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一耶鲁四年级学生的精彩毕业演讲
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Thirty-eight years ago, John Kerry delivered a graduation speech on behalf of his Yale class that was sharply critical of the conflict in Vietnam. In many ways, his words that day set the tone for the radicalism that would define the Yale campus for generations to come. For my parents' generation, which went to school in the 1960's and 70's, college was often a radicalizing experience. For the Yale class of 2004 - which I graduate with tomorrow - it has been the opposite. The world has changed significantly since we entered college four years ago; over that time, our attitudes have changed, too. On 9/11, we were barely a week into our sophomore year. Because the terrorist attacks were the first national trauma my generation experienced, I believe they had a more profound effect on our still malleable political psyches than they had on our parents and grandparents, who had lived through national traumas before. What do I base this on? Consider this: One of the most under-reported statistics about the war in Iraq is my generation's overwhelming support for it - not just in its early stages but well into last year. While the conventional wisdom holds that young Americans tend to be more liberal than older Americans, that wasn't the case this time. According to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll taken in October, a majority of 18- to 29-year-olds thought the war worthwhile, the same percentage as in the population at large. The same survey found that President Bush had a 9 percent higher approval rating among people under 30 than he did among older respondents. Of my 11 junior-year suite-mates, a racially and geographically diverse group of Democrats, only three opposed the war in Iraq. Across the Yale campus, similar sentiments reigned. During our junior year, when the national debate over Iraq was at its height, one of the most visible student political organizations on campus was the Yale College Students for Democracy, a group of hawkish liberals and neo-conservatives who supported the war. The biggest campus-wide "Support Our Troops" rally was at least as well attended as any antiwar protest. Certainly the 9/11 attacks left a deep imprint on our political conscience, but my generation was probably predisposed to these more hawkish views long before the planes crashed into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. The class of 2004 grew up at a time when it was easy to have faith in the goodness of our government. Vietnam, Watergate and even Iran-contra were not a part of our direct political memory. For my generation, abuse of power meant sexual indiscretions in the Oval Office - not shifting rationales for war. While President Bush's claims about weapons of mass destruction and links between Iraq and Al Qaeda may have revived memories of the Gulf of Tonkin for some of our parents, my generation wasn't inclined toward incredulousness. After all, according to that same poll, 50 percent of those surveyed under 30 said they trusted government to do the right thing; for Americans older than us, that number was 36 percent. Many of us in the class of 2004 grew up in the 1990's believing that America was a force for good in the world. We became conscious of international affairs at a time when the American military was intervening to stop genocide in the Balkans, fighting to distribute food to starving people in Somalia, and protecting democracy in Haiti. Even if these ventures weren't always successful, they were at least apparently selfless. Many of us reached the conclusion that the United States was wrong not