韩素音青年翻译

英译汉竞赛原文：

The Posteverything Generation

I never expected to gain any new insight into the nature

我从未想过要对我们这一代人的本质，

of my generation, or the changing landscape of American 或者说在美国大学变化中的风景，

colleges, in Lit Theory. Lit Theory is supposed to be the class 在理论上获得任何新的见解。文学理论应该是

where you sit at the back of the room with every other jaded 你和其他穿着

sophomore wearing skinny jeans, thick-framed glasses, an 紧身牛仔裤和一件夸张的T恤，带着厚框眼镜和

ironic tee-shirt and over-sized retro headphones, just waiting 超大号的复古耳机的疲惫不堪的学生们坐在教室的后排，等待

for lecture to be over so you can light up a Turkish Gold and

着讲座结束，然后你可以点亮一根土耳其黄金，

walk to lunch while listening to Wilco. That’s pretty much 听着Wilco去吃中饭。这也是

the way I spent the course, too: through structuralism,

我度过课程最好的方式：通过结构主义，

formalism, gender theory, and post-colonialism, I was far too 形式主义，性别理论，后殖民主义，我相当

busy shuffling through my Ipod to see what the patriarchal world 忙碌的通过我的iPod看资本主义

order of capitalist oppression had to do with Ethan Frome. But 压迫的男权世界秩序跟伊坦。但是

when we began to study postmodernism, something struck a chord 当我们开始学习后现代主义的时候，我与某些东西发生了共鸣，

with me and made me sit up and look anew at the seemingly blas é

它让我深思，重新审视那些看似无所谓的

college-aged literati of which I was so self-consciously one.

大学文人，而我是其中很自觉的人。

According to my textbook, the problem with defining

根据我的教科书，定义

postmodernism is that it’s impossible. The difficulty is that 后现代主义的问题是不可能的。困难在于它是

it is so...post. It defines itself so negatively against what 如此的……后。它自己定义的是如此消极，

came before it – naturalism, romanticism and the wild

与它之前的相悖：自然主义，浪漫主义和

revolution of modernism – that it’s sometimes hard to see what 现代主义的疯狂革命，有时很难看出

it actually is. It denies that anything can be explained neatly 它究竟是什么。它否认了任何甚至所有可以被清楚解释的定义。

or even at all. It is parodic, detached, strange, and sometimes 这是诙谐的、超然的、奇怪的，有时

menacing to traditionalists who do not understand it. Although

甚至会威胁到谁不明白的传统。虽然

it arose in the post-war west (the term was coined in 1949), 它出现在战后的西方（这个词是在1949出现），

the generation that has witnessed its ascendance has yet to 这一代见证了当时统治阶级提出了

come up with an explanation of what postmodern attitudes mean “后现代态度对

for the future of culture or society. The subject intrigued 文化或社会的未来意味着什么”的解释。这个主题引起了我的兴趣，me because, in a class otherwise consumed by dead-letter 因为，在一节课上，否则被虚构的理论消磨，

theories, postmodernism remained an open book, tempting to the 后现代仍然是一本公开的书，吸引

young and curious. But it also intrigued me because the question 年轻人好奇心。但这也激起了我的兴趣，因为后现代主义的问题—— of what postmodernism – what a movement so post-everything, 什么运动如此置于后位——

so reticent to define itself – is spoke to a larger question 然后，所以沉默的定义一切问题，

about the political and popular culture of today, of the other 对于目前的政治和大众文化，对于

jaded sophomores sitting around me who had grown up in a 在后现代世界中长大的、坐在我身边疲惫不堪的学生来说，postmodern world.

