时间:2019-02-23 作者:英语课 分类:英语语言学习


英语课
"Give me liberty or give me death."
 
When Patrick Henry, the governor of Virginia, said these words in 1775, he could never have imagined just how much they would come to resonate with American generations to come. At the time, these words were earmarked and targeted against the British, but over the last 200 years, they've come to embody 3 what many Westerners believe, that freedom is the most cherished value, and that the best systems of politics and economics have freedom embedded 4 in them. Who could blame them? Over the past hundred years, the combination of liberal democracy and private capitalism 5 has helped to catapult the United States and Western countries to new levels of economic development. In the United States over the past hundred years, incomes have increased 30 times, and hundreds of thousands of people have been moved out of poverty. Meanwhile, American ingenuity 6 and innovation has helped to spur industrialization and also helped in the creation and the building of things like household appliances such as refrigerators and televisions, motor vehicles and even the mobile phones in your pockets. It's no surprise, then, that even at the depths of the private capitalism crisis, President Obama said, "The question before us is not whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and to expand freedom is unmatched." Thus, there's understandably a deep-seated presumption 8 among Westerners that the whole world will decide to adopt private capitalism as the model of economic growth, liberal democracy, and will continue to prioritize political rights over economic rights.
 
However, to many who live in the emerging markets, this is an illusion, and even though the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was signed in 1948, was unanimously adopted, what it did was to mask a schism 9 that has emerged between developed and developing countries, and the ideological 10 beliefs between political and economic rights. This schism has only grown wider. Today, many people who live in the emerging markets, where 90 percent of the world's population lives, believe that the Western obsession 11 with political rights is beside the point, and what is actually important is delivering on food, shelter, education and healthcare. "Give me liberty or give me death" is all well and good if you can afford it, but if you're living on less than one dollar a day, you're far too busy trying to survive and to provide for your family than to spend your time going around trying to proclaim and defend democracy.
 
Now, I know many people in this room and around the world will think, "Well actually, this is hard to grasp," because private capitalism and liberal democracy are held sacrosanct 12. But I ask you today, what would you do if you had to choose? What if you had to choose between a roof over your head and the right to vote?
 
Over the last 10 years, I've had the privilege to travel to over 60 countries, many of them in the emerging markets, in Latin America, Asia, and my own continent of Africa. I've met with presidents, dissidents, policymakers, lawyers, teachers, doctors and the man on the street, and through these conversations, it's become clear to me that many people in the emerging markets believe that there's actually a split occurring between what people believe ideologically 13 in terms of politics and economics in the West and that which people believe in the rest of the world.
 
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying people in the emerging markets don't understand democracy, nor am I saying that they wouldn't ideally like to pick their presidents or their leaders. Of course they would. However, I am saying that on balance, they worry more about where their living standard improvements are going to come from, and how it is their governments can deliver for them, than whether or not the government was elected by democracy.
 
The fact of the matter is that this has become a very poignant 14 question because there is for the first time in a long time a real challenge to the Western ideological systems of politics and economics, and this is a system that is embodied 15 by China. And rather than have private capitalism, they have state capitalism. Instead of liberal democracy, they have de-prioritized the democratic system. And they have also decided 16 to prioritize economic rights over political rights. I put it to you today that it is this system that is embodied by China that is gathering 17 momentum 18 amongst people in the emerging markets as the system to follow, because they believe increasingly that it is the system that will promise the best and fastest improvements in living standards in the shortest period of time. If you will indulge me, I will spend a few moments explaining to you first why economically they've come to this belief.
 
First of all, it's China's economic performance over the past 30 years. She's been able to produce record economic growth and meaningfully move many people out of poverty, specifically putting a meaningful dent 7 in poverty by moving over 300 million people out of indigence 19. It's not just in economics, but it's also in terms of living standards. We see that in China, 28 percent of people had secondary school access. Today, it's closer to 82 percent. So in its totality, economic improvement has been quite significant.
 
