演講MP3+雙語文稿:被遺忘的工人階級

聽力課堂TED音頻欄目主要包括TED演講的音頻MP3及中英雙語文稿，供各位英語愛好者學(xué)習(xí)使用。本文主要內(nèi)容為演講MP3+雙語文稿:被遺忘的工人階級，希望你會喜歡！

【演講者及介紹】J.D. Vance

J.D.萬斯-作家前海軍陸戰(zhàn)隊和耶魯法學(xué)院畢業(yè)生J.D. Vance寫了關(guān)于向上流動的真實感受。

【演講主題】美國被遺忘的工人階級

America's forgotten working class

【中英文字幕】

翻譯者 Alvin Lee 校對者 Tingting Zhong

00:00

I remember the very first time I went to a nice restaurant, a really nice restaurant. It was for a law firm recruitment dinner, and I remember beforehand the waitress walked around and asked whether we wanted some wine, so I said, "Sure, I'll take some white wine."

我還記得第一次走進一家很棒的餐廳，非常高檔。那是一家律師事務(wù)所的招新晚宴，正式開始前，服務(wù)生四處游走，詢問客人是否需要來點葡萄酒，我說，“好吧，給我來點白葡萄酒。”

00:14

And she immediately said, "Would you like sauvignon blanc or chardonnay?"

她馬上問我，“您是想要白蘇維翁還是霞多麗？”

00:19

And I remember thinking, "Come on, lady, stop with the fancy French words and just give me some white wine." But I used my powers of deduction and recognized that chardonnay and sauvignon blanc were two separate types of white wine, and so I told her that I would take the chardonnay, because frankly that was the easiest one to pronounce for me.

我當(dāng)時想，“天哪，姐們兒，別整這些 高大上的法語詞了行嗎，給我一杯白葡萄酒就好了?！?但我發(fā)揮了自己杰出的推理能力 猜測霞多麗和白蘇維翁 應(yīng)該是兩種不同的白葡萄酒，于是我要了霞多麗，因為這個詞更好發(fā)音。

00:39

So I had a lot of experiences like that during my first couple of years as a law student at Yale, because, despite all outward appearances, I'm a cultural outsider. I didn't come from the elites. I didn't come from the Northeast or from San Francisco. I came from a southern Ohio steel town, and it's a town that's really struggling in a lot of ways, ways that are indicative of the broader struggles of America's working class. Heroin has moved in, killing a lot of people, people I know. Family violence, domestic violence, and divorce have torn apart families. And there's a very unique sense of pessimism that's moved in. Think about rising mortality rates in these communities and recognize that for a lot of these folks, the problems that they're seeing are actually causing rising death rates in their own communities, so there's a very real sense of struggle.

這樣的經(jīng)歷還有很多，尤其是在我在耶魯大學(xué)念法律的頭幾年，因為我不是他們?nèi)ψ永锏娜?，盡管看起來挺像，但我出身平凡。不是東北那一帶的人，也不是舊金山人。我的老家是俄亥俄州南部一個鋼鐵小鎮(zhèn)，它一直在掙扎求生，那種掙扎彷徨，就像美國工人階級 如今的處境一般。海洛因泛濫，很多人因此喪生，其中有我的熟人。家庭暴力和離婚 導(dǎo)致許多家庭支離破碎。有一種特別悲觀的情緒蔓延開來。死亡率不斷升高，很多人都意識到這一點，而他們親眼見到的問題 正是導(dǎo)致社區(qū)死亡率升高的原因，這種掙扎彷徨的感受是如此真切。

01:31

I had a very front-row seat to that struggle. My family has been part of that struggle for a very long time. I come from a family that doesn't have a whole lot of money. The addiction that plagued my community also plagued my family, and even, sadly, my own mom. There were a lot of problems that I saw in my own family, problems caused sometimes by a lack of money, problems caused sometimes by a lack of access to resources and social capital that really affected my life.

