大学英语精读第三版（第六册）学习笔记（原文及全文翻译）——7B - One Vote for This Age of Anxiety（投焦虑时代一票）

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Unit 7B - One Vote for This Age of Anxiety

One Vote for This Age of Anxiety

Margaret Mead

When critics wish to repudiate the world in which we live today, one of their familiar ways of doing it is to castigate modern man because anxiety is his chief problem. This, they say, in W. H. Auden's phrase, is the age of anxiety. This is what we have arrived at with all our vaunted progress, our great technological advances, our great wealth — everyone goes about with a burden of anxiety so enormous that, in the end, our stomachs and our arteries and our skins express the tension under which we live. Americans who have lived in Europe come back to comment on our favorite farewell which, instead of the old goodbye (God be with you), is now "Take it easy," each American admonishing the other not to break down from the tension and strain of modern life.

Whenever an age is characterized by a phrase, it is presumably in contrast to other ages. If we are the age of anxiety, what were other ages? And here the critics do a very amusing thing. First, they give us lists of the opposites of anxiety: security, trust, self-confidence, self-direction. Then, without much further discussion, they let us assume that other ages, other periods of history, were somehow the ages of trust or confident direction.

The savage who, on his South Sea island, simply sat and let breadfruit fall into his lap, the simple peasant, at one with the fields he ploughed and the beasts he tended, the craftsman busy with his tools and lost in the fulfillment of the instinct of workmanship — these are the counter-images conjured up by descriptions of the strain under which men live today. But no one who lived in those days has returned to testify how paradisiacal they really were.

Certainly if we observe and question the savages or simple peasants in the world today, we find something quite different. The untouched savage in the middle of New Guinea isn't anxious; he is seriously and continually frightened — of black magic, of enemies with spears who may kill him or his wives and children at any moment, while they stoop to drink from a spring, or climb a palm tree for a coconut. He goes warily, day and night, taut and fearful.

As for the peasant populations of a great part of the world, they aren't so much anxious as hungry. They aren't anxious about whether they will get a salary raise, or which of the three colleges of their choice they will be admitted to, or whether to buy a Ford or Cadillac, or whether the kind of TV set they want is too expensive. They are hungry, cold and, in many parts of the world, they dread that local warfare, bandits, political coups may endanger their homes, their meager livelihoods, and their lives. But surely they are not anxious.

For anxiety, as we have come to use it to describe our characteristic state of mind, can be contrasted with the active fear of hunger, loss, violence, and death. Anxiety is the appropriate emotion when the immediate personal terror — of a volcano, an arrow, the sorcerer's spell, a stab in the back and other calamities, all directed against one's self — disappears.

This is not to say that there isn't plenty to worry about in our world of today. The explosion of a bomb in the streets of a city whose name no one had ever heard before may set in motion forces which end up by ruining one's carefully planned education in law school, half a world away. But there is still not the personal, immediate, active sense of impending disaster that the savage knows. There is rather the vague anxiety, the sense that the future is unmanageable.

The kind of world that produces anxiety is actually a world of relative safety, a world inwhich no one feels that he himself is facing sudden death. Possibly sudden death may strikea certain number of unidentified other people — but not him. The anxiety exists as an uneasy state of mind, in which one has a feeling that something unspecified and undeterminable may go wrong. If the world seems to be going well, this produces anxiety — for good times may end. If the world is going badly — it may get worse. Anxiety tends to be without focus; the anxious person doesn't know whether to blame himself or other people. He isn't sure whether it is the current year or the Administration or a change in climate or the atom bomb that is to blame for this undefined sense of unease.

It is clear that we have developed a society which depends on having the right amount of anxiety to make it work. Psychiatrists have been heard to say, "He didn't have enough anxiety to get well," indicating that, while we agree that too much anxiety is inimical to mental health, we have come to rely on anxiety to push and prod us into seeing a doctor about a symptom which may indicate cancer, into checking up on that old life-insurance policy which may have out-of-date clauses in it, into having a conference with Billy's teacher even though his report card looks all right.

People who are anxious enough keep their car insurance up, have the brakes checked, don't take a second drink when they have to drive, are careful where they go and with whom they drive on holidays. People who are too anxious either refuse to go into cars at all — and so complicate the ordinary course of life — or drive so tensely and overcautiously that they help cause accidents. People who aren't anxious enough take chance after chance, which increases the terrible death toll etc. of the roads.