Second, China has been able to meaningfully improve its income inequality without changing the political construct. Today, the United States and China are the two leading economies in the world. They have vastly different political systems and different economic systems, one with private capitalism, another one broadly with state capitalism. However, these two countries have the identical GINI Coefficient, which is a measure of income equality. Perhaps what is more disturbing is that China's income equality has been improving in recent times, whereas that of the United States has been declining.
 
Thirdly, people in the emerging markets look at China's amazing and legendary 20 infrastructure 21 rollout. This is not just about China building roads and ports and railways in her own country -- she's been able to build 85,000 kilometers of road network in China and surpass that of the United States -- but even if you look to places like Africa, China has been able to help tar 1 the distance of Cape 22 Town to Cairo, which is 9,000 miles, or three times the distance of New York to California. Now this is something that people can see and point to. Perhaps it's no surprise that in a 2007 Pew survey, when surveyed, Africans in 10 countries said they thought that the Chinese were doing amazing things to improve their livelihoods 23 by wide margins 24, by as much as 98 percent.
 
Finally, China is also providing innovative 25 solutions to age-old social problems that the world faces. If you travel to Mogadishu, Mexico City or Mumbai, you find that dilapidated infrastructure and logistics continue to be a stumbling block to the delivery of medicine and healthcare in the rural areas. However, through a network of state-owned enterprises, the Chinese have been able to go into these rural areas, using their companies to help deliver on these healthcare solutions.
 
Ladies and gentlemen, it's no surprise that around the world, people are pointing at what China is doing and saying, "I like that. I want that. I want to be able to do what China's doing. That is the system that seems to work." I'm here to also tell you that there are lots of shifts occurring around what China is doing in the democratic stance. In particular, there is growing doubt among people in the emerging markets, when people now believe that democracy is no longer to be viewed as a prerequisite 26 for economic growth. In fact, countries like Taiwan, Singapore, Chile, not just China, have shown that actually, it's economic growth that is a prerequisite for democracy. In a recent study, the evidence has shown that income is the greatest determinant of how long a democracy can last. The study found that if your per capita income is about 1,000 dollars a year, your democracy will last about eight and a half years. If your per capita income is between 2,000 and 4,000 dollars per year, then you're likely to only get 33 years of democracy. And only if your per capita income is above 6,000 dollars a year will you have democracy come hell or high water.
 
What this is telling us is that we need to first establish a middle class that is able to hold the government accountable. But perhaps it's also telling us that we should be worried about going around the world and shoehorning democracy, because ultimately we run the risk of ending up with illiberal 27 democracies, democracies that in some sense could be worse than the authoritarian 28 governments that they seek to replace.
 
The evidence around illiberal democracies is quite depressing. Freedom House finds that although 50 percent of the world's countries today are democratic, 70 percent of those countries are illiberal in the sense that people don't have free speech or freedom of movement. But also, we're finding from Freedom House in a study that they published last year that freedom has been on the decline every year for the past seven years.
 
What this says is that for people like me who care about liberal democracy, is we've got to find a more sustainable way of ensuring that we have a sustainable form of democracy in a liberal way, and that has its roots in economics. But it also says that as China moves toward being the largest economy in the world, something that is expected to happen by experts in 2016, that this schism between the political and economic ideologies 29 of the West and the rest is likely to widen.
 
What might that world look like? Well, the world could look like more state involvement and state capitalism; greater protectionisms of nation-states; but also, as I just pointed 30 out a moment ago, ever-declining political rights and individual rights.
 
The question that is left for us in general is, what then should the West be doing? And I suggest that they have two options. The West can either compete or cooperate. If the West chooses to compete with the Chinese model, and in effect go around the world and continue to try and push an agenda of private capitalism and liberal democracy, this is basically going against headwinds, but it also would be a natural stance for the West to take because in many ways it is the antithesis 31 of the Chinese model of de-prioritizing democracy, and state capitalism. Now the fact of the matter is, if the West decides to compete, it will create a wider schism. The other option is for the West to cooperate, and by cooperating I mean giving the emerging market countries the flexibility 32 to figure out in an organic way what political and economic system works best for them.
 
