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Baccalaureate address to Class of 2008
2008屆本科畢業(yè)典禮上的講話
The Memorial Church
紀念教堂
Cambridge, Mass.
麻省劍橋市
June 3, 2008
2008年6月3日
凱瑟琳·德魯·吉爾平·福斯特
?。–atharine Drew Gilpin Faust）
As prepared for delivery 準備稿
In the curious custom of this venerable institution, I find myself standing before you expected to impart words of lasting wisdom. Here I am in a pulpit, dressed like a Puritan minister — an apparition that would have horrified many of my distinguished forebears and perhaps rededicated some of them to the extirpation of witches. This moment would have propelled Increase and Cotton into a true “Mather lather.” But here I am and there you are and it is the moment of and for Veritas.
在這所久負盛名的大學的別具一格的儀式上，我站在了你們的面前，被期待著給予一些蘊含著恒久智慧的言論。站在這個講壇上，我穿得像個清教徒教長——一個可能會嚇到我的杰出前輩們的怪物，或許使他們中的一些人重新致力于鏟除巫婆的事業(yè)上。這個時刻也許曾激勵了很多清教徒成為教長。但現(xiàn)在，我在上面，你們在下面，此時此刻，屬于真理，為了真理。
You have been undergraduates for four years. I have been president for not quite one. You have known three presidents; I one senior class. Where then lies the voice of experience? Maybe you should be offering the wisdom. Perhaps our roles could be reversed and I could, in Harvard Law School style, do cold calls for the next hour or so.
你們已經(jīng)在哈佛做了四年的大學生，而我當哈佛校長還不到一年。你們認識了三個校長，而我只認識了你們這一屆大四的。算起來我哪有資格說什么經(jīng)驗之談？或許應該由你們上來展示一下智慧。要不我們換換位臵？然后我就可以像哈佛法學院的學生那樣，在接下來的一個小時內(nèi)不時地冷不防地提出問題。
We all do seem to have made it to this point — more or less in one piece. Though I recently learned that we have not provided you with dinner since May 22. I know we need to wean you from Harvard in a figurative sense. I never knew we took it quite so literally.
學校和學生們似乎都在努力讓時間來到這一時刻，而且還差不多是步調(diào)一致的。我這兩天才得知哈佛從5月22日開始就不向你們提供伙食了。雖然有比喻說“我們早晚得給你們斷奶”，但沒想到我們的后勤還真的早早就把“奶”給斷了。
But let's return to that notion of cold calls for a moment. Let's imagine this were a baccalaureate service in the form of Q & A, and you were asking the questions. “What is the meaning of life, President Faust? What were these four years at Harvard for? President Faust, you must have learned something since you graduated from college exactly 40 years ago?” （Forty years. I'll say it out loud since every detail of my life — and certainly the year of my Bryn Mawr degree — now seems to be publicly available. But please remember I was young for my class.）
現(xiàn)在還是讓我們回到我剛才提到的提問題的事上吧。讓我們設想下這是個哈佛大學給本科生的畢業(yè)服務，是以問答的形式。你們將問些問題，比如：“福校長啊，人生的價值是什么呢？我們上這大學四年是為了什么呢？福校長，你大學畢業(yè)到現(xiàn)在的40年里一定學到些什么東西可以教給我們吧？”（40年啊，我就直說了，因為我人生中的每段細節(jié)——當然包括我在布林茅爾女子學院的一年——現(xiàn)在似乎都成了公共資源。但請記住在哈佛我可是“新生”）
In a way, you have been engaging me in this Q & A for the past year. On just these questions, although you have phrased them a bit more narrowly. And I have been trying to figure out how I might answer and, perhaps more intriguingly, why you were asking.
在某種程度上，在過去的一年里你們一直都在讓我從事這種問答。從僅僅這些問題上，即使你們措辭問題都傾向于狹義，而我除了思考怎么做出回答外，更激發(fā)我去思考的，是你們?yōu)槭裁磫栠@些問題。
Let me explain. It actually began when I met with the UC just after my appointment was announced in the winter of 2007. Then the questions continued when I had lunch at Kirkland House, dinner at Leverett, when I met with students in my office hours, even with some recent graduates I encountered abroad. The first thing you asked me about wasn't the curriculum or advising or faculty contact or even student space. In fact, it wasn't even alcohol policy. Instead, you repeatedly asked me: Why are so many of us going to Wall Street? Why are we going in such numbers from Harvard to finance, consulting, i-banking?