On balance, our age of anxiety represents a large advance over savage and peasant cultures. Out of a productive system of technology drawing upon enormous resources, we have created a nation in which anxiety has replaced terror and despair, for all except the severely disturbed. The specter of hunger means something only to those Americans who can identify themselves with the millions of hungry people on other continents. The specter of terror may still be roused in some by a knock at the door in a few parts of the South, or in those who have just escaped from a totalitarian regime.

But in this twilight world which is neither at peace nor at war, and where there is insurance against certain immediate, downright, personal disasters, for most Americans there remains only anxiety over what may happen, might happen, could happen.

This is the world out of which grows the hope, for the first time in history, of a society where there will be freedom from want and freedom from fear. Our very anxiety is born of our knowledge of what is now possible for each and for all. The number of people who consult psychiatrists today is not, as is sometimes felt, a symptom of increasing mental ill health, but rather the precursor of a world in which the hope of genuine mental health will be open to everyone, a world in which no individual feels that he need be hopelessly broken-hearted, a failure, a menace to others or a traitor to himself.

But if, then, our anxieties are actually signs of hope, why is there such a voice of discontent abroad in the land? I think this comes perhaps because our anxiety exists without an accompanying recognition of the tragedy which will always be inherent in human life, however well we build our world. We may banish hunger, and fear of sorcery, violence, or secret police; we may bring up children who have learned to trust life and who have the spontaneity and curiosity necessary to devise ways of making trips to the moon; we cannot — as we have tried to do — banish death itself.

Americans who stem from generations which left their old people behind and never closed their parents' eyelids in death, and who have experienced the additional distance from death provided by two world wars fought far from our shores are today pushing away from them both a recognition of death and a recognition of the tremendous significance — for the future — of the way we live our lives. Acceptance of the inevitability of death, which, when faced, can give dignity to life, and acceptance of our inescapable role in the modern world, might transmute our anxiety about making the right choices, taking the right precautions, and the right risks into the sterner stuff of responsibility, which ennobles the whole face rather than furrowing the forehead with the little anxious wrinkles of worry.

Worry in an empty context means that men die daily little deaths. But good anxiety—not about the things that were left undone long ago, but which return to haunt and harry men's minds, but active, vivid anxiety about what must be done and that quickly—binds men to life with an intense concern. This is still a world in which too many of the wrong things happen somewhere. But this is a world in which we now have the means to make a great many more of the right things happen everywhere. For Americans, the generalization which a Swedish social scientist made about our attitudes on race relations is true in many other fields: anticipated change which we feel is right and necessary but difficult makes us unduly anxious and apprehensive, but such change, once consummated, brings a glow of relief. We are still a people who—in the literal sense — believe in making good.

参考译文——投焦虑时代一票

投焦虑时代一票

玛格丽特·米德

当批评家们想要否定我们现在生活的社会时，他们常用的一种方法就是指责现代人，说焦虑成了他的主要问题。他们说，如今的时代，用W·H·奥登的话来说，是一个焦虑的时代。尽管我们自吹自擂取得了多少进步，我们的技术获得了多大的进展，我们积累了多么巨大的财富，但是到头来我们得到的却是一个焦虑的时代——所有人都背着巨大的焦虑的重负，以致最后我们的胃、我们的动脉和我们的皮肤都显示出我们生活的重压。在欧洲生活过的美国人回来后评论我们最爱用的告别语说，过去是"再见"（goodbye——原意为"上帝与你同在"），如今却说“多保重”（take it easy——原意为“放松些”），美国人都在相互告诫，别让紧张劳累的现代生活搞垮身体。

每当人们用一个词儿概括一个时代的特征的时候，想必那是将它与别的时代相对照而言。如果我们的时代是焦虑的时代，那么其他时代又是什么呢？在这儿，批评家们的行为非常有趣。首先，他们给我们开出一长串焦虑的反义词：安全、信任、自信、自主。然后，未经进一步讨论，他们就让我们认定其他时代、其他历史时期，似乎就是信任的时代或自信、自主的时代。

