英語(yǔ)美文:學(xué)歷史，餓不死

閱讀，不是為了得到什么，而是在被生活打擊的無(wú)路可退時(shí)最后的安身之所。靜靜等待，閱讀，一定會(huì)給予你獎(jiǎng)勵(lì)。下面是英語(yǔ)美文:學(xué)歷史，餓不死的資料，希望你會(huì)喜歡！

When the going gets tough, the tough take accounting. When the job market worsens, many students figure they can’t indulge in an English or a history major. They have to study something that will lead directly to a job.

境況艱難時(shí)，強(qiáng)者算賬。當(dāng)就業(yè)市場(chǎng)變得糟糕時(shí)，許多學(xué)生認(rèn)為他們不能縱情地徜徉在英文或歷史專業(yè)里，他們必須得去學(xué)習(xí)一些東西使他們能夠直接找到工作。

So it is almost inevitable that over the next few years, as labor markets struggle, the humanities will continue their long slide. There already has been a nearly 50 percent drop in the portion of liberal arts majors over the past generation, and that trend is bound to accelerate. Once the stars of university life, humanities now play bit roles when prospective students take their college tours. The labs are more glamorous than the libraries.

所以幾乎不可避免的是：在未來(lái)幾年里，由于勞動(dòng)力市場(chǎng)不景氣，人文學(xué)科將繼續(xù)它們長(zhǎng)期來(lái)的衰落。在過(guò)去的一代里，文科專業(yè)部分已經(jīng)減少了將近50%，而且這個(gè)趨勢(shì)必定還會(huì)加速。曾經(jīng)是大學(xué)的明星，現(xiàn)在當(dāng)未來(lái)的學(xué)生開始他們的大學(xué)之旅時(shí)，人文學(xué)科成了跑龍?zhí)椎?。?shí)驗(yàn)室比圖書館更有魅力。

But allow me to pause for a moment and throw another sandbag on the levee of those trying to resist this tide. Let me stand up for the history, English and art classes, even in the face of today’s economic realities.

但請(qǐng)容許我暫停片刻，在試圖抵擋這股潮流的堤壩上再添一個(gè)沙袋。請(qǐng)讓我為歷史、英文和藝術(shù)課搖旗吶喊，即使在如今的經(jīng)濟(jì)現(xiàn)實(shí)面前。

Studying the humanities improves your ability to read and write. No matter what you do in life, you will have a huge advantage if you can read a paragraph and discern its meaning (a rarer talent than you might suppose). You will have enormous power if you are the person in the office who can write a clear and concise memo.

學(xué)習(xí)人文學(xué)科可提高你的讀寫能力。不管你在生活中做什么事，如果你能讀一段文章并理解它的意思（一種比你料想的還要珍貴的天賦），你就具有極大的優(yōu)勢(shì)。如果你是辦公室里那個(gè)能夠?qū)懗龊?jiǎn)明扼要的備忘錄的人，你將擁有巨大的權(quán)勢(shì)。

Studying the humanities will give you a familiarity with the language of emotion. In an information economy, many people have the ability to produce a technical innovation: a new MP3 player. Very few people have the ability to create a great brand: the iPod. Branding involves the location and arousal of affection, and you can’t do it unless you are conversant in the language of romance.

學(xué)習(xí)人文學(xué)科會(huì)使你精通情感語(yǔ)言。在一個(gè)信息經(jīng)濟(jì)時(shí)代，許多人有能力作出技術(shù)革新：一個(gè)新的MP3播放器。極少數(shù)人有能力創(chuàng)造一個(gè)偉大的品牌：iPod。做品牌包括定位和情感的激發(fā)，如果你不熟悉浪漫的語(yǔ)言，你就做不到。

Studying the humanities will give you a wealth of analogies. People think by comparison — Iraq is either like Vietnam or Bosnia; your boss is like Narcissus or Solon. People who have a wealth of analogies in their minds can think more precisely than those with few analogies. If you go through college without reading Thucydides, Herodotus and Gibbon, you’ll have been cheated out of a great repertoire of comparisons.

學(xué)習(xí)人文學(xué)科會(huì)使你學(xué)到大量的比喻。人們通過(guò)比較認(rèn)為——伊拉克要么像越南要么像波斯尼亞：你的老板像那喀索斯（Narcissus）或梭倫（Solon）。頭腦里有大量比喻的人比那些有很少比喻的人能想得更精確。如果你上完大學(xué)卻沒有讀過(guò)修昔底德（Thucydides）、希羅多德（Herodotus）和吉本（Gibbon），就是被蒙蔽去了一項(xiàng)重要的比喻才能。1
Finally, and most importantly, studying the humanities helps you befriend The Big Shaggy.

最后，也是最重要的是，學(xué)習(xí)人文學(xué)科幫助你像朋友一樣對(duì)待靈魂小宇宙

Let me try to explain. Over the past century or so, people have built various systems to help them understand human behavior: economics, political science, game theory and evolutionary psychology. These systems are useful in many circumstances. But none completely explain behavior because deep down people have passions and drives that don’t lend themselves to systemic modeling. They have yearnings and fears that reside in an inner beast you could call The Big Shaggy.

