迈克尔杰克逊牛津大学的演讲——拯救人类，拯救地球

考研英语来源：文都教育 2017-03-31　

As I looked round Oxford today, I couldn’t help but be aware of the majesty and grandeur of this great institution, not to mention the brilliance of the great and gifted minds that have roamed these streets for centuries. The walls of Oxford have not only housed the greatest philosophical and scientific geniuses—they have also ushered forth some of the most cherished creators of children’s literature, from Tolkien to Lewis. Today I was allowed to hobble into the dining hall in Christ Church to see Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland immortalized in the stained glass windows. And even one of my own fellow Americans, the beloved Dr Seuss graced these halls and then went on to leave his mark on the imaginations of millions of children throughout the world.

今天我参观牛津大学，不禁被这座伟大建筑的宏伟壮观吸引，更不用说这里云集了几个世纪以来的精英才俊们了，他们的睿智绽放着炫耀光芒。牛津不仅汇聚了最出色的哲学和科学英才，还培养出了从托尔金到刘易斯等众多极富爱心的儿童文学家。今天，我有幸参观了路易斯卡罗尔创作的《爱丽丝漫游仙境》，它被雕刻在基督堂餐厅已经褪了色的彩色玻璃窗上。我甚至还发现我的一位美国同胞——受人敬爱的苏斯博士——也为此增色，启发着全世界千万儿童的想象力。

I suppose I should start by listing my qualifications to speak before you this evening.

今晚，我想先从我有幸能在这里讲话的原因开始。

Friends, I do not claim to have the academic expertise of other speakers who have addressed this hall, just as they could lay little claim at being adept at the moonwalk~and you know, Einstein in particular was really terrible at that. But I do have a claim to having experienced more places and cultures than most people will ever see. Human knowledge consists not only of libraries ofparchment and ink~it is also comprised of the volumes of knowledge that are written on the human heart, chiseled on the human soul, and engraved on the human psyche. And friends, I have encountered so much in this relatively short life of mine that I still cannot believe I am only 42. I often tell Shmuley that in soul years I，m sure that I，m at least 80-and tonight I even walk like I，m 80.

朋友们，正如其他一些来牛津演讲的演讲者不擅长月球漫步一样，我也并不具备他们所拥有的学术专业知识，而且你们都知道爱因斯坦是学识方面的权威。但我可以说，比起大多数人，我游历了更多的地方，也经历了更多不同的文化。人类文明不仅仅包括图书馆中纸墨记载的那一部分，还包括记录在人们内心的，镌刻进人们灵魂的，铭记在人类精神中的那一部分。而且，朋友们，在我相对短暂的生命里我经历了这么多之后，我真的难以相信自己只有42岁。我经常对施慕礼说，我的心理年龄肯定至少有80了，今晚我甚至像个80岁老人一样走路。

So please harken to my message, because what I have to tell you tonight can bring healing to humanity and healing to our planet.

那么就请大家仔细听我的演讲，因为今天我要对大家讲的或许会让大家共同来拯救人类，拯救地球!

Through the grace of God, I have been fortunate to have achieved many of my artistic and professional aspirations realized early in my lifetime. But these, friends are accomplishments, and accomplishments alone are not synonymous with who I am. Indeed，the cheery five-year-old who belted out Rockin3 Robin and Ben to adoring crowds was not indicative of the boy behind the smile.

多亏上帝的恩典，我很幸运地提前实现了许多自己一生的艺术和职业抱负。虽然我为这些成绩感到高兴，但这些成绩和我是谁完全没有关系。事实上，在崇拜者面前活泼快乐地表演《摇滚知更鸟》和《本》的5岁小男孩并不意味着笑容背后的他也同样快乐。

Tonight，I come before you less as an icon of pop (whatever that means anyway), and more as an icon of a generation, a generation that no longer knows what it means to be children. All of us are products of our childhood. But I am the product of a lack of a childhood, an absence of that precious and wondrous age when we frolic playfully without a care in the world, basking in the adoration of parents and relatives, where our biggest concern is studying for that big spelling test come Monday morning. Those of you who are familiar with the Jackson Five know that I began performing at the tender age of five and that ever since then, I haven’t stopped dancing or singing.

