如果大家觉得这些材料理解上有难度,不妨当做挑战自己的拔高训练,希望大家都有进步
While having a meal with his wife in his home town of Utica in 2007, the pollster John Zogby struck up a conversation with his 20-year-old waitress about privacy, social networking and YouTube. He asked what limits she set on what she would reveal online.
struck up 使开始;建立起
set limits on 对加以限制
reveal 展现;显示;揭露
My boobs, she said. but only on Halloween, and only for my friends.
Well, answers Zogby, in account from his book The Way Well Be. Im your friend today, but tomorrow I might not be. Can you stop me from sharing your, um, breasts, with the rest of the world, or with the company youre hoping will hire you?
No, she replies, but so many of us do this in one form or another that employers are just going to have to adjust or they wont have anyone to hire.
As Spring Break draws to a close, the question of what belongs in the public realm and whom it affects becomes agonisingly pertinent to thousands of undergraduates across the country. Spring Break is the annual, formal Bacchanal: the riotous, alcohol-drenched recess that launches scores of Girls Gone Wild videos, clogs toilets with condoms and beachside boardwalks with vomit and updates millions of Facebook pages.
Spring Break 春假
public realm 公共领域
pertinent adj. 切题的;中肯的
recess n. 1. 休息;休会;休庭 2. 【美】学校的假期;课间休息 v. 1. 把...放在隐蔽处 2. 使凹进,使有凹进处
But five years after Zogbys conversation, people seem to be recalibrating their limits. A report in the New York Times last month suggested an inhibition descending on Spring Break this year. They are very prudish, said one bartender in Key West. They are so afraid everyone is going to take their picture and put it online. Ten years ago, people were doingfilthy, filthy things, but it wasnt posted on Facebook. Its a shame they are not having as much as they did or would like to , but if the price for having filthy fun is that it is broadcast to anyone who wants to see it, and many who dont, then its clearly not a price worth paying.
recalibrate v. 重新刻度;再校准
prudish adj. 古板的;装正经的;过分规矩的
assume vt. 1. 以为;假定为;(想当然地)认为 2. 承担;就任;取得 vi. 1. 装腔作势 2. 多管闲事
There are limits to how much candour we can take or expect. With the exception of those in the most intimate parts of my life, I dont really want to know everything that people think about me. Nor do I want to know everything I think about them, or share it. A certain amount of artifice is necessary if were all going to get through the day.
candour n. 率直;正直;公平
artifice n. 技巧;巧妙;诡计
Increasingly, however, it feels as though those limits are being constantly breached, either voluntarily, accidentally, by force or by cunning. With blogs, tweets, webcams, Facebook and YouTube, there is always a mic or camera somewhere and it is always running. Our personal diaries have become an open book. The era in which we might reasonably expect to enjoy a conversation that is both discrete and discreet has passed. For the moment at least, we are all living our lives in public.
breach n. v. 违反;破坏
The personal fallout from all of this is clear and go beyond mere embarrassment. Take Tyler Clementi, the 18-year-old Rutgers student who committed suicide after his roommate, Dharun Ravi, set up a camera in his room to watch Tyler in a gay sexual encounter. Later, Ravi would try the same again and tweet about it to his 150 followers. In the past, such homophobia would have gone no further than malicious gossip vicious, hurtful and wrong, certainly. But in all likelihood, it would not have been as devastating to Clementis self-respect and possibly with less fatal consequences. Throughout the western world, teenagers particularly, young women are routinely humiliated by having their indiscretions recorded and sent out to the world.
go beyond 超出;胜过
devastating adj. 毁灭性的;破坏性的
fatal adj. 致命的;毁灭性的
But there are political ramifications, too, even if the consequences of these are less clear-cut. On the one hand, it forces elites out into the open where their deliberations and pronouncements might be judged against their actions. There are clearly benefits to this. The truly awful thing about the incident between then UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Gillian Duffy shortly before the last election was not just that he referred to her as that bigoted woman when he was in his car and didnt know the microphone was on. It was that only minutes before, he had told her she was a very good woman served the community when he did know they were on. That gave credence to the popular perception that the political class held voters in contempt. The problem wasnt that he got caught, it was that he did it in the first place.
hold in contempt 对不屑一顾;轻视
Left there, however, and what we have is not more openness, but more gaffes. Obama and Sarkozy deriding Binyamin Netanyahu, and Obama blabbing his post-election strategy for Russia, or Tony Blairs cringeworthy Yo, Blair encounter with George Bush at the G8. Entertaining and illustrative, certainly, but rarely more than that.