南太平洋岛屿上未开化的人，就这么坐着等待面包果掉到他的怀里；纯朴的农民，和他耕种的田地和饲养的家畜一起和谐地生活着；手工匠人忙碌地工作，沉湎于自己的手艺制作——这些就是他们描述当今人们生活的压力时勾起的与之相反的形象。但是，生活在那些年代中的人们，没有人回来作证说他们的生活果真有那么美好。

可以肯定，如果我们观察并询问一下当今世界上的未开化的人或是纯朴的农民，就会得到一些完全不同的答案。生活在新几内亚中部的未开化的人并不感到焦虑，而是不断地处于极度的惊吓之中——他害怕巫术，害怕带着长矛的敌人，这些敌人乘着他们俯身喝泉水或爬上椰子树摘椰子的时候随时可能杀害他或是他的妻子和儿女。他日日夜夜小心翼翼，紧张而恐惧。

至于世界上许多地方的农民，他们感到的主要不是焦虑，而是饥饿。他们不会为能否得到加薪而焦虑，也不会为他们选择的三所学校中哪一所会录取他们而担心，不会为到底是该买福特车还是卡迪拉克车而烦心，也不会为他们想买的那类电视机是否太贵而不安。他们身受饥寒之苦，而在世界上的许多地方，他们害怕的是地方战争、土匪、政变会危及他们的家园、他们贫寒的生活和他们的生命。不过，他们肯定不会感到焦虑。

因为用来描述我们特有的心态的焦虑，是与饥饿、损失、暴力和死亡带来的活生生的恐惧感相对照的。焦虑是在迫在眉睫的个人恐惧——一切直接针对人身的灾祸，如火山爆发、箭、术士的符咒、背后捅一刀——消失后才出现的一种相宜的情绪。

这并不是说在我们当今的世界上就没有诸多让人忧虑的事。一枚炸弹在一个过去从来没人听说过的城市的街道上爆炸，就可能会导致一些势力活跃起来，结果使自己精心设计的去地球另一边就读法学院的计划告吹。但是这仍然不是未开化的人所体会到的那种个人的、直接的、现实的、迫在眉睫的灾难感，而是一种相当模糊的焦虑，一种认为未来无法控制的感觉。

产生焦虑的世界实际上是一个相对安全的世界，一个没有人感到他自己面临着突然死亡的世界。也许突然死亡会落到一定数量的身份不明的其他人身上——但不是他自己。焦虑是一种不安的思想状态，处在这种思想状态的人会感到某种说不清、确不定的事情可能会出差错。如果这个世界的情况显得不错，这会产生焦虑——因为好日子可能会结束。如果世道不好——那还可能变得更糟。焦虑常常没有中心；焦虑的人不知道是该责怪自己还是责怪他人。他吃不准到底是什么引起这种无可名状的不安心情，是今年的运道还是政府，是气候变化还是因为原子弹。

显然，我们已经造就了一个依赖适度的焦虑来维持正常运作的社会。我们听到过心理医生这样说:“他没有足够的焦虑，所以身体好不起来，”这表明尽管我们一致认为过多的焦虑对心理健康有害，我们已变得依赖焦虑来促使我们找医生诊断某个症状是否是癌症的先兆，促使我们去检查一下陈旧的人寿保险单，看看里面有没有过时的条款，促使我们去和孩子的老师谈一谈，尽管他的成绩单看上去还相当不错。

有足够焦虑的人总是及时交汽车保险，检查刹车，要开车时不喝第二杯酒，对于假日去哪里以及和谁一起开车去，都十分当心。过于焦虑的人要么拒绝使用汽车——从而把普通的日常生活搞得复杂不堪——要么开车时过于紧张、过于小心谨慎，结果反而容易造成车祸。而不够焦虑的人一次又一次地冒险，结果增加了本已为数惊人的死于车祸的人数。

权衡起来，我们的焦虑时代相对于野蛮文化和农民文化是大大进步了。凭借我们富有成效的、充分运用巨大资源的技术体系，我们创造了一个除了严重的精神病患者而外人人感到焦虑代替了恐怖和绝望的国度。饥饿的幽灵只对那些关注其他大陆上千百万饥饿人们的疾苦的美国人才有意义。夜半敲门在南方的少数地方还可能令某些人感到恐怖，或者令那些刚刚逃离极权统治的人们感到惶惶不安。