而我正是這種感受的親歷者。我的家庭長期以來 一直經(jīng)歷著這種彷徨掙扎。我生于一個不甚富裕的家庭。而在我們社區(qū)蔓延的毒品問題 同樣傷害到了我的家庭，很不幸，是我的母親。我親眼見到了家里的很多問題，這些問題的起因，有的是因為缺錢，有的是因為缺乏社會資源和人脈，而這對我的影響很大。

02:04

If you had looked at my life when I was 14 years old and said, "Well, what's going to happen to this kid?" you would have concluded that I would have struggled with what academics call upward mobility. So upward mobility is an abstract term, but it strikes at something that's very core at the heart of the American Dream. It's the sense, and it measures whether kids like me who grow up in poor communities are going to live a better life, whether they're going to have a chance to live a materially better existence, or whether they're going to stay in the circumstances where they came from. And one of the things we've learned, unfortunately, is that upward mobility isn't as high as we'd like it to be in this country, and interestingly, it's very geographically distributed. So take Utah, for instance. In Utah a poor kid is actually doing OK, very likely to live their share and their part in the American Dream. But if you think of where I'm from, in the South, in Appalachia, in southern Ohio, it's very unlikely that kids like that will rise. The American Dream in those parts of the country is in a very real sense just a dream.

如果你見過我14歲時過得怎么樣，并問到，“這孩子將來會怎么樣？” 你也許會認(rèn)為我會掙扎著往上爬，學(xué)術(shù)界管這叫“向上流動”。向上流動是一個抽象的術(shù)語，但它觸及到了美國夢 最核心的部分。它是一個標(biāo)準(zhǔn)，能衡量那些像我一樣 家境貧寒的孩子，能不能過上好日子，是不是有機會過上衣食無憂的生活，還是說會繼續(xù)貧窮下去。但不幸的是，我們了解到，在美國，向上流動并沒有 我們想象的那么容易，而且有趣的是，它跟地域有很大的關(guān)系。就拿猶他州來說，在猶他州，一個窮孩子可能會過得還好，很有可能在美國夢中找到自己的位置。但如果在我的家鄉(xiāng)，南部的一些州，阿巴拉契亞地區(qū)，俄亥俄州南部，窮孩子可能就沒什么出路。從某種意義上來說，美國夢在這些地方 可能真的就只是個夢。

03:15

So why is that happening? So one reason is obviously economic or structural. So you think of these areas. They're beset by these terrible economic trends, built around industries like coal and steel that make it harder for folks to get ahead. That's certainly one problem. There's also the problem of brain drain, where the really talented people, because they can't find high-skilled work at home, end up moving elsewhere, so they don't build a business or non-profit where they're from, they end up going elsewhere and taking their talents with them. There are failing schools in a lot of these communities, failing to give kids the educational leg up that really makes it possible for kids to have opportunities later in life. These things are all important. I don't mean to discount these structural barriers. But when I look back at my life and my community, something else was going on, something else mattered. It's difficult to quantify, but it was no less real.

為什么會這樣呢？ 一個原因顯然是跟經(jīng)濟或結(jié)構(gòu)有關(guān)?？纯催@些地區(qū)。它們的經(jīng)濟趨勢很不好，當(dāng)年依靠煤炭和鋼鐵起家，這些產(chǎn)業(yè)如今已經(jīng)沒落。這肯定是原因之一。還有一個問題就是人才流失，很多有才華的人，因為在家鄉(xiāng)找不到有技術(shù)含量的工作，只能遠(yuǎn)走他鄉(xiāng)，他們無法在老家創(chuàng)業(yè)或造福社會，就只能帶著自己的才華遠(yuǎn)赴他鄉(xiāng)。這些地區(qū)有很多衰敗的學(xué)校，無法給予孩子們更好的教育，因此無法幫助他們在未來占得先機。這些事都很重要。我并不是說要忽視 （之前提到的）結(jié)構(gòu)壁壘。但是當(dāng)我回首人生，回想我們社區(qū)的時候，發(fā)現(xiàn)還有一些其他的事情也與之有關(guān)。這些事情很難量化，但是卻真實存在。

04:08

So for starters, there was a very real sense of hopelessness in the community that I grew up in. There was a sense that kids had that their choices didn't matter. No matter what happened, no matter how hard they worked, no matter how hard they tried to get ahead, nothing good would happen. So that's a tough feeling to grow up around. That's a tough mindset to penetrate, and it leads sometimes to very conspiratorial places. So let's just take one political issue that's pretty hot, affirmative action. So depending on your politics, you might think that affirmative action is either a wise or an unwise way to promote diversity in the workplace or the classroom. But if you grow up in an area like this, you see affirmative action as a tool to hold people like you back. That's especially true if you're a member of the white working class. You see it as something that isn't just about good or bad policy. You see it as something that's actively conspiring, where people with political and financial power are working against you. And there are a lot of ways that you see that conspiracy against you -- perceived, real, but it's there, and it warps expectations.

