美国高校爆发抗议 | 经济学人社论

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2024-05-22 01:05

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思维导图：

Summer，女，QE在职，梦想能仗走天涯翻译/音乐/健康

精读|翻译|词组

Leaders | All talk

经济学人社论 | 言而不行

英文部分选自经济学人20240504社论版块

Leaders | All talk

经济学人社论 | 言而不行

Should American universities call the cops on protesting students?

面对学生抗议，美国高校应要求警方介入吗？

The principles involved in resolving campus protests are not that hard

解决校园抗议活动的原则并不难懂

注释：

all talk: talking about doing things but never actually doing them

Flashbangs to clear occupied buildings, helmet-wearing police officers and handcuffed students: the scenes at Columbia and other American universities seem like a throwback to a rougher age. More than 1,500 students have been arrested around the country so far, and the number will probably rise in the coming weeks. For college presidents this is nightmarish. Members of Congress are trying to get them fired for indulging antisemitism; donors threaten to withdraw funding; they are supposed to be guardians of free speech and are also expected to create an environment that fosters learning and inquiry. Some outside agitators are showing up, hoping for a fight. The students, both pro-Palestinian protesters and those offended by the protests, are paying customers. And members of the faculty all think they could do a better job than the hapless administrators.

为肃清被占领的建筑而施放的闪光弹，头戴防暴头盔的警察，手铐加身的学生：哥伦比亚大学和其他美国大学校园中的情景使人仿佛回到了那个更为暴躁的年代。截至目前，全美已有1500余名学生被捕。在未来几周内，这一数字或将继续上升。对于校长们而言，这简直是梦魇般的场景。国会议员试图以纵容反犹主义滋生为由解雇他们；捐赠者扬言要撤回资金；校长们有责任去守护言论自由，也应创造出博学笃志、上下求索的学习环境。某些校外势力正在煽风点火，唯恐天下不乱。无论是支持巴勒斯坦的抗议者，还是受抗议活动影响的人，他们都是付费求学的学生。而教师们都认为自己比倒霉的行政人员更能控制好当前的局面。

As a practical question, dealing with these protests is hard. As an intellectual question, the sort debated on college campuses, it really is not. And yet clever people are tying themselves in knots over the rights and wrongs of what is going on. To the right are politicians who have spent years denouncing elite universities for being full of snowflakes who cannot bear exposure to different opinions, and are now trying to stretch the definition of antisemitism to silence views they disagree with, preferably with the help of the National Guard. To the left are students, faculty and administrators who have embraced the idea that objectionable speech is the same as violence, and are now arguing that it is fine for people to wave banners that call for actual violence (for example, “Globalise the intifada!”).

在现实层面，如何处理这些抗议活动是个难题；但在形而上的层面，即大学的“学”所在的层面，这个问题并没有那么棘手。然而，聪明人们却在是与非的问题上争论不休。在右，政客们多年来一直在谴责精英大学里都是无法容忍不同观点的玻璃心人士，如今试图却泛化“反犹主义”概念来消除异见，而且最好是出动美国国民警卫队物理消除。在左，学生、教师与行政人员早已认定“令人厌烦的言论即是暴力”，并主张人们有权为真正的暴力摇旗呐喊（比如，“让因提法达（intifada）的烈火烧遍全球！”）。

注释：

1. intifada: the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, beginning in 1987.

2. tie (sb. up) in knots: to make sb confused, anxious or upset

Given that, it is helpful to stand back and think about the principles at stake. The first is the need to protect free speech. The First Amendment is a good starting-point. Though the legal obligations of public and private universities differ, all colleges should adopt a broad definition of speech and police it neutrally. They should protect the rights of students to raise their hands in class and call Israel an apartheid state, or even to express support for Hamas, because airing bad ideas is an important part of free inquiry.

有鉴于此，不妨退一步来思考一下其中涉及的原则性问题。首先是要保护言论自由。宪法第一修正案是个不错的切入点。虽然公立大学和私立大学的法律义务并不相同，但所有大学都应该对广泛意义上的言论进行中立的管理。大学应该保护学生在课堂上举手发言的权利，哪怕他们把以色列称为种族隔离国家，甚至支持哈马斯。因为公开发表不良思想也是自由的学术探索中的重要一环。

But the First Amendment is not an instruction manual for creating a culture of learning. Letting protesters yell about globalising the intifada, intimidating Jewish students trying to get to class, is not consistent with that aim. Nor is there a free-speech right to occupy parts of a university. Freedom of assembly is also part of the First Amendment, but that does not mean protesters have a right to assemble anywhere, if doing so prevents other people from using public spaces. And damaging property is as much of a crime on campus as it is off it.

但第一修正案的目的并不在于创造自由的学术氛围。允许抗议者大喊“让因提法达的烈火烧遍全球”，恐吓正常上课的犹太裔学生，显然不符合第一修正案的目标。言论自由也并不意味着能容许学生占领部分大学校园。第一修正案里虽然规定集会自由，但这并不意味着抗议者有权在任何地方举行集会——任何集会不得妨碍他人使用公共场所。此外，不管是校园内还是校园外，破坏财产都是犯罪行为。

Protests should, wherever possible, be resolved through negotiation. Yet that requires a set of clear demands on the part of students. Some of their demands about divestment are impractical; others, such as the creation of a Palestinian state, may be consistent with government policy but are hardly within the gift of a college president; some are nonsensical. If negotiation doesn’t work, and laws and rules are broken, calling in the police is a last resort and may backfire. But universities are within their rights to do so. What those who decry the deployment of cops at Columbia and elsewhere miss is that the point of civil disobedience is sometimes to get arrested, in the hope that an unreasonable use of force draws attention to the cause and wins sympathy.

抗议活动应该尽可能通过谈判化解。然而，这需要学生提出一系列明确的诉求。一些关于撤资的要求不切实际；一些诉求（比如建立独立的巴勒斯坦国）可能符合政府政策，但大学校长们八成没有那个本事；还有一些要求则是无稽之谈。如果谈判无事于补，法律法规破坏殆尽，那么大学能采取的最后手段就是要求警方介入，虽然结果可能适得其反。但大学有权利做出这样的决定。谴责在哥伦比亚大学等地部署警察的人忽略了一点：非暴力不合作的精髓就在于被捕，目的就是让警方不合理使用武力的行为引起公众注意，并博得同情。

Thankfully, students have so far not attacked the police, and the officers have been relatively restrained. This is not 1968, when police shot 28 students and killed three at Orangeburg, South Carolina. The protests will fizzle in a few weeks, after graduation. But it will not be the end: protesters and the police may meet for a second round at the Democratic convention in Chicago in August. That could get a lot nastier.

万幸的是，截止到目前还未有学生袭警的情况出现，警方也较为克制。毕竟今不同昔，要知道在1968年，警察在南卡罗来纳州奥兰治堡县枪击了28名学生，导致3人死亡。此番抗议活动将在几周后的毕业典礼后偃旗息鼓。但这并不是终章：抗议者和警察或于八月芝加哥召开的民主党大会上进行第二轮交锋，届时场面可能会更加激烈。

翻译组：

Charlie，剃刀边缘无比锋利

Benjamin，初学翻译，爱红酒，爱美食

Octavia，键盘手和古风爵士，逃离舒适圈，有只英短叫八爷

校对组：

Clark，愿以此功德回向给众生，离苦得乐

Dossver，谁人定我去或留，定我心中的宇宙

Ithil, or be more cruel, love, and so be kind

愿景

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