Unit4 Work Still Has Value
1 During the 19th-century development of industry in America, the idea of work's inherent virtue may have emed ridiculous to tho who labored in the mines and mills and factories for a few nickels a day. The century's huge machinery of production punished and stunned tho who ran it.劳动的价值依然存在
美国19世纪工业发展时期,对那些在矿山、作坊和工厂辛勤劳动,每天只挣几个硬币的人们大讲劳动的固有德行,也许显得荒唐可笑。 那个时代,庞大的生产机器让操作者受苦受难,头昏眼花。
2. bruisAnd yet for generations of immigrants, work was ultimately fruitful: the sweat of an uneducated immigrant grandfather got the father a start in life and a high school education, and the son wound up in college or even law school. So for millions of Americans, as they labored through the generations, work worked, and the immigrant work ethic came at last to merge with the Protestant work ethic.然而,对于几代移民来说,劳动最终结出了累累硕果: 报名网祖父移民来美时目不识丁,其辛勤汗水给父亲的一生打下了基础,并让他上了中学;而儿子
则终于进入大学甚至法学院。 因此,在数百万美国人看来,他们几代人的劳动证实,劳动是可以产生好的结果的。 移民的职业道德终于与清教徒的职业道德融为一体。
劳动的动机决定一切。 仅为活命而劳动是无奈。 为儿孙们创造更加美好的生活,这样的动机赋予劳动一种强烈的尊严。 这种尊严,一种有希望的活力和抱负——就像生命的原动力一样长盛不衰——就是许多人如今发现不复存在的美国品质。
四级听力mp3下载3. The motive of work is all. To work for mere survival is desperate. To work for a better life for one's children and grandchildren confers on the labor a fierce dignity. That dignity, a hopeful energy and aspiration — driving, persisting like a life force — is the American quality that many find missing now.
当今社会,职业道德并未消失,而是淡化了。 在美国,人们对待劳动的态度发生了很大变化。 过去,由于对于经济大萧条的痛苦记忆,人们对劳动常采取了一种严守纪律,有时是被动的态度——这有点像前苏联的老一代人,由于对二战期间可怕得多的经历记忆犹新,因而并不抱怨食品短缺、住房拥挤。 但是,经历过经济大萧条的那一代人相继退休,也相继不在了。 当今年纪较轻的这代劳动者,尽管有时也会因为经济不景气而下岗,受不到公
正待遇,但在他们的脑海中,毕竟没有对于大萧条时期那种贫困和艰难的痛苦记忆。
英文新年祝福语
4. The work ethic is not dead, but it is diluted now. The way people view work is much changed in America. The painful memory of the Great Depression ud to enforce a disciplined and occasionally passive approach to work — in much the same way that older citizens in the former Soviet Union do not complain about scarce food and crowded apartments, becau they remember how much more horrible everything was during the Second World War. But the generation of the Great Depression is retiring and dying off, and today's younger workers, though sometimes laid off and kicked around by recessions, still do not carry terrible memories of the poverty and suffering of the Depression.
如今,各种精心设计以缓解困境的经济手段——如失业保险、福利金等——使短期失业的困难程度减轻了。 劳动仍然深受美国社会的尊敬。大多数美国人,如果流落街头,就会感到失落,甚至丧失自尊。 安全驾驶技巧但这种打击如今很少带有它曾经有过的生死攸关的含义。 此外,经济生活中肆无忌惮、声名狼藉的行为,也会减少失业的羞愧感; 如果某大公司关闭了一
家工厂,将该厂3,700工人抛向失业者的行列中,那么人们更多地归罪于疲软的经济而不是个人。
5. Today, elaborate financial cushions — unemployment insurance, welfare payments and so on — have made it less disastrous to be out of a job for a while. Work still receives a profound respect in America and most Americans suffer a n of loss, even a loss of lf- esteem, if they are thrown out on the street. But the blow ldom carries the life-and-death implications it once had, the n of personal ruin. Besides, the wild and notorious behavior of the economy takes a certain amount of personal shame out of losing a job; if a big company clos down a plant and throws 3,700 workers into the unemployment lines, the guilt falls less on individuals than on a weak economy.
6. Becau today's workers are better educated than tho in the past, their expectations are higher and their priorities different. While their fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers concentrated hard upon the work at hand, some younger workers now ask questions about the point of working hard. For the first time in the history of the world, ma
ss of people in industrially advanced countries no longer have to focus their minds upon work as the central concern of their existence.同过去相比,今天的劳动者受教育的水平提高了,因而,他们期待更多,兴趣各异。 他们的父辈、祖父辈和曾祖父辈专心于手头的活计,而年轻一代则对拼命干活的意义提出了质疑。 人类历史上,工业发达国家的民众,再也无须集中心思于劳动,将其视为自身生计之首要因素,这是世界历史前所未有的现象。mood加州理工大学 根据著名心理学家马斯洛的描述,劳动是通过满足一系列轻重缓急的需求体系而发挥功能的。 最重要的是,劳动可以提供食物和栖身之所,这是人类生存的基本保证。 其次,劳动可以满足安全需求,并且满足与他人交友和交往的需求。 再次,自我的要求也产生了,即需要受到尊重。 英文在线翻译中文最后,人类,无论男女,都有出国人员英语考试"实现自我"的永无止境的愿望。 这种愿望似乎是一种于人无损甚至是值得尊敬的上进心,但有时也会沦落成一种自私的不满。
7. According to the scheme of the well-known psychologist, Maslow, work functions in a hierarchy of needs: first and foremost, work provides food and shelter, basic human maintenance北京能动英语. After that, it can address the need for curity, and then the need for friendship and connection with others. Next, the demands of the ego ari, the need for r
espect. Finally, men and women asrt a larger desire to "fulfill themlves". That ems a harmless and even worthy enterpri, but sometimes degenerates into a lfish discontent.
8.Of cour, in America, different class and ethnic groups are positioned at different stages in the work hierarchy. Ambitious immigrants — legal and illegal — who still flock denly to America are fighting for the curity that the lfish tribes of tho trying to "fulfill themlves" achieved three generations ago. Working women, to the extent that they are new at having a career, now form a powerful source of ambition and energy. The women's rights movement — and financial need — have made them, in effect, an immigrant wave upon the economy.当然,在美国社会,不同阶层、不同族群对劳动所要满足的需求也各不相同。 那些雄心勃勃的非法和合法移民如今依然蜂拥来美,为取得安全感而努力,而那些试图"实现自我"的自私的当地部落在三代人以前就得到了这种安全感。 劳动妇女的事业刚刚起步,她们正在形成一股理想和活力的强大源泉。 女权运动及其经济需要,使她们实际上成为了经济生活中的移民群体。