04　How to Tackle the World's Worst Inequities?
如何解决这个世界最严重的不平等？

比尔·盖茨的演讲

名人简介

比尔·盖茨（Bill Gates），美国著名企业家、软件工程师、慈善家以及微软公司的董事长。他与保罗·艾伦创办微软公司，曾任微软CEO和首席软件设计师，持有公司超过8％的普通股，是公司最大的个人股东。在1995年到2007年的《福布斯》全球亿万富翁排行榜中，比尔·盖茨连续13年蝉联世界首富。2005年，盖茨被英国伊丽莎白二世女王授予大英帝国爵级司令勋章（KBE）。2008年6月27日，他正式退出微软公司，并把580亿美元个人财产捐到比尔和梅琳达·盖茨基金会。2012年3月，《福布斯》全球富豪榜发布，比尔·盖茨位列第二；《福布斯》2012年美国富豪排行榜发布，比尔·盖茨第19次蝉联美国首富桂冠。《福布斯》杂志华盛顿时间2012年12月5日公布了2012年全球最有权势人物排行，比尔·盖茨排名第四。

背景资料

谢谢大家！尊敬的博克校长、鲁登斯坦前校长、即将上任的福斯特校长、哈佛集团的各位成员、监管理事会的各位理事、全体教职人员、各位家长，尤其是毕业生们：

Thank you! President Bok, former President Rudenstine, incoming ^[注] President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, members of the faculty, parents, and especially the graduates,

有一句话我等了三十多年，现在终于可以说了：“老爸，我总是跟你说，我会回来拿到我的学位的！”

I've been waiting more than 30 years to say this: “Dad, I always told you I'd come back and get my degree.”

我要感谢哈佛大学给我这份殊荣。明年，我就要换工作了（注：指从微软公司退休）……我自己的简历上终于有一个大学学位了，这真是不错。

I want to thank Harvard for this honor. I'll be changing my job next year ... and it will be nice to finally have a college degree on my resume ^[注] .

我为今天在座的毕业生们喝彩，你们拿到学位所走的路可比我顺畅得多了。就我自己而言，我很高兴哈佛的校报称我是“哈佛大学历史上最成功的辍学生”。我想这大概使我有资格代表我这一类学生发表毕业演讲——在所有的辍学生中，我做得最好。

I applaud the graduates for taking a much more direct route to your degrees. For my part, I'm just happy that the Crimson has called me"Harvard's most successful dropout ^[注] .” I guess that makes me valedictorian ^[注] of my own special class. I did the best of everyone who failed.

但是，我还要提醒大家，我使得史蒂夫·鲍尔默（微软首席执行官）也从哈佛商学院退学了。我有负面的影响。这就是我被邀请在你们的毕业典礼上演讲的原因。如果我在你们的入学欢迎仪式上演讲，那么能够坚持到今天在这里毕业的人也许会更少吧。

But I also want to be recognized as the guy who got Steve Ballmer to drop out of business school. I'm a bad influence. That's why I was invited to speak at your graduation. If I had spoken at your orientation, fewer of you might be here today.

对我来说，哈佛的求学经历是很另类的。求学生活很有趣，我常去旁听许多我没选修的课。宿舍生活也很不错，我当时住在雷迪夫的柯里尔公寓。每天我的寝室里总有很多人一直待到半夜，讨论着各种事情，因为每个人都知道我并不担心第二天早起的事。那使得我变成了校园里不安分群体的头头，我们互相粘在一起，以此种方式来证明我们对所有那些正常学生的厌弃。

Harvard was a phenomenal ^[注] experience for me. Academic life was fascinating. I used to sit in on lots of classes I hadn't even signed up for. And dorm life was terrific. I lived up at Radcliffe, in Currier House. There were always a lot of people in my dorm room late at night discussing things, because everyone knew I didn't worry about getting up in the morning. That's how I came to be the leader of the anti-social group. We clung ^[注] to each other as a way of validating ^[注] our rejection ^[注] of all those social people.

