Speech演讲

President Hennessy, members of the Board of Trustees, distinguished faculty and staff, proud and relieved parents, calm and serene grandparents, distracted but secretly pleased siblings ^[1] , ladies and gentlemen, graduating students of the Class of 2016, good morning. I am deeply honored and privileged that you have asked me here to say a few words at so momentous an occasion, that you might find what I have to say worthy of your attention on so important a day, especially one with such historical significance. One hundred and twenty-five years. Wow.

Thank you, too, for that generous introduction, President Hennessy. I always feel compelled, though, to inoculate ^[2] myself against such praise by remembering that I have on my refrigerator door at home an old and now faded cartoon that shows two men standing in hell, the flames licking up around them. And one guy says to the other, “Apparently my over 200 screen credits didn't mean a damn thing.” They don't, of course; there is much more meaning in your accomplishments, which we memorialize today.

I am in the business of memorializing—of history. It is not always a popular subject on college campuses today, particularly when, at times, it may seem to some an anachronistic ^[3] and irrelevant pursuit, particularly with the ferocious urgency this moment seems to exert on us. It is my job, however, to remind people—with story, memory, anecdote ^[4] , feeling—of the power our past also exerts, to help us better understand what's going on now. It is my job to try to discern patterns and themes from history to enable us to interpret our dizzying, and sometimes dismaying, present. For nearly 40 years now, I have diligently practiced and rigorously maintained a conscious neutrality in my work, avoiding the advocacy of many of my colleagues, trying to speak to all of my fellow citizens.

Over those decades of historical documentary filmmaking, I have also come to the realization that history is not a fixed thing, a collection of precise dates, facts and events that add up to a quantifiable, certain, confidently known truth. History is a mysterious and malleable thing, constantly changing, not just as new information emerges, but as our own interests, emotions and inclinations change. Each generation rediscovers and reexamines that part of the past which gives its present new meaning, new possibility and new power. The question becomes for us now—for you especially—what will we choose as our inspiration? Which distant events and long dead figures will provide us with the greatest help, the most coherent context and the wisdom simply to go forward?

This is in part an existential question. None of us get out of here alive. An exception will not be made in your case and you'll live forever. You can't actually design your life. If you want to make God laugh, the saying goes, tell her your plans. The hard times and vicissitudes ^[5] of life will ultimately visit everyone. You will come to realize that you are less defined by the good things that happen to you, your moments of happiness and apparent control, than you are by those misfortunes and unexpected challenges that, in fact, shape you more definitively, and help to solidify your true character—the measure of any human value. You, especially, know that the conversation that comes out of tragedy and injustice needs to be encouraged, emphasis on courage. It is through those conversations that we make progress.

A mentor of mine, the journalist Tom Brokaw, recently said to me, “What we learn is more important than what we set out to do.” It's tough out there, but so beautiful, too. And history—memory—can prepare you.

I have a searing memory of the summer of 1962, when I was almost 9, joining our family dinner on a hot, sweltering day in a tract house in a development in Newark, Delaware, and seeing my mother crying. She had just learned, and my brother and I had just been told, that she would be dead of cancer within six months. But that's not what was causing her tears. Our inadequate health insurance had practically bankrupted us, and our neighbors—equally struggling working people—had taken up a collection and presented my parents with six crisp $20 bills—$120 in total—enough to keep us solvent for more than a month. In that moment, I understood something about community and courage, about constant struggle and little victories. That hot June evening was a victory. And I have spent my entire professional life trying to resurrect small moments within the larger sweep of American history, trying to find our better angels in the most difficult of circumstances, trying to wake the dead, to hear their stories.

But how do we keep that realization of our own inevitable mortality from paralyzing us with fear? And how do we also keep our usual denial of this fact from depriving our lives and our actions of real meaning, of real purpose? This is our great human challenge, your challenge. This is where history can help. The past often offers an illuminating and clear-headed perspective from which to observe and reconcile ^[6] the passions of the present moment, just when they threaten to overwhelm us. The history we know, the stories we tell ourselves, relieve that existential anxiety, allow us to live beyond our fleeting lifespans, and permit us to value and love and distinguish what is important. And the practice of history, both personal and professional, becomes a kind of conscience for us.

