又是一年毕业时,形形色色的毕业演说在各大校园里竞相上演,风格迥异的演说者也轮番登台。即将从青葱校园迈入大千世界的莘莘学子,谁也不想让自己在这样历史性的时刻哈欠连天吧。你希望这是一场吹东风擂战鼓的动员大会,还是一次别旧日上新程的成人仪式,又或者是一台“你耍宝”“我逗乐”的狂欢晚会?没错,年年都有毕业日,家家演说各不同,现在就让我们一起来领略一下吧!
The sunlit season of college commencement has been darkened this year with news of plagiarism1). The school paper at Connecticut College, the College Voice, reported that one of the speakers at last year’s commencement, a graduating senior called Peter St. John, wowed his audience with a speech that had been lifted2) paragraph by paragraph from another commencement address given at Duke in 2008 by the writer Barbara Kingsolver3).
The incident raises all the usual grisly plagiarism questions, some easier to answer than others. Ask why St. John stole another person’s words, and the answer is obvious: He couldn’t come up with a speech on his own, so in a display of bad character, he took what wasn’t his. Ask why, with all the words in the world to choose from, he stole Barbara Kingsolver’s words, and the answer is … I’m stumped. Her Duke speech is a sopping4) thing, wet with cloying5) sentiment and precious6) humor, limp7) with exhausted ideas and easy flattery, an updated version of the Robert Fulghum 1980s gag fest All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten8). In my opinion.
But what do I know? It turns out that among commencement buffs,
Kingsolver’s address has become legendary, a classic. It was a big hit even coming out of the mouth of St. John the word bandit9), who spoke on the same podium as the keynote speaker10), the feminist professor Martha Nussbaum. “St. John’s speech was by far the most well-received of Commencement,” the College Voice noted in its report, “more relatable and persuasive than even Nussbaum’s.” Try being more relatable than Martha Nussbaum. It’s not easy.
大学毕业典礼的季节一向绚烂多彩,但今年的毕业季却随着抄袭事件的爆出而黯然失色。康涅狄格大学的校报《大学之声》上报道,在去年毕业典礼上发表演说的人当中,有一个名叫彼得·圣约翰的毕业生凭借抄袭他人的演讲,博得了听众的交口称赞。他的演讲内容整段整段地抄袭了作家芭芭拉·金索沃于2008年在杜克大学发表的演说词。
这件事引发了人们对各类常见的严重剽窃问题的思考,有的问题比较容易解答,有的则不然。你若问圣约翰为什么要剽窃别人的演说词,答案显而易见:他自己不会写演讲稿,索性就拿别人的来用,人品不好嘛。能抄袭的词儿满世界都是,他又为什么偏偏看上了芭芭拉·金索沃的呢?答案是……我也一头雾水。要说她在杜克大学的演讲,可真是“烂到家”了。伤感?那叫一个腻歪。诙谐?那叫一个做作。通篇空洞无物萎靡无力,溜须拍马倒是信手拈来,可谓20世纪80年代罗伯特·福尔格姆滑天下之大稽的《那些人生中最重要的道理我在幼儿园里都学过》的翻版。此乃本人一己之见。
可是,我的意见又算什么呢?在热衷于毕业典礼的人当中,金索沃的演讲竟然披上了传奇色彩,成了经典之作。圣约翰算是“强盗”的代名词吧,可就算金索沃的演说词是从他的嘴里说出来的,照样能大红大紫。跟圣约翰同台演讲的还有做主题发言的女权主义者玛莎·努斯鲍姆教授。“圣约翰的演讲显然是这次毕业典礼中最受欢迎的,”《大学之声》在报道中指出,“甚至比努斯鲍姆的演讲更能引起共鸣,更具有说服力。”要想让演讲比玛莎·努斯鲍姆的更能引起共鸣,可不是件容易的事儿。
As the mists close around the retreating memory of our own commencements, some of us have evidently lost touch with the genre of the graduation day address. Kingsolver’s speech, says Inside Higher Ed, is “a talk that turns up on some lists of the best commencement talks ever.” From what I’ve seen, it turns up on all the lists, usually near the top. They show remarkable unanimity, these top 10 lists, and the speeches they rank are evidence of the shifting nature of generational expectation. In any given era they reveal what people want their children to know as they enter the wider world, brimming with youthful vigor and optimism, eager to make the rest of us feel crapulent11) and obsolete.
In a nod to the past and as a gesture of continuity, every list of the best commencement speeches has a token appearance by at least one dead person. Time magazine, in a list got out last year, was typical in including the address delivered at Harvard by George Marshall12) in 1947 and President Kennedy’s speech at American University in 1963. Marshall used his speech to announce his plan to rebuild the postwar European economy, and Kennedy used his to argue for an international ban on the testing of nuclear weapons.
What strikes you most about these remarks is their elevated tone. To the youthful ear they must sound Victorian in their formality. “I need not tell you gentlemen that the world situation is very serious,” the jowly old Secretary of State rumbled to the Harvard Class of 1947. “I commend all those who are today graduating,” Kennedy said at American, and went on to quote Woodrow
Wilson13)’s assertion that “every man sent out from a university should be a man of his nation as well as a man of his time.”
