我到了三十五歲時(shí)才突然認(rèn)識(shí)到我的教育可能存在一些漏洞。It didn’t dawn on me that there might be a few holes in my education until I was about 35.

我剛剛買了房子，需要安裝水管，請(qǐng)來的管子工就站在我的廚房。I’d just bought a house, the pipes needed fixing, and the plumber was standing in my kitchen

他個(gè)子矮小、結(jié)實(shí)健壯，留著山羊胡，戴一頂紅色棒球帽，說話操著濃濃的波士頓口音，我突然意識(shí)到根本就不知道該如何給人家講話。There he was, a short, beefy guy with a goatee and a Red Sox cap and a thick Boston accent, and I suddenly learned that I didn’t have the slightest idea what to say to someone like him.

在我看來，他的經(jīng)歷是如此陌生，他的價(jià)值觀是如此難以預(yù)測(cè)，他的語言怪異難懂，在他開始干活前，連和他閑聊幾句都不可能。So alien was his experience to me, so unguessable his values, so mysterious his very language, that I couldn’t succeed in engaging him in a few minutes of small talk before he got down to work.

我十四年的大學(xué)教育和在幾所常春藤大學(xué)工作的經(jīng)歷使得我傻乎乎站在那里，笨拙不堪，尷尬不已。Fourteen years of higher education and a handful of Ivy League degrees, and there I was, stiff and stupid, struck dumb by my own dumbness.

有個(gè)朋友稱這種現(xiàn)象為“常春藤錯(cuò)位”。我可以用外語和其他國家的人侃侃而談，卻無法和站在我家里的人說兩句話。 “Ivy retardation,” a friend of mine calls this. I could carry on conversations with people from other countries, in other languages, but I couldn’t talk to the man who was standing in my own house.

我花費(fèi)這么長(zhǎng)時(shí)間才發(fā)現(xiàn)教育的錯(cuò)誤程度并不讓人吃驚，因?yàn)榫⒔逃^不可能讓你認(rèn)識(shí)到它自身的缺陷。It’s not surprising that it took me so long to discover the extent of my miseducation, because the last thing an elite education will teach you is its own inadequacy.

正如在耶魯和哥倫比亞大學(xué)二十多年的經(jīng)驗(yàn)顯示的，名牌學(xué)校不斷地鼓勵(lì)學(xué)生為能到這些地方上學(xué)而自豪，不斷夸耀名牌大學(xué)經(jīng)歷能給他們帶來的好處。As two dozen years at Yale and Columbia have shown me, elite colleges relentlessly encourage their students to flatter themselves for being there, and for what being there can do for them.

精英教育的優(yōu)勢(shì)當(dāng)然是不可否認(rèn)的。你至少在某些方式上學(xué)會(huì)思考，還可以建立一些日后開創(chuàng)事業(yè)所需要的人際關(guān)系，獲得讓世人羨慕的富裕生活或其他報(bào) 答。The advantages of an elite education are indeed undeniable. You learn to think, at least in certain ways, and you make the contacts needed to launch yourself into a life rich in all of society’s most cherished rewards. 但是在這個(gè)背景下，如果認(rèn)為它創(chuàng)造了一些機(jī)會(huì)，卻喪失了其他機(jī)會(huì)，培養(yǎng)了有些能力，卻其削弱了其他能力，不僅是大逆不道的而且是不可思議的。To consider that while some opportunities are being created, others are being cancelled and that while some abilities are being developed, others are being crippled is, within this context, not only outrageous, but inconceivable.

我不是在談?wù)撜n程設(shè)置或者文化戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)、美國思想的開放或者關(guān)閉、政治正確或者準(zhǔn)則塑造或任何你擁有的 東西，我是在討論出現(xiàn)這些偏頗的整個(gè)體制。 I’m not talking about curricula or the culture wars, the closing or opening of the American mind, political correctness, canon formation, or what have you. I’m talking about the whole system in which these skirmishes play out. 不僅是常春藤學(xué)?；蛘咂渌髮W(xué)，而且包括讓你獲得優(yōu)越地位的整個(gè)機(jī)制：私立或富裕的公立“填鴨式”學(xué)校、越來越泛濫的輔導(dǎo)老師、備考課程和輔導(dǎo)班等準(zhǔn)機(jī) 構(gòu)、導(dǎo)致錄取與否的招生瘋狂。Not just the Ivy League and its peer institutions, but also the mechanisms that get you there in the first place: the private and affluent public “feeder” schools, the ever-growing parastructure of tutors and test-prep courses and enrichment programs, the whole admissions frenzy and everything that leads up to and away from it.像通常情況一樣，信息就是媒介。精英大學(xué)課堂之前、之后、和周圍都在集中灌輸著價(jià)值觀。The message, as always, is the medium. Before, after, and around the elite college classroom, a constellation of values is ceaselessly inculcated. 隨著全球化加劇經(jīng)濟(jì)不安全感，學(xué)生、家長(zhǎng)、和整個(gè)社會(huì)都越來越指望獲得教育優(yōu)勢(shì)的整個(gè)機(jī)制。As globalization sharpens economic insecurity, we are increasingly committing ourselves—as students, as parents, as a society—to a vast apparatus of educational advantage. 既然有這么多資源投入到精英教育的事業(yè)中，有這么多人來爭(zhēng)奪向上階梯的有限空間，我們有必要問一下最后你到底能得到什么，我們整體能得到了什么，因?yàn)檎?大學(xué)不厭其煩地提醒他們的，當(dāng)今的精英學(xué)生是未來的領(lǐng)袖。我們這些最好的大學(xué)已經(jīng)忘記了存在的理由是塑造靈魂而不是創(chuàng)造職業(yè)。With so many resources devoted to the business of elite academics and so many people scrambling for the limited space at the top of the ladder, it is worth asking what exactly it is you get in the end—what it is we all get, because the elite students of today, as their institutions never tire of reminding them, are the leaders of tomorrow.

正如我在廚房認(rèn)識(shí)到的，精英教育的第一個(gè) 劣勢(shì)是它讓你無法和與你不同的人進(jìn)行交流。The first disadvantage of an elite education, as I learned in my kitchen that day, is that it makes you incapable of talking to people who aren’t like you. 精英大學(xué)常?？湟约旱亩嘣?，但是這種多元化幾乎總是限于種族和民族的范疇。Elite schools pride themselves on their diversity, but that diversity is almost entirely a matter of ethnicity and race.說到階級(jí)，這些學(xué)?；旧显絹碓蕉嗟刳呁?。如果你到我們偉大國家的任何一所名牌大學(xué)看看，就會(huì)驚訝地發(fā)現(xiàn)白人商賈名流和專業(yè)人士的子女和黑 人、亞裔、拉丁裔商賈名流和專業(yè)人士的子女一起學(xué)習(xí)和玩耍的溫馨場(chǎng)景。With respect to class, these schools are largely—indeed increasingly—homogeneous. Visit any elite campus in our great nation and you can thrill to the heartwarming spectacle of the children of white businesspeople and professionals studying and playing alongside the children of black, Asian, and Latino businesspeople and professionals.與此同時(shí)，因?yàn)檫@些學(xué)校培養(yǎng)自由態(tài)度，所以讓這些學(xué)生陷入矛盾的困境，他們?cè)敢鉃楣まr(nóng)階層代言，卻無法與來自這些階層的人進(jìn) 行簡(jiǎn)單交流。At the same time, because these schools tend to cultivate liberal attitudes, they leave their students in the paradoxical position of wanting to advocate on behalf of the working class while being unable to hold a simple conversation with anyone in it.讓我們回顧一下上次民主黨的兩個(gè)總統(tǒng)提名候選人戈?duì)柡涂死锏那榫鞍?。他們一個(gè)來自哈佛，一個(gè)來自耶魯，兩人都是真誠、體面和富有智慧的人，但他們都 根本無法和選民溝通交流。Witness the last two Democratic presidential nominees, Al Gore and John Kerry: one each from Harvard and Yale, both earnest, decent, intelligent men, both utterly incapable of communicating with the larger electorate.