As a filmmaker, as a historian, as an American, I have been drawn continually to the life and example and words of Abraham Lincoln. He seems to get us better than we get ourselves. One hundred and fifty-eight years ago, in mid-June of 1858, Abraham Lincoln, running in what would be a failed bid for the United States Senate, at a time of bitter partisanship in our national politics, almost entirely over the issue of slavery, spoke to the Republican State Convention in the Illinois Statehouse in Springfield. His political party, the Republican Party was brand new, born barely four years before with one single purpose in mind: to end the intolerable hypocrisy of chattel slavery that still existed in a country promoting certain unalienable rights to itself and the world.

He said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand. A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

Four and a half years later, he was president, presiding over a country in the midst of the worst crisis in American history, our Civil War, giving his Annual Message to Congress, what we now call the State of the Union. The state of the Union was not good. His house was divided. But he also saw the larger picture. “The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty,” he said, “and we must rise—with the occasion. As our case is new, we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ^[7] ourselves, and then we shall save our country.”

And then he went on: “Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history… The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation. We say we are for Union. The world will not forget that we say this. We know how to save the Union … In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free—honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth.”

You are that latest generation he was metaphorically speaking about, and you are, whether you are yet aware of it or not, charged with saving our Union. The stakes are slightly different than the ones Lincoln faced—there is not yet armed rebellion—but they are just as high. And before you go out and try to live and shape the rest of your life, you are required now to rise, as Lincoln implored us, with the occasion.

You know, it is terribly fashionable these days to criticize the United States government, the institution Lincoln was trying to save, to blame it for all the ills known to humankind, and, my goodness, ladies and gentlemen, let's be honest, it has made more than its fair share of catastrophic ^[8] mistakes. But you would be hard-pressed to find—in all of human history—a greater force for good. From our Declaration of Independence to our Constitution and Bill of Rights; from Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, Fifteenth and, women, Nineteenth Amendments to the Land Grant College and Homestead Acts; from the transcontinental railroad and our national parks to child labor laws, Social Security and the National Labor Relation Acts; from the GI Bill and the interstate highway system to putting a man on the moon and the Affordable Care Act, the United States government has been the author of many of the best aspects of our public and personal lives.

Part of the reason this kind of criticism sticks is because we live in an age of social media where we are constantly assured that we are all independent free agents. But that free agency is essentially unconnected to real community, divorced from civic engagement, duped into believing in our own lonely primacy by a sophisticated media culture that requires you—no, desperately needs you—to live in an all-consuming disposable present, wearing the right blue jeans, driving the right car, carrying the right handbag, eating at all the right places, blissfully ^[9] unaware of the historical tides that have brought us to this moment, blissfully uninterested in where those tides might take us.

Our spurious sovereignty is reinforced and perpetually underscored to our obvious and great comfort, but this kind of existence actually ingrains ^[10] in us a stultifying sameness that rewards conformity, not courage, ignorance and anti-intellectualism, not critical thinking. This wouldn't be so bad if we were just wasting our own lives, but this year our political future depends on it. And there comes a time when I—and you—can no longer remain neutral, silent. We must speak up and speak out.

Let me speak directly to the graduating class. Watch out. Here comes the advice.

Look, I am the father of four daughters. If someone tells you they've been sexually assaulted, take it effing seriously. And listen to them! Maybe someday, we will make the survivor's eloquent statement as important as Dr. King's Letter from a Birmingham Jail .

Be curious, not cool. Feed your soul, too. Every day.

Remember, insecurity makes liars of us all. Not just presidential candidates.

Don't confuse success with excellence. The poet Robert Penn Warren once told me that “careerism is death.”

Do not descend too deeply into specialism either. Educate all of your parts. You will be healthier.

Free yourself from the limitations of the binary world. It is just a tool, a means, not an end.

Seek out and have mentors. Listen to them. The late theatrical director Tyrone Guthrie once said, “We are looking for ideas large enough to be afraid of.” Again, embrace those new ideas. Bite off more than you can chew .

Travel. Do not get stuck in one place. Visit our national parks. Their sheer majesty may remind you of your own “atomic insignificance,” as one observer noted, but in the inscrutable ways of Nature, you will feel larger, inspirited, just as the egotist ^[11] in our midst is diminished by his or her self-regard.

Insist on heroes, and be one.

Read. The book is still the greatest manmade machine of all—not the car, not the TV, not the smartphone.

Make babies. One of the greatest things that will happen to you is that you will have to worry—I mean really worry—about someone other than yourself. It is liberating and exhilarating. I promise. Ask your parents.

Do not lose your enthusiasm. In its Greek etymology, the word enthusiasm means simply, “God in us.”

