05 · 青年
Youth
区分观点、依据、例子与限制，用自己的话准确重建论述。
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People are always talking about "the problem of youth". If there is one—which I take leave to doubt—then it is older people who create it, not the young themselves. Let us get down to fundamentals and agree that the young are after all human beings—people just like their elders. 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.
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. 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.
I find young people exciting. They have an air of freedom, and they have not a dreary commitment to mean ambitions or love of comfort. They are not anxious social climbers, and they have no devotion to material things. All this seems to me to link them with life, and the origins of things. It's as if they were, in some sense, cosmic beings in violent and lovely contrast with us suburban creatures.All that is in my mind when I meet a young person. 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. I accept that we are equals, and I will argue with him, as an equal, if I think he is wrong.
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整篇课文
People are always talking about "the problem of youth". If there is one—which I take leave to doubt—then it is older people who create it, not the young themselves. Let us get down to fundamentals and agree that the young are after all human beings—people just like their elders. 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.
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. 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.
I find young people exciting. They have an air of freedom, and they have not a dreary commitment to mean ambitions or love of comfort. They are not anxious social climbers, and they have no devotion to material things. All this seems to me to link them with life, and the origins of things. It's as if they were, in some sense, cosmic beings in violent and lovely contrast with us suburban creatures.All that is in my mind when I meet a young person. 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. I accept that we are equals, and I will argue with him, as an equal, if I think he is wrong.
人们总爱谈论“青年问题”。如果真有这么个问题——请允许我对此表示怀疑——那么制造问题的是年长者，而不是青年人自己。我们不妨先从根本说起，承认年轻人毕竟也是人，与他们的长辈并无两样。老年人与年轻人只有一个区别：年轻人的锦绣前程在前方，老年人的锦绣前程却已成了身后的往事。也许，症结就在这里。
我十几岁时，只觉得自己年轻而迷茫，像个刚走进一所大学校的新生。如果有人把我当成“一个问题”这么有意思的存在，我倒会很高兴。至少，被当成“一个问题”能让人获得某种身份认同，而年轻人恰恰正忙着寻找这种认同。
我觉得年轻人很有活力。他们身上有一种自由的气息，不会死气沉沉地困在狭隘的野心或安逸的享受之中。他们不急于往社会上层爬，也不一心追逐物质。在我看来，这一切让他们与生命本身、与万物的本源更为接近。从某种意义上说，他们仿佛属于广阔的宇宙，与我们这些困守市郊日常的人形成了强烈而美妙的对照。每当遇到年轻人，我想到的就是这些。他或许自负、失礼、冒失或愚蠢，但我不会搬出“尊敬长辈”之类的陈词滥调来维护自己，仿佛仅凭年纪大就值得尊敬。我承认我们是平等的；如果我认为他错了，就会以平等的身份与他争论。
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译文依据整理稿，由本站按中文表达重新校订；解析据吴应时整理资料及首轮审校稿；词伙与练习提示为本站学习设计。原PDF第27—29页，2022年2月第2版。