但是這不僅僅是階級(jí)問題。 But it isn’t just a matter of class. 我的教育讓我相信沒有進(jìn)入常春藤大學(xué)或者其他名牌大學(xué)的人是不值得交談的，不管他出身于什么階級(jí)。My education taught me to believe that people who didn’t go to an Ivy League or equivalent school weren’t worth talking to, regardless of their class.我得到的教育清清楚楚顯示這些人低我一等。I was given the unmistakable message that such people were beneath me. 正如名牌大學(xué)喜歡宣揚(yáng)的，我們是“最好的、最聰明的人”，其他任何地方的人都與我們不同：沒我們好，沒我們聰明。如果有人告訴我他們上的學(xué)校不那么有名 氣，我學(xué)會(huì)了表示理解地點(diǎn)點(diǎn)頭，表現(xiàn)出些微同情地說“啊，”We were “the best and the brightest,” as these places love to say, and everyone else was, well, something else: less good, less bright. I learned to give that little nod of understanding, that slightly sympathetic “Oh,” when people told me they went to a less prestigious college.（如果我上了哈佛，有人問我在哪上學(xué)時(shí)，我學(xué)會(huì)了說“在波士頓”）。(If I’d gone to Harvard, I would have learned to say “in Boston” when I was asked where I went to school) 我根本不知道沒有上名牌大學(xué)的人中也有聰明人，實(shí)際上他們沒能到那里常常正是因?yàn)殡A級(jí)原因。我根本不知道還有很多聰明人根本就沒有上過大學(xué)。I never learned that there are smart people who don’t go to elite colleges, often precisely for reasons of class. I never learned that there are smart people who don’t go to college at all.

我也了解到有些聰明人 并不“聰明”。智慧形式多樣性的存在已經(jīng)是個(gè)常識(shí)，但是不管精英大學(xué)多么喜歡夸耀新生班級(jí)里面有幾個(gè)演員或者小提琴手，他們挑選和培養(yǎng)的智慧形式只是分析 能力。I also never learned that there are smart people who aren’t “smart.” The existence of multiple forms of intelligence has become a commonplace, but however much elite universities like to sprinkle their incoming classes with a few actors or violinists, they select for and develop one form of intelligence: the analytic. 雖然這對(duì)于所有大學(xué)都可以說是真實(shí)的，但是精英大學(xué)恰恰因?yàn)閷W(xué)生（包括老師和管理者）在這方面的智慧程度如此之高，所以很容易忽略其他智慧形式的價(jià)值。人 們夸耀自己最擅長(zhǎng)，最能給自己帶來優(yōu)勢(shì)的東西是很自然的，While this is broadly true of all universities, elite schools, precisely because their students (and faculty, and administrators) possess this one form of intelligence to such a high degree, are more apt to ignore the value of others. One naturally prizes what one most possesses and what most makes for one’s advantages. 但是社會(huì)智慧和感情智慧以及創(chuàng)造能力等在教育精英中的分配并不占優(yōu)勢(shì)（僅提出這三種智慧形式）?！白顑?yōu)秀者”只是在狹隘意義上的最聰明者而已，人們要擺脫 教育精英才能認(rèn)識(shí)到這個(gè)問題。But social intelligence and emotional intelligence and creative ability, to name just three other forms, are not distributed preferentially among the educational elite. The “best” are the brightest only in one narrow sense. One needs to wander away from the educational elite to begin to discover this.

那么在任何意義上都不聰明的人如何呢？  What about people who aren’t bright in any sense? 我有個(gè)朋友從典型的普通公立中學(xué)畢業(yè)后考上了常春藤大學(xué)。她說，進(jìn)入這種學(xué)校的價(jià)值之一是它教給你如何與不聰明的人相處。I have a friend who went to an Ivy League college after graduating from a typically mediocre public high school. One of the values of going to such a school, she once said, is that it teaches you to relate to stupid people. 有人在精英大學(xué)的意義上聰明，有人在其他方面聰明，有人根本就不聰明。如果與人交談是了解他們的唯一真正的方法，不知道如何與他們交談就是讓人尷尬的事。 Some people are smart in the elite-college way, some are smart in other ways, and some aren’t smart at all. It should be embarrassing not to know how to talk to any of them, if only because talking to people is the only real way of knowing them. 名牌大學(xué)應(yīng)該提供了人道主義教育，但是人性的第一個(gè)原則是古羅馬戲劇家泰倫斯（Terence）的原則“只要與人有關(guān)的事我都不陌生”。精英教育的第一個(gè) 劣勢(shì)就是它讓你疏遠(yuǎn)了眾多人性特征。Elite institutions are supposed to provide a humanistic education, but the first principle of humanism is Terence’s: “nothing human is alien to me.” The first disadvantage of an elite education is how very much of the human it alienates you from.


第二個(gè)劣勢(shì)隱含在我一直 在講的觀點(diǎn)里，那就是精英教育灌輸了一種虛假的自我價(jià)值。The second disadvantage, implicit in what I’ve been saying, is that an elite education inculcates a false sense of self-worth.考上名牌大學(xué)，在名牌大學(xué)上學(xué)，畢業(yè)于名牌大學(xué)都取決于分?jǐn)?shù)排名（如大學(xué)入學(xué)考試（SAT）平均分（GPA）、研究生入學(xué)考試 （GRE））你學(xué)會(huì)了用那些分?jǐn)?shù)來評(píng)價(jià)自己。Getting to an elite college, being at an elite college, and going on from an elite college—all involve numerical rankings: SAT, GPA, GRE. You learn to think of yourself in terms of those numbers. 分?jǐn)?shù)不僅放大了你的命運(yùn)，而且放大了你的身份，不僅放大了你的身份，而且放大了你的價(jià)值。They come to signify not only your fate, but your identity; not only your identity, but your value.人們一直說那些考試真正檢驗(yàn)的是你的考試能力，但是即使它們確實(shí)測(cè)量出真實(shí)的內(nèi)容，也不過是真實(shí)情況中的一小部分而已。 It’s been said that what those tests really measure is your ability to take tests, but even if they measure something real, it is only a small slice of the real. 問題開始于你鼓勵(lì)學(xué)生忘掉這個(gè)真理時(shí)刻，功課方面的優(yōu)秀成為絕對(duì)意義上的優(yōu)秀時(shí)，“在某方面出色”變成了“出色”時(shí)。The problem begins when students are encouraged to forget this truth, when academic excellence becomes excellence in some absolute sense, when “better at X” becomes simply “better.”


對(duì)自己的智慧或者知識(shí)感到自豪沒有任何不對(duì)的地方，問題出現(xiàn)在名牌大學(xué)錄取 通知書進(jìn)入家門的時(shí)刻起，是名牌大學(xué)所縱容的沾沾自喜和自我吹捧。There is nothing wrong with taking pride in one’s intellect or knowledge. There is something wrong with the smugness and self-congratulation that elite schools connive at from the moment the fat envelopes come in the mail. 這些明確無誤的信息貫穿于從大學(xué)入學(xué)教育到畢業(yè)的整個(gè)過程，體現(xiàn)在每個(gè)人的音調(diào)、頭腦的傾斜、傳統(tǒng)名校宣傳、學(xué)生報(bào)紙的每篇文章、院長(zhǎng)的每篇演說中。這個(gè) 信息就是你來了，歡迎加入這個(gè)俱樂部。 From orientation to graduation, the message is implicit in every tone of voice and tilt of the head, every old-school tradition, every article in the student paper, every speech from the dean. The message is: You have arrived. Welcome to the club.必然結(jié)果也同樣明白無誤：

你 理應(yīng)得到因?yàn)槟愕搅诉@里而能得到的一切東西。當(dāng)人們說名牌大學(xué)學(xué)生有強(qiáng)烈的權(quán)利意識(shí)，他們的意思是這些學(xué)生認(rèn)為他們因?yàn)榉謹(jǐn)?shù)比別人高所以理應(yīng)得到比別人更 多的東西。And the corollary is equally clear: You deserve everything your presence here is going to enable you to get. When people say that students at elite schools have a strong sense of entitlement, they mean that those students think they deserve more than other people because their SAT scores are higher.

