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2021/12/31 第598期  |  訂閱/退訂  |  看歷史報份  |  寂天閱讀網
 
【編輯小語】 口語會話 Follow me
【英語學習Plus】 Shall We Choose Death? 英國哲學家羅素:我們該選擇死亡嗎?
【本月發燒書】 一次學會KK音標:融合字母拼讀雙效學習【二版】(32K彩色+寂天雲隨身聽APP)
【好康情報局】 ★好書推薦★超級英語閱讀訓練 1:FUN學美國英語課本精選 【二版】(16K +寂天雲隨身聽APP)
 

【口語會話 Follow me 】

How do you celebrate Christmas?
你們都怎麼過聖誕節?

A:How do you celebrate Christmas?
B:We decorate the house. The whole family gets together.

A:你們都怎麼過聖誕節?
B:我們會布置房子。全家人團聚。

────── 選自《英語力 1:英語聽說能力訓練【二版】(菊8K+別冊+寂天雲隨身聽APP)》
 

Shall We Choose Death? 英國哲學家羅素:我們該選擇死亡嗎?

I am speaking not as a Briton, not as a European, not as a member of a western democracy, but as a human being, a member of the species Man, whose continued existence is in doubt. The world is full of conflicts: Jews and Arabs; Indians and Pakistanis; white men and Negroes in Africa; and, overshadowing all minor conflicts, the titanic struggle between communism and anticommunism.

Almost everybody who is politically conscious has strong feelings about one or more of these issues; but I want you, if you can, to set aside such feelings for the moment and consider yourself only as a member of a biological species which has had a remarkable history and whose disappearance none of us can desire.

I shall try to say no single word which should appeal to one group rather than to another. All, equally, are in peril, and, if the peril is understood, there is hope that they may collectively avert it. We have to learn to think in a new way. We have to learn to ask ourselves not what steps can be taken to give military victory to whatever group we prefer, for there no longer are such steps.

The question we have to ask ourselves is: What steps can be taken to prevent a military contest of which the issue must be disastrous to all sides?

The general public, and even many men in positions of authority, have not realized what would be involved in a war with hydrogen bombs. The general public still thinks in terms of the obliteration of cities. It is understood that the new bombs are more powerful than the old and that, while one atomic bomb could obliterate Hiroshima, one hydrogen bomb could obliterate the largest cities such as London, New York, and Moscow.

Here, then, is the problem which I present to you, stark and dreadful and inescapable: Shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war?

People will not face this alternative because it is so difficult to abolish war. The abolition of war will demand distasteful limitations of national sovereignty. But what perhaps impedes understanding of the situation more than anything else is that the term "mankind" feels vague and abstract.

People scarcely realize in imagination that the danger is to themselves and their children and their grandchildren, and not only to a dimly apprehended humanity. And so they hope that perhaps war may be allowed to continue provided modern weapons are prohibited.

I am afraid this hope is illusory. Whatever agreements not to use hydrogen bombs had been reached in time of peace, they would no longer be considered binding in time of war, and both sides would set to work to manufacture hydrogen bombs as soon as war broke out, for if one side manufactured the bombs and the other did not, the side that manufactured them would inevitably be victorious.

As geological time is reckoned, Man has so far existed only for a very short period—one million years at the most. What he has achieved, especially during the last 6,000 years, is something utterly new in the history of the Cosmos, so far at least as we are acquainted with it. For countless ages the sun rose and set, the moon waxed and waned, the stars shone in the night, but it was only with the coming of Man that these things were understood.

In the great world of astronomy and in the little world of the atom, Man has unveiled secrets which might have been thought undiscoverable. In art and literature and religion, some men have shown a sublimity of feeling which makes the species worth preserving.

Is all this to end in trivial horror because so few are able to think of Man rather than of this or that group of men? Is our race so destitute of wisdom, so incapable of impartial love, so blind even to the simplest dictates of self-preservation, that the last proof of its silly cleverness is to be the extermination of all life on our planet?—for it will be not only men who will perish, but also the animals, whom no one can accuse of communism or anticommunism.

I cannot believe that this is to be the end. I would have men forget their quarrels for a moment and reflect that, if they will allow themselves to survive, there is every reason to expect the triumphs of the future to exceed immeasurably the triumphs of the past.

There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge, and wisdom. Shall we, instead, choose death, because we cannot forget our quarrels?

I appeal, as a human being to human beings: remember your humanity, and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open to a new Paradise; if you cannot, nothing lies before you but universal death.


