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中英对照文本 Why are so many young people unhappy? 为什么那么多年轻人不快乐？ To cite just one example, Reuters reported in 2019 that “Suicidal thinking, severe depression and rates of self-injury among U.S. college students more than doubled over less than a decade.” 仅举一个例子，路透社在 2019 年报道称「美国大学生中的自杀想法、严重抑郁与自残率不到十年里翻了一倍以上。」 And unhappiness is hardly confined to Americans. As the social commentator Kay Hymowitz recently wrote, “Germans are lonely, the bon vivant French are lonely, and even the Scandinavians... are lonely. The British prime minister... recently appointed a ‘Minister of Loneliness.’” 不快乐的绝不只是美国人。正如社评员凯·海默维茨近期写到，「德国人孤独，享乐主义的法国人孤独，甚至斯堪的纳维亚人……也孤独。英国首相……最近任命了一名『孤独部长』。」 People have more money, better health, better housing, more education, and live longer than at any time in history, but people—especially the young—are unhappier than at any time since data began to be collected. 人们比以往任何时候都更有钱、更健康，住得更好，受到更多教育，寿命更长，但人们——尤其是年轻人——比有统计数据以来的任何时候都更不快乐。 Why? 为什么？ There are any number of reasons: increased drug and opioid addiction, less human interaction because of constant cellphone use, and young people’s fears for their future are the most widely offered explanations. But the biggest reason is the loss of values and meaning. 原因有很多：药物及阿片类药物成瘾增长，经常使用手机导致更少的人际互动，年轻人对将来的担忧等等是最广泛的解释。但最大的原因是价值观与意义的失去。 Let’s begin with values, and I'll focus on America. 让我们从价值观开始，我将集中讲美国。 The United States was founded on two sets of values: Judeo-Christian and American. This combination created the freest, most opportunity-giving, most affluent country in world history. This is not chauvinism. It is fact. That’s why people from every country on Earth have wanted to emigrate to America—and still do. 美国建在两套价值观基础上：犹太-基督教与美国人。这一组合造就了世界史上最自由、机会最多、最富裕的国家。这不是沙文主义。这是事实。这就是为什么全球各地的人都想移民到美国——至今如此。 Chief among the American values was keeping government as small as possible. This enabled non-governmental institutions—Kiwanis, Rotary and Lions Clubs; book clubs; the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts; bowling leagues; music societies; and, of course, churches—to provide Americans with friends and to provide the neediest Americans with help. But as government has gotten ever larger, many of these non-governmental groups have dwindled in number or simply disappeared. 美国价值观中最主要的是保持政府尽可能小。这使得非政府机构——同济会、扶轮社与狮子会；书友会；童子军与童女军；保龄球联盟；音乐协会；当然还有教会——能够给美国人提供交友渠道，给最需要帮助的美国人以关怀。但随着政府愈变愈大，许多这类非政府团体数量减少或干脆消失了。 Another set of values is referred to as middle class or bourgeois values. These include getting married before having a child, making a family, getting a job, self-discipline, delayed gratification, and patriotism. 另一套价值观被称为中产阶级或资产阶级价值观。其中包含婚后生育、成家立业、自律、延迟满足与爱国主义。 All of these have been under attack by America’s elites, with the following results: The majority of births to millennials are to unmarried women. Yet, according to a 2018 Cigna study, single parents are generally the loneliest of Americans. The percentage of American adults who have never been married and who have no children is at an historic high. 上述价值观均遭到美国精英的攻击，导致以下后果：千禧一代中多数人的母亲是未婚妈妈。然而根据信诺集团 2018 年的研究，单亲父母一般而言是美国人中最孤独的。从未结过婚与从未生育过的美国成年人比例居历史高点。 Then there is patriotism. Until the 1960s, Americans grew up loving their country, admiring the Founders, and believing in America’s values—most especially, liberty. Americans did not ignore the bad parts of their history, but they were wise enough to recognize that what made America exceptional was not its flaws, which were all universal, but its virtues, which were not. This strong American identity provided generations of Americans with roots, community, optimism, and meaning. 再是爱国主义。直到 1960 年代以前，美国人从小就爱国、敬仰建国者、相信美国价值观——具体来说是自由。美国人没有忽视他们历史中的污点，但他们足够明智地认识到让美国与众不同的并非是普遍的缺陷，而是它独特的美德。这个强烈的美国人认同给一代又一代美国人提供了根源、社区、乐观主义与意义。 Which brings me to the most important reason for all this unhappiness: a lack of meaning. As Victor Frankl, the renowned Austrian-American psychoanalyst, wrote in his masterpiece, Man’s Search for Meaning, aside from food, the greatest human need is meaning. And nothing has given Americans―or any other people, for that matter―as much meaning as religion. But in the West since World War II, God and religion have been relegated to the dustbin of history. The result is that more than a third of Americans born after 1980 affiliate with no religion. This is unprecedented in American history. And it’s even worse in Europe. 这让我想到所有这些不快乐的最重要原因：意义的缺失。维克多·弗兰克，知名的奥地利裔美国精神分析学家在其杰作《活出意义来》写道，除了食物，人类最需要的是意义。给予美国人——或就此而言其它所有人——最多意义的是宗教信仰。但在西方自二战以来，上帝与宗教信仰已被降到历史的垃圾桶中。后果是超过三分之一出生在 1980 年后的美国人没有宗教信仰。这在美国史上前所未有。在欧洲甚至更为严重。 Maybe, just maybe, the decline of Protestantism, Catholicism, and Judaism—those great providers of meaning—is the single biggest factor in the increasing sadness and loneliness among so many young people in America and around the world. A 2016 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, JAMA Psychiatry, found that American women who attended a religious service at least once a week were five times less likely to commit suicide. And common sense suggests this applies to men as well. 也许，只是也许，新教主义、天主教主义与犹太主义——意义的最佳提供者——的衰落是美国与世界各地的那么多年轻人愈发难过与孤独的最大单独因素。2016 年一项发表在《美国医学会杂志精神病学期刊》上的研究发现，每周至少参加一次宗教活动的美国女性自杀几率降低五倍。常识表明这也适用于男性。 Young people have been told God is nonsense, their country is essentially evil, their past is deplorable, their future is bleak, and marriage and children are not important. 年轻人被告知上帝是无稽之谈，他们的国家本质上是邪恶的，他们的过去是悲惨的，他们的未来是灰暗的，婚姻与孩子不重要。 Why are so many young people depressed, unhappy, and angry? It’s not capitalism, or income inequality, or patriarchy, or even global warming. It’s having no religion, no God, and no country to believe in. And what does that leave them with? No meaning. 为什么那么多年轻人抑郁、不快乐、愤怒？不是由于资本主义，或收入不平等，或父权主义，或甚至全球变暖。而是没有宗教信仰、没有上帝、没有国家可认同。这给他们留下了什么？没有意义。 But there is always Instagram. 但 Instagram 永远在手边。 I’m Dennis Prager. 我是丹尼斯·普拉格。 翻译：Mangosteen 校对：FungChuh |
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