这是一个更大的问题。

In many ways, as a college-aged generation, we are also 在许多方面，作为大学生年龄的一代，我们也

extremely post: post-Cold War, post-industrial, post-baby 非常落后：后冷战，后工业，后婴儿潮，

boom, post-9/11...at one point in his famous essay,

11事件发生后……在他们著名的论文里，

“Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism,”一点“后现代主义，或晚期资本主义的文化逻辑”，

literary critic Frederic Jameson even calls us

文学评论家弗里德里克詹姆森甚至称我们

“post-literate.” We are a generation that is riding on the 为“后文学”。我们是这样的一代人，正享受着

tail-end of a century of war and revolution that toppled

一个世纪的战争和革命结束后，推翻

civilizations, overturned repressive social orders, and left 了文明，推翻了专制的社会秩序，并留给

us with more privilege and opportunity than any other society 我们比其他任何历史上的社会更多的特权和机会。

in history. Ours could be an era to accomplish anything.

我们可以是一个可以完成任何事情的时代。

And yet do we take to the streets and the airwaves and say 现在，我们要走到大街上通过广播大喊

“here we are, and this is what we demand”? Do we plant our

“我们在这里，难道这就是我们需要的嘛？”我们要在华盛顿的

flag of youthful rebellion on the mall in Washington and say

购物商场上树立起属于我们年轻叛逆的旗帜，并呐喊

“we are not leaving until we see change! Our eyes have been

“不让我们看到改变我们就赖在这儿了!我们的眼界已经

opened by our education and our conception of what is 在受教育的时候被打开了,我们对于可能性的设想已经

possible has been expanded by our privilege and we demand 在我们的特权范围内被扩展了，我们需要一个更好的世界!因为

a better world because it is our right”? It would seem we do the

这是我们的权利!”这看起来好像我们站在

opposite. We go to war without so much as questioning the 对立面了。我们还没有问清足够的合理性就要奔赴战场

rationale, we sign away our civil liberties, we say nothing 我们叹息着我们所谓的民主自由，我们只能眼睁睁的看着最高法

when the Supreme Court uses Brown v. Board of Education 院借用“布朗诉教育法案”来宣布废止种族歧视的不合法

to outlaw desegregation, and we sit back to watch the

而我们只能眼睁睁地在

carnage on the evening news.

在晚间新闻看到这场残杀。

On campus, we sign petitions, join organizations, put our 在大学校园里，我们号召情愿，加入组织，在信件名单上签上我names on mailing lists, make small-money contributions, 们的名字，做出微薄的贡献

volunteer a spare hour to tutor, and sport an entire

在空余时间里志愿去当家教，致力于整个坚强存在的手镯行头广wardrobe’s worth of Live Strong bracelets advertising our 告和平价的异议

moderately priced opposition to everything from breast 出乳腺癌到

cancer to global warming. But what do we really stand for? 全球变暖。但是我们究竟是站在什么立场上呢？

Like a true postmodern generation we refuse to weave

就像正真的后现代一样，我们拒绝去把所有东西编织在一起成为together an overarching narrative to our own political 一个笼统的故事当作我们的政治觉悟，

consciousness, to present a cast of inspirational or

在公众舞台上说一段鼓舞人心的话

revolutionary characters on our public stage, or to define 或是一个革命人物，或者说给一个特殊的哲理问题下个定义。specific philosophy. We are a story seemingly without

我们是一个简单到没有目的或中心，结构或意义的故事，direction or theme, structure or meaning – a generation 是对我们之前的全部给予消极定义的一代。

defined negatively against what came before us. When Al 就像阿尔戈尔（前美国副总统）说的那样

Gore once said “It’s the combination of narcissism and “正是自恋和虚无主义

nihilism that really defines postmodernism,” he might as 正真定义了后现代主义”

well have been echoing his entire generation’s critique 可能正如他回应他对我们整一代的批判。

of our own. We are a generation for whom even revolution 对于我们这一代来说，革命似乎是老生常谈的，

seems trite, and therefore as fair a target for bland 因此尽可能公平平淡的模仿些其他东西。

imitation as anything else. We are the generation of the 我们是穿着Che Geuvera圆领T的一代。

Che Geuvera tee-shirt.