雷迪夫是个生活的好地方。那里的女生比男生多，而且大多数男生都是理工科的。那种性别结构为我创造了最好的机会，如果你们明白我的意思的话。也正是在这里我受到了人生中令人悲伤的教训：机会大，并不等于你就会成功。

Radcliffe was a great place to live. There were more women up there, and most of the guys were math-science types. That combination offered me the best odds ^[注] , if you know what I mean. That's where I learned the sad lesson that improving your odds doesn't guarantee ^[注] success.

我在哈佛记忆最深刻的事情发生在1975年1月。那时，我从柯里尔公寓给位于新墨西哥州阿尔布开克的一家公司打了一个电话，那家公司已经在着手制造世界上的第一批个人电脑。我提出向他们出售软件。

One of my biggest memories of Harvard came in January 1975, when I made a call from Currier House to a company in Albuquerque in New Mexico that had begun making the world's first personal computers.I offered to sell them software.

我很担心他们会发现我只是一个住在宿舍的学生而挂断电话。但是，他们却说：“我们还没准备好，一个月后你再来找我们吧。”那是个好消息，因为当时我们还没有完成软件编程。从那一刻起，我日以继夜地做这个课外项目，它标志着我大学教育的结束，也标志着通往微软公司这一非凡旅程的开始。

I worried that they would realize I was just a student in a dorm ^[注] and hang up on me. Instead they said: “We're not quite ready, come see us in a month”, which was a good thing, because we hadn't written the software yet. From that moment, I worked day and night on that extra credit project that marked the end of my college education and the beginning of a remarkable journey with Microsoft.

最重要的是，我对哈佛的回忆全都与精力旺盛和才华横溢有关。哈佛的生活令人振奋，也令人生畏，有时甚至会让人感到沮丧，但永远都充满了挑战性。哈佛的生活待遇非常优厚，让人觉得不可思议——虽然我很早就辍学了，但是在这里生活、学习的岁月，在这里结识的朋友，在这里形成起来的一些思想，让我得到了蜕变。

What I remember above all about Harvard was being in the midst of ^[注] so much energy and intelligence ^[注] . It could be exhilarating ^[注] , intimidating ^[注] , sometimes even discouraging, but always challenging. It was an amazing privilege — and though I left early, I was transformed by my years at Harvard, the friendships I made, and the ideas I worked on.

但是，如果现在认真回顾一下的话，我确实有一个很大的遗憾。

But taking a serious look back… I do have one big regret.

我离开哈佛的时候，根本没有真正意识到这个世界是多么的不平等。人类在健康、财富和机遇上的悬殊差距令人震惊，这使得数百万人被迫生活在绝望之中。

I left Harvard with no real awareness of the awful inequities in the world — the appalling ^[注] disparities ^[注] of health, and wealth,and opportunity that condemn ^[注] millions of people to lives of despair.

我在哈佛学到了很多经济学和政治学方面的新思想。我也了解了很多科学上的新进展。

I learned a lot here at Harvard about new ideas in economics and politics. I got great exposure ^[注] to the advances being made in the sciences.

但是，人类最大的进步并不在于其发现——而在于如何利用这些发现来减少不平等现象。无论通过民主制度、健全的公共教育体系、高质量的医疗保健制度，还是通过广泛的经济机遇，减少不平等才是人类最崇高的成就。

But humanity's greatest advances are not in its discoveries — but in how those discoveries are applied to reduce inequity. Whether through democracy ^[注] , strong public education, quality health care, or broad economic opportunity — reducing inequity is the highest human achievement.

我离开校园的时候，根本不知道在这个国家有许多年轻人被骗取了受教育的机会。我也根本不知道，在发展中国家有无数的人生活在无法形容的贫穷与疾病中。

I left campus knowing little about the millions of young people cheated out of educational opportunities here in this country. And I knew nothing about the millions of people living in unspeakable poverty and disease in developing countries.

我花了几十年才明白了这些事情。

It took me decades ^[注] to find out.