Serve your country. Insist that we fight the right wars. Convince your government, as Lincoln knew, that the real threat always and still comes from within this favored land. Governments always forget that.

Insist that we support science and the arts, especially the arts. They have nothing to do with the actual defense of our country—they just make our country worth defending.

Believe, as Arthur Miller told me in an interview for my very first film on the Brooklyn Bridge, “Believe that maybe you too could add something that would last and be beautiful.”

And vote. You indelibly underscore your citizenship and our connection to each other—when you do.

Good luck. And Godspeed.

亨尼西校长、董事会成员、尊敬的教职员工、骄傲而如释重负的父母们、平静而安详的祖父母们、心不在焉而又暗自窃喜的兄弟姐妹们、女士们、先生们、2016届的毕业生们，早上好。今天能受邀在一个如此重要的场合说几句话，而且承蒙诸位可能发现在如此重要的一天里，我要讲的话值得聆听，尤其是在如此具有历史意义的一天，我感到非常荣幸。斯坦福建校125周年了。哇哦！

同时感谢亨尼西校长的盛情介绍。不过，对于这样的褒奖，我一直觉得必须让自己免疫，方法就是时刻铭记我家冰箱门上贴的一幅漫画。那幅漫画已经年久褪色，画中有两个人站在地狱中，周围是熊熊烈火。其中一人对另一人说：“显然，我那两百多条的片尾致谢字幕根本没什么鬼用。”那些当然没什么意义，我们今天所纪念的你们所取得的成就，意义要大得多。

我的工作就是纪念——纪念历史。在如今的大学校园里，历史通常不是一个热门学科，有些时候，有人可能会觉得历史是一门过时的、没有意义的学科，尤其是在我们面临着如此紧迫形势的当下。但我的工作就是通过故事、回忆、轶事、感觉来提醒人们，过去也在对我们施加影响，帮助我们更好地理解现在所发生的一切。我的工作就是努力从历史中剥离出规律和主题，让人们能借此理解这个令人困惑不解，有时甚至令人心灰意冷的现在。在迄今为止近40年的时间里，我在工作中始终严格地贯彻并保持一种有意识的中立立场，避免像我的许多同行那样拥护某一方，努力与所有的同胞对话。

在拍摄历史纪录片的这几十年中，我也逐渐认识到，历史不是一成不变的，它不是由一堆确切日期、真相和事件组合而成的一种可量化的、确凿的、公认无误的事实。历史是神秘的，是可塑的，是不断变化的，不仅随着新信息的涌现而变化，而且随着我们自身的兴趣、情感和偏好的变化而变化。每一代人都会重新发现、重新检视那段给现在带来新的意义、新的可能和新的力量的历史。问题现在落在了你我身上，尤其是你们身上：我们将选择什么鼓舞自己？那些发生在遥远过去的事件和长逝已久的人物中，哪些能给我们提供最大的帮助、最相关的背景以及仅仅让我们前行的智慧呢？

这在某种程度上是一个关乎存在的问题。没有人会活着离开这个世界。你也不会成为例外，不会永生不死。你其实无法规划你的人生。俗话说，如果你想让上帝发笑，那就把你的计划告诉她。每个人终归都要经历人生的艰辛与无常。你会渐渐明白，决定你是谁的，与其说是发生在你身上的好事，那些你感觉幸福、明显能够掌控的时刻，不如说是那些不幸的遭遇和意料之外的挑战。事实上，这些遭遇和挑战对于塑造你起到了更加决定性的作用，帮助你锻造真正的品质——这是衡量个人价值的标准。你尤其要明白，因灾难和不公而产生的对话更需要鼓励，它所强调的是勇气。我们正是通过这样的对话才得以进步。

我的一位良师、记者汤姆·布罗考近来对我说：“我们学到的东西比我们打算要做的事更重要。”外面的世界很残酷，但也无比美好。历史——记忆——可以帮你做好准备。

我清楚地记得1962年的夏天，当时我快9岁了。在一个酷热难耐的日子，在特拉华州纽瓦克市一个住宅开发区的一栋房子里，我跟家人一起吃着晚饭，我看到妈妈哭了。她告诉我和哥哥，她刚刚得知自己得了癌症，活不过六个月了。但她并不是因为这个哭。由于我们的医疗保险不够完善，家里已经几近破产，我们的邻居——像我们一样艰难度日的劳动阶层——组织了一次募捐，把六张平整的20美元钞票——加起来一共120美元——交到了我父母手中。这笔钱足够让我们在一个多月的时间里不再负债。在那一刻，我有些明白了什么是社区和勇气，什么是不懈的奋斗和小小的胜利。那个6月里炎热的夜晚就是一次胜利。在我的整个职业生涯中，我都在努力再现美国巨大的历史洪流中那些微小的瞬间，试图在最艰难的境况中寻找善良的灵魂，试图唤醒逝者，倾听他们的故事。