Now I'm sure some of you in the room will be thinking, well, this is like ceding 33 to China, and this is a way, in other words, for the West to take a back seat. But I put it to you that if the United States and European countries want to remain globally influential 34, they may have to consider cooperating in the short term in order to compete, and by that, they might have to focus more aggressively on economic outcomes to help create the middle class and therefore be able to hold government accountable and create the democracies that we really want.
 
The fact of the matter is that instead of going around the world and haranguing 35 countries for engaging with China, the West should be encouraging its own businesses to trade and invest in these regions. Instead of criticizing China for bad behavior, the West should be showing how it is that their own system of politics and economics is the superior one. And instead of shoehorning democracy around the world, perhaps the West should take a leaf out of its own history book and remember that it takes a lot of patience in order to develop the models and the systems that you have today. Indeed, the Supreme 36 Court Justice Stephen Breyer reminds us that it took the United States nearly 170 years from the time that the Constitution was written for there to be equal rights in the United States. Some people would argue that today there is still no equal rights. In fact, there are groups who would argue that they still do not have equal rights under the law.
 
At its very best, the Western model speaks for itself. It's the model that put food on the table. It's the refrigerators. It put a man on the moon. But the fact of the matter is, although people back in the day used to point at the Western countries and say, "I want that, I like that," there's now a new person in town in the form of a country, China. Today, generations are looking at China and saying, "China can produce infrastructure, China can produce economic growth, and we like that."
 
Because ultimately, the question before us, and the question before seven billion people on the planet is, how can we create prosperity? People who care and will pivot 37 towards the model of politics and economics in a very rational way, to those models that will ensure that they can have better living standards in the shortest period of time.
 
As you leave here today, I would like to leave you with a very personal message, which is what it is that I believe we should be doing as individuals, and this is really about being open-minded, open-minded to the fact that our hopes and dreams of creating prosperity for people around the world, creating and meaningfully putting a dent in poverty for hundreds of millions of people, has to be based in being open-minded, because these systems have good things and they have bad things.
 
Just to illustrate 38, I went into my annals of myself. That's a picture of me.
 
Awww. (Laughter)
 
I was born and raised in Zambia in 1969. At the time of my birth, blacks were not issued birth certificates, and that law only changed in 1973. This is an affidavit 39 from the Zambian government. I bring this to you to tell you that in 40 years, I've gone from not being recognized as a human being to standing 40 in front of the illustrious TED 2 crowd today to talk to you about my views. In this vein 41, we can increase economic growth. We can meaningfully put a dent in poverty. But also, it's going to require that we look at our assumptions, assumptions and strictures that we've grown up with around democracy, around private capitalism, around what creates economic growth and reduces poverty and creates freedoms. We might have to tear those books up and start to look at other options and be open-minded to seek the truth. Ultimately, it's about transforming the world and making it a better place.
 
Thank you very much.