聽我解釋。提問從2007年冬天我的任職被公布時與校方的會面就開始了。然后提問一直持續(xù)，不論是我在Kirkland House（哈佛的12個本科生宿舍之一）吃午飯還是在Leverett House（哈佛的12個本科生宿舍之一，本科高年級學生使用）吃晚飯，或是當我在辦公時間與學生會見，甚至是我在與國外認識的剛考來的研究生的談話中。你們問的第一個問題不是關(guān)于課業(yè)，不是讓我提建議，也不是為了和教員接觸，甚至是想向我提建議。事實上，更不是為了和我討論酒精政策。相反，你們不厭其煩問的卻是：為什么我們之中這么多人將去華爾街？為什么我們大量的學生都從哈佛走向了金融，理財咨詢，投行？
There are a number of ways to think about this question and how to answer it. There is the Willie Sutton approach. You may know that when he was asked why he robbed banks, he replied, “Because that's where the money is.”
對于這個問題有多種思考和回答方式。有一種解釋就是如Willie Sutton所說的，一切向“錢”看。（Willie Sutton是個搶銀行犯，被逮住后當被問到為什么去搶銀行時，他說：“Because that is where the money is!”）
Professors Claudia Goldin and Larry Katz, whom many of you have encountered in your economics concentration, offer a not dissimilar answer based on their study of student career choices since the seventies. They find it notable that, given the very high pecuniary rewards in finance, many students nonetheless still choose to do something else.
你們中很多人見過的普通經(jīng)濟學教授Claudia Goldin 和Larry Katz，基于對上世紀70年代以來的學生的職業(yè)選擇的研究，作出了差不多的回答。他們發(fā)現(xiàn)了值得注意的一點：即使從事金融業(yè)可以得到很高的金錢回報，很多學生仍然選擇做其它的事情。
Indeed, 37 of you have signed on with Teach for America; one of you will dance tango and work in dance therapy in Argentina; another will be engaged in agricultural development in Kenya; another, with an honors degree in math, will study poetry; another will train as a pilot with the USAF; another will work to combat breast cancer. Numbers of you will go to law school, medical school, and graduate school.
實事上，你們中間有37人簽到了“教育美國人”（Teach for America，美國的一個組織，其作用類似于中國的“希望工程”）；1人將去跳探戈舞蹈并在阿根廷從事舞蹈療法；1人將致力于肯尼亞的農(nóng)業(yè)發(fā)展；另有1人獲得了數(shù)學的榮譽學位，卻轉(zhuǎn)而去研究詩歌；1人將去美國空軍接受飛行員訓練；還有1人將加入到與乳癌抗戰(zhàn)當中。你們中的很多人將去法學院，醫(yī)學院或研究生院。
But, consistent with the pattern Goldin and Katz have documented, a considerable number of you are selecting finance and consulting. The Crimson's survey of last year's class reported that 58 percent of men and 43 percent of women entering the workforce made this choice. This year, even in challenging economic times, the figure is 39 percent.
但是，和Goldin 和Katz教授有據(jù)證明的一樣，你們中相當一部分人將選擇金融和理財咨詢。Crimson對于上屆學生的調(diào)查顯示，在就業(yè)的學生中，58%的男生和43%的女生做出了這個選擇。今年，即使在經(jīng)濟受挑戰(zhàn)的一年，這個數(shù)據(jù)是39%。
High salaries, the all but irresistible recruiting juggernaut, the reassurance for many of you that you will be in New York working and living and enjoying life alongside your friends, the promise of interesting work — there are lots of ways to explain these choices. For some of you, it is a commitment for only a year or two in any case. Others believe they will best be able to do good by first doing well. Yet, you ask me why you are following this path.
也許是為了高薪——難以抵抗的招聘誘惑，也許是為了留在紐約然后和朋友們一起工作生活和享受人生，也許是為了做自己感興趣的工作——對于這些選擇可以有各種各樣的理由。對你們中的一些人，無論如何那也只是個一兩年的契約。其他的一部分人相信他們只有在過得“富有”了以后才有可能過得“富有”價值。不過，你們依然會問我，為什么要走這條路？
I find myself in some ways less interested in answering your question than in figuring out why you are posing it. If Professors Goldin and Katz have it right; if finance is indeed the “rational choice,” why do you keep raising this issue with me? Why does this seemingly rational choice strike a number of you as not understandable, as not entirely rational, as in some sense less a free choice than a compulsion or necessity? Why does this seem to be troubling so many of you?