在耶魯，毫無疑問其他地方也一樣，這個(gè)信息被讓人尷尬的字面術(shù)語來強(qiáng)化。該大 學(xué)的物質(zhì)形式，也就是四方院和住宿學(xué)院連同臨街的建在圍墻里的緊鎖的哥特式石頭、熟鐵大門。At Yale, and no doubt at other places, the message is reinforced in embarrassingly literal terms. The physical form of the university—its quads and residential colleges, with their Gothic stone fa?ades and wrought-iron portals—is constituted by the locked gate set into the encircling wall.每個(gè)人攜帶的身份證決定了他可以從哪個(gè)門進(jìn)入。換句話說，這門就是控制性的比喻，因?yàn)榇髮W(xué)的社會(huì)形式就是用同樣方式構(gòu)成的，每個(gè)名牌大學(xué)都是如 此。Everyone carries around an ID card that determines which gates they can enter. The gate, in other words, is a kind of governing metaphor—because the social form of the university, as is true of every elite school, is constituted the same way.名牌大學(xué)都是被鎖著的大門圍起來的堡壘，只對(duì)經(jīng)過挑選符合要求的人開放。Elite colleges are walled domains guarded by locked gates, with admission granted only to the elect. 學(xué)生吸收這個(gè)教訓(xùn)的能力體現(xiàn)在他們?cè)谶@些門里豎立起更多門檻的渴望，成立更加排他性的特殊團(tuán)體，在耶魯有著名的秘密社團(tuán)，或者應(yīng)該被稱為公開的秘密社團(tuán)， 因?yàn)檎嬲孛艿脑拰⑵茐乃麄兊哪康摹３侨藗冎雷约罕慌懦谕饬?，否則排他性又有什么意義呢？The aptitude with which students absorb this lesson is demonstrated by the avidity with which they erect still more gates within those gates, special realms of ever-greater exclusivity—at Yale, the famous secret societies, or as they should probably be called, the open-secret societies, since true secrecy would defeat their purpose. There’s no point in excluding people unless they know they’ve been excluded.

精英教育的重大劣勢(shì)之一是它教給你認(rèn)為智慧和學(xué)術(shù)功 課的測(cè)量標(biāo)準(zhǔn)是道德上或者形而上學(xué)意義上的價(jià)值判斷標(biāo)準(zhǔn)，但實(shí)際上不是。One of the great errors of an elite education, then, is that it teaches you to think that measures of intelligence and academic achievement are measures of value in some moral or metaphysical sense. But they’re not. 名牌大學(xué)的畢業(yè)生并不比愚蠢的人、不聰明的人、甚至懶惰的人更有價(jià)值。他們的痛苦并不比他人更痛苦，他們的靈魂并不更重要。Graduates of elite schools are not more valuable than stupid people, or talentless people, or even lazy people. Their pain does not hurt more. Their souls do not weigh more. 如果我是信徒，我會(huì)說上帝并不愛他們更多。If I were religious, I would say, God does not love them more.  政治上的隱含意義是清晰的。正如約翰·羅斯金（John Ruskin）曾經(jīng)對(duì)老精英說，當(dāng)你用腦子的力量而不是用拳頭的力量抓住你能得到的東西，并不說明你的邪惡就更少些。The political implications should be clear. As John Ruskin told an older elite, grabbing what you can get isn’t any less wicked when you grab it with the power of your brains than with the power of your fists. 羅斯金說“必須有人工作，也必須有工頭，但是在成為工頭和從工作中牟利之間存在巨大的差別。”“Work must always be,” Ruskin says, “and captains of work must always be….[But] there is a wide difference between being captains…of work, and taking the profits of it.”


政治上的隱含意義不僅僅止于此。精英教育不僅預(yù)示著你進(jìn)入上層社會(huì)，一旦進(jìn)入那里后，還訓(xùn)練你適應(yīng)那里的生活。The political implications don’t stop there. An elite education not only ushers you into the upper classes; it trains you for the life you will lead once you get there. 我以前不知道這些，后來我對(duì)比了我和我的同學(xué)的經(jīng)歷以及進(jìn)入克利夫蘭州立大學(xué)的朋友的經(jīng)歷開始明白了。I didn’t understand this until I began comparing my experience, and even more, my students’ experience, with the experience of a friend of mine who went to Cleveland State. 在耶魯大學(xué)有交作業(yè)的最后期限和考勤規(guī)定，但是沒有人認(rèn)真對(duì)待，如果請(qǐng)求可以申請(qǐng)推遲，如果曠課減少學(xué)分的威脅從來沒有認(rèn)真執(zhí)行過。換句話說，在耶魯這樣 的大學(xué)，學(xué)生們有數(shù)不清的第二次機(jī)會(huì)。There are due dates and attendance requirements at places like Yale, but no one takes them very seriously. Extensions are available for the asking; threats to deduct credit for missed classes are rarely, if ever, carried out. In other words, students at places like Yale get an endless string of second chances.但是在克里夫蘭州立大學(xué)就沒有。我的朋友有一門本來一直成績(jī)很好的課卻得了很低的分?jǐn)?shù)，因?yàn)樗?dāng)班做侍應(yīng)生的緣故遲交論文了一個(gè)小時(shí)。 Not so at places like Cleveland State. My friend once got a D in a class in which she’d been running an A because she was coming off a waitressing shift and had to hand in her term paper an hour late.

這 或許是個(gè)極端的例子，但在精英大學(xué)是不可思議的。同樣不可思議的是，她根本沒有申訴的機(jī)會(huì)。That may be an extreme example, but it is unthinkable at an elite school. Just as unthinkably, she had no one to appeal to.克里夫蘭州立大學(xué)的學(xué)生們不像耶魯?shù)膶W(xué)生有一群顧問、輔導(dǎo)老師和系主任幫他們寫作業(yè)晚交的情況說明，在需要的時(shí)候提供額外幫助，在跌倒的時(shí)候把他們 扶起來。 Students at places like Cleveland State, unlike those at places like Yale, don’t have a platoon of advisers and tutors and deans to write out excuses for late work, give them extra help when they need it, pick them up when they fall down. 他們得到的是來自冷漠官僚體制的批發(fā)性教育，不是由滿臉笑容的工作人員把精心包裝的包裹親手交給他們。They get their education wholesale, from an indifferent bureaucracy; it’s not handed to them in individually wrapped packages by smiling clerks. 他們很少有機(jī)會(huì)接觸我的學(xué)生們經(jīng)常接觸的上層聯(lián)系，比如來訪的權(quán)力掮客演講，和外國代表一起吃飯等。他們也很少有機(jī)會(huì)得到各種特別基金資助，在耶魯這樣的 地方，有各種各樣的基金資助，比如旅行補(bǔ)貼、研究獎(jiǎng)學(xué)金、演出獎(jiǎng)勵(lì)等。There are few, if any, opportunities for the kind of contacts I saw my students get routinely—classes with visiting power brokers, dinners with foreign dignitaries. There are also few, if any, of the kind of special funds that, at places like Yale, are available in profusion: travel stipends, research fellowships, performance grants.每年我所在的耶魯英語系有幾十種現(xiàn)金獎(jiǎng)勵(lì)，內(nèi)容從新生作文到畢業(yè)設(shè)計(jì)五花八門。今年，這些獎(jiǎng)勵(lì)已經(jīng)達(dá)到九萬美元，還是僅僅在一個(gè)系里。 Each year, my department at Yale awards dozens of cash prizes for everything from freshman essays to senior projects. This year, those awards came to more than $90,000—in just one department.

