公众人物毕业演讲第17期:迈克尔·彭博哈佛大学2014毕业典礼演讲(9)

As a former chairman of Johns Hopkins

作为约翰霍普金斯大学前任主席

I strongly believe that a university's obligation

我坚信一所大学的职责

is not to teach students what to think but to teachstudents how to think

并不是教学生思考什么 而是教学生如何思考

And that requires listening to the other side

这就需要倾听不同意见

weighing arguments without prejudging them

不带偏见地衡量各种观点

and determining whether the other side might actually make some fair points

冷静思考不同意见中是否也有可取的内容

If the faculty fails to do this

如果教职员工做不到这一点

then it is the responsibility of the administration and governing body

学校管理者就有责任介入

to step in and make it a priority

优先解决这一问题

If they do not, if students graduate with ears and minds closed

否则的话 学生毕业时就会封闭自己的耳朵和思维

the university has failed both the student and society

大学也就辜负了学生和社会的信任

And if you want to know where that leads, look no further than Washington, DC

如果想知道这会导致什么 看看华盛顿就知道了

Down in Washington, every major question facing our country

在华盛顿 我国面临的所有重大问题

involving our security, our economy, our environment, and our health is decided

包括国家安全 经济 环境 医疗等问题

Yet the two parties decide those questions not by engaging with one another

两党在处理所有这些问题时 都没有考虑协作

but by trying to shout each other down

而是看谁声音更大 以此压倒对方

and by trying to repress and undermine research that counters their ideology

试图抑制和破坏同自己意识形态不相符的调研结果

The more our universities emulate that model

大学对这种模式模仿得越多

the worse off we will be as a society

我们的社会就会变得越糟糕

And let me give you a few examples

我来举一些例子

For decades, Congress has barred the Centers for Disease Control

数十年来 国会都禁止疾病控制中心

from conducting studies of gun violence

进行枪支暴力的研究

and recently Congress also placed that prohibition on the National Institute of Health

最近 国会又对国立卫生研究院颁布禁令

You have to ask yourself: What are they afraid of?

你需要问问自己 他们在害怕什么

This year

今年

the Senate has delayed a vote on President Obama's nominee for Surgeon General

参议院延迟对奥巴马总统提名的卫生局局长

Dr. Vivek Murthy, a Harvard physician

哈佛内科医师维维克?莫西 进行投票

because he had the audacity to say that

原因仅仅是 他竟敢说

gun violence is a public health crisis that should be tackled

枪支暴力是一大应当处理的公共卫生危机

The gall of him

他真是太大胆了