哈佛女校长给本科毕业生的毕业演讲 PART II

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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?
听我解释。提问从2007年冬天我的任职被公布时与校方的会面就开始了。然后提问一直持续，不论是我在Kirkland House（哈佛的12个本科生宿舍之一）吃午饭还是在Leverett House（哈佛的12个本科生宿舍之一，本科高年级学生使用）吃晚饭，或是当我在办公时间与学生会见，甚至是我在与国外认识的刚考来的研究生的谈话中。你们问的第一个问题不是关于课业，不是让我提建议，也不是为了和教员接触，甚至是想向我提建议。事实上，更不是为了和我讨论酒精政策。相反，你们不厌其烦问的却是：为什么我们之中这么多人将去华尔街？为什么我们大量的学生都从哈佛走向了金融，理财咨询，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.” 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. 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. 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.
对于这个问题有多种思考和回答方式。有一种解释就是如Willie Sutton所说的，一切向“钱”看。（Willie Sutton是个抢银行犯，被逮住后当被问到为什么去抢银行时，他说：“Because that is where the money is!”）你们中很多人见过的普通经济学教授Claudia Goldin 和Larry Katz，基于对上世纪70年代以来的学生的职业选择的研究，作出了差不多的回答。他们发现了值得注意的一点：即使从事金融业可以得到很高的金钱回报，很多学生仍然选择做其它的事情。实事上，你们中间有37人签到了“教育美国人”（Teach for America，美国的一个组织，其作用类似于中国的“希望工程”）；1人将去跳探戈舞蹈并在阿根廷从事舞蹈疗法；1人将致力于肯尼亚的农业发展；另有1人获得了数学的荣誉学位，却转而去研究诗歌；1人将去美国空军接受飞行员训练；还有1人将加入到与乳癌抗战当中。你们中的很多人将去法学院，医学院或研究生院。但是，和Goldin 和Katz教授有据证明的一样，你们中相当一部分人将选择金融和理财咨询。Crimson对于上届学生的调查显示，在就业的学生中，58%的男生和43%的女生做出了这个选择。今年，即使在经济受挑战的一年，这个数据是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.
也许是为了高薪——难以抵抗的招聘诱惑，也许是为了留在纽约然后和朋友们一起工作生活和享受人生，也许是为了做自己感兴趣的工作——对于这些选择可以有各种各样的理由。对你们中的一些人，无论如何那也只是个一两年的契约。其他的一部分人相信他们只有在过得“富有”了以后才有可能过得“富有”价值。不过，你们依然会问我，为什么要走这条路？
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?
我发现我自己有时候对于回答你们的问题并没有多大兴趣，比较而言更感兴趣的却是捉摸你们为什么提那些问题。如果果真如Goldin和Katz教授所说；如果去搞金融确实是一个“理性”的选择，为什么你们会不停地向我提出这类问题？为什么看似理性的选择却让你们当中相当一部分人认为是令人费解的，伪理性的，或出于某种需求和强迫所作出的并不自由的选择？为什么这个问题似乎困扰着你们当中的很多一部分人？
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 cliché — 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，你们问我的是：关于人生价值的问题。虽然你们问得比较隐晦——即是些可以观察和衡量的大四学生职业选择的问题，而不是那抽象的，晦涩的，甚至会令人难堪的形而上学范畴的问题。人生价值，要人生？还是要价值？作为Monty Python那部片子（指的是六人行里《人生的价值》那一集）的讽刺意味的片名是不难理解的，作为《辛普森一家》（美国特别受欢迎的动画连续剧）的其中一集的主题也是不难理解的，可是当关系到“生存问题”的时候，就是不那么好办了。
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.
那让我们还是暂时摘下那戴着的哈佛面具，收起那缺乏热情的冷漠，卸下我们看似刀枪不入的伪装，让我们尝试去探寻你们问的一些问题的答案。（我觉得校长能说出这句话真太棒了！我想她当时面对的听众的表情和我们在听课时的表情差不多。）
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.
我觉得，你们之所以担忧，是因为你们不想仅仅是获得传统意义上的成功，而且要活得有价值。可是你们不清楚“鱼”与“熊掌”怎样才能“兼得”。你们不清楚是否，一家拥有著名品牌的企业提供的数目可观的并且预期着你未来财富的起薪，可以让你们的灵魂得到满足。
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.
然而，你们为什么担忧呢？这部分地是我们的责任。当你们一踏进这个学校，我们就告诉你们：你们将成为领导未来的中坚人物，你们将成为美国人民依赖的最顶尖、最杰出的精英，你们将改变整个世界。我们“望子成龙”的期望使你们背上了负担。而你们为了实现这些期望也已经做得很好：在对课外活动的从事中，你们展示出对于服务性工作的奉献精神；从对可持续发展的热情拥护，你们表达出对这个星球的关怀；通过对今年总统竞选的参与，你们做出了希望使美国政治重新恢复活力的实际行动。