新视角研究生英语读说写1.docx

六、The Right to Fail1、I like “dropout”as an addition to the American language because it’s brief and it’s clear. What I don’t like is that we use it almost entirely as a dirty word.我喜欢“中途退出者”这个加入美语的词汇，因为它简洁明了。我所不喜欢的是我们几乎完全把它作为一个禁忌词语使用。2、We only apply it to people under twenty-one. Yet an adult who spends his days and nights watching mindless TV programs is more of a dropout than an eighteen-year-old who quits college, with its frequently mindless courses, to become, say, a VISTA’ valunteer. For the young, dropping out its often a way of dropping in.我们只把它用在21岁以下的人身上。与一个中途离开大学、避开那些毫无思想内容的课程，志愿参加为美国服务志愿队（VISTA）的18岁青年相比，一个整天整夜看不需要动脑筋的电视节目的成年人更是半途而废的人。而对于年轻人来说这是以退为进。3、To hold this opinion, however is little short of treason in America. A boy or girl who leaves college is branded a failure-and the right to fail is one of the few freedoms that this country does not grant its citizens. The American dream is a dream of “getting ahead,” painted in strokes of gold wherever we look. Our advertisements and TV commercials are a hymn to material success, our magazine articles a toast to people who made it to the top. Smoke the right cigarette or drive the right car-so the ads imply-and the girls will be swooning into your deodorized arms or caressing your expensive lapels Happiness goes to the man who has sweet smell of achievement. He is our national idol, and everybody else is our national fink.然而在美国，持有这种观点差不多就是背叛。中途退学的孩子们被指称为失败者—失败的权利是美国政府没有赋予国民的少数几个自由之一。美国之梦是“成功”之梦，凡是我们放眼之处都是一片金光灿烂。宣传广告和电视广告歌颂物质方面的成功，杂志文章赞誉获得此类成功的人。广告暗示你：吸适合你身份的烟、开适合你身份的车，女孩们就会陶醉在你那没有异味的怀抱之中，抚摸你那昂贵的衣领。幸福只青睐那些散发出成功的甜蜜气味的人。他是全体国民的偶像，其他所有人则是国家的蛀虫。4、I want to put in a word for the fink, especially the teen-age fink, because if we give him time to get through his finkdom-if we release him from the pressure of attaining certain goals by a certain age-he has a good chance of becoming our national idol, a Jefferson or a Thoreau, a Buckminster Fuller or an Adlai Stevenson, a man with a mind of his own. We need mavericks