名人演讲:J.K. Rowling2008年在哈佛大学毕业典礼上的演讲part6
Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people’s minds, imagine themselves into other people’s places.
Of course, this is a power, like my brand of fictional magic, that is morally neutral. One might use such an ability to manipulate, or control, just as much as to understand or sympathize.
And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages; they can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to know.
I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think they have any fewer nightmares than I do. Choosing to live in narrow spaces can lead to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors. I think the willfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid.
What is more, those who choose not to empathize may enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy.
One of the many things I learned at the end of that Classics corridor down which I ventured at the age of 18, in search of something I could not then define, was this, written by the Greek author Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.
That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives. It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other people’s lives simply by existing.
But how much more are you, Harvard graduates of 2008, likely to touch other people’s lives? Your intelligence, your capacity for hard work, the education you have earned and received, give you unique status, and unique responsibilities. Even your nationality sets you apart. The great majority of you belong to the world’s only remaining superpower. The way you vote, the way you live, the way you protest, the pressure you bring to bear on your government, has an impact way beyond your borders. That is your privilege, and your burden.
词汇
Manipulate: 巧妙地或不正当地）控制, 操纵, 影响（某人）
a clever politician who knows how to manipulate public opinion
善於操纵舆论的聪明的政治家
She uses her charm to manipulate people.
她利用其魅力左右他人.
Agoraphobia: 广场恐怖; 空旷恐惧; 恐旷症.
collude 串通，共谋
apathy: 无兴趣,冷淡;漠不关心
My parents do not feel apathy about the election.
我父母对此次选举并非漠不关心。
和地球上其他生命不同，人类经历各有不同，却可以互相学习、相互理解。他们能走入别人的心里，设身处地的想问题。
毫无疑问，这和我书中写的魔法一样，是一种力量。这力量本身无所谓对错，只是人可以选择是运用力量去操纵控制别人，还是去感同身受罢了。
但许多人宁愿将想象的力量拒之门外，他们一直在由自身经历构成的小圈子里蜗居着，觉得把自己假想成他人实在是件麻烦事。面对尖叫声，他们可以充耳不闻；面对牢笼中的人，他们可以视而不见。他们对别人的苦难无动于衷，对和自己无关的事，他们向来不愿意去了解。
我有时也向往这种事不关己高高挂起的安乐日子，可我想，他们做的噩梦不会比我少。住在狭小的空间里，总会引发幽闭症的，这同样让人恐惧。这些有意闭目塞听的人恐怕会碰见更多怪物。他们只会更害怕。
更甚者，这些对别人毫无同情之心的人会引发真正的罪行。冷漠就算不是直接的犯罪，也是同谋。
十八岁那年，我踏上了古典文学的探险道路，当时我不清楚自己想寻找什么，直到这条道路到头的时候，我才明白原因：用希腊作家Plutarch的话说，“我们的内心所得，将会改变外界环境。”
这句话似乎耸人听闻，却无数次在我们的生活中得到验证。它在一定程度上说明，我们脱不开自己与外界的联系，只要活着，就一定会和别人的生命相交。
而你们，哈佛大学08届的毕业生们，将如何深入别人生活，在这点上，又比一般人强多少呢？你们应对复杂工作的智慧和能力、你们接受过并引为己用的良好教育，让你们拥有独一无二的地位，也赋予你们独一无二的责任。尽管你们的国籍各有不同，但你们中大部分人来自这个世界上唯一的超级大国，你们投票选举的方式、生活的方式、抗议的方式、对政府施压的权利，影响之深已远超出国界之外。这是你们的特权，也是你们的责任。
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