在座的各位同学，你们是在与我不同的时代来到哈佛的。你们比以前的学生更了解世界的不平等。你们在哈佛求学的这几年里，我希望你们已经思考过一个问题：在这个技术快速发展的时代，我们如何最终应对这些不平等，如何解决这些问题。

You graduates came to Harvard at a different time. You know more about the world's inequities than the classes that came before. In your years here, I hope you've had a chance to think about how — in this age of accelerating ^[注] technology — we can finally take on these inequities, and we can solve them.

为了便于讨论，假想你每个星期可以为一份事业献出一些时间，每个月可以捐献一些钱——你希望这些时间和金钱可以用到对拯救生命和改善人类生活有最大作用的地方。你会选择什么地方？

Imagine, just for the sake ^[注] of discussion, that you had a few hours a week and a few dollars a month to donate to a cause — and you wanted to spend that time and money where it would have the greatest impact in saving and improving lives. Where would you spend it?

我和梅琳达（注：盖茨的妻子）也面临着同样的挑战：如何能让我们拥有的资源为最多的人做最有益的事情。

For Melinda and I, the challenge is the same: how can we do the most good for the greatest number with the resources we have.

在讨论这个问题的过程中，我和美琳达读到了一篇文章，说在那些贫穷的国家，每年有许多儿童死于那些在美国早已不构成危害的疾病——麻疹、疟疾、肺炎、乙型肝炎及黄热病。还有一种我以前甚至从未听说过的轮状病毒，每年导致50万儿童死亡，但没有一例发生在美国。

During our discussions on this question, Melinda and I read an article about the millions of children who were dying every year in poor countries from diseases that we had long ago made harmless in this country. Measles, malaria ^[注] , pneumonia ^[注] , hepatitis B ^[注] , yellow fever. One disease I had never even heard of, rotavirus ^[注] , was killing half a million children each year —none of them in the United States.

我们震惊了。我们假设，如果几百万儿童正在死亡线上挣扎，而他们的生命是可以被挽救的，那么这个世界理应将开发与运送药物拯救他们作为头等大事。但事实并非如此。那些价格还不到一美的救命药物，并没有送到他们的手中。

We were shocked. We had assumed that if millions of children were dying and they could be saved, the world would make it a priority ^[注] to discover and deliver the medicines to save them. But it did not. For under a dollar, there were interventions ^[注] that could save lives, that just weren't being delivered.

如果你相信每个生命都具有平等的价值，那么当你发现某些生命被认为值得挽救，而另一些生命则不然，你会感到无法接受。我们对自己说：“事情不可能是这样的。如果这是真的，那么它理应是我们付出努力的头等大事。”

If you believe that every life has equal value, it's revolting ^[注] to learn that some lives are seen as worth saving and others are not. We said to ourselves: “This can't be true. But if it is true, it deserves to be the priority of our giving.”

所以，我们用在座的任何人都会想到的方式开始我们的事业。我们问：“这个世界怎么可以眼睁睁地看着这些孩子死去？”

So we began our work in the same way anyone here would begin it. We asked: “How could the world let these children die?”

答案很简单，也很无情。在市场经济中，拯救这些儿童是一项没有回报的工作，政府也不会给予补助。这些儿童之所以会死去，是因为他们的父母在经济上没有实力，在政治体制中没有发言权。

The answer is simple, and harsh. The market did not reward saving the lives of these children, and governments did not subsidize ^[注] it. So the children died because their mothers and fathers had no power in the market and no voice in the system.

但是，我和你们两者兼俱。

But you and I have both.

如果我们能够设计出一种更有创新性的资本主义制度，我们便可以让市场力更有利于穷人——如果我们可以延伸市场力的所及的范围，让更多的人获利，或者至少可以维持生活，并去帮助那些正在极端不平等的状况中受苦的人们；那么，我们就可以让市场力更好地为穷人服务。我们还可以向世界各国政府施压，要求他们将纳税人的钱花到更体现纳税人价值的地方。

We can make market forces work better for the poor if we can develop a more creative capitalism ^[注] — if we can stretch the reach of market forces so that more people can make a profit, or at least make a living ^[注] , serving people who are suffering from the great inequities. We can also press governments around the world to spend taxpayer money in ways that better reflect the values of the people who pay the taxes.