在克里夫蘭州立大 學(xué)這樣的大學(xué)的學(xué)生也不可能僅僅做了作業(yè)就可以得優(yōu)。最近有很多文章談到分?jǐn)?shù)膨脹的問題，這是丑聞，但是最丑陋的地方在于它是多么地不平衡。 Students at places like Cleveland State also don’t get A-’s just for doing the work. There’s been a lot of handwringing lately over grade inflation, and it is a scandal, but the most scandalous thing about it is how uneven it’s been. 四十年前，公立和私立大學(xué)的平均分（GPA）是2.6，仍然接近傳統(tǒng)的（B-/C+）曲線。從那時(shí)起，它在任何地方都開始上升，但是上漲的幅度不同。公立 大學(xué)的平均分是3.0或者B，在私立大學(xué)是3.3,很少B+。在多數(shù)常春藤大學(xué)，這個(gè)數(shù)字已經(jīng)接近3.4。但是總有學(xué)生不做作業(yè)或者上專業(yè)課之外的課程 （不管是為了好玩還是為了學(xué)分）或者根本就達(dá)不到標(biāo)準(zhǔn)的情況（比如運(yùn)動(dòng)員或者校友子女）。Forty years ago, the average GPA at both public and private universities was about 2.6, still close to the traditional B-/C+ curve. Since then, it’s gone up everywhere, but not by anything like the same amount. The average gpa at public universities is now about 3.0, a B; at private universities it’s about 3.3, just short of a B+. And at most Ivy League schools, it’s closer to 3.4. But there are always students who don’t do the work, or who are taking a class far outside their field (for fun or to fulfill a requirement), or who aren’t up to standard to begin with (athletes, legacies).但是在耶魯這樣的學(xué)校，只要來上課，努力學(xué)習(xí)就可以期待得到（A-）在大部分時(shí)候，他們確實(shí)得到了這個(gè)成績(jī)。At a school like Yale, students who come to class and work hard expect nothing less than an A-. And most of the time, they get it.

簡(jiǎn)而言之，學(xué)生在大學(xué)被對(duì)待的方式訓(xùn) 練了他們一旦走出校門后獲得的社會(huì)崗位的對(duì)待方式。In short, the way students are treated in college trains them for the social position they will occupy once they get out.在克里夫蘭州立大學(xué)這樣的學(xué)校，學(xué)生們接受的培訓(xùn)是擔(dān)任階級(jí)體系中的中間位置，處于官僚機(jī)構(gòu)中的底層。他們已經(jīng)被訓(xùn)練過很少有二次機(jī)會(huì)的生活，沒 有推遲寬限，很少有資助，很少有機(jī)會(huì)，要在服從、接受監(jiān)督和控制下生活，趕最后期限，不是制定指導(dǎo)原則的生活。At schools like Cleveland State, they’re being trained for positions somewhere in the middle of the class system, in the depths of one bureaucracy or another. They’re being conditioned for lives with few second chances, no extensions, little support, narrow opportunity—lives of subordination, supervision, and control, lives of deadlines, not guidelines. 在耶魯這樣的地方，當(dāng)然正好相反。精英喜歡把自己歸入管理階層，但是這只是在一定程度上是真實(shí)的。At places like Yale, of course, it’s the reverse. The elite like to think of themselves as belonging to a meritocracy, but that’s true only up to a point. 進(jìn)入大門是非常困難的，但是一旦進(jìn)去了，你做了幾乎任何事情都不可能被趕出來。不管是最絕望的課程不及格，還是最可惡的抄襲劣行，甚至對(duì)其他同學(xué)的身體傷 害的威脅等都不會(huì)被開除，這三種情況我都聽說過。Getting through the gate is very difficult, but once you’re in, there’s almost nothing you can do to get kicked out. Not the most abject academic failure, not the most heinous act of plagiarism, not even threatening a fellow student with bodily harm—I’ve heard of all three—will get you expelled.上帝啊，感覺就是它不公平，換句話說，老同學(xué)關(guān)系網(wǎng)的自我保護(hù)，雖然現(xiàn)在也包括了女人。 The feeling is that, by gosh, it just wouldn’t be fair—in other words, the self-protectiveness of the old-boy network, even if it now includes girls. 精英學(xué)校培養(yǎng)出類拔萃的人才，但是也培養(yǎng)我認(rèn)識(shí)的一個(gè)從前的耶魯畢業(yè)生所說的“有資格的平庸”。A是出類拔萃的標(biāo)記，而A-是“有資格的平庸”的標(biāo)記。 Elite schools nurture excellence, but they also nurture what a former Yale graduate student I know calls “entitled mediocrity.” A is the mark of excellence; A- is the mark of entitled mediocrity. 這是另外一個(gè)比喻的例子，不僅是分?jǐn)?shù)或者承諾。它意味著，別擔(dān)心，我們會(huì)照顧你的。你可能不是那么好，但已經(jīng)足夠好了。It’s another one of those metaphors, not so much a grade as a promise. It means, don’t worry, we’ll take care of you. You may not be all that good, but you’re good enough.


這里，大學(xué)也反映了成人世界的運(yùn)行方式（除了它是另外的方向）。對(duì)于精英，總有另一個(gè)寬限、不追究、赦 免、恢復(fù)期等，總有眾多的關(guān)系網(wǎng)、特別的薪金、鄉(xiāng)村俱樂部、會(huì)議、年終獎(jiǎng)、分紅等。  Here, too, college reflects the way things work in the adult world (unless it’s the other way around). For the elite, there’s always another extension—a bailout, a pardon, a stint in rehab—always plenty of contacts and special stipends—the country club, the conference, the year-end bonus, the dividend.如果戈?duì)柡涂死锎砭⒔逃囊粋€(gè)典型產(chǎn)品的話，喬治·布什就代表另一個(gè)典型。我們的現(xiàn)任總統(tǒng)是有資格的平庸的化身，他進(jìn)入耶魯決非碰 巧的事情。If Al Gore and John Kerry represent one of the characteristic products of an elite education, George W. Bush represents another. It’s no coincidence that our current president, the apotheosis of entitled mediocrity, went to Yale. 有資格的平庸實(shí)際上是其政府的運(yùn)行原則，但是正如安然公司和世界通訊公司和其他網(wǎng)絡(luò)公司丑聞所顯示的，也是公司化美國的運(yùn)行原則。Entitled mediocrity is indeed the operating principle of his administration, but as Enron and WorldCom and the other scandals of the dot-com meltdown demonstrated, it’s also the operating principle of corporate America. 那些表現(xiàn)不佳的公司高管的豐厚薪水就是成人世界的A-分?jǐn)?shù)。The fat salaries paid to underperforming CEOs are an adult version of the A-. 任何記得感到委屈的偽善者安然公司頭目肯尼斯·萊恩（Kenneth Lay）都明白其中涉及的心態(tài)。此人回應(yīng)他應(yīng)該為自己的行為承擔(dān)責(zé)任的指控時(shí)說，一旦你進(jìn)入了一個(gè)俱樂部，你就有了上帝給予的權(quán)利永遠(yuǎn)留在這個(gè)俱樂部?jī)?nèi)。 Anyone who remembers the injured sanctimony with which Kenneth Lay greeted the notion that he should be held accountable for his actions will understand the mentality in question—the belief that once you’re in the club, you’ve got a God-given right to stay in the club.但是你沒有必要記住肯尼斯·萊恩，因?yàn)橥瑯拥墓适氯ツ臧l(fā)生在另一個(gè)耶魯人斯科特·利比（Scooter Libby）身上。But you don’t need to remember Ken Lay, because the whole dynamic played out again last year in the case of Scooter Libby, another Yale man.

