Youth
原文
Lesson 5
Youth
How does the writer like to treat young people?
People are always talking about 'the problem of youth'.
If there is one -- which I take leave to doubt
-- then it is older people who create it, not the young themselves.
Let us get down to fundamentals and agree that the young are after all human beings
-- people just like their elders.
There is only one difference between an old man and a young one:
the young man has a glorious future before him
and the old one has a splendid future behind him: and maybe that is where the rub is.
When I was a teenager, I felt that I was just young and uncertain --
that I was a new boy in a huge school,
and I would have been very pleased to be regarded as something so interesting as a problem.
For one thing, being a problem gives you a certain identity,
and that is one of the things the young are busily engaged in seeking.
I find young people exciting.
They have an air of freedom,
and they have not a dreary commitment to mean ambitions or love of comfort.
They are not anxious social climbers, and they have no devotion to material things.
All this seems to me to link them with life and the origins of things.
It's as if they were in some sense cosmic beings in violent and lovely contrast with us suburban creatures.
All that is in my mind when I meet a young person.
He may be conceited, ill-mannered, presumptuous or fatuous, but I do not turn for protection to dreary cliches about respect for elders --
as if mere age were a reason for respect.
I accept that we are equals, and I will argue with him, as an equal, if I think he is wrong.
译文
第5课
青年；年轻人
人们总是在谈论‘年轻人的问题’。
人们总是谈论“年轻人的问题”。
如果真有这样的东西的话（不过我对此表示怀疑）……
那么，创造这种东西的其实是老年人，而不是年轻人自己。
让我们回归到基本事实：年轻人终究也是人。
——和他们的长辈一样的人。
老人和年轻人之间只有一个区别：
这个年轻人前途光明，充满希望。
而那个老人则拥有一个辉煌的过去：也许症结就在这里。
当我还是个青少年的时候，我觉得自己既年轻又迷茫——
我当时只是那所大型学校里的一名新生罢了。
如果我能被看作是一个“有趣的问题”（即一个值得研究或关注的问题），我会非常高兴的。
首先，成为一个“问题”（即被视作需要解决的问题）会让你获得某种特定的“身份”或地位。
而这正是年轻人正在积极寻求的东西之一。
我觉得年轻人非常令人兴奋。
他们身上散发着一种自由的气息。
他们没有对卑劣野心的沉闷执着，也没有对安逸生活的贪恋。
他们不是焦虑的社会攀爬者，对物质也没有什么执着。
在我看来，所有这些都将他们与生命和事物的本源联系在一起。
他们仿佛是某种宇宙生灵，与我们这些市井之徒形成强烈而美妙的对比。
每当我遇到一个年轻人时，我脑海中想到的就是这些。
他也许自负、没礼貌、放肆或愚蠢，但我不会搬出那些关于尊敬长辈的陈词滥调来当挡箭牌——
好像单凭年长就值得尊敬似的。
我承认我们彼此平等；如果我认为他错了，我会以平等的身份与他争论。