The Commencement Speech You’ll Never Hear 雅各布 纽斯纳 (布朗大学宗教研究系教授).docVIP

The Commencement Speech You’ll Never Hear 你绝不会听到的在毕业典礼上的发言 By Jacob Neusner (A Religion Research Professor in Brown University) 雅各布 纽斯纳? （布朗大学宗教研究系教授） We the faculty take no pride in our educational achievements with you. We have prepared you for a world that does not exist, indeed, that cannot exist. You have spent four years supposing that failure leaves no record. You have learned at Brown that when your work goes poorly, the painless solution is to drop out. But starting now, in the world to which you go, failure marks you. Confronting difficulty by quitting leaves you changed, Outside Brown, quitters are no heroes. 我们老师们并不为和你们共同取得的教育成就而感到自豪。我们为你们准备好的世界并不存在，的确，那是不可能存在的。你们花了四年时间，以为失败并不会留下记录。在布朗大学，你们明白，当你们的学业不佳，毫无痛苦的解决之道就是辍学。但是从现在开始，在你们即将踏入的世界里面，失败会给你们打上印记。以放弃来面对困难会使你们不再是原来的自我。离开了布朗大学，放弃者绝非好汉。 With us you could argue about why your errors were not errors, why mediocre work really was excellent, why you could take pride in routine and slipshod presentation. Most of you, after all, can look back on honor grades for most of what you have done. So, here grades can have meant little in distinguishing the excellent from the ordinary. But tomorrow, in the world to which you go, you had best not defend errors but learn from them. You will be ill-advised to demand praise for that does not deserve it and abuse those who do not give it. 你们可以和我们争论，干嘛你们的失误不算是失误，干嘛低级的作业竟可作为优秀，干嘛你们可以对平平常常、漫不经心的发言感到得意洋洋。不管怎么说，你们中的大部分人，会以欣慰的目光来回顾你们所取得的辉煌成绩。可是在此，我得说，这样的成绩，在区分优秀和平庸上，没有什么价值。但是，到了明天，在你们即将踏入的世界里，你们最好不要为失误辩护，而是从失误中吸取教训。让你们谋求不该获得的表扬，并责备那些不给你们表扬的人，是在误导你们。 For years we created an altogether forgiving world, in which whatever slight effort you gave was all that was demanded. When you did not keep appointments, we made new ones , When you work came in beyond the deadline, we pretended not to care. Worse still, when you were boring, we acted as if you were saying something important. When you were garrulous and talked to hear yourselves talk, we listened as if it mattered. When you tossed on