如 果精英教育的劣勢(shì)之一是它提供平庸的誘惑，另一個(gè)劣勢(shì)是它提供安全的誘惑。If one of the disadvantages of an elite education is the temptation it offers to mediocrity, another is the temptation it offers to security.當(dāng)家長(zhǎng)解釋為什么他們?nèi)绱速u力地要給予孩子最好的教育時(shí)，他們毫無例外地說因?yàn)樗峁┝吮姸嗟臋C(jī)會(huì)。When parents explain why they work so hard to give their children the best possible education, they invariably say it is because of the opportunities it opens up.但是它關(guān)閉了什么機(jī)會(huì)呢？But what of the opportunities it shuts down? 精英教育給予你發(fā)財(cái)?shù)臋C(jī)會(huì)，這畢竟是你在談?wù)摰臇|西，但是它也剝奪了不發(fā)財(cái)?shù)臋C(jī)會(huì)。不發(fā)財(cái)?shù)臋C(jī)會(huì)實(shí)際上是每個(gè)年輕美國人一直被給予的最好機(jī)會(huì)之一。An elite education gives you the chance to be rich—which is, after all, what we’re talking about—but it takes away the chance not to be. Yet the opportunity not to be rich is one of the greatest opportunities with which young Americans have been blessed.我們生活在這樣一個(gè)社會(huì)，它這么富裕完全可以為或許在其他國家存在（或者從前曾經(jīng)存在的）的處于貧困邊緣的人或者至少處于喪失尊嚴(yán)的邊緣 的人提供體面的生活。We live in a society that is itself so wealthy that it can afford to provide a decent living to whole classes of people who in other countries exist (or in earlier times existed) on the brink of poverty or, at least, of indignity. 你作為中學(xué)老師、社區(qū)組織者、民權(quán)律師、藝術(shù)家可以在美國生活地很舒服，不管按任何有道理的舒服的定義來判斷。You can live comfortably in the United States as a schoolteacher, or a community organizer, or a civil rights lawyer, or an artist—that is, by any reasonable definition of comfort.你得居住在普通公寓里而不是曼哈頓的豪宅或者洛杉磯官邸里。你得開本田車，而不是寶馬或者悍馬（Hummer），你得在弗羅里達(dá)度假而不 是在巴巴多斯或者巴黎。但是這些損失如果和你有機(jī)會(huì)做自己信任的工作，做你適合的工作，你喜愛的工作，你的日常生活相比算得了什么呢？You have to live in an ordinary house instead of an apartment in Manhattan or a mansion in L.A.; you have to drive a Honda instead of a BMW or a Hummer; you have to vacation in Florida instead of Barbados or Paris, but what are such losses when set against the opportunity to do work you believe in, work you’re suited for, work you love, every day of your life?

但 這正是精英教育剝奪了的機(jī)會(huì)。Yet it is precisely that opportunity that an elite education takes away. 我怎么能去做一名中學(xué)教師呢，那不是浪費(fèi)了我昂貴的教育嗎？難道不是揮霍掉了父母花費(fèi)這么大代價(jià)為我提供的好教育了么？我的朋友們?cè)撛趺纯创夷兀慷?后同學(xué)再相聚，我怎么有臉見那些成為大律師或者紐約名流的同學(xué)呢？How can I be a schoolteacher—wouldn’t that be a waste of my expensive education? Wouldn’t I be squandering the opportunities my parents worked so hard to provide? What will my friends think? How will I face my classmates at our 20th reunion, when they’re all rich lawyers or important people in New York?所有這些問題背后的問題是：這不是委屈了我么？所以可能性的整個(gè)世界都關(guān)閉了，你錯(cuò)過了你可能真正喜歡的職業(yè)。And the question that lies behind all these: Isn’t it beneath me? So a whole universe of possibility closes, and you miss your true calling.

這 并不是說名牌大學(xué)的學(xué)生畢業(yè)后決不會(huì)追求風(fēng)險(xiǎn)大或者利潤(rùn)少的職業(yè)，不過即使他們選了這些職業(yè)，也比他人更容易很快放棄。（我們甚至不討論某些特權(quán)階級(jí)的孩 子根本不上大學(xué)的可能性，或者推遲好幾年入學(xué)，因?yàn)椴还苓@種選擇有時(shí)候顯得多么合適，刻板的教育心態(tài)已經(jīng)把他們排斥在可能性世界之外，有很多孩子像夢(mèng)游一 般來到大學(xué)，根本就不知道上大學(xué)的理由）。   This is not to say that students from elite colleges never pursue a riskier or less lucrative course after graduation, but even when they do, they tend to give up more quickly than others. (Let’s not even talk about the possibility of kids from privileged backgrounds not going to college at all, or delaying matriculation for several years, because however appropriate such choices might sometimes be, our rigid educational mentality places them outside the universe of possibility—the reason so many kids go sleepwalking off to college with no idea what they’re doing there.) 這似乎是不合情理的，因?yàn)榫⒋髮W(xué)的學(xué)生傾向于畢業(yè)時(shí)不用背很多債，也更容易靠家庭資助度過一段時(shí)間。This doesn’t seem to make sense, especially since students from elite schools tend to graduate with less debt and are more likely to be able to float by on family money for a while. 我以前不知道有這種現(xiàn)象，后來從我們系的幾個(gè)研究生那里聽說這事，一個(gè)來自耶魯，一個(gè)來自哈佛的兩學(xué)生在討論寫詩歌，他們的大學(xué)朋友說一兩年之內(nèi)肯定洗手 不干了，而他們認(rèn)識(shí)的來自普通大學(xué)的學(xué)生仍然還在堅(jiān)持。I wasn’t aware of the phenomenon myself until I heard about it from a couple of graduate students in my department, one from Yale, one from Harvard. They were talking about trying to write poetry, how friends of theirs from college called it quits within a year or two while people they know from less prestigious schools are still at it.為什么是這樣？因?yàn)槊拼髮W(xué)學(xué)生期待成功，期待立刻就成功。從定義上看，他們從來沒有經(jīng)歷過別的東西，他們的自我意識(shí)就是建立在成功的能力基礎(chǔ)上 的。不成功的想法讓他們感到恐懼、讓他們無所適從、讓他們一蹶不振。Why should this be? Because students from elite schools expect success, and expect it now. They have, by definition, never experienced anything else, and their sense of self has been built around their ability to succeed. The idea of not being successful terrifies them, disorients them, defeats them. 他們的整個(gè)人生一直被失敗的恐懼所驅(qū)動(dòng)，往往最開始起因于父母對(duì)失敗的恐懼。我第一次考試不理想，走出教室后覺得我已經(jīng)不知道自己是誰了。第二次考試失敗 就好受多了，我已經(jīng)明白失敗并非世界末日。They’ve been driven their whole lives by a fear of failure—often, in the first instance, by their parents’ fear of failure. The first time I blew a test, I walked out of the room feeling like I no longer knew who I was. The second time, it was easier; I had started to learn that failure isn’t the end of the world.


但是如果你害怕失敗，你 就害怕冒險(xiǎn)，這就解釋了精英教育的最終的最具破壞性的劣勢(shì)：它在本質(zhì)上是反智主義的。 But if you’re afraid to fail, you’re afraid to take risks, which begins to explain the final and most damning disadvantage of an elite education: that it is profoundly anti-intellectual. 這似乎和本能相反。難道精英大學(xué)里的孩子至少在狹窄的功課意義上不是最聰明的嗎？他們不是學(xué)習(xí)最刻苦的嗎？不是比前幾代的學(xué)生都更刻苦嗎？是的，他們確實(shí) 如此。但是成為知識(shí)分子和成為聰明人不是一回事。成為知識(shí)分子不僅僅意味著做功課。This will seem counterintuitive. Aren’t kids at elite schools the smartest ones around, at least in the narrow academic sense? Don’t they work harder than anyone else—indeed, harder than any previous generation? They are. They do. But being an intellectual is not the same as being smart. Being an intellectual means more than doing your homework.