如果我们能够找到这样的方法，既可以帮到穷人，又可以为企业带来利润，为政治家们拉来选票，那么我们就找到了一条减少世界上不平等现象的可持续发展道路。这是一项永无止境的任务。它永远都不可能完成，但任何有意识地去解决这一挑战的努力尝试都会改变这个世界。

If we can find approaches ^[注] that meet the needs of the poor in ways that generate ^[注] profits for business and votes for politicians, we will have found a sustainable way to reduce inequity in the world. This task is open-ended ^[注] . It can never be finished. But a conscious ^[注] effort to answer this challenge can change the world.

我们可以做到这一点，对此我很乐观。但是，我与那些声称没有任何希望的怀疑者谈论时，他们说：“不平等从人类诞生的第一天就存在，到人类灭亡的最后一天也将存在——因为人们根本就不在乎这个问题。”我完全不同意这种观点。

I am optimistic that we can do this, but I talk to skeptics ^[注] who claim there is no hope. They say: “Inequity has been with us since the beginning, and will be with us until the end — because people just… don't…care.” I completely disagree.

我认为，问题不是我们不在乎，而是不知道该怎么做。

I believe we have more caring than we know what to do with.

此刻在这所校园里的所有人，在生命中总有这样或那样的时刻，目睹人类的悲剧而感到万分伤心，但是我们什么也没做。并非我们无动于衷，而是因为我们不知道做什么。如果我们知道怎样去提供帮助，那么我们就会采取行动。

All of us here in this Yard, at one time or another, have seen human tragedies ^[注] that broke our hearts, and yet we did nothing — not because we didn't care, but because we didn't know what to do. If we had known how to help, we would have acted.

改变世界的阻碍，并非人类的冷漠，而是世界实在太复杂。

The barrier to change is not too little caring; it is too much complexity ^[注] .

为了将关爱转变为行动，我们需要发现问题的所在，找到解决问题的方法，并评估其造成的影响。但是世界的复杂性却阻碍了这三步的实施。

To turn caring into action, we need to see a problem, see a solution, and see the impact ^[注] . But complexity blocks all three steps.

即使有了互联网和24小时直播新闻，让人们真正发现问题所在，仍然十分困难。当一架飞机坠毁了，官员们会立刻召开新闻发布会。他们承诺进行调查，下定决心找到原因，并防止将来再发生类似事故。

Even with the adven ^[注] of the Internet and 24-hour news, it is still a complex enterprise ^[注] to get people to truly see the problems. When an airplane crashes, officials immediately call a press conference ^[注] . They promise to investigate ^[注] , determine the cause, and prevent similar crashes in the future.

但是如果那些官员敢说真话，他们就会说“：在今天，全世界所有由于可以避免的原因而死亡的人之中，有0.5％的死者来自于这次空难。我们下定决心尽一切努力，去解决这个导致0.5％的人死亡的问题。”

But if the officials were brutally honest, they would say: “Of all the people in the world who died today from preventable ^[注] causes, one half of one percent were on this plane. We're determined to do everything possible to solve the problem that took the lives of the one half of one percent.”

显然，问题不仅仅是这次空难，而是其他许许多多可以预防的死亡事件。

The problem is not just the plane crash, but the millions of preventable deaths.

我们并没有很多机会了解这些死亡事件。媒体总是报道新闻，而很多人濒临死亡并非新闻。如果没有人报道，那么这些事件就很容易被忽视。另一方面，即使我们确实目睹了事件本身或者看到了相关报道，我们也很难持续关注这些问题。如果情况很复杂，而我们又根本不知道如何去提供援助；那么，眼睁睁地看着这些苦难是令人痛苦的。所以我们会转移视线。

We don't read much about these deaths. The media covers what's new — and millions of people dying is nothing new. So it stays in the background ^[注] , where it's easier to ignore. But even when we do see it or read about it, it's difficult to keep our eyes on the problem. It's difficult to look at suffering if the situation is so complex that we don't know how to help. And so we look away.