首先，在我成長的社區(qū)，你能真切感受到那種無望的氛圍。孩子們覺得自己的選擇毫無意義。無論他們?nèi)绾闻?，如何努力向前，結(jié)果都是一樣。這種消極的情緒四處蔓延。命定論甚囂塵上，甚至有點陰謀論的感覺。以非常熱門的一個政治話題為例，平權(quán)法案。根據(jù)政治觀點（不同），你也許會認(rèn)為平權(quán)法案 在推動工作場所或者學(xué)校的多樣性上 是明智的或者不明智的。但如果你成長于這樣的社區(qū)，你可能會把平權(quán)法案看作是一種限制。尤其當(dāng)你是白人工人階級的一員時。在你眼里，它不再簡單的 是一個好政策或者壞政策。你會把它看成是 那些握有政治或財政大權(quán)的人 來壓迫你的工具。你可以從不同角度 來看待這種針對你的陰謀論—— 可察覺的，真實的，但它確實存在，而且會扭曲你的期望。

05:19

So if you think about what do you do when you grow up in that world, you can respond in a couple of ways. One, you can say, "I'm not going to work hard, because no matter how hard I work, it's not going to matter." Another thing you might do is say, "Well, I'm not going to go after the traditional markers of success, like a university education or a prestigious job, because the people who care about those things are unlike me. They're never going to let me in." When I got admitted to Yale, a family member asked me if I had pretended to be a liberal to get by the admissions committee. Seriously. And it's obviously not the case that there was a liberal box to check on the application, but it speaks to a very real insecurity in these places that you have to pretend to be somebody you're not to get past these various social barriers. It's a very significant problem.

想象一下，成長在 那樣的環(huán)境中，你該怎么辦，可能應(yīng)對方法有很多種。第一種，你可以說，“我才不會努力奮斗，因為無論怎樣努力，結(jié)果都一樣?！?而另一種方式就是，“好吧，我不會追求傳統(tǒng)意義上的成功，比如上大學(xué)，或者找份體面的工作，因為重視這些事的人跟我不是一類人，他們不會接納我?！?當(dāng)我被耶魯大學(xué)錄取后，一個親戚問我，我是不是假裝成民主黨成員，來獲得招生委員會的認(rèn)可。真事兒。入學(xué)申請表上當(dāng)然沒有 “民主黨成員”這個選項 讓你勾選，但這件事道出了一個事實，就是我們那里非常缺乏安全感，你需要偽裝成另一種人，才能越過重重社會壁壘。這是一個非常重要的問題。

06:05

Even if you don't give in to that hopelessness, even if you think, let's say, that your choices matter and you want to make the good choices, you want to do better for yourself and for your family, it's sometimes hard to even know what those choices are when you grow up in a community like I did. I didn't know, for example, that you had to go to law school to be a lawyer. I didn't know that elite universities, as research consistently tells us, are cheaper for low-income kids because these universities have bigger endowments, can offer more generous financial aid. I remember I learned this when I got the financial aid letter from Yale for myself, tens of thousands of dollars in need-based aid, which is a term I had never heard before. But I turned to my aunt when I got that letter and said, "You know, I think this just means that for the first time in my life, being poor has paid really well."

即便你沒有感到無望，即使你堅定的認(rèn)為，你的選擇是有意義的，你想做出好的選擇，你想為了自己和家庭努力奮斗，但生長在我那樣的社區(qū)，你甚至都不知道有哪些路可以選。像我小時候，不知道想成為律師，要先上法學(xué)院。不知道一流的大學(xué) ——像研究結(jié)果不斷表明的那樣—— 對于貧困的孩子收費要低，因為好大學(xué)得到的捐款更多，可以給學(xué)生更多資助。直到我收到耶魯大學(xué)的助學(xué)津貼信，我才知道有這么回事，那是上萬美元的按需資助，我以前連聽都沒聽過。我拿著信對我阿姨說，“這是我有生以來第一次，因為窮得到的實惠?！?/p>