如果這么多小伙子在上大學(xué)的時(shí)候還認(rèn)識(shí)不到這一點(diǎn)，這沒有什么希奇。他 們是體制的產(chǎn)物，很少思考下一次作業(yè)以外的問題。If so few kids come to college understanding this, it is no wonder. They are products of a system that rarely asked them to think about something bigger than the next assignment.這種教育體制忘了教會(huì)他們?cè)谘刂缆愤M(jìn)入名牌大學(xué)找到待遇豐厚的工作過程中，最重要的成功是無法通過一封推薦信或者分?jǐn)?shù)或者校名來 衡量的。它忘了教育的真正目的是塑造靈魂，不是培養(yǎng)就業(yè)能力。The system forgot to teach them, along the way to the prestige admissions and the lucrative jobs, that the most important achievements can’t be measured by a letter or a number or a name. It forgot that the true purpose of education is to make minds, not careers.


成為知識(shí)分子意味著首先對(duì)思想充滿激情，不是為一個(gè)個(gè)學(xué)期，為了討老師的歡心，或者取得好成績(jī)。 Being an intellectual means, first of all, being passionate about ideas—and not just for the duration of a semester, for the sake of pleasing the teacher, or for getting a good grade. 一個(gè)在康涅狄格大學(xué)教書的朋友曾經(jīng)向我抱怨說他的學(xué)生不會(huì)自己思考。 A friend who teaches at the University of Connecticut once complained to me that his students don’t think for themselves.我說，耶魯學(xué)生會(huì)自己思考，但只是因?yàn)樗麄冎览蠋熛Ｍ麄冞@樣做。我在耶魯和哥倫比亞大學(xué)教過很多非常聰明的學(xué)生，他們頭腦清 晰、善于思考、富于創(chuàng)造性，與他們交談和學(xué)習(xí)確實(shí)是個(gè)享受。Well, I said, Yale students think for themselves, but only because they know we want them to. I’ve had many wonderful students at Yale and Columbia, bright, thoughtful, creative kids whom it’s been a pleasure to talk with and learn from.但是他們中的大部分人似乎只滿足于教育為他們劃的線之內(nèi)的顏色。只有很少一部分把教育看作更大的智慧探索旅程的一部分，用朝圣者的心情閱讀思想 著作。這些少數(shù)人很容易感覺到和他人格格不入，因?yàn)閺拇髮W(xué)本身得到的支持太少了。Only a small minority have seen their education as part of a larger intellectual journey, have approached the work of the mind with a pilgrim soul. These few have tended to feel like freaks, not least because they get so little support from the university itself. 正如其中一個(gè)對(duì)我說的，像耶魯這樣的地方根本不適合探索者。Places like Yale, as one of them put it to me, are not conducive to searchers.

耶 魯這樣的地方根本不是幫助學(xué)生提出大問題的地方。Places like Yale are simply not set up to help students ask the big questions. 我認(rèn)為在美國的大學(xué)里根本就沒有智慧主義的黃金時(shí)代，但是在十九世紀(jì)學(xué)生至少曾有機(jī)會(huì)在教堂里、或者校園里蓬勃發(fā)展的文學(xué)社團(tuán)、辯論俱樂部里聽到有人提出 這種問題。I don’t think there ever was a golden age of intellectualism in the American university, but in the 19th century students might at least have had a chance to hear such questions raised in chapel or in the literary societies and debating clubs that flourished on campus. 在二十世紀(jì)的大部分時(shí)間里，隨著美國大學(xué)里人文主義理想的增長(zhǎng)，學(xué)生或許在具有強(qiáng)烈教學(xué)使命感的教授課堂里遭遇過大問題。Throughout much of the 20th century, with the growth of the humanistic ideal in American colleges, students might have encountered the big questions in the classrooms of professors possessed of a strong sense of pedagogic mission. 那樣的教授在這個(gè)國家仍然還存在，但是學(xué)術(shù)專業(yè)化越來越可怕的關(guān)鍵時(shí)刻已經(jīng)讓他們成為名牌大學(xué)里的快要滅絕的物種。Teachers like that still exist in this country, but the increasingly dire exigencies of academic professionalization have made them all but extinct at elite universities.著名研究型大學(xué)的教授評(píng)價(jià)完全靠學(xué)術(shù)成果的質(zhì)量來衡量，花費(fèi)在教學(xué)上的時(shí)間完全是浪費(fèi)。如果學(xué)生想體會(huì)談話的經(jīng)驗(yàn)，最好到文科 學(xué)院。Professors at top research institutions are valued exclusively for the quality of their scholarly work; time spent on teaching is time lost. If students want a conversion experience, they’re better off at a liberal arts college.

當(dāng)精英大學(xué)夸耀他們教學(xué)生如何思考時(shí)，他們的意思是講授在法律、醫(yī)藥、科學(xué)、商業(yè)等方面取得 成功所需要的分析和修辭技能。When elite universities boast that they teach their students how to think, they mean that they teach them the analytic and rhetorical skills necessary for success in law or medicine or science or business. 但是文科教育應(yīng)該意味著更多的東西，他們剛?cè)雽W(xué)時(shí)聽過幾場(chǎng)向他們提出大問題的報(bào)告，畢業(yè)的時(shí)候聽?zhēng)讏?chǎng)提出大問題的報(bào)告。But a humanistic education is supposed to mean something more than that, as universities still dimly feel. So when students get to college, they hear a couple of speeches telling them to ask the big questions, and when they graduate, they hear a couple more speeches telling them to ask the big questions.在兩者之間，他們花費(fèi)四年時(shí)間上課，老師訓(xùn)練他們提出小問題，由專業(yè)化的教授對(duì)專業(yè)化的學(xué)生講授的專業(yè)化的課程。And in between, they spend four years taking courses that train them to ask the little questions—specialized courses, taught by specialized professors, aimed at specialized students.雖然廣泛的概念在文科教育思想本身是隱含性的，但錄取過程越來越多地挑選那些已經(jīng)使用專業(yè)化術(shù)語思考未來的學(xué)生，如未來的記者、即將的 宇航員、語言天才等。甚至在精英大學(xué)的我們也陷入大肆夸耀的職業(yè)教育泥坑。Although the notion of breadth is implicit in the very idea of a liberal arts education, the admissions process increasingly selects for kids who have already begun to think of themselves in specialized terms—the junior journalist, the budding astronomer, the language prodigy. We are slouching, even at elite schools, toward a glorified form of vocational training.

實(shí)際上，這些似乎 恰恰是學(xué)校希望的東西。Indeed, that seems to be exactly what those schools want. 精英大學(xué)說他們要培養(yǎng)領(lǐng)袖，而不是思想家，要培養(yǎng)權(quán)力的擁有者而不是權(quán)力的批評(píng)家，這是有理由的。 There’s a reason elite schools speak of training leaders, not thinkers—holders of power, not its critics. 有獨(dú)立思想的人與任何聯(lián)盟無緣，精英大學(xué)的大部分預(yù)算來自校友捐助，所以花費(fèi)大量精力培養(yǎng)學(xué)生對(duì)學(xué)校的忠誠。An independent mind is independent of all allegiances, and elite schools, which get a large percentage of their budget from alumni giving, are strongly invested in fostering institutional loyalty.正如三代耶魯人的一個(gè)朋友說的，耶魯大學(xué)的目的就是生產(chǎn)耶魯校友。As another friend, a third-generation Yalie, says, the purpose of Yale College is to manufacture Yale alumni. 當(dāng)然，為了讓體制能夠工作，那些校友需要錢。耶魯當(dāng)局長(zhǎng)期以來對(duì)學(xué)生從人文學(xué)科和基礎(chǔ)科學(xué)專業(yè)轉(zhuǎn)向比如計(jì)算機(jī)和經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)之類實(shí)用性學(xué)科的傾向一直冷漠地慫 恿。Of course, for the system to work, those alumni need money. At Yale, the long-term drift of students away from majors in the humanities and basic sciences toward more practical ones like computer science and economics has been abetted by administrative indifference.大學(xué)就業(yè)辦公室很少鼓勵(lì)對(duì)法律、醫(yī)藥、商業(yè)不感興趣的學(xué)生，也不做任何事情去減弱畢業(yè)生大量涌進(jìn)華爾街的熱情。 The college career office has little to say to students not interested in law, medicine, or business, and elite universities are not going to do anything to discourage the large percentage of their graduates who take their degrees to Wall Street. 實(shí)際上，他們?cè)谙驅(qū)W生指明這條道路。文科大學(xué)正在變成公司大學(xué)，它的重心已經(jīng)轉(zhuǎn)向技術(shù)領(lǐng)域，學(xué)術(shù)專長(zhǎng)能夠成功地變成利潤(rùn)豐厚的商業(yè)機(jī)會(huì)。In fact, they’re showing them the way. The liberal arts university is becoming the corporate university, its center of gravity shifting to technical fields where scholarly expertise can be parlayed into lucrative business opportunities.

