考研英語閱讀:后世會責(zé)備我們什么?

What Will Future Generations Condemn Us for?

后世會責(zé)備我們什么？

Through the middle of the 19th century, the US and other nations in the Americas approved of plantation slavery. Looking back at such horrors, it is easy to ask: What were people thinking? Yet, the chances are that our own descendants will ask the same question, with the same incomprehension, about some of our practices today. Here are three contenders for future moral condemnation.

直到 19 世紀(jì)中期，美國以及美洲其他國家還認(rèn)可奴隸制?；仡櫄v史上諸如此類的恐怖行徑，我們不禁會問：古人他們當(dāng)時是怎么想的？然而，對于我們當(dāng)前的一些行為，我們的后代也許會提出同樣的質(zhì)疑，而且同樣會令他們感到費解。我們來看看未來可能引發(fā)譴責(zé)的三件事。

Industrial meat production. Of the more than 90 million cattle in our country, at least 10 million at any time are packed into feedlots, saved from the inevitable diseases of overcrowding only by regular doses of antibiotics, surrounded by piles of their own excrement. In the European Union, many of the most inhumane conditions we allow are already illegal or will be illegal soon.

肉類生產(chǎn)工業(yè)化。美國有 9000 多萬頭牛，至少 1000 萬頭終年被關(guān)在飼養(yǎng)場里。過度擁擠容易引發(fā)疾病，于是它們只能靠定期打抗生素來避免疾病。它們身邊是成堆的牛糞。在歐盟，許多最不人道的做法已經(jīng)被視為非法行為，或者即將成為非法行為。

The institutionalized and isolated elderly. Nearly two million of America's elderly are warehoused in nursing homes, out of sight and, to some extent, out of mind. Some 10,000 for-profit facilities have arisen across the country in recent decades to hold them. Other elderly Americans may live independently, but often they are isolated and cut off from their families. Is this what Western modernity amounts to-societies that feel no filial obligations to their inconvenient elders?

養(yǎng)老院里的孤獨終老的老人。在美國有將近 2000 萬老人生活在養(yǎng)老院里，他們遠(yuǎn)離了公眾的視線，在一定程度上也遠(yuǎn)離了我們的思緒。美國在過去的幾十年里建起了近萬所營利性的養(yǎng)老機構(gòu)。沒有被送進養(yǎng)老院的老年人雖然獨立生活，但往往受到冷落，很少與家人接觸。整個社會都覺得沒必要孝敬老人，難道這就是西方的現(xiàn)代社會嗎？

The environment. Of course, of these the most obvious candidate for condemnation is our wasteful attitude toward the planet's natural resources and ecology. Desertification, which is primarily the result of destructive land-management practices, threatens a third of the Earth's surface; tens of thousands of Chinese villages have been overrun by sand drifts in the past few decades.

環(huán)境問題。毫無疑問，在人類種種行徑中，最該受到譴責(zé)的就是我們對地球自然資源和生態(tài)的浪費。全球有三分之一的陸地面臨沙漠化的威脅。幾十年間，流沙掩埋了中國的許多村落。

Let's not stop there, though. We will all have our own suspicions about which practices will someday prompt people to ask, in dismay: What were they thinking，even when we don't have a good answer, we'll be better off for anticipating the question.

能列舉的事實還遠(yuǎn)不止這些。我們都應(yīng)該思量思量，我們哪些行為會令后世子孫沮喪地問：他們都是怎么想的？盡管我們沒有最佳答案，但只要把這個問題銘記在心，我們的境況就會有所改善。

 

 

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