但是在这个既不和平也不交战的朦胧世界上，在防止眼前的、十足的个人灾难有保障的情况下，大多数美国人焦虑的只是一些可能发生，也许会发生，说不定会发生的事情。

这是一个产生希望的世界，历史上人们第一次可以希望生活在一个没有贫困没有恐惧的社会里。我们的焦虑之所以产生正是因为我们明了我们每个人以及我们大家现在可以做到什么程度。现在看精神科医生的人数增加，并不像人们有时候所认为的那样，是心理不健康上升的表现，相反，它预示着一个世界的到来，在这个世界中，所有人都有希望享有真正的心理健康，没有人感到要绝望心碎，没有人感到会成为一个失败者，没有人感到会对他人构成威胁或是背叛自己。

但是，既然我们的焦虑实际上是希望的征兆，那为什么在这块土地上到处有不满的声音呢？我想，或许这是因为在我们焦虑的同时没有认识到，不管我们如何建设我们的世界，人生固有的悲剧永远存在。我们可以驱逐饥饿，驱除对巫术、暴力和秘密警察的恐惧，我们可以养儿育女，让他们学会相信生活并具有足够的主动精神和好奇心想方设法到月球旅行，但是，我们不能，像我们尝试想做的那样，驱逐死亡本身。

美国人的先辈们把他们的老人留在了故土，在老人去世时没有去为他们合上眼睛；加之两次世界大战都在远离我们本土的地方进行，美国人对死亡的感受更加遥远。而现在，美国人把死亡推得远远的，既不想承认死亡，也不想承认我们的生活方式——对未来——有着何等巨大的意义。承认死亡不可避免——这可以在我们面临死亡的时候赋予生命以尊严——并承认我们在现今世界上无法逃避的职责，则可以将我们在作出正确选择、采取正确的预防措施和冒必要风险前的焦虑化成严肃的责任感，这将使我们的整个面容显得更加尊贵，而不是在前额上留下因发愁而造成的焦虑的细小皱纹。

空洞的忧虑意味着使人每天都在慢慢死亡。但恰当的焦虑——不是关于那些我们在很早以前没有做但又回过头来不断烦扰我们心绪的事情，而是关于那些必须要做且马上得做的事情的积极的活生生的焦虑——会以一种强烈的关注心情将人和生活紧紧维系在一起。当今的世界仍然有太多不该发生的事在某些地方发生。但在这个世界，我们现在有办法可以让更多的应该发生的事在世界各处发生。对美国人来说，一位瑞典社会学家就我们对种族关系的态度所作出的概括同样适用于其他许多方面：期待中的变革令我们过度焦虑不安，因为我们觉得这种变革是正确和必要的，但却又是难以实现的，但这种变革一旦完成，会带来一阵喜悦和轻松。毫不夸张地说，我们仍然是一个自信会成功的民族。

Key Words:

savage    ['sævidʒ]

adj. 野性的，凶猛的，粗鲁的，荒野的

phrase    [freiz]     

n. 短语，习语，个人风格，乐句

vt. 措词

farewell   ['fɛə'wel] 

adj. 告别的

int. 再会，别了

     

assume   [ə'sju:m] 

vt. 假定，设想，承担; (想当然的)认为

fulfillment      [ful'filmənt]    

n. 满足，完成，履行

enormous      [i'nɔ:məs]

adj. 巨大的，庞大的

amusing [ə'mju:ziŋ]     

adj. 有趣的，引人发笑的

instinct    ['instiŋkt]

adj. 充满的

n. 本能，天性，直觉

contrast  ['kɔntræst,kən'træst]    

n. 差别，对比，对照物

v. 对比，成对照<

comment       ['kɔment]

n. 注释，评论; 闲话

meager   ['mi:gə]  

adj. 贫乏的，不足的，瘦的

savage    ['sævidʒ]

adj. 野性的，凶猛的，粗鲁的，荒野的

n.