難怪對(duì)思想充滿熱情的學(xué)生發(fā)現(xiàn)自己感到孤立和困惑。It’s no wonder that the few students who are passionate about ideas find themselves feeling isolated and confused. 去年我曾經(jīng)和其中一個(gè)學(xué)生交談，他對(duì)于德國浪漫主義觀點(diǎn)“靈魂塑造”（bildung）感興趣。但是，他已經(jīng)是大四學(xué)生了，周圍的人都在忙著推銷自己的時(shí) 候，你很難塑造靈魂啊。I was talking with one of them last year about his interest in the German Romantic idea of bildung, the upbuilding of the soul. But, he said—he was a senior at the time—it’s hard to build your soul when everyone around you is trying to sell theirs.

但思想生活有一個(gè)維度位于思想熱情之上， 雖然我們的文化已經(jīng)這么徹底地消毒了，如果它讓那些最警惕的學(xué)生也抓不住就沒有什么好奇怪的了。Yet there is a dimension of the intellectual life that lies above the passion for ideas, though so thoroughly has our culture been sanitized of it that it is hardly surprising if it was beyond the reach of even my most alert students.因?yàn)橹R(shí)分子的概念出現(xiàn)在十八世紀(jì)，曾經(jīng)有個(gè)時(shí)期包含著對(duì)社會(huì)變革的承諾。Since the idea of the intellectual emerged in the 18th century, it has had, at its core, a commitment to social transformation. 成為知識(shí)分子意味著提出辦法實(shí)現(xiàn)通向美好社會(huì)的前景，然后向當(dāng)權(quán)者講真話去實(shí)現(xiàn)這個(gè)理想。Being an intellectual means thinking your way toward a vision of the good society and then trying to realize that vision by speaking truth to power.它意味著進(jìn)入精神的放逐，意味著堅(jiān)決放棄你對(duì)上帝、對(duì)國家、對(duì)耶魯?shù)闹艺\，享受孤獨(dú)的自由。它不僅需要智慧，還需要想象力和勇氣。喬伊斯小說 中的青年學(xué)生斯蒂芬· 迪達(dá)勒斯（Stephen Dedalus）說“我不怕犯錯(cuò)誤、大錯(cuò)誤、遺憾終身的錯(cuò)誤、甚至永恒的錯(cuò)誤?！盜t means going into spiritual exile. It means foreswearing your allegiance, in lonely freedom, to God, to country, and to Yale. It takes more than just intellect; it takes imagination and courage. “I am not afraid to make a mistake,” Stephen Dedalus says, “even a great mistake, a lifelong mistake, and perhaps as long as eternity, too.”


成為知識(shí)分子開始于你的思維 方式，擺脫你的假設(shè)和強(qiáng)制這些假設(shè)的體制。Being an intellectual begins with thinking your way outside of your assumptions and the system that enforces them. 但是進(jìn)入名牌大學(xué)的學(xué)生恰恰是那些在體制內(nèi)學(xué)得最好的人，所以讓他們超越體制看問題幾乎是不可能的，甚至根本看不到體制的存在。But students who get into elite schools are precisely the ones who have best learned to work within the system, so it’s almost impossible for them to see outside it, to see that it’s even there. 在他們進(jìn)入大學(xué)之前很久就已經(jīng)把自己變成了世界一流的俯首帖耳、討好老師的小爬蟲，在每門課上都得優(yōu)秀成績(jī)，不管他們覺得這個(gè)老師多么乏味，不管他覺得這 門課多么沒有意義。他們也盡力積累八到十個(gè)課外活動(dòng)，不管多么想用這些時(shí)間做別的事情。Long before they got to college, they turned themselves into world-class hoop-jumpers and teacher-pleasers, getting A’s in every class no matter how boring they found the teacher or how pointless the subject, racking up eight or 10 extracurricular activities no matter what else they wanted to do with their time. 矛盾的是，這種情形在二流的學(xué)校反而更好些，尤其是在文科學(xué)院比在最好的大學(xué)還好些。Paradoxically, the situation may be better at second-tier schools and, in particular, again, at liberal arts colleges than at the most prestigious universities. 有些學(xué)生最后來到二流學(xué)校，因?yàn)樗麄兒凸鸷鸵數(shù)膶W(xué)生一樣，只不過才華稍遜或者沒有那么強(qiáng)的動(dòng)機(jī)。Some students end up at second-tier schools because they’re exactly like students at Harvard or Yale, only less gifted or driven. 但是有些人到了那里是因?yàn)樗麄冇懈?dú)立的精神，But others end up there because they have a more independent spirit.他們沒有得全優(yōu)是因?yàn)閼械迷诿刻谜n上盡一切努力，They didn’t get straight A’s because they couldn’t be bothered to give everything in every class.他們把注意力集中在最有意義的內(nèi)容上，進(jìn)行一個(gè)特別感興趣的課外活動(dòng)，或者去做和學(xué)校沒有任何關(guān)系甚至與有利于大學(xué)申請(qǐng)無關(guān)的項(xiàng)目，They concentrated on the ones that meant the most to them or on a single strong extracurricular passion or on projects that had nothing to do with school or even with looking good on a college application. 或者他們只是坐在房間里看很多書或者寫文章。這些是一類孩子，一旦進(jìn)入大學(xué)后，他們更感興趣的往往是人性精神而不是學(xué)校精神，思考在大學(xué)畢業(yè)時(shí)要帶著的問 題，而不是帶著求職簡(jiǎn)歷。Maybe they just sat in their room, reading a lot and writing in their journal. These are the kinds of kids who are likely, once they get to college, to be more interested in the human spirit than in school spirit, and to think about leaving college bearing questions, not resumés.

我在耶魯?shù)臅r(shí)候印象深刻的是每個(gè)人看起來都差不多。你很難看到嬉皮士、朋克或者藝術(shù)學(xué)生的類型，在八十年代著名的被稱 為同性戀常春藤的學(xué)校，很少是不慚愧女同性戀，沒有"人妖"。I’ve been struck, during my time at Yale, by how similar everyone looks. You hardly see any hippies or punks or art-school types, and at a college that was known in the ’80s as the Gay Ivy, few out lesbians and no gender queers.另類學(xué)生根本就沒有什么出格的舉動(dòng)，追逐時(shí)尚的學(xué)生熱衷的是樸素的優(yōu)雅。三十二種風(fēng)味里全是香子蘭。The geeks don’t look all that geeky; the fashionable kids go in for understated elegance. Thirty-two flavors, all of them vanilla.

