其在你们45岁时经历中年危机- 自问:我到底在做什么?我为什么做这些?- 还不如在20多岁的时候就反思这些问题。有一位作家描述和她先生去巴黎旅游的原因:不是有人要求我们去,也不是我们认为应该去,而是我们从心底里想去,这样我们的旅途就有了一个好的起点。福斯特说,这就是发自内心的动力,这就是生活。
她说,博雅教育(liberal arts education)的目的不是要训练你们成为某一方面的专家,有一份特定的工作,而是要让你们在不确定的充满变化的情形下有应变能力,能够即兴表演(improvise)。“即兴生活(improvised life)是激情与平静,构架与自由,理性与感觉魔术般的结合。我们不喜欢不确定性(uncertainty),更喜欢安定,但正是不确定性给我们的个人生活和事业带来机遇”。
最能概括福斯特讲演内容宗旨的话应该是她引用一位著名爵士音乐家的话,“透彻的掌握你的乐器,你的乐谱,然后全部把它们抛在脑后,尽情地弹琴。”现在的世界需要那些优秀的即兴表演家。
重新思考我们的生活,重新投入进去不是每一代人都有的机会。福斯特回忆自己1968年的大学毕业典礼。当时我们意气风发,雄心勃勃,觉得巨大的社会变革迫在眉睫,我们要结束战争,消灭贫困和种族歧视。渐渐地这种无所不能的乐观和激情消逝了,我们逐渐地变成了“大人,成年人”,我们回到了自己的小天地,为自己个人的好生活而努力,那种追求更高目标的境界和对更美好的世界的憧憬没有了。
但是现在又回来了。我们目前面对很多挑战--金融动荡,传染病蔓延,对内政策,对外政策都是困难重重。这些挑战和奥_马入主白宫不仅仅使新的思想,新的投入成为可能,而且是必须。
奥_马总统把我们生活的这个时代定义为重新振作和重新创造的时节(a season of renewal and reinvention)。重新振作,重新创造需要新的思想,新的思维。我们一直坚持最好的教育是那种培养分析能力的,形成思考习惯的,能够把信息(information)变成理解(understanding)的教育。这就是教育为什么这么重要,受过教育的你们这些人为什么这么重要。
学生聚会
class day的活动是在校园中间的露天草场tercentenary theatre,没有毕业典礼那么正式,形式上比较轻松。毕业生代表的讲话有对四年大学生活的认真反思,也有自嘲自讽的幽默。他们对最近四年的课业过重(over worked),睡眠不足(under slept)直言不讳,他们的脑海里只是被“成就”(achievement)这个词充斥着。“为了重建哈佛形象,有必要提醒整个世界哈佛的毕业生是多么的了不起,他们处处趾高气扬,只往上看,不往下看,永远觉得高人一筹。”
“在今后的几天里,所有的人都会告诉我们,‘艰难困苦与沮丧失败都是真实生活的一部分,你们要有思想准备去面对。’别听他们的,他们肯定不是像我们一样,从哈佛毕业的。”
class day学生按照惯例会请一位主旨讲演人。去年的主讲人是前总统克林顿。今年是nbc新闻“今日”节目的联合主持人,杰出新闻工作者matt lauer。他曾经报导过伊拉克战争,北京奥林匹克运动会,采访过无数政经要人。
他说,“哈佛大学的文凭并不意味着你有任何特权(entitlement)… 并不意味着你一定比其他人优秀 … 你受的教育是一个强大的工具(tools),但这只是你工具箱中的一个,我要你们用所有的工具- -你们的慈悲为怀(compassion),你们的与人为善(kindness),你们的大度宽厚(generosity),你们的公平正直(sense of fair play),你们的诙谐幽默(a sense of humor)--去建立人与人之间的桥梁,而不是树立障碍与隔阂。”
他20分钟的讲演也不乏幽默。他说,“要有孩子,而且要有好多孩子,因为当你不能找到生活中的乐趣和幽默的时候,你的孩子会帮你找到。” “每个人至少要有一个永远和你说真话的朋友 … 记住生活中唯一不变的是你的品格(character)。”朱棣文的建议
今年的主旨讲演者是美国能源部部长朱棣文(steven chu )。他和另外两位物理学家因发现了在极低的温度下如何用激光把原子固定在它们自己的轨道上而获得1997年诺贝尔物理学奖。在今年1月份成为能源部部长之前,他是加州大学伯克利分校国家实验室主任,负责再生能源,新能源的研究工作。
他的讲演包括三部分:一些简短而幽默的点评,对毕业生不请自来的建议(unsolicited advice),和与他自己主要工作有关的倡议。他首先感谢校长和哈佛毕业生联谊会邀请他讲演,随后幽默地说他不敢肯定他符合毕业典礼演讲嘉宾的“高标准”。“去年的主旨讲演者是亿万富翁《哈里波特》的作者罗琳(j.k. rowling),前年的主旨讲演者是更大的富翁和慈善家,计算机‘呆子’(nerd),比尔.盖茨,而今年站在你们面前的完全不是一个富翁,但至少我可以说我是一个呆子。”
他也会恭维一下哈佛,说他的哥哥和弟弟都是哈佛毕业的,只有他不是,今年他成为哈佛大学十位荣誉文凭的获得者之一,或许他妈妈这次会高兴了。以前当他告诉他妈妈他拿到了诺贝尔奖时,他妈妈说,“那不错。” 然后紧接着问,“你下一次什么时候来看我?”
