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1、 作者简介：William Deresiewicz is a contributing writer for The Nation and a contributing editor at The New Republic. His next book, A Jane Austen Education, will be published next year by Penguin Press.威廉德莱塞维茨（William Deresiewicz）是国家杂志撰稿人和新共和杂志编辑。他的新书简奥斯汀教育明年将由企鹅出版社出版。”本文是威廉德莱塞维茨（William Deresiewicz）在斯坦
2、福大学的演讲，标题也叫：勇气挣脱身上的网。正文：The question my title poses, of course, is the one that is classically aimed at humanities majors. What practical value could there possibly be in studying literature or art or philosophy? So you must be wondering why Im bothering to raise it here, at Stanford, this renowned
3、citadel of science and technology. What doubt can there be that the world will offer you many opportunities to use your degree?（学习文学、艺术或哲学能有什么用呢？所以你肯定纳闷，我为什么在在以科技堡垒而闻名的斯坦福提出这个问题呢？在大学学位给人带来众多机会的问题上还有什么可怀疑的吗？）But thats not the question Im asking. By do I dont mean a job, and by that I dont mean your m
4、ajor. We are more than our jobs, and education is more than a major. Education is more than college, more even than the totality of your formal schooling, from kindergarten through graduate school. By What are you going to do, I mean, what kind of life are you going to lead? And by that, I mean ever
5、ything in your training, formal and informal, that has brought you to be sitting here today, and everything youre going to be doing for the rest of the time that youre in school.（但那不是我提出的问题。这里 的“做”并不是指工作，“那”并不是指你的专业。我们不仅仅是要个工作，教育不仅仅是学一门专业。教育也不仅仅是上大学，甚至也不仅是从幼儿园到研究生院 的正规学校教育。我说的“你要做什么”的意思是你要过什么样的生活？我所
6、说的“那”指的是你得到的正规或非正规的任何训练，那些把你送到这里来的东西，你 在学校的剩余时间里将要做的任何事。）We should start by talking about how you did, in fact, get here. You got here by getting very good at a certain set of skills. Your parents pushed you to excel from the time you were very young. They sent you to good schools, where the encoura
7、gement of your teachers and the example of your peers helped push you even harder. Your natural aptitudes were nurtured so that, in addition to excelling in all your subjects, you developed a number of specific interests that you cultivated with particular vigor. You did extracurricular activities,
8、went to afterschool programs, took private lessons. You spent summers doing advanced courses at a local college or attending skill-specific camps and workshops. You worked hard, you paid attention, and you tried your very best. And so you got very good at math, or piano, or lacrosse, or, indeed, sev
9、eral things at once.（我们不妨先来讨论你是如何考入斯坦福的吧。你能进入这所大学说明你在某些技能上非常出色。你的父母在你很小的时候就鼓励你追求卓越。他们送你到好学校，老师的鼓励和同伴的榜样激励你更努力地学习。除了在所有课程上都出类拔萃之外，你还注重修养的提高，充满热情地培养了一 些特殊兴趣。你用几个暑假在本地大学里预习大学课程，或参加专门技能的夏令营或训练营。你学习刻苦、精力集中、全力以赴。所以，你在数学、钢琴、曲棍球等 众多方面都很出色。）Now theres nothing wrong with mastering skills, with wanting to do y
10、our best and to be the best. Whats wrong is what the system leaves out: which is to say, everything else. I dont mean that by choosing to excel in math, say, you are failing to develop your verbal abilities to their fullest extent, or that in addition to focusing on geology, you should also focus on
11、 political science, or that while youre learning the piano, you should also be working on the flute. It is the nature of specialization, after all, to be specialized. No, the problem with specialization is that it narrows your attention to the point where all you know about and all you want to know
12、about, and, indeed, all you can know about, is your specialty.（掌握这些技能当然没有错，全力以赴成为最优秀的人也没有错。错误之处在于这个体系遗漏的地方：即任何别的东西。我并不是说因为选择钻研数学，你在充分发展话语表达能力的潜力方面就失败了；也不是说除了集中精力学习地质学之外，你还应该研究政治学；也不是说你在学习钢琴时还应该学吹笛子。毕竟，专业化的本质就是要专业性。可是，专业化的问题在于它把你的注意力限制在一个点上，即你已经知道和想知道的东西。其实，你能知道的一切就是你的专业。）The problem with specializat
13、ion is that it makes you into a specialist. It cuts you off, not only from everything else in the world, but also from everything else in yourself. And of course, as college freshmen, your specialization is only just beginning. In the journey toward the success that you all hope to achieve, you have
14、 completed, by getting into Stanford, only the first of many legs. Three more years of college, three or four or five years of law school or medical school or a Ph.D. program, then residencies or postdocs or years as a junior associate. In short, an ever-narrowing funnel of specialization. You go fr
15、om being a political-science major to being a lawyer to being a corporate attorney focusing on taxation issues in the consumer-products industry. You go from being a biochemistry major to being a doctor to being a cardiologist to being a cardiac surgeon who performs heart-valve replacements.（专业化 的问题
16、是它让你成为专家，切断你与世界上其他任何东西的联系，不仅如此，还切断你与自身其他潜能的联系。当 然，作为大一新生，你的专业才刚刚开始。在你走 向所渴望的成功之路的过程中，进入斯坦福是你踏上的众多阶梯中的一个。再读三年大学，三五年法学院或医学院或博士，然后再干若干年住院实习生或博士后或助 理教授。总而言之，进入越来越狭窄的专业化轨道。你可能从政治学专业的学生变成了律师或者公司代理人，再变成专门研究消费品领域的税收问题的公司代理人。 你从生物化学专业的学生变成了博士，再变成心脏病学家，再变成专门做心脏瓣膜移植的心脏病医生。）Again, theres nothing wrong with being those things. Its just that, as you get deeper and deeper into the funnel, into the tunnel, it becomes increasingly difficult