我發(fā)現(xiàn)我自己有時候?qū)τ诨卮鹉銈兊膯栴}并沒有多大興趣，比較而言更感興趣的卻是捉摸你們?yōu)槭裁刺崮切﹩栴}。如果果真如Goldin和Katz教授所說；如果去搞金融確實是一個“理性”的選擇，為什么你們會不停地向我提出這類問題？為什么看似理性的選擇卻讓你們當中相當一部分人認為是令人費解的，偽理性的，或出于某種需求和強迫所作出的并不自由的選擇？為什么這個問題似乎困擾著你們當中的很多一部分人？
You are asking me, I think, about the meaning of life, though you have posed your question in code — in terms of the observable and measurable phenomenon of senior career choice rather than the abstract, unfathomable and almost embarrassing realm of metaphysics. The Meaning of Life — capital M, capital L — is a clichｅ — easier to deal with as the ironic title of a Monty Python movie or the subject of a Simpsons episode than as a matter about which one would dare admit to harboring serious concern.
我想，你們問我的是：關(guān)于人生價值的問題。雖然你們問得比較隱晦——即是些可以觀察和衡量的大四學生職業(yè)選擇的問題，而不是那抽象的，晦澀的，甚至會令人難堪的形而上學范疇的問題。人生價值，要人生？還是要價值？作為Monty Python那部片子（指的是六人行里《人生的價值》那一集）的諷刺意味的片名是不難理解的，作為《辛普森一家》（美國特別受歡迎的動畫連續(xù)?。┑钠渲幸患闹黝}也是不難理解的，可是當關(guān)系到“生存問題”的時候，就是不那么好辦了。
But let's for a moment abandon our Harvard savoir faire, our imperturbability, our pretense of invulnerability, and try to find the beginnings of some answers to your question.
讓我們暫時扔掉哈佛人精明的處世能力、沉著和不可戰(zhàn)勝的虛偽，試著來尋找一下你們問題的答案吧。
I think you are worried because you want your lives not just to be conventionally successful, but to be meaningful, and you are not sure how those two goals fit together. You are not sure if a generous starting salary at a prestigious brand name organization together with the promise of future wealth will feed your soul.
我想，你們之所以會焦慮，是因為你們不想只是做到一般意義上的成功，而且還想過得有意義。但你們又不知道這兩個目標如何才能同時達到，你們不知道在一個大名鼎鼎的公司中有一份豐厚的起薪，并且前途很有保障，是不是就可以讓你們自己滿足。
Why are you worried? Partly it is our fault. We have told you from the moment you arrived here that you will be the leaders responsible for the future, that you are the best and the brightest on whom we will all depend, that you will change the world. We have burdened you with no small expectations. And you have already done remarkable things to fulfill them: your dedication to service demonstrated in your extracurricular engagements, your concern about the future of the planet expressed in your vigorous championing of sustainability, your reinvigoration of American politics through engagement in this year's presidential contests.
你們?yōu)槭裁匆箲]？說起來，我們學校這方面也有錯。從你們進來的時候，我們就告訴你們，到這里，你們會成為對未來負責的精英，你們是最棒的、最聰明的，我們都要依靠你們，因為你們會改變這個世界。這些話，讓你們個個都胸懷大志。你們會去做各種不平常的事情：在課外活動中，你們處處體現(xiàn)著服務的熱情；你們大力倡導可持續(xù)發(fā)展，因為你們關(guān)注地球的未來；在今年的總統(tǒng)競選中，你們也表現(xiàn)出了對美國政治改革的熱衷。但現(xiàn)在，你們中的許多人迷惘了，不知道這些在作職業(yè)選擇時都有什么用。如果在有償?shù)墓ぷ骱陀幸饬x的工作之間作個選擇，你們會怎么辦？這二者可以兼顧嗎？
But many of you are now wondering how these commitments fit with a career choice. Is it necessary to decide between remunerative work and meaningful work? If it were to be either/or, which would you choose? Is there a way to have both?
但你們中的很多人現(xiàn)在會問，“怎樣才能把做這些有價值的事情和一個職業(yè)選擇結(jié)合起來呢？”“是否必須在一份有報酬卻沒價值的工作和一份有價值卻沒報酬的工作間做出抉擇呢？”“如果是一個單選題，您會選哪一個？”“有沒有折中的辦法？”
You are asking me and yourselves fundamental questions about values, about trying to reconcile potentially competing goods, about recognizing that it may not be possible to have it all. You are at a moment of transition that requires making choices. And selecting one option — a job, a career, a graduate program — means not selecting others. Every decision means loss as well as gain — possibilities foregone as well as possibilities embraced. Your question to me is partly about that — about loss of roads not taken.