Jameson calls it “Pastiche”–“the wearing of a

詹姆僧说这是“混合曲”——“带着语言面具

linguistic mask, speech in a dead language.” In literature,

用毫无生气的语言演讲”。在文学上

this means an author speaking in a style that is not his 是指作者没用他自己的语言风格讲话

own – borrowing a voice and continuing to use it until the ——持续借用一种声调直到

words lose all meaning and the chaos that is real life sets 文字失去了所有意义还混进了他的正是生活。

in. It is an imitation of an imitation, something that has 只是在仿制品基础上的仿制品，有些事情已经被重塑过很多

been re-envisioned so many times the original model is no 次然而原始模型已经看不出重点

longer relevant or recognizable. It is mass-produced

或者说难以辨认了。

individualism, anticipated revolution. It is why

这充满了个人主义，预支革命。

postmodernism lacks cohesion, why it seems to lack purpose

这是后现代为什么缺乏凝聚力，为什么缺乏目标和志向的原因啊。

or direction. For us, the post-everything generation, 对于我们来说，过去的一代

pastiche is the use and reuse of the old clichés of social 模仿就是一而再再而三的用社会变革的陈词滥调和义愤填膺的

道德理念，

change and moral outrage – a perfunctory rebelliousness that has culminated in the age of rapidly multiplying non-profits and relief funds. We live our lives in masks and speak our minds in a dead language – the language of

a society that expects us to agitate because that’s what

young people do. But how do we rebel against a generation

that is expecting, anticipating, nostalgic for revolution?

How do we rebel against parents that sometimes seem to want 我们怎么去反抗有时候比我们更想闹革命的父母？

revolution more than we do? We don’t. We rebel by not rebelling. 我们没有，我们通过不反叛来反叛。

We wear the defunct masks of protest and moral outrage, but 我们戴着反抗和道德愤慨的死人面具，

the real energy in campus activism is on the internet, with

但是，在校园的真正精力却在网上，

websites like https://www.360docs.net/doc/f019263735.html,. It is in the rapidly developing 这是一个大家都在聊天室交流理想和失落而不是在街上面对面交流ability to communicate ideas and frustration in chatrooms

的快速发展的时代。为它们开辟渠道成为国际化的事物为了稳健的

和平发展。

instead of on the streets, and channel them into nationwide projects striving earnestly for moderate and peaceful change: we are the generation of Students Taking Action Now Darfur; 我们是在达夫尔采取行动的一代学生。

we are the Rock the Vote generation; the generation of

我们是摇滚选举的一代，我们是用信发起活动和公共利益的一代letter-writing campaigns and public interest lobbies; the alternative energy generation.

我们是使用代替能源的一代。

College as America once knew it – as an incubator of 像我们曾经所知道的美国大学，作为一个激进的社会改变，已经radical social change – is coming to an end. To our generation 接近了尾声，

the word “radicalism” evokes images of al Qaeda, not the 对于我们这一代能唤起激进主义的是基地组织，而不是气象员。

Weathermen. “Campus takeover” sounds more like Virginia Tech “校园管理”听起来更像2007年的弗吉尼亚州理工学院，而不是

in 2007 than Columbia University in 1968. Such phrases are a 1968年的伯克利分校。那种说法对于我们已经死了。

dead language to us. They are vocabulary from another era that 它们来自另一个年代的词汇而不能反映当今的时代。

does not reflect the realities of today. However, the

然而，科技革命还在继续，

technological revolution, the https://www.360docs.net/doc/f019263735.html, revolution, the revolution of the organization kid, is just as real and just 这个革命就像20实际60年代的革命一样深厚，只是不那么明显。

as profound as the revolution of the 1960’s – it is just not as visible. It is a work in progress, but it is there. Perhaps 它是一项正在推进的工作，但它真的存在。

when our parents finally stop pointing out the things that we 当我们的父母停止指出我们哪里不好，

are not, the stories that we do not write, they will see the threads of our narrative begin to come together; they will see 他们也许会看到我们背后的集锦，后一代说的也有一定意义。

that behind our pastiche, the post generation speaks in a language that does make sense. We are writing a revolution. 我们在书写一个革命。

We are just putting it in our own words.

我们只是用我们的语言在书写它。