大部分精英大學(xué)已經(jīng)都成為思想狹隘、讓 人窒息的常態(tài)王國。The most elite schools have become places of a narrow and suffocating normalcy. 每個(gè)人都感受到要保持一種伴隨成功形象和效果的壓力。（成功的服裝，成功的藥物治療）Everyone feels pressure to maintain the kind of appearance—and affect—that go with achievement. (Dress for success, medicate for success.) 我從長(zhǎng)期擔(dān)任顧問的經(jīng)驗(yàn)中得知，不是每個(gè)耶魯學(xué)生 都合適這里的學(xué)習(xí)或者學(xué)會(huì)適應(yīng)它的，可他們都是一樣的表現(xiàn)，這正是讓我感到擔(dān)憂的地方。 I know from long experience as an adviser that not every Yale student is appropriate and well-adjusted, which is exactly why it worries me that so many of them act that way.常態(tài)的暴政在他們的生活中肯定非常強(qiáng)烈，其中一個(gè)后果是那些功課跟 不上的學(xué)生（他們傾向于來自貧窮的家庭背景）常常表現(xiàn)出相反方向的兩個(gè)極端，要么疏遠(yuǎn)要么自暴自棄。The tyranny of the normal must be very heavy in their lives. One consequence is that those who can’t get with the program (and they tend to be students from poorer backgrounds) often polarize in the opposite direction, flying off into extremes of disaffection and self-destruction但是還有一個(gè)后果與能夠跟上功課的大部分學(xué)生有關(guān)。But another consequence has to do with the large majority who can get with the program.

幾 年前我講授了一門關(guān)于友誼的文學(xué)課。有一天我們?cè)谟懻摳ゼ醽啞の譅柗颍╒irginia Wolf）跟蹤一群從兒童到中年的友誼的小說《海浪》。I taught a class several years ago on the literature of friendship. One day we were discussing Virginia Woolf’s novel The Waves, which follows a group of friends from childhood to middle age. 在高中，其中一個(gè)男孩愛上了另一個(gè)，他想，“我能向誰展示我自己激情的緊迫性呢？一個(gè)也沒有。In high school, one of them falls in love with another boy. He thinks, “To whom can I expose the urgency of my own passion?…這里 灰色的拱門、嗚咽的鴿子、歡快的游戲、傳統(tǒng)習(xí)俗和競(jìng)賽，所有這些被巧妙地組織起來避免讓人感到孤獨(dú)”。There is nobody—here among these grey arches, and moaning pigeons, and cheerful games and tradition and emulation, all so skilfully organised to prevent feeling alone.” 這是對(duì)名牌大學(xué)校園生活的絕佳描述，包括從來不允許 感到孤獨(dú)的部分。 A pretty good description of an elite college campus, including the part about never being allowed to feel alone.我很想知道我的學(xué)生對(duì)此是怎么想的？在一個(gè)你從來不感到孤獨(dú)的大學(xué)上學(xué)意味著什么？What did my students think of this, I wanted to know? What does it mean to go to school at a place where you’re never alone? 其中一個(gè)學(xué)生說，啊，如果一個(gè)人坐在房間里，我確實(shí)感 到不自在。即使在寫文章的時(shí)候，我也是在朋友的房間里完成的。Well, one of them said, I do feel uncomfortable sitting in my room by myself. Even when I have to write a paper, I do it at a friend’s.碰巧的是，同一天，另一個(gè)學(xué)生做了關(guān)于愛默生(Emerson)論友誼的發(fā)言。他匯報(bào)說，愛默生說友誼的目的之 一就是讓你有能力承受孤獨(dú)。That same day, as it happened, another student gave a presentation on Emerson’s essay on friendship. Emerson says, he reported, that one of the purposes of friendship is to equip you for solitude.正如我在問學(xué)生他們覺得這句話意味著什么，其中一個(gè)打斷我的話說，請(qǐng)等一下，你首先為什么需要孤獨(dú)？你獨(dú)自能做什么和朋友一起 不能做的事情嗎？As I was asking my students what they thought that meant, one of them interrupted to say, wait a second, why do you need solitude in the first place? What can you do by yourself that you can’t do with a friend?

這就是他們：一個(gè)是喪失了品嘗孤獨(dú)滋味的年輕人，另一個(gè)是沒有看到孤獨(dú)意義的年輕人。So there they were: one young person who had lost the capacity for solitude and another who couldn’t see the point of it. 最近常常有人討論隱私的喪失，但是 同樣可怕的是它的必然結(jié)果---孤獨(dú)的喪失。There’s been much talk of late about the loss of privacy, but equally calamitous is its corollary, the loss of solitude. 從前指的是你不能總是和朋友在一起，即使你想這么做。It used to be that you couldn’t always get together with your friends even when you wanted to.現(xiàn)在是學(xué)生能隨時(shí)隨地通過電子手段聯(lián)系，要找到對(duì)方?jīng)]有 一點(diǎn)兒困難。但他們的強(qiáng)迫性社交似乎不能讓他們產(chǎn)生深刻的友誼。Now that students are in constant electronic contact, they never have trouble finding each other. But it’s not as if their compulsive sociability is enabling them to develop deep friendships. “我能向誰展示我激情的緊迫性？”我的學(xué)生可以在朋友的房間里寫論文，卻無法產(chǎn)生心與心的 交流。她可能沒有時(shí)間，實(shí)際上其他學(xué)生告訴我，他們發(fā)現(xiàn)同伴們實(shí)在太忙了根本沒有辦法培養(yǎng)親密關(guān)系。“To whom can I expose the urgency of my own passion?”: my student was in her friend’s room writing a paper, not having a heart-to-heart. She probably didn’t have the time; indeed, other students told me they found their peers too busy for intimacy.


當(dāng)繁忙和社交占據(jù)了孤獨(dú)的所有空間后 會(huì)發(fā)生什么呢？我那天向?qū)W生指出，具備反思和回顧的能力是知識(shí)分子生活的前提，而反思的前提就是孤獨(dú)。What happens when busyness and sociability leave no room for solitude? The ability to engage in introspection, I put it to my students that day, is the essential precondition for living an intellectual life, and the essential precondition for introspection is solitude. 他們思考了一下這個(gè)問題，接著有學(xué)生似乎有點(diǎn)自我認(rèn) 識(shí)的意識(shí)，他說“你認(rèn)為我們都是真正出類拔萃的一種人?”啊，我不知道。They took this in for a second, and then one of them said, with a dawning sense of self-awareness, “So are you saying that we’re all just, like, really excellent sheep?” Well, I don’t know. 但是我確實(shí)明白思想者的生活是在單獨(dú)進(jìn)行的：孤獨(dú)的、懷疑的、堅(jiān)韌的思想。But I do know that the life of the mind is lived one mind at a time: one solitary, skeptical, resistant mind at a time. 培養(yǎng)這 種品格的最好地方不是在精英教育體制內(nèi)，因?yàn)槠湔嬲康氖侵匦聞?chuàng)造一個(gè)集體系統(tǒng)。The best place to cultivate it is not within an educational system whose real purpose is to reproduce the class system.

產(chǎn)生了約翰·克里和喬治·布什的世界正在為我們培養(yǎng)下一 代領(lǐng)導(dǎo)人。The world that produced John Kerry and George Bush is indeed giving us our next generation of leaders.在高中時(shí)進(jìn)修大學(xué)課程的學(xué)生或者大學(xué)里修雙學(xué)位的同時(shí)還編輯三種校園出版物的學(xué)生，那些每個(gè)大學(xué)或法學(xué)院都想要，課堂上誰都不想要的學(xué)生，那些 忙得連呼吸的時(shí)間都沒有，更不要說思考了的學(xué)生將很快管理一家公司、一個(gè)機(jī)構(gòu)甚至一個(gè)ZhF。The kid who’s loading up on AP courses junior year or editing three campus publications while double-majoring, the kid whom everyone wants at their college or law school but no one wants in their classroom, the kid who doesn’t have a minute to breathe, let alone think, will soon be running a corporation or an institution or a government. 她可能有很多成就，但是經(jīng)驗(yàn)很少，可能有很多成功，但是遠(yuǎn)景很 少。She will have many achievements but little experience, great success but no vision.精英教育的劣勢(shì)是培養(yǎng)出來的精英過去現(xiàn)在一個(gè)樣。The disadvantage of an elite education is that it’s given us the elite we have, and the elite we’re going to have.

原作者 ：William Deresiewicz

翻譯者：匿名的，但自己修改一下一些錯(cuò)誤。