就算我们真正发现了问题所在，也不过是迈出了第一步，接着还有第二步：那就是克服其复杂性，从而找到解决办法。

If we can really see a problem, which is the first step, we come to the second step:cutting through the complexity to find a solution.

如果我们要让关爱发挥最大作用，找到解决办法是至关重要的。如果无论何时，当组织和个人发出“我如何能提供帮助？”的疑问时，我们都可以提供清晰可靠的答案，那么我们就可以采取行动——我们就能够保证不浪费世界上的一些关怀之情。但是，世界的复杂性使得我们很难找到使全世界每一个有爱心的人都采取有效的行动的方法，因此爱心人士对他人的关心往往很难产生实际效果。

Finding solutions is essential if we want to make the most of our caring. If we have clear and proven ^[注] answers anytime an organization or individual asks “How can I help?”, then we can get action — and we can make sure that none of the caring in the world is wasted. But complexity makes it hard to mark a path of action for everyone who cares — and makes it hard for their caring to matter.

克服世界的复杂性以便找到解决办法，可以分为四个可预见的步骤：确定目标，找到最高效的方法，提供适用于那个方法的技术。同时，还要现有的最先进的技术。不管它是复杂的技术，如新药物；还是简单的工具，如蚊帐。

Cutting through complexity to find solutions runs through four predictable stages:determine a goal, find the highest-leverage ^[注] approach, deliver the technology ideal for that approach, and in the meantime, use the best application of the technology you already have— whether it's something sophisticated ^[注] , like a new drug, or something simple, like a bednet ^[注] .

艾滋病就是一个例子。毫无疑问，总的目标是要彻底消灭这种疾病。最高效的方法是预防。最理想的技术是发明一种疫苗，只要注射一次，就可以终生免疫。所以，各国政府、各大制药公司和基金会都在资助疫苗的研究。但是，这样的研究工作很可能要花十多年的时间。所以，与此同时，我们必须使用手头现有的技术——目前最有效的预防方法就是设法让人们避免那些冒险的行为。

The AIDS epidemic ^[注] offers an example. The broad goal, of course, is to end the disease. The highest-leverage approach is prevention. The ideal technology would be a vaccine ^[注] that gives lifetime immunity ^[注] with a single dose. So governments, drug companies, and foundations are funding vaccine research. But their work is likely to take more than a decade, so in the meantime, we have to work with what we have in hand — and the best prevention approach we have now is getting people to avoid risky behavior.

要实现那个目标，又可以采用新的四步循环法。这是一种模式。关键是永远不要停止思考和行动。千万不能再犯20世纪我们在疟疾和肺结核上犯过的错误，那时我们因为它们太复杂而放弃采取行动。

Pursuing that goal starts the four-step cycle again. This is the pattern. The crucial thing is to never stop thinking and working— and never do what we did with malaria and tuberculosis ^[注] in the 20th century —which is to surrender to complexity and quit.

在发现问题和找到解决方法之后，就该进行最后一步了——即评估工作的成效，与其他人分享你成功或失败的经验，这样他们就可以从你的努力中有所收获。

The final step — after seeing the problem and finding an approach — is to measure the impact of the work and share that success and failure so that others can learn from your efforts.

当然，你必须得有一些统计数字。你必须让他人知道，你的项目为几百万儿童接种了疫苗。你也必须让他人知道，比如，死于这些疾病的儿童人数下降了多少。这些都是很关键的，不仅有利于改进项目，也有利于从商界和政府得到更多的资助。

You have to have the statistics ^[注] , of course. You have to be able to show that a program is vaccinating ^[注] millions more children. You have to be able to show, for example, a decline in the number of children dying from these diseases. This is essential not just to improve the program, but also to help draw more investment from business and government.

