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  3. Yes, the young Americans are energetic, ambitious, enterprising, and good, but their talents and interests and money thrust them

Yes, the young Americans are energetic, ambitious, enterprising, and good, but their talents and interests and money thrust them

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问题     Yes, the young Americans are energetic, ambitious, enterprising, and good, but their talents and interests and money thrust them not into books and ideas and history and civics, but into a whole other realm and other consciousness. A different social life and a different mental life have formed among them. Technology has bred it, but the result doesn’t tally with the fulsome descriptions of digital empowerment, global awareness, and virtual communities. Instead of opening young American minds to the stores of civilization and science and politics, technology has contracted their horizon to themselves, to the social scene around them. Young people have never been so intensely mindful of and present to one another, and so enabled in adolescent contact. Teen images and songs, hot gossip and games, and youth-to-youth communications no longer limited by time or space wrap them up in a generational cocoon reaching all the way into their bedrooms. The autonomy has a cost: the more they attend to themselves, the less they remember the past and envision a future. They have all the advantages of modernity and democracy, but when the gifts of life lead to social joys, not intellectual labor, the minds of the young plateau at age of 18.
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答案 没错，美国年轻人活力充沛、雄心勃勃、事业心强，人很不错，但是他们的才智、兴趣和金钱并没有把他们引向书本、思想、历史、公民知识，相反却将他们推进了另一个领域和另一个意识空间。一种不同的社会生活和一种迥异的精神生活在他们中间形成。技术孕育了这种生活，但结果却没有像人们所说的那样实现了数字赋能、全球视野、虚拟社会。恰恰相反，技术并没有打开美国年轻人的心灵，让他们去接受文明、科学、政治的宝藏，技术反而把他们的视野拉回到身边，使他们围绕身边的社会环境画地为牢。年轻人从来没有像现在这样相互关注，相互接触，善于年轻人之间的交往联络。年轻人的影像和歌曲，青少年热衷的闲聊和游戏，不再受时空限制的交流，所有这一切把一代人如蚕茧一样包裹起来，影响力所及，直逼他们的卧室。这种自主自顾是有代价的：他们越关注自己，就越少回顾过去，越少展望未来。他们有现代和民主所能提供的所有好处，不过生活赠予他们的尽管如此丰盛，可换来的却仅是社交场上的欢乐，并不是追求知识的耕耘，年轻人智力到了18岁就不再发展了。
解析     本篇节选自The Dumbest Generation，作者Mark Bauerlein。文章字里行间流露出作者的态度和观点。翻译时需要仔细琢磨。这是一篇大学教授写的文章，语域比较高，所以翻译时文字不能流于松散轻浮，要反映出学者的文风。
civics：指与公民社会中的公民教育有关的知识。
…the result doesn’t tally with the fulsome descriptions of digital empowerment，global awareness．and virtual communities：  “tally with”基本上与“agree with”的意思相同。也就是说，所得的结果与原来夸夸其谈描写的相去甚远。  “Fulsome descriptions”表示当时人们对数字技术的描述太神乎其神，言过其实了。该句中的“the fulsome descriptions of digital empowerment，global awareness，and virtual communities”可以理解成“people describe the digital empowerment，global awareness and virtual in a way that makes you think that the description is fulsome。”
…technology has contracted their horizon to themselves…：  “contract”此处是动词，表示“(使)缩小，缩短，缩约”。如：“Metals contract as they get cooler．
(金属遇冷则收缩)”，又如：  “Our business has contracted a lot recently．(我们的生意近来大为减少了。)”，此句表示技术使年轻人的视野缩小了，也就是“技术反而把他们的视野拉回到身边”。
…so intensely mindful of and present to one another…：  “mindful”更多强调想着对方，而“present”更强调视觉，人就在眼前，故译成“相互关注，相互接触”。
…youth—to-youth communications no longer limited by time or space…：  “no longer limited by time or space”仅仅修饰“youth-to-youth communications”，与前面的几个名词无关。
Teen images and songs，hot gossip…in a generational cocoon reaching all the way into their bedrooms：  “reaching all the way into their bedrooms”是修饰“a generational cocoon”，还是修饰“Teen images and songs，hot gossip and games，and youth-to-youth communications”，这是考生在动笔翻译前，需要搞清楚的一个问题。从语法结构上看，修饰“cocoon”最合适，但语义上似乎很难讲得通。  “Reaching”真正修饰的是前面的“Teen images and songs，hot gossip and games，and youth—to—youth communications”，正是这些东西走进了年轻人的卧室。以整句为翻译单位来理解，不容易出错。
Autonomy：结合语境，此处“autonomy”主要指独立，不依靠别人，自己作主。
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