他说,他决定在讲演中引用其他人说过的话有两个原因。一是重要的话需要重复一次以上才能起作用。二是那些借用别人语言的作家其实是在重复最优秀的人的足迹。美国著名作家,哲学家,诗人爱默生(ralph waldo emerson)(1803-1882)说,“那些古人把我最好的思想都偷走了。” 毕加索说,“好的艺术家借用;伟大的艺术家(干脆就)偷。”(good artists borrow. great artists steal.)为什么毕业典礼的演讲嘉宾就不能如此呢?
他自知在毕业典礼上对学生的建议很少被珍惜,大多被遗忘,肯定不被遵循,但仍然愿意提出以下几条。第一,感谢所有帮助你取得成就的人,包括那些教课不怎么好的教授,因为他们迫使你自学,而自学是在人生道路上取得成功的重要途径。
第二,在今后的生活中,培养大方大度的胸怀。在所有的谈判中,不要计较最后的很少的得失,大方地把一些零头放在桌子上留给对方。在与人合作中,记住要肯定别人的成绩(credit),成绩不是稀缺资源,别人有了你就没有了。特别是在成功的合作中,要给别人90%的成绩。
第三,在生活开始一个新篇章的时候,建议你们选择自己热爱的事业和职业。如果你还没有找到自己的热情,不要满足,一定要坚持找到为止。生命本身就短暂,没有自己真正热爱的事业,生命更是转瞬即逝。“当我像你们这么大的时候,我一门心思地想成为物理学家。大学毕业后,我在加州大学伯克利分校做研究生、博士、博士后共八年,然后又在贝尔实验室(bell labs)工作了九年。这些年来,我的主要目标和快乐就是物理学。”
他的最后一个建议是:追求个人理想,自己热爱的事业不应该是生活的唯一目标。当你头发花白,步入老年时,你希望在回首往年的时候感到骄傲。这种骄傲不会来自你一生中积累的物质财富,也不会来自你一生中积累的荣誉称号,而会来自那些曾经受你影响的人(the lives you have touched),他们的生活因为你而更加美好 (the difference you have made)。
“在贝尔实验室工作九年以后,我决定离开舒适的,方方面面都完美无缺的‘象牙塔’,尝试在我看来更现实的生活 ―― 去(斯坦福)大学教书。我希望我所留下的不仅仅是篇科学论文,我想通过教书孕育科学的后一代。” 他说,“在大学工作最好的部分就是学生,因为他们清新,热情,没有成见。他们自己并不意识到这一点,他们是我们这个社会最好的精华的接受者,传承者,发展者。就是在大学阶段,他们的思想是完全自由的,也是最有创造力的。他们进入大学,以为教科书,教授就是权威。渐渐地他们会发现,教科书,教授也不是无所不知,无所不晓,于是他们开始自己思维。当他们有独立的思想的时候,我开始从他们那里学习。”“我开始教书,带学生是因为我想回报这个社会,给予别人,但结果是我从中得到的比我给予的更多。”
然后朱棣文进入讲话的第三部分:气候变化。气候变化并不是一个新问题。在过去的60万年中,地球经历了六个冰川时代。现在的问题是各种数据都表明气候在迅速变暖――北极圈的冰雪在减少,海面在上升。有史以来,科学第一次被用于预测我们现在的所作所为对50年以后,12022年以后的世界的影响。这个影响来自于工业革命以来二氧化碳的排放。
如果现在不及时采取措施,减少二氧化碳排放量,全球气温就有50%的可能性在本世纪末上升5摄氏度。在上一个冰川时代(ice age),全球气温只低了6摄氏度,加拿大的绝大部分和美国北部都终年被冰雪覆盖。所以气温上升5度对全球的影响不可低估,北极冰雪覆盖的有机物有可能融化,迅速释放甲醇(methane)和二氧化碳,动物,植物以及人类都难以适应。
作为国际社会,我们愿意在这个至少一百年以后才能见到效果的气候变化投入多少呢?上一代人努力工作是为了下一代人生活得更好。我们能不能为我们后代的福利和幸福而承担起责任呢?
