Americans who stem from generations which left their old people behind and never closed their parents' eyelids in death,and who have experienced the additional distance from death provided by two world wars fought far from our shores are today pushing away from them both a recognition of death and a recognition of the tremendous significance — for the future — of the way we live our lives.Acceptance of the inevitability of death, which, when faced, can give dignity to life,and acceptance of our inescapable role in the modern world,might transmute our anxiety about making the right choices,taking the right precautions, and the right risks into the sterner stuff of responsibility,which ennobles the whole face rather than furrowing the forehead with the little anxious wrinkles of worry.
美国人的先辈们把他们的老人留在了故土，在老人去世时没有去为他们合上眼睛；加之两次世界大战都在远离我们本土的地方进行，美国人对死亡的感受更加遥远。而现在，美国人把死亡推得远远的，既不想承认死亡，也不想承认我们的生活方式——对未来——有着何等巨大的意义。承认死亡不可避免——这可以在我们面临死亡的时候赋予生命以尊严——并承认我们在现今世界上无法逃避的职责，则可以将我们在作出正确选择、采取正确的预防措施和冒必要风险前的焦虑化成严肃的责任感，这将使我们的整个面容显得更加尊贵，而不是在前额上留下因发愁而造成的焦虑的细小皱纹。
Worry in an empty context means that men die daily little deaths.But good anxiety—not about the things that were left undone long ago, but which return to haunt and harry men's minds,but active, vivid anxiety about what must be done and that quickly—binds men to life with an intense concern.This is still a world in which too many of the wrong things happen somewhere.But this is a world in which we now have the means to make a great many more of the right things happen everywhere.For Americans,the generalization which a Swedish social scientist made about our attitudes on race relations is true in many other fields:anticipated change which we feel is right and necessary but difficult makes us unduly anxious and apprehensive,but such change, once consummated, brings a glow of relief.We are still a people who—in the literal sense — believe in making good.
空洞的忧虑意味着使人每天都在慢慢死亡。但恰当的焦虑——不是关于那些我们在很早以前没有做但又回过头来不断烦扰我们心绪的事情，而是关于那些必须要做且马上得做的事情的积极的活生生的焦虑——会以一种强烈的关注心情将人和生活紧紧维系在一起。当今的世界仍然有太多不该发生的事在某些地方发生。但在这个世界，我们现在有办法可以让更多的应该发生的事在世界各处发生。对美国人来说，一位瑞典社会学家就我们对种族关系的态度所作出的概括同样适用于其他许多方面：期待中的变革令我们过度焦虑不安，因为我们觉得这种变革是正确和必要的，但却又是难以实现的，但这种变革一旦完成，会带来一阵喜悦和轻松。毫不夸张地说，我们仍然是一个自信会成功的民族。
来源:可可英语 http://www.kekenet.com/daxue/201701/467786.shtml
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