期末考试英语翻译

Lesson1The greatest achievement of human in its long evolution from ancient hominoid ancestor to its present status is the acquisition and accumulation of a vast body of knowledge about itself，the world，and the universe. The products of this knowledge are all those things that, in the aggregate, we call “civilization”, including language, science, literature, art, all the physical mechanisms, instruments，and structures we use，and the physical infrastructures on which society relies. Most of us assume that in modern society knowledge of all kinds is continually increasing and the aggregation of new information into the corpus of our social or collective knowledge is steadily reducing the area of ignorance about ourselves，the world，and the universe. But continuing reminders of the numerous areas of our present ignorance invite a critical analysis of this assumption.人类从古代的类人猿祖先发展到现状的及其漫长的过程中的最大成就是获取并积累了大量关于自身、世界和宇宙的知识。

总的来说，我们将这种知识的所有产物称之为“文明”，包括语言、科学、文学、艺术，我们所应用的所有物理学、工具、结构，以及社会所以存的物质基础。

大多数人认为，随着现代社会各种知识不断增加新信息不断积聚，我们对自身、世界、宇宙的未知正在稳步减少。

但是，人类至今对诸多领域的无知使得我们要对这种观点进行批判分析。

Lesson2Moreover，before lamenting modularization ，it is necessary to ask ourselves whether we really would prefer to return to the traditional condition of man in which each individual presumably related to the whole personality of a few people rather than to the personality modules of many. Traditional man has been so sentimentalized，so cloyingly romanticized，that we frequently overlook the consequences of such a return. The very same writers who lament fragmentation also demand freedom—yet overlook the un-freedom of people bound together in totalistic relationship. For any relationship implies mutual demands and expectations. The more intimately involved a relationship，the greater the pressure the parties exert on one another to fulfill these expectations. The tighter and more totalistic the relationship，the more modules，so to speak，are brought into play，and the more numerous are the demands we make.此外，我们在惋惜感叹模块化之前有必要自问我们是否真的愿意回归传统，每个人只与少数几个人做全面深入的了解接触而不是与众多的人做有限的接触。

传统的人流于感伤，多生浪漫，以至于我们经常忽略其带来的后果。

那个哀叹人际破碎的作者同样需要自由，只是他忽略了严格人际关系下人的不自由。

人际关系意味着彼此的需求与期望。

私交越亲密意味着彼此实现这些期望的压力越大。

可以这么说，严格完整模块化的人际关系能够更有效地满足我们更多的需求。

In a modular relationship, the demands are strictly bounded. So long as the shoe salesman performs his rather limited service for us, thereby fulfilling our limited expectations, we do not insist that he believe in our god, or that he be tidy at home, or share our political values, or enjoy the same kind of food or music that we do. We leave him free in all other matters—as he leaves us free to be atheist or Jew, heterosexual or homosexual, john Bircher or communist. This is not true of total relationship and cannot be. To a certain point, fragmentation and freedom go together.在一个模块化的人际关系中，需求有着严格的界定。

比如，只要卖鞋的售货员为我们提供有限的服务并保证满足我们有限的期望，我们并不期望他信奉我们的上帝，或者他在家里衣着整洁，或者持有和我们相同的政治价值观，或者喜爱我们所喜爱的食物与音乐。

我们使得他在其它事物上是自由的，正如他不干涉我们是无神论者或犹太教徒、异性恋或同性恋、反对或拥护共产主义。

这不是更不可能是人际关系的真实性。

在某种程度上，模块化的人际关系与自由相伴而生。

Lesson3That there are significant differences between modern and traditional cultures is beyond dispute.A world in which some societies highly modern and others still traditional will obviously be less homogeneous than a world in which all societies are comparably modern. It dose not necessarily follow, however, that societies with modern cultures should be any more similar than are societies with traditional cultures. Only a few hundred years ago all societies were traditional. Was that world any less homogeneous than a future world of universal modernity is likely to be? Probably not. “Ming china was assuredly closer to the France of the V alois,”Fernand Braudel observes, “than the China of Mao Tse-tung is to the France of the Fifth Republic.” Modern societies have much in common, but they do not necessarily merge into homogeneity. The argument that they do rests on the assumption that modern society must approximate a single type, the western type; that modern civilization is western civilization, and western civilization is modern civilization. This, however, is a false identification. Virtually all scholars of civilization agree that western civilization emerged in the eighth and ninth centuries and developed its distinctive characteristic in the centuries that followed. It did not begin to modernize until the eighteenth century. The West, in short, was Western long before it was modern.现代文化与传统文化之间存在显著的差异是无可争议的事实。