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1、（这位是哈佛 2007 年 2 月 11 日宣布并于 7 月份正式上任的校长 Drew G. Faust 给哈 佛大学 2008 年的本科毕业生做的演讲的讲稿，Drew G. Faust 是哈佛历史上第一位女性校 长，第一位非哈佛毕业生校长，杰出的历史学家，2001 年从宾西法尼业大学到哈佛的 Radcliffe 学院任教，之前的哈佛上一任校长曾因为公开发表“歧视女性”的言论被迫辞职）Baccalaureate address to Class of 2008 2008 届本科毕业典礼上的讲话The Memorial Church 纪念教堂Cambridge, Mass. 麻省剑桥市June
2、3, 2008 2008 年 6 月 3 日As prepared for delivery 准备稿In the curious custom of this venerable institution, I find myself standing before you expected to impart words of lasting wisdom. Here I am in a pulpit, dressed like a Puritan minister an apparition that would have horrified many of my distinguished
3、 forebears and perhaps rededicated some of them to the extirpation of witches. This moment would have propelled Increase and Cotton into a true “Mather lather.” But here I am and there you are and it is the moment of and for Veritas. 在这所久负盛名的大学的别具一格的仪式上，我站在了你们的面前，被期待着给予一些蕴 含着恒久智慧的言论。站在这个讲坛上，我穿得像个清教徒
4、教长一个可能会吓到我的 杰出前辈们的怪物，或许使他们中的一些人重新致力于铲除巫婆的事业上。这个时刻也许 曾激励了很多清教徒成为教长。但现在，我在上面，你们在下面，此时此刻，属于真理， 为了真理。You have been undergraduates for four years. I have been president for not quite one. You have known three presidents; I one senior class. Where then lies the voice of experience? Maybe you should be off
5、ering the wisdom. Perhaps our roles could be reversed and I could, in Harvard Law School style, do cold calls for the next hour or so. 你们已经在哈佛做了四年的大学生，而我当哈佛校长还不到一年。你们认识了三个校长， 而我只认识了你们这一届大四的。算起来我哪有资格说什么经验之谈？或许应该由你们上 来展示一下智慧。要不我们换换位置？然后我就可以像哈佛法学院的学生那样，在接下来 的一个小时内不时地冷不防地提出问题。We all do seem to have made
6、 it to this point more or less in one piece. Though I recently learned that we have not provided you with dinner since May 22. I know we need to wean you from Harvard in a figurative sense. I never knew we took it quite so literally. 学校和学生们似乎都在努力让时间来到这一时刻，而且还差不多是步调一致的。我这两天 才得知哈佛从 5 月 22 日开始就不向你们提供伙食
7、了。虽然有比喻说“我们早晚得给你们断 奶”，但没想到我们的后勤还真的早早就把“奶”给断了。But lets return to that notion of cold calls for a moment. Lets imagine this were a baccalaureate service in the form of Q one of you will dance tango and work in dance therapy in Argentina; another will be engaged in agricultural development in Kenya; an
8、other, with an honors degree in math, will study poetry; another will train as a pilot with the USAF; another will work to combat breast cancer. Numbers of you will go to law school, medical school, and graduate school. But, consistent with the pattern Goldin and Katz have documented, a considerable
9、 number of you are selecting finance and consulting. The Crimsons survey of last years class reported that 58 percent of men and 43 percent of women entering the workforce made this choice. This year, even in challenging economic times, the figure is 39 percent. 对于这个问题有多种思考和回答方式。有一种解释就是如 Willie Sutt
10、on 所说的，一切向“钱” 看。（Willie Sutton 是个抢银行犯，被逮住后当被问到为什么去抢银行时，他说： “Because that is where the money is!”）你们中很多人见过的普通经济学教授 Claudia Goldin 和 Larry Katz，基于对上世纪 70 年代以来的学生的职业选择的研究，作出了差不 多的回答。他们发现了值得注意的一点：即使从事金融业可以得到很高的金钱回报，很多 学生仍然选择做其它的事情。实事上，你们中间有 37 人签到了“教育美国人”（Teach for America，美国的一个组织，其作用类似于中国的“希望工程”）；1 人将去
11、跳探戈舞蹈并在 阿根廷从事舞蹈疗法；1 人将致力于肯尼亚的农业发展；另有 1 人获得了数学的荣誉学位， 却转而去研究诗歌；1 人将去美国空军接受飞行员训练；还有 1 人将加入到与乳癌抗战当 中。你们中的很多人将去法学院，医学院或研究生院。但是，和 Goldin 和 Katz 教授有据 证明的一样，你们中相当一部分人将选择金融和理财咨询。Crimson 对于上届学生的调查 显示，在就业的学生中，58%的男生和 43%的女生做出了这个选择。今年，即使在经济受 挑战的一年，这个数据是 39%。High salaries, the all but irresistible recruiting jug
12、gernaut, the reassurance for many of you that you will be in New York working and living and enjoying life alongside your friends, the promise of interesting work there are lots of ways to explain these choices. For some of you, it is a commitment for only a year or two in any case. Others believe t
13、hey will best be able to do good by first doing well. Yet, you ask me why you are following this path. 也许是为了高薪难以抵抗的招聘诱惑，也许是为了留在纽约然后和朋友们一起工作生 活和享受人生，也许是为了做自己感兴趣的工作对于这些选择可以有各种各样的理由。对你们中的一些人，无论如何那也只是个一两年的契约。其他的一部分人相信他们只有在 过得“富有”了以后才有可能过得“富有”价值。不过，你们依然会问我，为什么要走这条路？I find myself in some ways less interes
14、ted in answering your question than in figuring out why you are posing it. If Professors Goldin and Katz have it right; if finance is indeed the “rational choice,” why do you keep raising this issue with me? Why does this seemingly rational choice strike a number of you as not understandable, as not
15、 entirely rational, as in some sense less a free choice than a compulsion or necessity? Why does this seem to be troubling so many of you? 我发现我自己有时候对于回答你们的问题并没有多大兴趣，比较而言更感兴趣的却是捉摸 你们为什么提那些问题。如果果真如 Goldin 和 Katz 教授所说；如果去搞金融确实是一个 “理性”的选择，为什么你们会不停地向我提出这类问题？为什么看似理性的选择却让你们 当中相当一部分人认为是令人费解的，伪理性的，或出于某种需求和强迫
16、所作出的并不自 由的选择？为什么这个问题似乎困扰着你们当中的很多一部分人？You are asking me, I think, about the meaning of life, though you have posed your question in code in terms of the observable and measurable phenomenon of senior career choice rather than the abstract, unfathomable and almost embarrassing realm of metaphysics. The Meaning of Life capital M, capital L is a clich easier to deal with as the ironic title of a Monty Python movie or the subject of a Sim
