第 5 课 · Youth

Youth

青年

People are always talking about 'the problem of youth'.

人们总是在谈论“青年问题”。

If there is one -- which I take leave to doubt -- then it is older people who create it, not the young themselves.

如果确有这么一个问题——恕我对此表示怀疑——那么，它是年长的人制造出来的，而不是年轻人自己。

Let us get down to fundamentals and agree that the young are after all human beings -- people just like their elders.

让我们回到根本问题上来，并承认：年轻人毕竟也是人——和他们的长辈一样的人。

There is only one difference between an old man and a young one: the young man has a glorious future before him and the old one has a splendid future behind him: and maybe that is where the rub is.

老人和年轻人之间只有一个区别：年轻人的锦绣前程在他前面，老人的美好岁月已在他身后——也许症结正在于此。

When I was a teenager, I felt that I was just young and uncertain -- that I was a new boy in a huge school, and I would have been very pleased to be regarded as something so interesting as a problem.

我十几岁的时候，觉得自己只是年轻、心里没底——就像一所大学校里新来的插班生；那时候如果有人把我当成“问题”这么有趣的东西，我会非常高兴。

For one thing, being a problem gives you a certain identity, and that is one of the things the young are busily engaged in seeking.

首先，当一个“问题”能给你某种身份，而追求身份认同正是年轻人起劲地忙着做的事情之一。

I find young people exciting.

我觉得年轻人令人振奋。

They have an air of freedom, and they have not a dreary commitment to mean ambitions or love of comfort.

他们身上有自由的气息，不会沉闷地死抱着卑微的野心，也不贪恋安逸舒适。

They are not anxious social climbers, and they have no devotion to material things.

他们不是急切想往上爬的人，也不痴迷于物质的东西。

All this seems to me to link them with life and the origins of things.

在我看来，这一切使他们与生命、与万物的本源连在了一起。

It's as if they were in some sense cosmic beings in violent and lovely contrast with us suburban creatures.

仿佛在某种意义上，他们是来自宇宙的生灵，与我们这些郊区的凡夫俗子形成强烈而美妙的对比。

All that is in my mind when I meet a young person.

每当我遇见一个年轻人，我脑海中浮现的就是这一切。

He may be conceited, ill-mannered, presumptuous or fatuous, but I do not turn for protection to dreary cliches about respect for elders -- as if mere age were a reason for respect.

他也许自负、没礼貌、放肆甚至愚蠢，但我不会为了自我保护而搬出“要尊敬长辈”这类乏味的套话——仿佛光凭年纪大就值得尊敬似的。

I accept that we are equals, and I will argue with him, as an equal, if I think he is wrong.

我承认我们彼此是平等的；如果我认为他错了，我会以平等的身份同他争辩。