五年以前朱棣文同意成为伯克利国家实验室主任的其中一个原因就是要广招科技人才,迎接气候变暖的挑战。他们已经建立了几个不同的能源研究所。他对气候变化和能源的挑战有充分的理解,但仍然表达了“危中有机”的乐观和信心,鼓励年轻人把握机遇,把握现在,通过发明创造新科技,设计更好的政策,和建立管理更有环保意识的工厂企业,为可持续发展作出贡献。
有些缓解气候变暖的办法是显而易见的。例如,提高能源效率,节省能源的效果就非常可观。现有的技术可以使房屋使用能源效率提高80%,2022年就会返回所需投资(pay back period)。房屋冬天的供暖,夏天的空调和其他用电占美国所有能源消费的40%。所以提高能源效率,节省能源的好处是巨大的,是“不捡白不捡的大便宜”。
但是更多关于气候变暖的问题是未知的。他说,“奥_马政府在为繁荣的,可持续发展的未来打基础。我们并没有所有的答案,这就是我们为什么需要你们加入我们,与我们并肩奋战。”
他为参加奥_马政府而感到荣耀。奥_马政府鼓励科技创新以解决能源危机。 “美国有机会领导一次新的工业革命。我们要创造更有效的办法利用太阳能,风能,核能,处理发电厂排出的二氧化碳。更先进的生物能源(biofuels)和使汽车用电驱动(electrification of personal vehicles)也会帮助我们不那么依赖石油进口。”
发展中国家在努力追求达到发达国家的物质生活水准。在这个过程中,我们必须对气候变暖采取措施。朱棣文承认美国的人口只占世界的3%,而消耗的能源却占世界的25%,与此同时,世界上有16亿人没有基本用电,有几亿人靠燃烧树枝做饭。他说,一个严峻的现实就是:那些最容易受伤害而且受伤害最大的人群 - 那些穷人,孩子和未出生的孩子 -是最无辜的,也是最没有能力保护自己的群体。
朱棣文呼吁最基本的人性,他引用两位人文领袖的话终结讲演。马丁路德金(martin luther king)在1967年反对越南战争时提倡超越种族,阶层,国籍的无条件的博爱(all-embracing and unconditional love for all mankind)和直接面对挑战的紧迫感,“明天就是今天。在人们的生活和历史上,有‘太晚了’这么一说。”
1950年诺贝尔文学奖获得者威廉福克纳(william faulkner)(1897-1962)在12月10日获奖晚宴中讲人文主义者在充满挑战的世界中的作用:“我相信人不但会承受,而且还会战胜。人是有精神的,精神是永恒的。人有慈悲之心,人能够与人为善,自我牺牲,忍辱负重。诗人和作家的任务就是要写出这些精神,他们的使命就是要充实人们的心灵,时刻提醒他们勇气,光荣,希望,骄傲,慈悲和自我牺牲精神都是人们光荣历史的一部分。”
chu最后总结说,“你们在追求个人理想的同时,也要培养帮助别人的热情。没有什么会给你更大的满足感了。” 他呼吁,“为了你们的孩子和世界上所有的孩子,我们要保护这个地球。”
第12篇 马云哈佛大学演讲
马云哈佛大学演讲
12月17日,马云专程抵京,出席主题为“信息时代的管理”的哈佛-清华高层经理研修讲座,马云哈佛大学演讲。哈佛商学院与清华经管学院对国内知名企业走访调研,编制了真实鲜活的中国企业案例并选入哈佛mba管理案例库,阿里巴巴的经营管理实践曾连续两届入选哈佛教案,并三次受到邀请与哈佛-清华高层经理研修学员交流。
现场调查发现:有90%以上的与会学员对阿里巴巴的远见、创新、战略、团队等重要指标评了高分,有不少人甚至评了满分。参加今年研修项目的学员都是来自各某种名企业的重量级人员,平均工作经历15年以上,公司年销售额达52亿美金。
马云与高层经理学员对话实录:
