評論
打印
No one in this picture is evil; no one is criminally irresponsible. It's just that smart people are prone to look into matters to see how they might go about buttering their toast. Then they butter their toast.
這里沒有人是邪惡的；也沒有人犯下不負責任的罪過。只是，聰明的人都習慣于琢磨如何才能順利謀生的問題。
As for the administrators, their relation to the students often seems based not on love but fear. Administrators fear bad publicity, scandal, and dissatisfaction on the part of their customers. More than anything else, though, they fear lawsuits. Throwing a student out of college, for this or that piece of bad behavior, is very difficult, almost impossible. The student will sue your eyes out. One kid I knew (and rather liked) threatened on his blog to mince his dear and esteemed professor (me) with a samurai sword for the crime of having taught a boring class. (The class was a little boring—I had a damned cold—but the punishment seemed a bit severe.) The dean of students laughed lightly when I suggested that this behavior might be grounds for sending the student on a brief vacation. I was, you might say, discomfited, and showed up to class for a while with my cellphone jiggered to dial 911 with one touch.
而對于管理者來說，他們和學生的關系建立在恐懼而不是關愛的基礎上，管理者們害怕負面宣傳、丑聞以及客戶不滿。然而，他們最害怕的是打官司。因為這樣或是那樣的不良行為將學生逐出大學是很難的，幾乎是不可能的，學生會將學校告上法庭。我認識的一個學生(一個挺喜歡的學生）曾在博客中威脅要用武士刀將他親愛的、受人尊敬的教授(也就是我）剁成肉醬，罪行是上了一堂無聊的課。（那堂課是有一些無聊，因為我得了該死的感冒，但是懲罰似乎重了點。）我當時提出，這種行為完全可以勒令他休學一段時間。教導主任只是微微笑了笑，當時的我可以說相當窘迫。之后一段時間，我上課的時候都為手機調好快速撥號功能，隨時準備撥打911報瞥。
You'll find that cheating is common as well. As far as I can discern, the student ethos goes like this: If the professor is so lazy that he gives the same test every year, it's okay to go ahead and take advantage. The Internet is amok with services selling term papers and those services exist, capitalism being what it is, because people purchase the papers—lots of them. Fraternity files bulge with old tests from a variety of courses.
你們會發現作弊也很普遍。我所了解的學生信條如下：如果教授懶到每年都出同樣的試題，那么他們便會投機取巧，因為雙方都有更好的事情要做。網絡上充斥著期末論文銷售服務，而這些服務存在的原因就是有人會去購買論文，而且買的人很多，這就是資本主義。兄弟會文件里塞滿了各門課程的舊試卷。
One of the reasons professors sometimes look the other way when they sense cheating is that it sends them into a world of sorrow. A friend of mine had the temerity to detect cheating on the part of a kid who was the nephew of a well-placed official in an Arab government complexly aligned with the U.S. Black limousines pulled up in front of his office and disgorged decorously suited negotiators. Did my pal fold? Nope, he's not the type. But he did not enjoy the process.
當教授們發現有學生作弊的時候，他們有時睜一只眼閉一只眼，這讓他們感到悲傷。我的一位朋友曾經冒失地發現一位學生作弊，而這位學生是和美國有著復雜聯盟關系的阿拉伯政府某位身居要職的官員的侄子。后來，黑色的豪華轎車開來停在他的辦公室前面，從車里涌出來大批衣著得體的談判人。我那位哥們嚇得腿發軟了嗎？沒有，他不是那種人，不過他實在不喜歡這個過程。
What colleges generally want are well-rounded students, civic leaders, people who know what the system demands, how to keep matters light, not push too hard for an education or anything else; people who get their credentials and leave the professors alone to do their brilliant work, so they may rise and enhance the rankings of the university.
一般來說，大學需要的是全面發展的學生、公眾領導人以及那些知道這個社會體制需要、知道如何讓天下太平、不會為了教育或是其他任何東西用力過猛的人們；那些只為獲得文憑并不打擾教授的人們。這樣，教授可以專心做學術研究，以便能夠不斷提升學校的排名。
In a culture where the major and determining values are monetary, what else could you do? How else would you live if not by getting all you can, succeeding all you can, making all you can?
在一個以崇尚金錢為主要和決定性價值觀的文化里，還能怎么辦？除了盡你們所能去獲取、去成功、去掙錢，還能怎么生活？