我現在發言,不是以一個英國人的身分,不是以一個歐洲人的身分,也不是以一個西方民主國家人士的身分來發言,而是以一個人類的身分,以一個不知能否繼續生存下去的人類的身分來發言。這個世界充滿了衝突:猶太人和阿拉伯人的衝突,印度人和巴基斯坦人的衝突,非洲白人和黑人的衝突,還有共產國家和非共產國家之間的巨大衝突,這個衝突使得所有的小型衝突都相形見絀。

幾乎每一個具有政治意識的人,對這些議題或多或少都有強烈的感觸。然而,如果可以,我請你暫時把這些感觸拋開,僅僅把自己當成是人類這種物種的一員。這個物種擁有非凡的歷史,而我們都不希望看到這個物種滅絕。

可能會迎合某一群人而冷落另一群人的話,我都將盡量不提。我們大家都站在同一條船上,而如果我們能夠認識這場災難,那我們就有希望可以合力來避開災難。我們必須要學習用一種新的方式來思惟,我必須學著問問自己的,不是採取什麼措施可以使同盟國獲得軍事上的勝利,因為此時此刻根本談不上這種措施。

我們必須自問的問題是:我們能採取什麼樣的措施,來避免可能導致毀滅性災難的軍事競賽?

一般人,甚至是許多政府官員,都還不清楚一場氫彈戰爭到底意謂著什麼。一般大眾仍舊從城市被毀的概念上來思考。一般都知道,新型炸彈比舊式的炸彈更具威力,而且一個原子彈就可以炸毀一個廣島市,而一顆氫彈能夠炸毀像倫敦、紐約或莫斯科這樣的大型都市。

因此在這裡,我要向各位所提出的,就是這樣一個赤裸裸、可怕、無法回避的問題:我們應該毀滅、終結人類,還是人類應該拋棄戰爭?

人們不願面對這個抉擇,因為要消滅戰爭太難了。要消滅戰爭,就會要求限制國家主權,而這讓人難以接受。或許,阻礙人們去認清情勢的最大原因,是因為「人類」這個字眼顯得太過籠統而抽象。

人們並沒有去想像這種危險性會如何地殃及自己,殃及我們的後代子孫,實則這並不是只是籠籠統統地說會危及人類而已。人們相信,只要禁止使用現代武器,戰爭還是可以繼續下去的。

恐怕這種願望只是一種痴心妄想。人們只有在和平時期才會簽署禁用氫彈的協議,要是碰到了戰爭,就會毫無約束力。一旦戰爭爆發,雙方就會著手製造氫彈,因為誰有氫彈,誰就會贏。

按照地質年代來計算,人類存在的時間其實很短,頂多是一百萬年而已。而人類所達到的成就,特別是最近這六千年以來的發展,在宇宙史上是全新的一頁,起碼就我們所知的宇宙而言是如此。恆久遠以來,日出日落,月盈月缺,天上的星斗,一直到人類出現了之後,這些現象才被認識。

在天文學的宏觀世界和原子的微觀世界裡,人類揭露了這些曾經被認為是無法得知的祕密。在藝術、文學和宗教裡,人們顯現了崇高的情感,讓人類成為值得延續下去的物種。

這一切都將在毫無價值的災難中告終嗎?只因為大多數人只考慮到這一群人或那一群人,而無法考慮到全人類嗎?我們人類是這麼缺乏智慧的嗎?我們的愛是這麼狹隘的嗎?我們是這麼盲目的嗎,連自我保存這種最簡單的聲音都聽不到?我們非得把整個地球的生命都毀滅,才能知道自己的聰明才智原來是多麼愚蠢嗎?—被毀滅的不只是 人類,還包括其他的動物,這些動物不會指控是共產主義還是反共產主義。

我無法相信人類會走上這樣的結局。人類如果想繼續生存下去,就應該要把爭執拋到一邊,想一想,人類有千百個理由,足以期待未來的成就能大大超越過往的成就。

如果讓我們選擇,擺在我們眼前的,將是不斷前進的幸福、知識和智慧。又或者,只因為我們不願意放下爭執,所以我們寧可選擇死亡?

身為人類,我要向所有的人類呼籲:記住你的人性,其餘的都拋到腦後吧。如果可以做到這一點,前方的路就會通向一個新的天堂;如果做不到,眼前除了世界性的毀滅,將一無所有。

──選自《聚焦英語演說:56篇偉大演講【新增二版】(25K彩圖英漢對照+全文音檔MP3【多篇為史料音檔,原音重現】)》
 

一次學會KK音標:融合字母拼讀雙效學習【二版】(32K彩色+寂天雲隨身聽APP)

關鍵英單 2:108課綱核心字彙【Levels 3–4】(16K+寂天雲隨身聽APP)

彩圖實境旅遊英語:會話模擬練功【二版】(20K+寂天雲隨身聽APP)

用英文介紹台灣:實用觀光導遊英語 【彩圖四版】(16K +解答別冊+寂天雲隨身聽APP)

 
 
 
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