06:55

So I didn't have access to that information because the social networks around me didn't have access to that information. I learned from my community how to shoot a gun, how to shoot it well. I learned how to make a damn good biscuit recipe. The trick, by the way, is frozen butter, not warm butter. But I didn't learn how to get ahead. I didn't learn how to make the good decisions about education and opportunity that you need to make to actually have a chance in this 21st century knowledge economy. Economists call the value that we gain from our informal networks, from our friends and colleagues and family "social capital." The social capital that I had wasn't built for 21st century America, and it showed.

我之前不了解這方面的信息，是因為我周圍的圈子 都不知道這些信息。我從社區(qū)學(xué)到的是 如何開槍，如何打得準(zhǔn)。我學(xué)到的是如何做好吃的餅干。順便提一句，訣竅就是，用冰凍的黃油，不要用加熱的。但我不知道如何出人頭地。不知道在關(guān)鍵時刻如何抉擇，比如選擇大學(xué)，面臨機遇，怎樣才能做出對的選擇，從而在21世紀(jì)這個 知識經(jīng)濟時代贏得一席之地。經(jīng)濟學(xué)家將我們從 人脈圈子中獲取的價值，比如朋友、同事和家人，叫做“社會資本”。而我過去的社會資本根本 不適用于21世紀(jì)的美國，事實也證明了這一點。

07:38

There's something else that's really important that's going on that our community doesn't like to talk about, but it's very real. Working-class kids are much more likely to face what's called adverse childhood experiences, which is just a fancy word for childhood trauma: getting hit or yelled at, put down by a parent repeatedly, watching someone hit or beat your parent, watching someone do drugs or abuse alcohol. These are all instances of childhood trauma, and they're pretty commonplace in my family. Importantly, they're not just commonplace in my family right now. They're also multigenerational. So my grandparents, the very first time that they had kids, they expected that they were going to raise them in a way that was uniquely good. They were middle class, they were able to earn a good wage in a steel mill. But what ended up happening is that they exposed their kids to a lot of the childhood trauma that had gone back many generations. My mom was 12 when she saw my grandma set my grandfather on fire. His crime was that he came home drunk after she told him, "If you come home drunk, I'm gonna kill you." And she tried to do it. Think about the way that that affects a child's mind.

還有一些非常重要的事情 我們的社區(qū)不愿意談起，但它們又真實存在。工人階級的孩子更多的 要面臨所謂的“不利的童年經(jīng)歷”，其實這就是對童年創(chuàng)傷 一種比較委婉的說法： 被家長不停打罵和懲罰，目睹他人毆打自己的父母，目睹別人吸毒或者酗酒。這都是童年創(chuàng)傷的例子，在我家這些現(xiàn)象很常見。重要的是，這種情況不是現(xiàn)在才有。而是延續(xù)了好幾代人。我的外公外婆，在他們剛有了孩子的時候，他們原本也期望用好的方法 將孩子養(yǎng)育成人。他們曾屬于中產(chǎn)階級，在煉鋼廠有不錯的薪水。但結(jié)果卻是 他們給孩子們帶來了許多童年創(chuàng)傷，跟早幾代人的處境沒什么區(qū)別。我母親12歲那年，看見我外婆在我外公身上點火，就因為他喝得醉醺醺地回家，而外婆事先警告過他，“如果你喝醉酒回家，我就要殺了你?！?結(jié)果，她真的試著這么做了。想想這樣的事會對孩子的心靈 產(chǎn)生怎樣的影響。

08:53

And we think of these things as especially rare, but a study by the Wisconsin Children's Trust Fund found that 40 percent of low-income kids face multiple instances of childhood trauma, compared to only 29 percent for upper-income kids. And think about what that really means. If you're a low-income kid, almost half of you face multiple instances of childhood trauma. This is not an isolated problem. This is a very significant issue.