“I am confident,” Kennedy continued, “that the men and women who carry the honor of graduating from this institution will continue to give from their lives, from their talents, a high measure of public service and public support.”
Both speeches go on to offer an interpretation of world events and to make a fairly complicated argument about what should come next. The words and their seriousness lend the occasion the weight of a rite14) of initiation, with one adult addressing an audience of his freshly minted peers: You’re all grown up now, so your mother and I think you’re old enough to understand what I’m about to tell you. The terms are cordial but not intimate. This was back before the epidemic of first-naming made intimacy mandatory in social interaction and speech. Remarks like these must have served at least to delay the epidemic. It’s not easy to imagine a graduate of 1947 crossing the stage in Harvard Yard, taking his diploma from the Secretary of State, and saying, “Thanks, George.”
随着我们对自己毕业典礼的渐渐遗忘,我们中的有些人显然已经不再知晓毕业当天的演说词该有什么样的风格。《高等教育内情》认为,金索沃尔的演说是“见诸某些最佳毕业典礼演说排行榜中的一次演说”。而据我所知,所有排行榜中都能见到它,它还常常名列前茅。在前十名的选择上,这些排行榜的看法出奇地一致;而被它们分成三六九等的那些演讲,则印证了不同时代人们对下一代人的不同期待。不管在哪个时代,这些演讲都饱含着对孩子们的殷切期望,希望他们走进广阔世界时,个个朝气蓬勃,信心满满,并且将我们远远甩在身后,让我们感到望尘莫及。
为表示对故人的尊重和继承,每一个毕业演说排行榜中都至少会象征性地出现一位已故人士。《时代》周刊去年推出的排名就是个典型的例子,其中包括1947年乔治·马歇尔在哈佛大学的演说和1963年肯尼迪总统在美国大学的演说。通过发表演说,马歇尔宣布了欧洲战后经济重建计划,肯尼迪则呼吁在全球禁止核武器试验。
这些讲话给人印象最深的地方在于其慷慨激昂的语调。在年轻人听来,它们肯定颇具维多利亚时代的风范。面对哈佛大学1947届毕业班的学生,长着双下巴的老国务卿语重心长地讲道:“我无须告诉诸位,世界形势很严峻。”肯尼迪在美国大学说:“我对今天所有的毕业生表示赞赏。”然后他引用伍德罗·威尔逊的话说:“每一个大学毕业生都应当是爱国者,应该有时代精神。”
“我坚信,”肯尼迪接着说,“从本校光荣毕业的男女学生,将继续奉献出他们的年华和才干,悉心为大众服务,成为社会的栋梁。”
随后,两个演说都对世界大事进行了一番解析,并就下一步的走势做了相当复杂的论述。无论是语言,还是他们严肃认真的态度,都让这种场合看上去更像是一个庄严的入会仪式,就好比一个成年人对着一大帮初出茅庐的同行训话:你们现在都长大了,因此令堂与我均认为,以你们的年纪,足以理解我所要跟你们说的话。措辞很是诚恳,但并不亲近。这样的演说都发生在以前那个年代,那时人们尚未流行直呼其名;直呼其名是后来的事情,它使“亲近”成为人们社交与演讲中的必备因素。而当年这种类似家长训话的演说方式至少让直呼其名的流行延缓了时日。我们很难想象,一名1947届的哈佛毕业生穿过校园中的典礼台,从国务卿手中接过自己的毕业证书,然后说一声:“谢谢,乔治。”
Today’s successful speaker, if he is to be relatable, will toss phrases like “men and women” and “ladies and gentlemen” to history’s compost. In my recent studies I may have found the transition point, the moment when “I commend these men and women” became “Hey, you guys.” Anna Quindlen, a former columnist for the New York Times, didn’t use that precise phrase in her commencement address, which is almost Kingsolverian in its popularity. But she did perfectly embody the forced chumminess that speakers are expected to assume in front of the spoken-to, as well as the solipsism15) that underlies it.
“Begin with that most terrifying of all things, a clean slate,” she told Mount Holyoke’s class of 1999. “Then look, every day, at the choices you are making, and when you ask yourself why you are making them, find this answer: for me, for me!”
If you were a graduate today, and you were faced with the choice of listening to a public intellectual like Anna Quindlen or something else, you would do what today’s graduates try to do: choose something else. This is much to their credit. And so they choose TV stars. This is less to their credit, but after four years in the world’s finest system of higher education it’s what they know. Most lists of best commencement speeches include talks by the comedians Conan O’Brien16) Jon Stewart17), and Stephen Colbert18). Time, for its part, inexplicably included a speech by the actor who played that White House political adviser on West Wing19). The balding, red-headed one. He told the class of 2006 at the University of Wisconsin to “be the active hero of your own life.”
The comedians, meanwhile, deliver stand-up20) routines. They offer the graduates a polished and extremely pricey entertainment essentially for free—the cost of an honorary degree; nothing, in other words. Maybe it dawns on21) them that they’re getting taken, because a thin vein of hostility runs through their talks.