但是，我们如何在知道人难免一死的前提下，让自己不被恐惧束缚到无法动弹？又如何避免对这一事实的否认让我们失去人生和行为的真正意义、真正目标呢？这是我们作为人类的一大挑战，是你们面对的挑战。历史在此可以提供帮助。过去常常可以提供一种具有启发性的、使人清醒的视角，在当下的热情将要冲昏我们的头脑之际，让我们得以审视并调和它们。我们所了解的历史以及我们对自己讲述的故事可以缓解这种生存焦虑，使我们可以超越转瞬即逝的生命，让我们珍视、热爱并分辨出重要的事。无论是从个人还是职业层面，对我们来说，对历史的实践都变成了一种良知。

作为一个电影剧作人、一名历史学家、一个美国人，我一直为亚伯拉罕·林肯的生平、事迹和话语所吸引。他似乎比我们自己还要懂我们。158年前，在1858年的6月中旬，正值美国政治中党派之争激烈的时期，亚伯拉罕·林肯在一次或将落选的美国参议院议员选举上，在斯普林菲尔德的伊利诺伊州议会大厦向共和党州代表大会发表演讲，演讲几乎全部围绕奴隶制的问题展开。那时他的政党——共和党还很新，刚刚成立不足四年，心目中只有一个目标：在这个向自己的国民和世界宣扬不可剥夺的权利的国家，终结令人难以容忍的虚伪行径——私有奴隶制。

他说：“家不和，则不立。”

四年半之后，林肯成为总统，他领导下的美国正在经历国家历史上最严重的危机——美国内战。他向国会发表年度报告，即我们现在所称的国情咨文。当时的美国情况不容乐观，他的“家”不和，但他也看到了更大的格局。“过往平静时代的那些信条不足以应对暴风骤雨般的现在。如今的情势困难重重，”他说，“我们必须顺应形势，挺过难关。我们面对的是新的形势，所以必须有新的思考，新的行动。我们必须解放自己，然后解救我们的国家。”

然后他接着说道：“同胞们，我们无法逃避历史……我们所经历的严酷磨难，无论是荣是辱，都将始终指引着我们，直至最年轻的一代。我们说我们是为了美国的利益，世界不会忘记我们说的话。我们知道如何解救美国……赋予奴隶自由，我们就确保了自由人的自由——我们所给予的和我们所坚持的同样光荣。对于地球上仅存的美好希望，我们要勇敢地拯救，不然就只能卑贱地失去。”

你们就是林肯所喻指的最年轻的一代。不管你们现在有没有意识到，你们承担着拯救这个国家的重任。你们面临的风险与林肯面临的稍有不同——现在还没有武装叛乱——但风险同样巨大。在你走入社会、努力生活并塑造你的余生之前，你现在需要顺应形势，挺过难关，正如林肯所要求我们的一样。

大家都知道，如今很时兴批评美国政府——这个林肯曾试图拯救的机构，人们把人类所知的所有祸患都归咎于它。天哪，女士们，先生们，坦诚来说，它犯的灾难性错误真的比它该犯的要多。但是，在整个人类的历史中，你很难一劳永逸地找到一个更强大的机构。从《独立宣言》到《宪法》和《人权法案》，从林肯的《解放奴隶宣言》和第十三、十四、十五以及（女士们）第十九条宪法修正案（编注：规定妇女有权投票）到赠地学院和《宅地法》，从横贯大陆的铁路和国家公园到童工法、《社会保障法案》和《国家劳动关系法案》，从《退伍军人权利法案》和州际高速公路系统到载人登月和《平价医疗法案》，美国政府创造了我们的公共和个人生活中许多最好的事物。

这类批评的声音一直存在，部分原因是我们生活在一个社交媒体的时代，身处其中的我们时常坚定地认为我们都是独立、自由的行为个体。但那个自由的个体在本质上脱离了真正的群体，隔绝了公民参与，被一种精致的媒体文化所哄骗，相信我们自己才是最重要的。这种媒体文化要求你——不，是极度需要你——全身心投入地活在可以自由支配的当下，穿适宜的蓝色牛仔裤，开适宜的车，拎适宜的包，在所有适宜的地方吃饭，对于将我们卷挟至此刻的历史潮流全无所知，对于这些潮流将带我们去往何处也全无兴趣。