马云:阿里巴巴这两年越做越好,这两年变化非常大。从2001年100多名员工发展到现在1200多员工,会员数达到250多万家。无论是从综合指标还是单项指标评定,我们在全球b2b领域排名中是遥遥领先的,第二名同行距离我们很远,第二名的会员数还不到10万。
在赢利方面, 2002年的阿里巴巴全年目标是赢利一块钱,今年的目标是每天收入100万元人民币,实际上,今年全年的现金赢利将超过1亿元。
有人问,阿里巴巴做得不比任何一家上市公司差,为什么不上市?那是因为我们现在不急于上市,我们还要做得更加完善,把客户服务得更好。
在未来三年,我们有这样三个目标:第一,成为中国客户最满意的公司,我们从流程到战略制定都围绕客户第一的原则,为此,我们今年把九大价值观的第九条:“尊重与服务”改为“客户第一”,提升为第一条价值,并定义为“客户永远是对的”。第二,员工是第二位的,我们要做中国最佳雇主公司;第三,股东第三,从明天1月1日开始,无论是财务、法律或是其他,公司将严格按排美国上市公司的标准去做,阿里巴巴要做对投资者最透明的公司。
学员a:阿里巴巴与其他类似的服务企业不同,他背后没有传统行业的支持,而是纯粹的新经济,是完全在网络上建立起来的,。阿里巴巴与竞争对手比较,优势是什么?
马云:前两年有人说:___(一家国际贸易行开设的网站)一定行,因为它有传统行业做支撑,阿里巴巴一定不行,而且阿里巴巴上没有完整的线下贸易链条,而___有完整的链条。但是阿里巴巴却活下来了,那家网站死掉了。
阿里巴巴成功是因为我们有长期的战略,与众不同的模式,与主流不相同的运营者,就像微软的成功、中国的'格兰士微波炉的成功,他们都创造了全新的经营方式。这种创新的方式是现有的成熟大企业不用的,即使用,他也不会完全的采用,而新的企业没有旧的套路,成功的机率会大很多。
现在阿里巴巴网上有强大的信息流,无论你要买任何东西,到阿里巴巴来你都会查到。我们在网上建设了巨大的买方和卖方的贸易市场,这是我们第一个模式 ,叫“相会在阿里巴巴”,商人有个心理,买方总是要找到最好的卖家,卖家也总是想找到最好的买家。
讲师:对阿里巴巴的“远见”有什么观点?
学员观点a:阿里巴巴的模式是创新的,他们看到中国有大批的制造商和国外大批的采购商,利用网络信息丰富的特性,首创了阿里巴巴模式。
马云:阿里巴巴做得不错,原因在于与美国等国家的b2b不同,他们是为企业省钱省时间,在中国阿里巴巴是帮助中小企业赚钱。
在任何事情开始之前我们都要想好能为客户带来什么样的价值,只有这样才能走得长。当年我们建立这个市场,那时我们知道中国入世是时间的问题,不是能不能入的问题。中国入世的头几年是以出口为导向,未来三、四年中国一定会以进口为导向。我们未来的一个战略是帮助中国企业进口国外产品,国外的货物能卖到中国来,我更看好中国未来五年进口的力量。
在中国企业出口服务领域,我们最强。英国首相来中国特别提出要和阿里巴巴见见,日本的经济省把我们当作第一合作伙伴,现在我们在美国、日内瓦的办事处都是在和进口商打交道。我们的模式不仅仅是中国对国际出口,国际向中国进口,除此以外,我们印度对南美,美国和日本之间的贸易也会在阿里巴巴上展开。
电子商务划分三个阶段,阿里巴巴目前做的是第一阶段“信息流”,第二阶段是资金流,第三是物流。在网上还没建立信用之前,不会有人真正在网上做生意,所以我们就在网上建立诚信体系。银行现在正在着手进行资金流的体系建立 ,我认为三年之后可以尝试在网上做些交易,但是现在不行。
如果阿里巴巴要真正解决交易的问题,从中取得利益,首先要过诚信这一关。没有诚信不会有人在网上做生意。所以这两年建立诚信是我们的主要方向。到目前为止已经有三万多家企业在我们网站上申请了认证服务。加入wto后,中国有100多万家企业可以或计划出口,目前只有不到4000家企业成为阿里巴巴中国供应商,还有很大的空间。