今晚，我不想以一个流行偶像的身份——不管这个身份意味着什么——出现在大家面前，我更愿意作一代人的见证，一代不再了解作为孩子有什么意义的人们的见证。大家都有过童年，而我却缺少童年，缺少那些宝贵的、美妙的、无优无虑嬉戏玩耍的时光，而那些日子我们本该惬意地沉浸在父母亲人的疼爱中，最担心的也不过是星期一重要的拼写考试。熟悉杰克逊五人乐队的朋友都知道我5岁时就开始表演，从那以后，就再也没有停止过跳舞唱歌。虽然音乐表演的确是我最大的乐趣，可是小时候我更想和其他的男孩子一样，搭树巢，打水仗，捉迷藏。

But while performing and making music undoubtedly remain as some of my greatest joys, when I was young I wanted more than anything else to be a typical little boy. I wanted to build tree houses, have water balloon fights, and play hide and seek with my friends. But fate had it otherwise and all I could do was envy the laughter and playtime that seemed to be going on all around me. There was no respite from my professional life. But on Sundays I would go Pioneering, the term used for the missionary work that Jehovah’s Wtnesses do. And it was then that I was able to see the magic of other people’s childhood. Since I was already a celebrity, I would have to don a disguise of fat suit, wig, beard and glasses and we would spend the day in the suburbs of Southern California, going door-to-door or making the rounds of shopping mails，distributing our Watchtower magazine. I loved to set foot in all those regular suburban houses and catch sight of the shag rugs and La-Z-Boy armchairs with kids playing Monopoly and grandmas baby-sitting and all those wonderful, ordinary and starry scenes of everyday life. Many, I know, would argue that these things seem like no big deal. But to me they were mesmerizing. I used to think that I was unique in feeling that I was without a childhood. I believed that indeed there were only a handful with whom I could share those feelings.

但是命中注定我只能羡慕那些笑声，那些从我身边溜走的欢乐时光，因为我的职业生活不容停歇。不过，作为耶和华见证人，每个礼拜天我都要去参加教会工作，那时我就能看到别人的童年是怎样的充满魔力。而自从我成名以后，我就不得不用肥大的衣服、假发、胡须和眼镜把自己伪装起来。我们在加州南部的郊区度过一整天，挨家挨户串门，或者在购物中心闲逛，发放我们的《守望台》杂志。我也喜欢在普通人家前驻足，看那些粗毛地毯，看那些小家伙们过家家，看所有的精彩的、普通的、闪亮的日常生活情景。我知道很多人会认为这没什么大不了，可对我却充满了诱惑。我常常想，自己应该是唯一没有体验过童年的人，我想能和我分享这种感觉的人更是少之又少。

When I recently met with Shirley Temple Black, the great child star of the 1930s and 40s，we said nothing to each other at first. We simply cried together, for she could share a pain with me that only others like my close friends Elizabeth Taylor and McCauley Culkin knew. I do not tell you this to gain your sympathy but to impress upon you my first important point—it is not just Hollywood child stars that have suffered from a nonexistent childhood.

前些时候，我有幸遇到了三四十年代的一位童星秀兰邓波儿，一见面我们什么都不说，只是一起哭，因为她能分担我的痛苦，这种痛苦只有我的一些密友,伊丽莎白泰勒和麦考利库尔金他们才知道。我说这些并不是要博得大家的同情，只是想让大家牢记一点这种失去童年的痛苦不仅仅属于好莱坞的童星。现在，这已经成为全世界的灾难。童年成了当代生活的牺牲品。我们使很多孩子失去欢乐，失去自由，失去相应的权利，而且还认为一个孩子就该是这样的。

Today, it’s a universal calamity, a global catastrophe. Childhood has become the great casualty of modern-day living. All around us we are producing scores of kids who have not had the joy, who have not been accorded the right, who have not been allowed the freedom, or knowing what it’s like to be a kid. Today children are constantly encouraged to grow up faster, as if this period known as childhood is a burdensome stage, to be endured and ushered through, as swiftly as possible. And on that subject, I am certainly one of the world’s greatest experts. Ours is a generation that has witnessed the abrogation of the parent-child covenant.