你們在問我，也是問你們自己問題，即關(guān)于價值觀的根本性的問題。你們在試圖調(diào)解兩個商品潛在的相互競爭，承認也許不可能兼得兩者。你們在經(jīng)歷一次人生的轉(zhuǎn)折，而這個轉(zhuǎn)折需要你們自己做出一些決定。選擇一條道路——一份工作、一項事業(yè)或一個研究生課題——不單單是在選擇東西。每個決定都意味著“得”與“失”——過去與未來的種種可能。你們問我的問題其實有幾分是關(guān)于“失”，即你放棄的那條道路讓你失去了什么。
Finance, Wall Street, “recruiting” have become the symbol of this dilemma, representing a set of issues that is much broader and deeper than just one career path. These are issues that in one way or another will at some point face you all — as you graduate from medical school and choose a specialty — family practice or dermatology, as you decide whether to use your law degree to work for a corporate firm or as a public defender, as you decide whether to stay in teaching after your two years with TFA. You are worried because you want to have both a meaningful life and a successful one; you know you were educated to make a difference not just for yourself, for your own comfort and satisfaction, but for the world around you. And now you have to figure out the way to make that possible.
金融、華爾街，“招聘”一詞已經(jīng)成了這種博弈的符號，代表著比僅僅選擇一條職業(yè)道路更廣更深的一系列問題。這些問題早晚將面臨著你們每個人——如果你是從醫(yī)學院畢業(yè)，你將選擇一個具體從醫(yī)方向——做私人醫(yī)生還是專攻皮膚病，如果你學的是法律，你將決定是用你的法律知識為一個公司法人賣命還是成為公眾的正義化身，或是在 “教育美國人”兩年后你決定是否繼續(xù)從教。你們之所以擔憂，是因為你們想擁有充滿價值的同時又是成功的人生；你們知道，你們被教育要有大的作為，不僅僅是為了個人，為了自己生活地舒適，而是要讓周圍的世界因此而改變。因此你們才不得不思考怎樣才能讓其成為可能。
I think there is a second reason you are worried — related to but not entirely distinct from the first. You want to be happy. You have flocked to courses like “Positive Psychology” — Psych 1504 — and “The Science of Happiness” in search of tips. But how do we find happiness? I can offer one encouraging answer: get older. Turns out that survey data show older people — that is, my age — report themselves happier than do younger ones. But perhaps you don't want to wait.
我認為你們之所以擔憂有第二個原因——和第一個有關(guān)系但不是完全一樣。你們希望過得幸福。你們蜂擁著去修“積極心理學”這門課——課程代號“心1504”——和“幸福的科學”這門課，不就是為了聽點人生“小貼士”？可是，我們怎樣才能獲得幸福？在這兒，我可以提供一個啟發(fā)性的答案：變老。調(diào)查數(shù)據(jù)顯示年長的人——也就是我這把年紀的人——覺得自己比年輕人更幸福。不過，很可能你們沒有人愿意去等著去看這個答案。
As I have listened to you talk about the choices ahead of you, I have heard you articulate your worries about the relationship of success and happiness — perhaps, more accurately, how to define success so that it yields and encompasses real happiness, not just money and prestige. The most remunerative choice, you fear, may not be the most meaningful and the most satisfying. But you wonder how you would ever survive as an artist or an actor or a public servant or a high school teacher? How would you ever figure out a path by which to make your way in journalism? Would you ever find a job as an English professor after you finished who knows how many years of graduate school and dissertation writing?
當我聽著你們說你們面前有如何的選擇時，可以聽出來，你們在為搞不明白成功和幸福的關(guān)系而煩惱——或者更確切地說，什么樣的成功，不僅能帶來金錢和名望，還能讓人真正地幸福。你們擔心工資最高的工作，不一定是最有意義、最令人滿足的工作。但你們想過沒有，藝術(shù)家、演員、公務員或者高中老師都是怎么過的？你們有沒有思考一下，在媒體圈里該怎么生存？你們是否曾試想過，在經(jīng)過不知道多少年的研究生學習、寫了不知道多少篇論文之后，你們能否找到一個英語教授的工作？
The answer is: you won't know till you try. But if you don't try to do what you love — whether it is painting or biology or finance; if you don't pursue what you think will be most meaningful, you will regret it. Life is long. There is always time for Plan B. But don't begin with it.
答案是：你不試試就永遠都不會知道。但如果你不試著去做自己熱愛的事情，不管是玩泥巴還是生物還是金融，如果連你自己都不去追求你認為最有價值的事，你終將后悔。人生路漫漫，你總有時間去給自己留“后路”，但可別一開始就走“后路”。
I think of this as my parking space theory of career choice, and I have been sharing it with students for decades. Don't park 20 blocks from your destination because you think you'll never find a space. Go where you want to be and then circle back to where you have to be.