But on-mic embarrassment is not the whole story: the revelation of serious information that our rulers would rather we did not have can be compelling. WikiLeaks provides a good example. By redistributing information from the US government to the world, it gave the public an unprecedented insight into US diplomacy. Interestingly, most of what it revealed we might have guessed. But once it was out there, it was difficult for officialdom to deny it and one could argue that these were not their secrets to keep.
redistribute vt. 重新分配;再分配
So far, so good. But there is a price we pay for this exposure that more than rivals the regretful blushes of a bare-breasted waitress at Halloween. The net effect will also be that, in future, US diplomats will be less forthright in offering honest opinions to their bosses for fear those opinions might one day be leaked and create an incident. So, by leaking confidential diplomatic correspondence, there is a chance of exposing hypocrisy but that chance comes with the certainty of inhibiting open, private discussion. This endangers the kind of back-door discussions that made everything from the Northern Ireland peace process to the release of Nelson Mandela possible in a way they would not have been had everything been on display.
So far, so good 目前为止,一切很好;到目前为止还好
leak v. 泄露
Moreover, for all the talk of openness, what we post we do not necessarily own. We are often handing over information about ourselves and our friends to corporate entities and advertisers, which can end up in the hands of a state that is interested in anything but openness. In Britain, the government is about to introduce legislation that would give the police and intelligence officers the right to trawl our Facebook pages, Twitter accounts and Skype interactions.
hand over 交出;送交
Whether personal or political, the problem with the very public lives we now all live is essentially the same. People generally arrive at positions through trial, error and experimentation. They mature by making mistakes and learning from them. But if you feel the mic is always on, youre far more likely to do something anodyne for the record than think of something creative and take risks for all to see. The power to transmit amplifies not just the audience, but the consequences.
Less filth. Less fun. Less candour. We are experiencing the Hawthorne effect, in whichstudying behaviour alters the behaviour itself, writ large. And while greater transparency may be one of the main outcomes, greater inhibition is no less so.
Hawthorne effect 霍桑效应(指工人、学生等因受到研究人员的关注而增加产量或提高成绩)
To a large extent, this is a problem of our own making. Our personal diaries are, in no small part, an open book because we open them. We put details about ourselves out into the ether that often forfeit our right to privacy. It is now not uncommon to see relationships disintegrate in real time as long-term partners air grievances openly online.
to a large extent 在很大程度上
forfeit n. 没收物,罚金 v. 没收,丧失 a. 被没收,被罚
The personal, the private, the privileged and the confidential no longer really exist. The stories we would otherwise choose not to share are no longer ours to keep; the conversations we hope will go no further may just keep traveling. A remark may be off-the-cuff or off-the-top-of-your-head but nowadays, you must always assume its on the record.
Question time:
1. Whats the influence on politics when the limits of candour are constantly breached?
2. Why did the auther say that the personal, the private, the privileged and the confidential no longer really existed?
【参考答案】
1. On one hand, it forces elites out into the open where their deliberations and pronouncements might be judged against their actions. However, on the other hand, what we have is not more openness, but more gaffes.
2. Because with blogs, tweets, webcams, Facebook and YouTube, there is always a mic or camera somewhere and it is always running.
没有脚蹬的自行车? 设计世界中皆有可能
飞行启示录 We will see what happens
十二星座们适合自己的减肥方法
强大女性教你如何横扫人生七大沮丧时刻
国际英语资讯:News Analysis: Lebanon PM faces U.S. pressure for tougher line against Hezbollah: analysts
现代人越来越爱吹牛?
国际英语资讯:Fire guts Bangladesh plastic factory
奥地利男孩和土拨鼠成亲密好友 相交4年友谊深厚
带着自豪冲马桶
普京被曝生活奢靡 有58架飞机20座别墅
国内英语资讯:China-Arab States tourism fair to be held in NW China
纽约孕妇地铁寻座记
世界最贵纸袋热销单价185英镑
阿姆斯特朗:他的脚印不仅留在了月球
未来人类需素食以避免食品短缺
125名哈佛本科生涉嫌考试作弊 校方展开调查
三星败诉 苹果成移动市场霸主
英国人最爱和最讨厌的10大声音
男女爆笑潜台词:他们真的来自不同星球!
美电影公司邀哈里王子拍成人片
肯尼亚力争成为非洲第一个奥运主办国
货物配送 取货服务要火了
生活教给我宝贵的5堂课
国际英语资讯:Canadian opposition parties seeking to review report on Trudeaus violation of ethics law
霍金亮相伦敦残奥会开幕 科学之旅演绎启蒙运动
美大选主题:你比四年前过得更好吗?
国内英语资讯:Feature: Intl travelers welcome restored order at Hong Kong airport
国际英语资讯:China, Indonesia cooperate in earthquake early warning system
斯里兰卡急聘刽子手 工作轻松仅限男性
国内英语资讯:China solicits public opinions on draft revisions of judicial authentication regulations
不限 |
英语教案 |
英语课件 |
英语试题 |
不限 |
不限 |
上册 |
下册 |
不限 |