“Whenever I hear that song,” Stewart said, after the band played his alma mater, “I think of nothing.” Colbert appeared at tiny Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. In the space of a half hour he managed to insult them by pretending not to know the name of their town, dropping the f-bomb twice in front of the assembled grandparents and moms and dads, and ridiculing the name of their sports teams.
The graduates roared with laughter. They’d seen him on TV.
现如今,成功的演讲人要想“引起听众的共鸣”,就得把诸如“男生、女生”“女士们、先生们”之类的词儿扔进历史的故纸堆中去。最近,通过研究,我发现了措辞上过渡的转折点,那就是当“我对诸位男生和女生表示赞赏”变成了“嗨,大伙儿好”的时候。曾任《纽约时报》专栏作家的安娜·昆德兰在毕业演说中就没有使用那个确切的称呼,而她做的毕业演说就受欢迎程度而言,和金索沃几乎不相上下。不过,她的确将听众所期望的亲切感表现得淋漓尽致,虽然也是不得已而为之;而演说中同样表现得淋漓尽致的,还有那带来这种亲切感的唯我意识。
“首先要说最可怕的事儿,那就是一切都要重新开始,”她对蒙特霍尔约克学院1999届的毕业生说,“然后,每天审视自己所做的选择,当你自问为什么要做这样的选择时,请这样回答自己:为了我,为了我!”
假设你是今天的一名毕业生,并且面临这样的抉择:是聆听像安娜·昆德兰那样的大众知识分子演说,还是听点儿别的?你的决定会和今天其他的毕业生一样:听点儿别的。赞一个!于是毕业生们选择了电视明星。这就不太值得赞扬了,可是对于在世界上最优秀的高等教育体制中浸淫了四年的他们来说,所知道的也仅此而已。大多数最佳毕业演说排名中都包括柯南·奥布赖恩、乔恩·斯图尔特以及斯蒂芬·科尔伯特等喜剧演员的演讲。令人费解的是,在《时代》杂志的排名中,竟然出现了在《白宫风云》中饰演白宫政治顾问的那位演员,也就是那位行将谢顶的红头发仁兄。他对威斯康星大学2006届毕业生说,要“积极地成为自己人生的主宰”。
喜剧演员顺带还能献上一些个人表演。他们为毕业生提供了一场精彩、漂亮、价格高昂而事实上又是免费的娱乐演出——看演出的成本就是一个荣誉学位;换言之,一分钱都不用花。后来,毕业生们也许意识到自己上当了,因为这些演说者的讲话听起来都有那么一点点不怀好意。
“每当我听到这首歌,”斯图尔特听乐队演奏完校歌后说,“脑子里都一片空白。”而科尔伯特在出席伊利诺伊州盖尔斯堡的诺克斯学院毕业典礼时,用了半个小时的时间想方设法地羞辱毕业生们:他假装不知道他们所在城市的名字,在出席典礼的爷爷奶奶、爸爸妈妈们面前两次说话带了脏字,还揶揄了他们运动队的名字。
毕业生哄堂大笑。他们早就在电视上领教过科尔波特这张破嘴,因而也就见怪不怪了。
1. plagiarism [5pleIdVIErIzEm] n. 剽窃,剽窃物
2. lift [lIft] vt.〈口〉剽窃,抄袭
3. Barbara Kingsolver:芭芭拉·金索沃(1955~),美国女作家,著有小说《毒木圣经》(The Poisonwood Bible)。
4. sopping [5sRpIN] adj. 浑身湿透的
5. cloying [5klRIIN] adj. 因过量而(使人)厌烦的;倒胃口的
6. precious [5preFEs] adj. 矫揉造作的
7. limp [lImp] adj. 无生气的,软绵绵的
8. All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten:《那些人生中最重要的道理我在幼儿园里都学过》,美国作家罗伯特·福尔格姆的杂文集,由50篇短小的文章组成。
9. bandit [5bAndIt] n. 强盗
10. keynote speaker:主讲嘉宾;大会发言人
11. crapulent [5krApjulEnt] adj.〈喻〉没有价值的
12. George Marshall:乔治·马歇尔(1880~1959),1947~1949年任美国国务卿,1950~1951年任美国国防部长。
13. Woodrow Wilson:伍德罗·威尔逊(1856~1924),美国第28任总统
14. rite [raIt] n. 仪式,典礼
15. solipsism [5sClIpsIzEm] n. [哲]唯我论
16. Conan O’Brien:柯南·奥布赖恩(1963~),美国脱口秀主持人,主持脱口秀“柯南·奥布赖恩今夜秀”(The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien)。
17. Jon Stewart:乔恩·斯图尔特(1962~),美国脱口秀主持人,主持新闻讽刺节目“每日秀”(The Daily Show)。
18. Stephen Colbert:斯蒂芬·科尔伯特(1964~),美国电视节目主持人、喜剧演员,主持电视节目“科尔伯特报道”(The Colbert Report)。
19. West Wing:美国电视剧《白宫风云》,一部以政治为题材的美国电视连续剧
20. stand-up:演独角戏的,单人表演的
21. dawn on:渐渐明白;开始理解