我把這個叫做職業(yè)選擇中的停車位理論，幾十年來我一直在和同學們說這些。不要因為你覺得會沒有停車位，就把車停在離目的地20個街區(qū)遠的地方。先到你想去的地方，然后再到你應該去的地方。
You may love investment banking or finance or consulting. It might be just right for you. Or, you might be like the senior I met at lunch at Kirkland who had just returned from an interview on the West Coast with a prestigious consulting firm. “Why am I doing this?” she asked. “I hate flying, I hate hotels, I won't like this job.” Find work you love. It is hard to be happy if you spend more than half your waking hours doing something you don't.
你可能喜歡投資銀行、喜歡金融、喜歡咨詢，它們可能是最適合你的。也許你和我在Kirkland碰到的一位大四學生一樣，她剛從西海岸一家很有名的咨詢公司面試回來，她問：“我為什么要做這行？我討厭坐飛機，我不喜歡住酒店，我不會喜歡這個工作的。”那就找個你喜歡的工作吧。要是你醒著的時間里，都在做你不喜歡的事情，你也不會感到幸福的。
But what is ultimately most important here is that you are asking the question — not just of me but of yourselves. You are choosing roads and at the same time challenging your own choices. You have a notion of what you want your life to be and you are not sure the road you are taking is going to get you there. This is the best news. And it is also, I hope, to some degree, our fault. Noticing your life, reflecting upon it, considering how you can live it well, wondering how you can do good: These are perhaps the most valuable things that a liberal arts education has equipped you to do. A liberal education demands that you live self-consciously. It prepares you to seek and define the meaning inherent in all you do. It has made you an analyst and critic of yourself, a person in this way supremely equipped to take charge of your life and how it unfolds. It is in this sense that the liberal arts are liberal — as in liberare — to free. They empower you with the possibility of exercising agency, of discovering meaning, of making choices. The surest way to have a meaningful, happy life is to commit yourself to striving for it. Don't settle. Be prepared to change routes. Remember the impossible expectations we have of you, and even as you recognize they are impossible, remember how important they are as a lodestar guiding you toward something that matters to you and to the world. The meaning of your life is for you to make.
但是我在這兒說的最重要的是：你們在問那些問題——不僅是問我，而是在問你們自己。你們正在選擇人生的道路，同時也在對自己的選擇提出質(zhì)疑。你們知道自己想過什么樣的生活，也知道你們將行的道路不一定會把你們帶到想去的地方。這樣其實很好。某種程度上，我倒希望這是我們的錯。我們一直在標榜人生，像鏡子一樣照出未來你們的模樣，思考你們怎么可以過得幸福，探索你們怎樣才能去做些對社會有價值的事：這些也許是文科教育可以給你們“裝備”的最有價值的東西。文科教育要求你們要活得“明白”。它使你探索和定義你做的每件事情背后的價值。它讓你成為一個經(jīng)常分析和反省自己的人。而這樣的人完全能夠掌控自己的人生或未來。從這個道理上講，文科——照它的字面意思——才使你們自由。（英語里文科是Liberal Art，照字面解釋是自由的藝術(shù)）學文科可以讓你有機會去進行理論的實踐，去發(fā)現(xiàn)你所做的選擇的價值。想過上有價值的，幸福的生活，最可靠的途徑就是為了你的目標去奮斗。不要安于現(xiàn)狀得過且過。隨時準備著改變?nèi)松牡缆?。記住我們對你們的我覺得是“過于崇高”的期待，可能你們自己也承認那些期待是有點“太高了”。不過如果想做些對于你們自己或是這個世界有點價值的事情，記住它們，它們將會像北斗一樣指引著你們。你們?nèi)松膬r值將由你們?nèi)崿F(xiàn)！
I can't wait to see how you all turn out. Do come back, from time to time, and let us know.
我都等不及想看看你們都最終會如何。畢業(yè)以后和學校常聯(lián)系，常回“家”看看，讓我們了解你們的情況。
德魯·吉爾平·福斯特，全名凱瑟琳·德魯·吉爾平·福斯特（Catharine Drew Gilpin Faust，1947年9月18日——），美國歷史學家，現(xiàn)任哈佛大學校長（2007年至今），之前擔任哈佛拉德克里夫高等研究院院長。福斯特是哈佛大學歷史上第一位女校長，也是自1672年以來第一位沒有哈佛學習經(jīng)歷的哈佛校長。
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