when it intervened in the affairs of others, but when it sat on its hands, as it did in the case of Rwanda. It was only natural that we would apply that same logic to Iraq. But that logic may not hold. As conditions in Iraq have grown more chaotic, many of us who supported the war are re-evaluating our positions. Over the last year, we've been forced to relearn the lessons of our parents' generation, and it has been a deeply disillusioning experience. The revelation that our government exaggerated claims about weapons of mass destruction has taught us that you can't always trust authority. The photos of Abu Ghraib and flag-draped coffins have taught us the cost of our untempered idealism about spreading our values. According to a poll released last month by the Harvard University Institute of Politics, college students are no longer more supportive of President Bush than the population at large, and their support for the war has dropped sharply from 65 percent a year ago to 49 percent last month. But the most notable change, which suggests just how deeply young people have been affected by recent events, is that the percentage of students who describe themselves as liberal has increased significantly over the last year - from 36 percent to 44 percent. Do these numbers indicate a profound rethinking of our political orientation or are they just a blip? It's possible, I guess, that my generation will remain liberal on social issues (like gay marriage) and conservative when it comes to foreign affairs and national security. It's even possible that we will be the first generation in a long time to be more conservative than our parents. I imagine, though, that we'll have to wait until our 10th reunion to find out. （Joshua Foer is a senior at Yale.） 译文： 38年前，约翰-克里（John Kerry）代表他在耶鲁大学的班级发表了一次毕业演讲，当时那个班对越南的冲突持尖锐的批评态度。在许多方面，他那天的演讲为耶大校园未来几代人的激进主义定下了基调。 我父母一代人在20世纪六七十年代接受学校教育，他们的大学生活经常是一种激进的体验。对于2004届的耶鲁毕业班--明天我将和他们一道毕业--情况恰恰相反。自从4年前我们进入大学以来，世界发生了引人注目的变化；经历了那段时期，我们的态度也发生了变化。 在9/11的时候，我们进入大学二年级刚刚一周。因为恐怖主义的攻击是我这一代经历的首次国家创伤，相比于以前经受过种痛苦的父母和祖父母，我相信它对我们仍然可塑的政治心理有着更为深刻的影响。 我这样讲的理由是什么呢？想想这条：在关于伊拉克战争的最少得到报道的统计中，有一项即是我这一代对它的全力支持--不仅在它的早期阶段，也一直贯穿到最后一年。尽管传统的观点认为年轻的美国人比年老的美国人更趋向于自由主义（liberal），这次却并非如此。据美国有线新闻网（CNN）/今日美国（USA Today）/盖洛普（Gallup）在10月份联合进行的民意测验，18岁到29岁之间的大部分人认为这场战争是值得的，这与总人口中的百分比相同。同一调查发现布什总统在30岁以下的人口中比在更老的应答者中有着高出9%的支持率。 我的11位大学三年级的同学来自不同的种族和地域，但都属于民主党人。他们之中只有3人反对伊拉克战争。这种情绪遍及整个耶鲁校园。在我们大三期间，当国家对伊拉克的争论达到极点的时候，在校园里最惹眼的学生政治组织乃是耶鲁大学生民主会（Yale College Students for Democracy），它由一群支持战争的鹰派自由主义者和新保守主义者组织。全校范围内规模最大的 "支持我们的军队"（ Support Our Troops）集会的参加者人数至少不少于反战抗议的。 当然，9/11恐怖袭击给我们的政治意识留下了深深的烙印，但在飞机撞向世贸大厦和五角大楼很久以前，我这一代很可能就已经倾向于更强硬的观点。 2004届毕业班的同学是在易于相信政府善行的时代成长起来的。越南、水门事件甚至反对伊朗都不是我们直接政治记忆的一部分。对我这一代人来说，权力的滥用意味着在总统办公室里发生性方面的轻率行为--而不是为战争搬弄道理。尽管布什总统对大规模杀伤性武器的声明以及伊拉克与基地组织的联系可能唤起了我们父母中某些人对东京弯的回忆，我这一代却不会偏向于不信任的心态。毕竟，根据同样的民意测验，在受调查的30岁以下群体中，50%的人说他们相信政府在做出正确的事情，而在比我们年长的美国人中，这一数字是36%。 在我们2004届毕业班中，许多人在90年代成长起来，他们相信美国是世界上一支向善的力量。当美国的军事力量正在干预巴尔干半岛以阻止种族屠杀，正在奋斗着将食物分配给索马里的饥民，正在保护海地民主政权的时候，我们变得懂得了国际事务。即使这些冒险事业并不总是成功，它们至少看上去是无私的。我们许多人都得出这种结论，认为美国的错误不在于干涉别国的事务，而在于它坐着不动，比如对待卢旺达的事件。我们将这样的逻辑运用到伊拉克身上只是是自然的事情。 但是这种逻辑可能不会持续。由于伊拉克的情况已经变得更加混乱，我们中间支持这场战争的许多人正在重新评价我们的立场，在过去的一年，我们被迫重新吸取了我们父母这一代的教训，它已经是一种深刻的幻灭经历。据披露，我们的政府夸大了关于大规模杀伤性武器的实情，这已经教会我们你不能总是相信当局。阿布-哈里卜（Abu Ghraib--巴格达郊外的监狱，译者注）的照片和覆盖着星条旗的棺材已经告诉我们撒布我们价值观这种无节制的理想主义所要花费的代价。 根据哈佛大学政治学会（Harvard University Institute of Politics）上月发布的民意测验，大学生对布什总统的支持不再像总人口那样多，他们对战争的支持率从一年前的65%急剧下降到上个月的49%。但是最明显的变化在于，将称自己为自由主义者的学生所占的比例在去年显著增加了，从36%上升到44%，它表明最近的事件已经怎样深深地影响了年轻人。 这些数目意味着我们对政治定位的深刻反思，还是仅仅代表一种迹象？我猜，我们这一代在社会问题上可能将仍然是自由的（如对待同性婚姻），但涉及到外交事务和国家安全方面，我们这一代却又是保守的。在相当长的一段时间内，我们甚至可能是第一代比父母更保守的人。然而我想，我们必须等到十年后再聚首的时候才能发现这一点。 |
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