我們可能會認(rèn)為這只是個別現(xiàn)象，但威斯康辛兒童信托基金的研究表明，低收入家庭的孩子遭受 多種童年創(chuàng)傷的幾率為40%，而高收入家庭的孩子為29%。想想這意味著什么。如果你們都生在低收入家庭，你們中間差不多會有 一半的人會遭遇多種童年創(chuàng)傷。這不是一個孤立的問題。非常值得我們注意。

09:23

We know what happens to the kids who experience that life. They're more likely to do drugs, more likely to go to jail, more likely to drop out of high school, and most importantly, they're more likely to do to their children what their parents did to them. This trauma, this chaos in the home, is our culture's very worst gift to our children, and it's a gift that keeps on giving.

我們都清楚，這樣的孩子會經(jīng)歷怎樣的人生。他們很可能會吸毒，會進監(jiān)獄，會從高中輟學(xué)，最重要的是，他們很可能會在自己的孩子身上 重復(fù)父母對自己的所作所為。這種傷害，這種家庭的混亂，是我們的文化給孩子最糟糕的禮物，而這種禮物還在不停地被送出。

09:50

So you combine all that, the hopelessness, the despair, the cynicism about the future, the childhood trauma, the low social capital, and you begin to understand why me, at the age of 14, was ready to become just another statistic, another kid who failed to beat the odds.

把這些都加在一起，無望，絕望，對未來的懷疑，童年的創(chuàng)傷，低社會資本，你就會了解，為什么我 在14歲那年，幾乎就要成為又一個例子，被這些壁壘困死的又一個孩子。

10:10

But something unexpected happened. I did beat the odds. Things turned up for me. I graduated from high school, from college, I went to law school, and I have a pretty good job now. So what happened?

但意料之外的事情發(fā)生了。我沖破了這些壁壘。事情出現(xiàn)了轉(zhuǎn)機。我念完高中，上了大學(xué)，進入法學(xué)院，找到了一份不錯的工作。究竟發(fā)生了什么呢？

10:25

Well, one thing that happened is that my grandparents, the same grandparents of setting someone on fire fame, they really shaped up by the time I came around. They provided me a stable home, a stable family. They made sure that when my parents weren't able to do the things that kids need, they stepped in and filled that role. My grandma especially did two things that really matter. One, she provided that peaceful home that allowed me to focus on homework and the things that kids should be focused on. But she was also this incredibly perceptive woman, despite not even having a middle school education. She recognized the message that my community had for me, that my choices didn't matter, that the deck was stacked against me. She once told me, "JD, never be like those losers who think the deck is stacked against them. You can do anything you want to."

首先是我的外公外婆，就是嘗試在人身上點火的外公外婆，在我出生之后，改過自新了。他們給了我一個穩(wěn)定的家，穩(wěn)定的家庭。他們竭盡全力，在我的父母無法盡到責(zé)任時，他們能及時出現(xiàn)，頂替父母的角色。我的外婆做了2件非常重要的事。第一，她創(chuàng)造了和平的 家庭環(huán)境，讓我專心做功課，專心做孩子應(yīng)該做的事情。而且她是一位洞察力極強的女性，盡管連中學(xué)都沒有上過。她察覺到了社區(qū) 對我產(chǎn)生的不良影響，就是我們的選擇毫無意義，我們面前有重重阻礙。有一次她告訴我，“JD，不要像那些沒出息的人一樣，覺得整個世界都在跟他們作對。你可以做成任何想做的事情?！?/p>

11:12

And yet she recognized that life wasn't fair. It's hard to strike that balance, to tell a kid that life isn't fair, but also recognize and enforce in them the reality that their choices matter. But mamaw was able to strike that balance.

盡管她知道生活是不公平的。要打破這種平衡非常難，要告訴一個孩子生活不公平也非常難。但即使這樣，也要告訴孩子，他們的選擇是有意義的。但是外婆能打破這種平衡。

11:29

The other thing that really helped was the United States Marine Corps. So we think of the Marine Corps as a military outfit, and of course it is, but for me, the US Marine Corps was a four-year crash course in character education. It taught me how to make a bed, how to do laundry, how to wake up early, how to manage my finances. These are things my community didn't teach me. I remember when I went to go buy a car for the very first time, I was offered a dealer's low, low interest rate of 21.9 percent, and I was ready to sign on the dotted line. But I didn't take that deal, because I went and took it to my officer who told me, "Stop being an idiot, go to the local credit union, and get a better deal." And so that's what I did. But without the Marine Corps, I would have never had access to that knowledge. I would have had a financial calamity, frankly.

