Generation Q
By Thomas L. Friedman

  I just spent  the past week visiting several colleges—Auburn, the University of Mississippi, Lake Forest and Williams—and  I can  report  that  the more  I am around this generation of college students,  the more  I am both baffed and impressed.
  I am  impressed because  they are so much more opti-mistic  and  ideaistic  than  they  should be.  I  am baffled because  they  are  so much  less  radical  and  politically engaged than they need to be.  
  One of  the  things  I  feared most  after 9.11—that my daughters would not be able  to  travel  the world with  the same carefree attitude my wife and I did at  their age—has not come to pass.
  Whether  it was at Ole Miss or Williams or my alma mater, Brandeis, college students today are not only going abroad  to study  in record numbers, but  they are also going abroad to build homes for the poor in El Salvador in record numbers or volunteering at AIDS clinics in record numbers.
  Not only has  terrorism not deterred  them  from  traveling, they are rolling up their sleeves and diving in deeper than ever.
  It’s  for all  these  reasons  that  I’ve been calling  them “Generation Q”—the Quiet Americans,  in  the best  sense of  that  term, quietly pursuing  their  idealism, at home and abroad.
  But Generation Q may be  too quiet,  too online,  for  its own good, and for the country’s own good. When I think of the huge budget defcit, social security defcit and ecolog-ical defcit  that our generation  is  leaving  this generation,  if they are not spitting mad, well, then they’re just not paying attention. And we’ll just keep piling it on them.
  There  is a good chance  that members of Generation Q will spend their entire adult lives digging out from the defcits  that we—the “Greediest Generation,” epitomized by George W. Bush—are leaving them.
  When  I was visiting my daughter at her college,  she asked me, “What happened to that Arctic story, Dad?” How could  the news media  just  report one day  that  the Arctic ice was melting  far  faster  than any models predicted “and then the story  just disappeared?” Why weren’t any of the candidates talking about it? Didn’t they understand: this has become the big issue on campuses?
  No,  they don’t  seem  to understand. They  seem  to be too busy  raising money or buying votes with subsidies  for ethanol  farmers  in  Iowa. The  candidates  could  actually use a good kick in the pants on this point. But where is it going to come from?
  Generation Q would be doing itself a favor, and America a  favor,  if  it demanded  from every candidate who comes on campus  the answers  to  three questions: What  is your plan  for mitigating climate change? What  is your plan  for reforming Social Security? What  is your plan  for dealing with  the defcit—so we all won’t be working  for China  in 20 years?
  America needs a jolt of  the  idealism,  activism  and outrage  (it must be  in  there) of Generation Q. That’s what twenty somethings are for—to light a fre under the country.
  They have  to get organized  in a way  that will  force politi-cians to pay attention rather than just patronize them.

Q 一代
托马斯• L• 弗里德曼

    我上周走访了几所大学——奥本大学、密西西比大学，森林湖学院和威廉姆斯学院。我想说的是，和这一代大学生接触越多，越觉得既感动又困惑。我感动，是因为他们大大超过了应有的乐观和理想主义。我困惑，是因为他们的思想远不像他们应该的那样活跃，那样热衷参与政治。
    9.11 事件之后我担心女儿们将不能像我和夫人在她们这个年龄时那样无忧无虑地周游世界，但这种事并未发生。
    不管是在密西西比大学、威廉姆斯学院，还是在我的母校布兰德斯大学，如今的大学生们到国外学习的人数创了历史记录，而且到国外去为圣萨尔瓦多的穷人建设家园或是志愿去艾滋病机构服务的人数也超过以往记录。恐怖主义非但没有阻碍他们周游世界，他们反而比以往任何时候都更有热情地投入其中。
    基于这些理由，我一直把他们这一代人称为“安静的一代”——安静的美国人，这是的解释：安静地追求他们的理想，无论在国内还是在国外。
    但是安静的一代也许过于安静，过于网络化了，这对他们自身和国家利益都没有好处。想想我们这一代人留给他们的巨额的预算赤字、社会保障赤字以及生态赤字，如果他们还在忍气吞声，就说明他们对此漠不关心，那我们还将不断地给他们增加各种赤字。
    很有可能，安静的一代将把一辈子的成人时间都花在偿还我们这些布什称之为“贪婪的一代”所留下的赤字上。当我去女儿的大学看望她时，她问我： “爸爸，北极到底发生了什么事情？ ”我的女儿问我，新闻媒体怎么能突然有报道说北极冰盖融化的速度要远远快于一切模型所预测的速度， “然后故事就没有下文了。 ”为什么没有政界的候选人谈论此事？难道他们不知道：这已经是校园的重大事件了吗？
    是的，他们似乎是不知道。他们似乎太忙于筹集钱款或是用爱荷华州的农场主的津贴购买选票。事实上候选人在这一问题上本可以进行批评指责，但是哪个候选人会这样做呢？
如果大学生们要求每一个到大学演讲的候选人回答三个问题：你如何减轻气候变暖？如何改革社会保障制度？如何应对贸易赤字以免 20 年后我们都给中国打工？这样的话，安静的一代也许帮了他们自己，也帮了美国一个大忙。
    美国需要唤醒“安静的一代”的理想主义、行动主义和义愤填膺（这一点必须坚持不懈）。 这才有点像20多岁的年轻人做的事——使这个国家充满活力。他们必须组织起来，以迫使政客们关注他们，而不仅仅只是资助。
——选自《我爱读英文》