现在，孩子们经常被鼓励长大得快一些，好像这个叫做童年的时期是一个累赘的阶段，大人们很不耐烦地想着法儿让它尽可能地快些结束。在这个问题上，我无疑是世界上最专业的人士之一了。我正是见证亲子盟约废除的一代人。

Psychologists are publishing libraries of books detailing the destructive effects of denying one’s children the unconditional love that is so necessary to the healthy development of their minds and character. And because of all the neglect， too many of our kids have, essentially, to raise themselves. They are growing more distant from their parents, grandparents and other family members, as all around us the indestructible bond that once glued together the generations, unravels. This violation has bred a new generation, Generation O let us call it, that has now picked up the torch from Generation X. The O stands for a generation that has everything on the outside-wealth, success, fancy clothing and fancy cars, but an aching emptiness on the inside. That cavity in our chests, that barrenness at our core, that void in our center is the place where the heart once beat and which love once occupied. And it，s not just the kids who are suffering. It，s the parents as well. For the more we cultivate little adults in kids，bodies, the more removed we ourselves become from our own childlike qualities，and there is so much about being a child that is worth retaining in adult life.

心理学家在书中详述了因为不给予孩子绝对的爱而导致毁灭性的影响，由此说明这种无条件的爱对他们精神和人格的健康发展是极其必要的。很多孩子因为被忽视就自己照顾自己。他们渐渐疏远自己的父母亲、祖父母以及其他的家庭成员，我们身边那种曾经团结过一代人的不灭的凝集力就这样散开了。这种违背常理的行为造就了一代新人一~我们称之为“0时代”，他们继承着“X时代”人的使命——拥有所有外在的东西，例如财富、成功、时装和跑车，但他们的内心却是痛苦和空虚的。心胸空洞，灵魂荒芜，而那些空白的地方曾经搏动着我们的心脏，曾经被爱占据。其实，这不仅是孩子的痛苦，也是父母的煎熬。我们越是让孩子们早熟，我们就越来越远离了天真，而这种天真就算孩子成为成年人后也值得拥有。

Love, ladies and gentlemen, is the human family’s most precious legacy, its richest bequest, its golden inheritance. And it is a treasure that is handed down from one generation to another. Previous ages may not have had the wealth we enjoy. Their houses may have lacked electricity, and they squeezed their many kids into small homes without central heating. But those homes had no darkness, nor were they cold. They were lit bright with the glow of love and they were warmed snugly by the very heat of the human heart. Parents, undistracted by the lust for luxury and status, accorded their children primacy in their lives.

女士们先生们，爱是人类家庭最珍贵的遗产，是最贵重的馈赠，是最无价的传统，是我们应该代代相传的财富。以前，我们或许没有现在这样富有，屋里可能没有电，很多孩子可能挤在没有取暖设施的狭小房间里。但这些家庭里没有黑暗，也没有寒冷。他们点燃爱的光芒，温暖着彼此紧贴的心灵。父母不为各种享受和权利的欲望分心，孩子才是他们的生活中最重要的。

As you all know，our two countries broke from each other over what Thomas Jefferson referred to as “certain inalienable rights.” And while we Americans and British might dispute the justice of his claims, what has never been in dispute is that children have certain inalienable rights, and the gradual erosion of those rights has led to scores of children worldwide being denied the joys and security of childhood.

我们都知道，我们两国在托马斯杰弗逊提出的所谓“一些不可剥夺的权利” 上因意见不合而决裂。尽管美国人和英国人在各自要求的公平上有分歧，但在关于孩子享有不可剥夺的权利这一点上却是一致的。但是对这些权利的逐步剥夺已经导致了世界上的很多孩子失去欢快乐趣和童年的安全感。

Friends, the foundation of all human knowledge, the beginning of human consciousness, must be that each and every one of us is an object of love. Before you know if you have red hair or brown, before you know if you are black or white, before you know of what religion you are a part, you have to know that you are loved.

朋友们，人类所有知识的基础和人类意识的萌芽必然需要我们每一个人都成为被爱的对象。哪怕你不知道自己的头发是红色还是棕色，不知道自己是白人还是黑人，不知道自己信仰哪个宗教，你也应该知道自己是被爱着的。