dread     [dred]    

n. 恐惧，可怕的人，可怕的事

adj. 可怕

frightened      ['fraitnd] 

adj. 受惊的，受恐吓的

endanger       [in'deindʒə]   

vt. 危及，危害

fearful     ['fiəfəl]    

adj. 担心的，可怕的

taut [tɔ:t]

adj. 拉紧的，整洁的，紧张的

observe  [əb'zə:v] 

v. 观察，遵守，注意到

v. 评论，庆

warfare   ['wɔ:fɛə]  

n. 战争，冲突

certain    ['sə:tn]    

adj. 确定的，必然的，特定的

     

volcano  [vɔl'keinəu]    

n. 火山

undefined      [,ʌndi'faind]   

adj. 不明确的；未下定义的

violence  ['vaiələns]      

n. 暴力，猛烈，强暴，暴行

current   ['kʌrənt] 

n. (水、气、电)流，趋势

adj. 流通的

immediate     [i'mi:djət]

adj. 立即的，即刻的，直接的，最接近的

appropriate    [ə'prəupriət]   

adj. 适当的，相称的

vt. 拨出(款项)

uneasy   [ʌn'i:zi]   

adj. 不自在的，心神不安的，不稳定的，不舒服的

impending     [im'pendiŋ]   

adj. 逼迫的，迫切的，即将发生的 动词impend的

anxiety    [æŋ'zaiəti]     

n. 焦虑，担心，渴望

except     [ik'sept]  

vt. 除，除外

prep. & conj.

terror      ['terə]     

n. 恐怖，惊骇，令人惧怕或讨厌的人或事物

immediate     [i'mi:djət]

adj. 立即的，即刻的，直接的，最接近的

despair   [di'spɛə] 

n. 绝望，失望

vi. 失望

complicate     ['kɔmplikeit]  

vt. 弄复杂，使错综，使起纠纷

regime    [rei'ʒi:m] 

n. 政体，制度

n. 养生法(=regime

identify   [ai'dentifai]    

vt. 识别，认明，鉴定

vi. 认同，感同身

indicate   ['indikeit]

v. 显示，象征，指示

v. 指明，表明

certain    ['sə:tn]    

adj. 确定的，必然的，特定的

mental    ['mentl]  

adj. 精神的，脑力的，精神错乱的

banish    ['bæniʃ] 

vt. 驱逐，流放，消除

devise     [di'vaiz]  

vt. 设计，发明，遗赠给

n. 遗赠，

traitor     ['treitə]   

n. 叛徒，卖国贼，出卖朋友者

precursor       [pri:'kə:sə]      

n. 先驱者，前辈，前体

symptom       ['simptəm]     

n. 症状，征兆

discontent      [diskən'tent]  

n. 不满

adj. 不满的

genuine  ['dʒenjuin]     

adj. 真正的，真实的，真诚的

mental    ['mentl]  

adj. 精神的，脑力的，精神错乱的

n. 精

recognition    [.rekəg'niʃən] 

n. 认出，承认，感知，知识

menace  ['menis] 

n. 威胁，胁迫

acceptance     [ək'septəns]   

n. 接受（礼物、邀请、建议等），同意，认可，承兑

transmute      [træns'mju:t] 

v. 使 ... 变形，经历变化

anxiety    [æŋ'zaiəti]     

n. 焦虑，担心，渴望

relief       [ri'li:f]     

n. 减轻，解除，救济(品), 安慰，浮雕，对比

stem       [stem]    

n. 茎，干，柄，船首

vi. 起源于

     

haunt     [hɔ:nt]    

n. 常到的地方

vt. 常到，缠住，出没(像

experienced   [iks'piəriənst] 

adj. 有经验的

intense   [in'tens] 

adj. 强烈的，剧烈的，热烈的

inevitability    [in,evitə'biləti]

n. 必然性；不可逃避

literal      ['litərəl]   

adj. 逐字的，字面上的，文字的

参考资料：

1. 大学英语精读(第三版) 第六册: Unit7B One Vote for This Age of Anxiety(1)_大学教材听力 - 可可英语
2. 大学英语精读(第三版) 第六册: Unit7B One Vote for This Age of Anxiety(2)_大学教材听力 - 可可英语
3. 大学英语精读(第三版) 第六册: Unit7B One Vote for This Age of Anxiety(3)_大学教材听力 - 可可英语
4. http://www.kekenet/daxue/201701/46778shtml
5. http://www.kekenet/daxue/201701/46778shtml

大学英语精读(第三版) 第六册: Unit7B One Vote for This Age of Anxiety(6)_大学教材听力 - 可可英语

本文标签： 一票大学英语焦虑第三版学习笔记