但是，如果你想激励其他人参与到你的项目中，你需要拿出的就远不止一些统计数字了；你必须把自己项目的人为影响传达给对方，这样人们就会感到拯救一个生命对那些处在困境中的家庭到底意味着什么。

But if you want to inspire people to participate, you have to show more than numbers; you have to convey the human impact of the work — so people can feel what saving a life means to the families affected ^[注] .

几年前，我去达沃斯（注：瑞士东部一座城市）参加一个关于全球健康问题的专家论坛，会议的内容是关于如何拯救成午上万的生命。天哪，成千上万的！想一想吧，只拯救一个人的生命就已是何等的让人激动了，现在你要再乘上几百万……但是，这却是我参加过的最最乏味的论坛，乏味到连我都无法忍受。

I remember going to Davos some years back and sitting on a global health panel ^[注] that was discussing ways to save millions of lives. Millions! Think of the thrill ^[注] of saving just one person's life — then multiply that by millions… Yet this was the most boring panel I've ever been on — ever. So boring even I couldn't stand it.

那次经历之所以让我特别难忘，是因为之前我们刚刚发布了一个软件的第13个版本，我们让用户激动得跳了起来，大声喊出来。我喜欢让人们为软件而感到激动，那么我们为什么不能够让人们因为拯救生命而更加激动呢？

What made that experience especially striking ^[注] was that I had just come from an event where we were introducing Version ^[注] 13 of some piece of software, and we had people jumping and shouting with excitement. I love getting people excited about software — but why can't we generate even more excitement for saving lives?

除非你能让人们看到或者感受到行动的影响力，否则你无法让他们激动起来。如何做到这一点，就是另一个复杂的问题了。

You can't get people excited unless you can help them see and feel the impact. Way to do that is another complex ^[注] question.

同样，在这个问题上，我依然是乐观的。不错，人类的不平等有史以来一直存在，但是那些能够克服复杂性的新工具，却并非一直都存在。这些新工具可以帮助我们将人类的关爱最大化，这就是未来同过去不一样的原因。

Still, I'm optimistic ^[注] . Yes, inequity has been with us forever, but the new tools we have to cut through complexity have not been with us forever. They are new — they can help us make the most of our caring —and that's why the future can be different from the past.

这个时代无时无刻不在涌现出起决定性作用的新革命——生物技术、个人计算机和互联网——提供给我们千载难逢的机会，去那些极度贫穷的现象以及防止可预防疾病所导致的死亡事件的发生。

The defining and ongoing ^[注] innovations of this age — biotechnology, the personal computer and the Internet — give us a chance we've never had before to end extreme poverty and end death from preventable disease.

六十年前，乔治·马歇尔也是在这里的毕业典礼上，宣布了一个计划，帮助那些欧洲国家战后重建。他是这样说的：“我认为，其中一个困难是这个问题太复杂，报纸和电台源源不断地向公众提供各种事实，使得大街上的普通人很难清晰地去判断事态发展。事实上，经过层层传播，想要把握事态发展的真正意义是根本不可能的。”

Sixty years ago, George Marshall ^[注] came to this commencement and announced a plan to assist the nations of post-war Europe. He said, I quote, “I think one difficulty is that the problem is one of such enormous complexity that the very mass of facts presented to the public by press and radio make it exceedingly ^[注] difficult for the man in the street to reach a clear appraisement ^[注] of the situation. It is virtually impossible at this distance to grasp at all the real significance of the situation.”

马歇尔发表这个演讲三十年后，也就是三十年前，我那一届的学生毕业了，当然我不在其中。那时，新技术刚刚开始出现，它们将使这个世界变得更小、更开放、更透明、距离更近。

Thirty years after Marshall made his address, which was thirty years ago, as my class graduated without me, technology was emerging that would make the world smaller, more open, more visible, less distant.

低成本个人电脑的出现促使了一个强大的互联网的诞生，它改变了人们学习和交流的机会。

The emergence of low-cost personal computers gave rise to ^[注] a powerful network that has transformed opportunities for learning and communicating.