这种虚假的自主权得到强化，并不断被强调，给我们带来显著而巨大的满足感，但这样的生活方式实际上给我们渗透了一种愚钝而千篇一律的观念，推崇遵从，而非勇气，推崇无知和反智主义，而非批判性思维。如果我们只是虚度生命，这也不会太糟糕，但今年我们的政治前途就依赖于此。这个时候，我——还有你们——不能再保持中立和沉默了。我们必须大胆发声，畅所欲言。

现在我要对毕业生们说点肺腑之言。请注意，以下是我的建议。

瞧，我是四个女孩的父亲。如果有人告诉你他们受到了侵犯了，要非常严肃地对待。要倾听他们！也许某一天，我们会使当事人那有说服力的陈述像金博士的《伯明翰狱中来信》那样重要。

要怀有好奇心，不要麻木不仁。也要滋养你的灵魂。每天如此。

记住，不安全感会让我们所有人都满嘴谎言，而不只是总统候选人。

不要把成功和优秀混为一谈。诗人罗伯特·佩恩·沃伦曾对我说：“追名逐利就是自取灭亡。”

也不要过于深陷在某个专业里。接受全面的教育，你将更加健康。

把自己从二进制世界的束缚中解放出来，它只是一件工具，是手段，而不是目的。

寻找并获得良师益友，倾听他们的话。已故的戏剧导演蒂龙·格思里曾说：“我们在寻找能够震慑我们的伟大观点。”再说一次，欣然接受那些新观点，去做你力不能及的事。

去旅行，不要待在一个地方。去参观我们的国家公园，它们是那么雄伟壮丽，会让你意识到，自己“像一粒原子般微不足道”——如一位评论者所说的那样。但是同时，大自然会以不可思议的方式让你感觉自己变得更大，精神满满，正如我们中那些自大之人因为他们的自我关注而变得渺小一样。

坚信英雄的存在，并做一名英雄。

读书。书籍仍是人类最伟大的发明——不是汽车，不是电视，也不是智能手机。

创造新生命。你将不得不担心——真正担心——除自己以外的另一个人，这是能降临在你身上最棒的事情之一。这会让你感觉自由而兴奋，我保证。问问你们的父母就知道了。

不要失去你的热情。从词源来看，“热情”这个词在希腊语中的意思就是“上帝在我们心中”。

为国效力，坚持只打正义之战。让你的政府相信，就像林肯当时知道的那样，真正的威胁永远且依然来自这片备受热爱的土地内部。政府常常忘记这一点。

坚定地支持科学与艺术，尤其是艺术。艺术与切实的保家卫国没什么关系——却让我们的国家更值得保卫。

要相信，正如亚瑟·米勒在就我的第一部关于布鲁克林大桥的电影接受采访时对我说的那样：“要相信，或许你也可以做出一些可以传世的美好的东西。”

要投票。投出一票，你就为你的公民权、我们彼此之间的联系留下了不可磨灭的印记。

祝你们好运，诸事顺遂。

（译/李晓涵）

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[1] sibling [ˈsɪblɪŋ] n. 兄弟姐妹

[2] inoculate [ɪˈnɒkjuleɪt] vt. 给……接种；向……灌输

[3] anachronistic [əˌnækrəˈnɪstɪk] adj. 时代错误的

[4] anecdote [ˈænɪkdoʊt] n. 奇闻轶事

[5] vicissitudes [vɪˈsɪsɪtuːdz] n. 多变，变化无常

[6] reconcile [ˈrekənsaɪl] vt. 调解，使和好

[7] disenthrall [ˌdɪsɪnˈθrɔːl] vt. 解放，释放

[8] catastrophic [ˌkætəˈstrɑːfɪk] adj. 灾难性的，悲惨的

[9] blissfully [ˈblɪsfəli] adv. 幸福地，充满喜悦地

[10] ingrain [ɪnˈɡreɪn] vt. 使……根深蒂固

[11] egotist [ˈiːɡoʊɪst] n. 自大者 xa0pfBkqB2YMSQLwN31WZEa7cqu1QV9KW76ERtMdP0xtzQwGvaL2BsKMHYfg8okW