讓我試著解釋一下。在過(guò)去一個(gè)世紀(jì)左右的時(shí)間里，人們建立了各種各樣的理論體系以幫助他們理解人類的行為：經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)、政治科學(xué)、博弈論和進(jìn)化心理學(xué)。這些理論體系在許多環(huán)境下都是有用的。但是沒有一個(gè)能完全解釋行為，因?yàn)槿藗兊膬?nèi)心深處有不適于系統(tǒng)建模的激情和動(dòng)力。他們有渴望和恐懼，這些存在于一種內(nèi)在的獸性，你可以稱之為靈魂小宇宙。

You can see The Big Shaggy at work when a governor of South Carolina suddenly chucks it all for a love voyage south of the equator, or when a smart, philosophical congressman from Indiana risks everything for an in-office affair.

當(dāng)南卡羅萊納州的一位州長(zhǎng)為了赤道以南的一次愛情之旅而突然拋下一切時(shí)，或者當(dāng)一位來(lái)自印地安那州的聰明賢達(dá)的國(guó)會(huì)議員為一件公事而豁出去時(shí)，你就能看到靈魂小宇宙在起作用。

You can see The Big Shaggy at work when self-destructive overconfidence overtakes oil engineers in the gulf, when go-go enthusiasm intoxicates investment bankers or when bone-chilling distrust grips politics.

當(dāng)自我毀滅性的自負(fù)遭遇海灣的石油策劃者們時(shí)，當(dāng)熱門投機(jī)的狂熱使投資銀行家們陶醉時(shí)或者當(dāng)冷得刺骨的不信任緊緊抓住政治時(shí)，你就能看到靈魂小宇宙在起作用。

Those are the destructive sides of The Big Shaggy. But this tender beast is also responsible for the mysterious but fierce determination that drives Kobe Bryant, the graceful bemusement the Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga showed when his perfect game slipped away, the selfless courage soldiers in Afghanistan show when they risk death for buddies or a family they may never see again.

這是靈魂小宇宙有害的一面。但是這種溫柔的獸性也負(fù)責(zé)那種驅(qū)使著科比·布萊恩特(Kobe Bryant)的神秘而堅(jiān)定的決斷、底特律老虎（Detroit Tigers）的投手阿曼多·加拉拉加（Armando Galarraga）在他的完全比賽泡湯時(shí)所表現(xiàn)出的優(yōu)雅得體的困惑、在阿富汗的士兵們?cè)谒麄優(yōu)榱丝赡苡肋h(yuǎn)再也見不到的伙伴或家人而冒著生命危險(xiǎn)時(shí)所表現(xiàn)出的無(wú)私的勇氣。

The observant person goes through life asking: Where did that come from? Why did he or she act that way? The answers are hard to come by because the behavior emanates from somewhere deep inside The Big Shaggy.

感覺敏銳的人終其一生都在問(wèn)：那是從哪里來(lái)的？他或她為什么那么做？答案難以得出，因?yàn)樾袨榘l(fā)自于靈魂小宇宙深處的某些地方。

Technical knowledge stops at the outer edge. If you spend your life riding the links of the Internet, you probably won’t get too far into The Big Shaggy either, because the fast, effortless prose of blogging (and journalism) lacks the heft to get you deep below.

技術(shù)知識(shí)停留在外部邊緣。如果你一生的時(shí)間都花在駕馭網(wǎng)絡(luò)鏈接上，你可能不會(huì)太多地深入到靈魂小宇宙，因?yàn)槟切┛焖俣毁M(fèi)力的博客（和新聞報(bào)道）缺乏讓你深入下去的分量。

But over the centuries, there have been rare and strange people who possessed the skill of taking the upheavals of thought that emanate from The Big Shaggy and representing them in the form of story, music, myth, painting, liturgy, architecture, sculpture, landscape and speech. These men and women developed languages that help us understand these yearnings and also educate and mold them. They left rich veins of emotional knowledge that are the subjects of the humanities.

但是幾個(gè)世紀(jì)以來(lái)，出現(xiàn)了一些罕見而不一般的人，他們擁有提出源自于靈魂小宇宙的思想劇變的才能，并把它們以故事、音樂(lè)、神話、繪畫、禮拜儀式、建筑、雕塑、風(fēng)景和演講的形式表現(xiàn)出來(lái)。這些男人和女人們開發(fā)了幫助我們了解這些渴望的語(yǔ)言，并且還培養(yǎng)和塑造這些渴望。他們留下了情感語(yǔ)言的大量分支，這些就是人文學(xué)科的研究領(lǐng)域。

It’s probably dangerous to enter exclusively into this realm and risk being caught in a cloister, removed from the market and its accountability. But doesn’t it make sense to spend some time in the company of these languages — learning to feel different emotions, rehearsing different passions, experiencing different sacred rituals and learning to see in different ways?

如果專門只進(jìn)入這個(gè)領(lǐng)域并且冒著陷于修道院、遠(yuǎn)離塵世及其責(zé)任的風(fēng)險(xiǎn)很可能是危險(xiǎn)的。但是在這些語(yǔ)言——學(xué)會(huì)感覺不同的情感、演習(xí)不同的激情、體驗(yàn)不同的神圣儀式和學(xué)會(huì)用不同的方式去看——的伴隨下度過(guò)一些時(shí)光不也有意義嗎？

Few of us are hewers of wood. We navigate social environments. If you’re dumb about The Big Shaggy, you’ll probably get eaten by it.

我們很少有人是伐木工。我們生活于社會(huì)環(huán)境中。如果對(duì)于靈魂小宇宙你反應(yīng)愚鈍的話，你大概會(huì)被它吃了。