互联网的神奇之处不仅仅在于它摧毁了距离的桎梏，使得天涯若比邻；它还极大地增加了杰出人士合作的机会，让大家可以共同解决同一个问题。这就大大加快了潜在革命的进程，技术革命的发展速度达到了让人震惊的地步。

The magical thing about this network is not just that it collapses ^[注] distance and makes everyone your neighbor. It also dramatically increases the number of brilliant minds we can bring in and work together on the same problem — and that scales up the rate of potential innovation to a staggering ^[注] degree.

与此同时，世界上有条件上网的人只占全部人口的六分之一。这意味着，许多有创造性思想的人没有加入到我们的讨论中来。那些有着实用知识和相关经验的英才，却没有技术来帮助他们磨练自己的才华，或是将他们的创意贡献给这个世界。

At the same time, for every person who has access to this technology, five people don't. That means many creative minds are left out of this discussion — smart people with practical intelligence and relevant experience who don't have the technology to hone ^[注] their talents or contribute their ideas to the world.

我们需要尽可能多的人能有机会使用这项技术，因为这些新技术正在引发一场革命，人类将因此可以产生互相影响。这些新技术正在创造一种可能，不仅能帮助各国政府，还包括大学、公司、小型机构，甚至个人，去发现问题所在、找到解决办法并评估他们努力的效果，去改变乔治·马歇尔六十年前就提到过的那些问题——饥饿、贫穷和绝望。

We need as many people as possible to gain access to this technology, because these advances are triggering ^[注] a revolution in what human beings can do for one another. They are making it possible not just for national governments, but for universities, corporations, smaller organizations, and even individuals to see problems, see approaches, and measure the impact of their efforts to address the hunger, poverty, and desperation ^[注] George Marshall spoke of 60 years ago.

哈佛大家庭的成员们，这所大学里在场的人们，你们就是全世界优秀英才汇聚而成的群体之一。

Members of the Harvard Family: Here in the Yard is one of the great collections of intellectual ^[注] talent in the world.

为什么目标而努力呢？

For what purpose?

毫无疑问，哈佛的老师、校友、学生以及哈佛的资助者们，已经用他们的能力正在改善这里以及全世界各地人们的生活。但是，我们还能再做更多吗？哈佛人能将他们的智慧用来帮助那些甚至从来都没有听到过“哈佛”这个名字的人吗？

There is no question that the faculty, the alumni ^[注] , the students, and the benefactors ^[注] of Harvard have used their power to improve the lives of people here and around the world. But can we do more? Can Harvard dedicate ^[注] its intellect to improving the lives of people who will never even hear its name?

请允许我向各位院长和教授提出一个请求——你们是哈佛的智力领袖，当你们雇用新的老师、授予终身教职、评估课程和制定学位颁发标准的时候，请问自己这样的问题：

Let me make a request of the deans and the professors — the intellectual leaders here at Harvard: As you hire new faculty, award tenure ^[注] , review curriculum ^[注] , and determine degree requirements, please ask yourselves:

我们最优秀的人才是否更应该致力于解决我们面临的最重大的问题？

Should our best minds be more dedicated to ^[注] solving our biggest problems?

哈佛是否应该鼓励教师们去研究解决世界上最严重的不平等问题？哈佛的学生是否应该去了解全球的贫穷状况……世界性饥荒的盛行……清洁水资源的缺乏……失学女童……死于可治愈疾病的儿童？

Should Harvard encourage its faculty to take on the world's worst inequities? Should Harvard students know about the depth of global poverty… the prevalence ^[注] of world hunger… the scarcity ^[注] of clean water… the girls kept out of school… the children who die from diseases we can cure?

世界上那些享受最优厚待遇的人，是否应该对最困难的人民生活境况有所了解？

Should the world's most privileged learn about the lives of the world's least privileged?

这些问题并非语言上的华丽辞藻。你要用实际行动来回答。

These are not rhetorical ^[注] questions —you will answer with your policies.