n.柏油,焦油;vt.涂或浇柏油/焦油于
  • The roof was covered with tar.屋顶涂抹了一层沥青。
  • We use tar to make roads.我们用沥青铺路。
vt.翻晒,撒,撒开
  • The invaders gut ted the village.侵略者把村中财物洗劫一空。
  • She often teds the corn when it's sunny.天好的时候她就翻晒玉米。
vt.具体表达,使具体化;包含,收录
  • The latest locomotives embody many new features. 这些最新的机车具有许多新的特色。
  • Hemingway's characters plainly embody his own values and view of life.海明威笔下的角色明确反映出他自己的价值观与人生观。
a.扎牢的
  • an operation to remove glass that was embedded in his leg 取出扎入他腿部玻璃的手术
  • He has embedded his name in the minds of millions of people. 他的名字铭刻在数百万人民心中。
n.资本主义
  • The essence of his argument is that capitalism cannot succeed.他的论点的核心是资本主义不能成功。
  • Capitalism began to develop in Russia in the 19th century.十九世纪资本主义在俄国开始发展。
n.别出心裁;善于发明创造
  • The boy showed ingenuity in making toys.那个小男孩做玩具很有创造力。
  • I admire your ingenuity and perseverance.我钦佩你的别出心裁和毅力。
n.凹痕,凹坑;初步进展
  • I don't know how it came about but I've got a dent in the rear of my car.我不知道是怎么回事,但我的汽车后部有了一个凹痕。
  • That dent is not big enough to be worth hammering out.那个凹陷不大,用不着把它锤平。
n.推测,可能性,冒昧,放肆,[法律]推定
  • Please pardon my presumption in writing to you.请原谅我很冒昧地写信给你。
  • I don't think that's a false presumption.我认为那并不是错误的推测。
n.分派,派系,分裂
  • The church seems to be on the brink of schism.教会似乎处于分裂的边缘。
  • While some predict schism,others predict a good old fashioned compromise.在有些人预测分裂的同时,另一些人预测了有益的老式妥协。
a.意识形态的
  • He always tries to link his study with his ideological problems. 他总是把学习和自己的思想问题联系起来。
  • He helped me enormously with advice on how to do ideological work. 他告诉我怎样做思想工作,对我有很大帮助。
n.困扰,无法摆脱的思想(或情感)
  • I was suffering from obsession that my career would be ended.那时的我陷入了我的事业有可能就此终止的困扰当中。
  • She would try to forget her obsession with Christopher.她会努力忘记对克里斯托弗的迷恋。
adj.神圣不可侵犯的
  • In India,the cow is a sacrosanct animal.牛在印度是神圣的动物。
  • Philip Glass is ignorant of establishing an immutable, sacrosanct urtext.菲利普·格拉斯不屑于创立不变的、神圣的原始文本。
adv. 意识形态上地,思想上地
  • Ideologically, they have many differences. 在思想意识上,他们之间有许多不同之处。
  • He has slipped back ideologically. 他思想退步了。
adj.令人痛苦的,辛酸的,惨痛的
  • His lyrics are as acerbic and poignant as they ever have been.他的歌词一如既往的犀利辛辣。
  • It is especially poignant that he died on the day before his wedding.他在婚礼前一天去世了,这尤其令人悲恸。
v.表现( embody的过去式和过去分词 );象征;包括;包含
  • a politician who embodied the hopes of black youth 代表黑人青年希望的政治家
  • The heroic deeds of him embodied the glorious tradition of the troops. 他的英雄事迹体现了军队的光荣传统。 来自《简明英汉词典》
adj.决定了的,坚决的;明显的,明确的
  • This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
  • There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。
n.集会,聚会,聚集
  • He called on Mr. White to speak at the gathering.他请怀特先生在集会上讲话。
  • He is on the wing gathering material for his novels.他正忙于为他的小说收集资料。
n.动力,冲力,势头;动量
  • We exploit the energy and momentum conservation laws in this way.我们就是这样利用能量和动量守恒定律的。
  • The law of momentum conservation could supplant Newton's third law.动量守恒定律可以取代牛顿第三定律。
n.贫穷
  • His present indigence is a sufficient punishment for former folly.他现在所受的困苦足够惩罚他从前的胡作非为了。
  • North korea's indigence is almost as scary as its belligerence.朝鲜的贫乏几乎和其好战一样可怕。
adj.传奇(中)的,闻名遐迩的;n.传奇(文学)
  • Legendary stories are passed down from parents to children.传奇故事是由父母传给孩子们的。
  • Odysseus was a legendary Greek hero.奥狄修斯是传说中的希腊英雄。
n.下部构造,下部组织,基础结构,基础设施
  • We should step up the development of infrastructure for research.加强科学基础设施建设。