另一個幫到我的就是美國海軍陸戰(zhàn)隊。我們認(rèn)為海軍陸戰(zhàn)隊 是一個軍事單位，它當(dāng)然是，但對我而言，美國海軍陸戰(zhàn)隊 是一次長達(dá)4年的，性格教育課程。它教會我如何鋪床，怎么洗衣，怎么早起，怎么規(guī)劃自己的開銷。這些都是社區(qū)沒有教我的東西。我還記得第一次去買車，一個經(jīng)銷商給了我非常非常 “低”的貸款利息，21.9%，我都準(zhǔn)備簽合同了。但我最后沒有簽，因為我把合同拿給我的長官看，他告訴我，“別傻了，去找本地的信貸聯(lián)盟，拿一個更好的價。” 我照做了。如果沒有海軍陸戰(zhàn)隊，我可能永遠(yuǎn)也沒法了解這個知識。我可能還會遭遇財政危機。

12:14

The last thing I want to say is that I had a lot of good fortune in the mentors and people who have played an important role in my life. From the Marines, from Ohio State, from Yale, from other places, people have really stepped in and ensured that they filled that social capital gap that it was pretty obvious, apparently, that I had. That comes from good fortune, but a lot of children aren't going to have that good fortune, and I think that raises really important questions for all of us about how we're going to change that. We need to ask questions about how we're going to give low-income kids who come from a broken home access to a loving home. We need to ask questions about how we're going to teach low-income parents how to better interact with their children, with their partners. We need to ask questions about how we give social capital, mentorship to low-income kids who don't have it. We need to think about how we teach working class children about not just hard skills, like reading, mathematics, but also soft skills, like conflict resolution and financial management.

最后我還想說，我非常幸運 能遇見很多很好的導(dǎo)師和人，他們在我生命中扮演了 非常重要的角色。在海軍陸戰(zhàn)隊，在俄亥俄州，在耶魯大學(xué)，在其他地方，大家都走近我，幫我填滿那條社會資本的鴻溝，這條鴻溝在我身上表現(xiàn)得很明顯。這是一種很大的幸運，但是很多孩子都沒有這樣的好運，這就為我們引出了非常重要的問題，那就是該如何改變這一點。我們要思考如何幫助 那些低收入家庭的孩子，讓他們破碎的家庭重新充滿愛。我們要思考 如何教育低收入的父母 同自己的孩子，同自己的愛人，更好地互動。我們要思考如何為貧窮的孩子，提供社會資本和引導(dǎo)。我們要思考如何教育工人階級的孩子，不僅僅是硬技能，比如閱讀，數(shù)學(xué)，還有軟技能，比如危機處理和理財。

13:21

Now, I don't have all of the answers. I don't know all of the solutions to this problem, but I do know this: in southern Ohio right now, there's a kid who is anxiously awaiting their dad, wondering whether, when he comes through the door, he'll walk calmly or stumble drunkly. There's a kid whose mom sticks a needle in her arm and passes out, and he doesn't know why she doesn't cook him dinner, and he goes to bed hungry that night. There's a kid who has no hope for the future but desperately wants to live a better life. They just want somebody to show it to them. I don't have all the answers, but I know that unless our society starts asking better questions about why I was so lucky and about how to get that luck to more of our communities and our country's children, we're going to continue to have a very significant problem.

現(xiàn)在，我并沒有所有這些問題的答案。我也不知該如何徹底解決這些問題，但我明確知道的是： 現(xiàn)在，在南俄亥俄州，有孩子在焦急等待自己的父親，在想著，當(dāng)他走進家門的時候，是正常的，還是喝得東倒西歪的。有的孩子 看著自己的母親往胳膊里扎針，然后失去知覺，他不明白為什么媽媽不給自己做飯，只好餓著肚子爬上床。有的孩子對未來不抱希望，但又非常想過上更好的生活。他們需要有人教他們怎么做。我沒有所有的答案，但我知道，除非整個社會開始思考 為什么我如此幸運，如何讓更多的社區(qū)，讓更多的孩子得到這份幸運，否則我們將會 不斷遇到非常嚴(yán)重的問題。

14:21

Thank you.

謝謝大家。

14:22

(Applause)

（掌聲）