我的母亲在我被哈佛大学录取的那一天，曾经感到非常骄傲。她从没有停止过督促我去为他人做更多的事情。在我结婚的前几天，她主持了一个新娘仪式。在这个仪式上，她高声读了一封关于婚姻的信，这是她写给美琳达的。那时，我的母亲已经因为患了严重癌症，但她却认为这是又一个传递自己信念的机会。在那封信的结尾，她说“：对于那些接受了许多帮助的人，人们也希望得到他们的帮助。”

My mother, who was filled with pride the day I was admitted here — never stopped pressing me to do more for others. A few days before I was married, she hosted a bridal event, at which she read aloud a letter about marriage that she had written to Melinda. My mother was very ill with cancer at the time, but she saw one more opportunity to deliver her message, and at the close of the letter she said, “From those to whom much is given, much is expected.”

想一想吧，在我们这所大学里的这些人，都获得什么——天赋、特权和机遇——那么，全世界的人几乎也有无限的权利，期待我们做出贡献。

When you consider what those of us here in this Yard have been given — in talent, privilege, and opportunity — there is almost no limit to what the world has a right to expect from us.

同这个时代的期望一样，我在这里也要向今天在座的每位毕业生提出一个忠告：你们要去选择一个问题，一个复杂的问题，一个关于人类极度不平等的问题，成为这个问题的专家。如果你们能够使得这个问题成为你们事业的核心，那么就会非常了不起。但是，你们不一定要去产生多么大的影响。每个星期只需要花几个小时，你们就可以通过互联网日益强大的力量去获取信息，找到志同道合的朋友，发现困难所在并找到克服困难的途径。

In line with the promise of this age, I want to exhort ^[注] each of the graduates here to take on an issue — a complex problem, a deep inequity, and become a specialist on it. If you make it the focus of your career, that would be phenomenal ^[注] . But you don't have to do that to make an impact. For a few hours every week, you can use the growing power of the Internet to get informed, find others with the same interests, see the barriers ^[注] , and find ways to cut through them.

不要让这个世界的复杂性阻碍你前进的步伐。要成为行动主义者，将解决人类的不平等现象视为己任。我确信，这将成为你们生命中最棒的经历之一。

Don't let complexity stop you. Be activists. Take on big inequities. I feel sure it will be one of the great experiences of your lives.

在座的各位毕业生，你们出生在在一个不可思议的时代。当你们离开哈佛的时候，你们拥有的技术是我们那一届学生所不曾有过的。你们已经认识到了世界上的不平等问题，而我们那时还不知道这些。有了这些认识之后，你们也就会有一颗明事理的恻隐之心，要是你们再将那些可以帮助的人弃之于不顾，就会受到良心的谴责，只需一点小小的努力，你们就可以改变他们的生活。你们比我们拥有更强的能力，你们必须尽早开始，尽可能长时期地坚持下去。

You graduates are coming of age in an amazing time. As you leave Harvard, you have technology that members of my class never had. You have awareness of global inequity, which we did not have. And with that awareness, you likely also have an informed conscience ^[注] that will torment ^[注] you if you abandon these people whose lives you could change with small effort. You have more than we had; you must start sooner, and carry on longer.

我希望，30年后你们还会再回到哈佛，回顾你们用自己的才华和能力所做出的一切。我希望，在那个时候，你们用来评价自己的标准，不仅仅是你们的专业成就，还包括你们为改变这个世界最严重的不平等问题所做出的努力，以及你们如何善待那些远隔千山万水、除了同为人类之外与你们毫无共同之处的人。

And I hope you will come back here to Harvard 30 years from now and reflect on what you have done with your talent and your energy. I hope you will judge yourselves not on your professional accomplishments alone, but also on how well you have addressed the world's deepest inequities… on how well you treated people a world away who have nothing in common with you but their humanity ^[注] .

最后，祝各位同学好运。

Good luck. 02HYjyJf1xwrZD3xYMf/2C4kcVJLvvof3PWCIpY4h3K/OqyOUd+DUTDYscNdUHnd