  • We should strengthen cultural infrastructure and boost various types of popular culture.加强文化基础设施建设,发展各类群众文化。
n.海角,岬;披肩,短披风
  • I long for a trip to the Cape of Good Hope.我渴望到好望角去旅行。
  • She was wearing a cape over her dress.她在外套上披着一件披肩。
生计,谋生之道( livelihood的名词复数 )
  • First came the earliest individualistic pioneers who depended on hunting and fishing for their livelihoods. 走在最前面的是早期的个人主义先驱者,他们靠狩猎捕鱼为生。 来自英汉非文学 - 政府文件
  • With little influence over policies, their traditional livelihoods are threatened. 因为马赛族人对政策的影响力太小,他们的传统生计受到了威胁。
边( margin的名词复数 ); 利润; 页边空白; 差数
  • They have always had to make do with relatively small profit margins. 他们不得不经常设法应付较少的利润额。
  • To create more space between the navigation items, add left and right margins to the links. 在每个项目间留更多的空隙,加左或者右的margins来定义链接。
adj.革新的,新颖的,富有革新精神的
  • Discover an innovative way of marketing.发现一个创新的营销方式。
  • He was one of the most creative and innovative engineers of his generation.他是他那代人当中最富创造性与革新精神的工程师之一。
n.先决条件;adj.作为前提的,必备的
  • Stability and unity are a prerequisite to the four modernizations.安定团结是实现四个现代化的前提。
  • It is a prerequisite of entry to the profession that you pass the exams.做这一行的先决条件是要通过了有关的考试。
adj.气量狭小的,吝啬的
  • His views are markedly illiberal.他的观点非常狭隘。
  • Don't be illiberal in your words to show your love.不要吝啬自己的语言表达你的情感。
n./adj.专制(的),专制主义者,独裁主义者
  • Foreign diplomats suspect him of authoritarian tendencies.各国外交官怀疑他有着独裁主义倾向。
  • The authoritarian policy wasn't proved to be a success.独裁主义的政策证明并不成功。
n.思想(体系)( ideology的名词复数 );思想意识;意识形态;观念形态
  • There is no fundamental diversity between the two ideologies. 这两种思想意识之间并没有根本的分歧。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • Radical ideologies require to contrast to their own goodness the wickedness of some other system. 凡是过激的意识形态,都需要有另外一个丑恶的制度作对比,才能衬托出自己的善良。 来自辞典例句
adj.尖的,直截了当的
  • He gave me a very sharp pointed pencil.他给我一支削得非常尖的铅笔。
  • She wished to show Mrs.John Dashwood by this pointed invitation to her brother.她想通过对达茨伍德夫人提出直截了当的邀请向她的哥哥表示出来。
n.对立;相对
  • The style of his speech was in complete antithesis to mine.他和我的讲话方式完全相反。
  • His creation was an antithesis to academic dogmatism of the time.他的创作与当时学院派的教条相对立。
n.柔韧性,弹性,(光的)折射性,灵活性
  • Her great strength lies in her flexibility.她的优势在于她灵活变通。
  • The flexibility of a man's muscles will lessen as he becomes old.人老了肌肉的柔韧性将降低。
v.让给,割让,放弃( cede的现在分词 )
  • He was ceding line but more slowly all the time. 他正在放出钓索,然而越来越慢了。 来自英汉文学 - 老人与海
  • Settlement would require ceding some Egyptian territory. 解决办法将要求埃及让出一些领土。 来自辞典例句
adj.有影响的,有权势的
  • He always tries to get in with the most influential people.他总是试图巴结最有影响的人物。
  • He is a very influential man in the government.他在政府中是个很有影响的人物。
v.高谈阔论( harangue的现在分词 )
  • He continued in his customary, haranguing style. 他继续以他一贯的夸夸其谈的手法讲下去。 来自辞典例句
  • That lady was still haranguing the girl. 那位女士仍然对那女孩喋喋不休地训斥。 来自互联网
adj.极度的,最重要的;至高的,最高的
  • It was the supreme moment in his life.那是他一生中最重要的时刻。
  • He handed up the indictment to the supreme court.他把起诉书送交最高法院。
v.在枢轴上转动;装枢轴,枢轴;adj.枢轴的
  • She is the central pivot of creation and represents the feminine aspect in all things.她是创造的中心枢轴,表现出万物的女性面貌。
  • If a spring is present,the hand wheel will pivot on the spring.如果有弹簧,手轮的枢轴会装在弹簧上。
v.举例说明,阐明;图解,加插图
  • The company's bank statements illustrate its success.这家公司的银行报表说明了它的成功。
  • This diagram will illustrate what I mean.这个图表可说明我的意思。
n.宣誓书
  • I gave an affidavit to the judge about the accident I witnessed.我向法官提交了一份关于我目击的事故的证词。
  • The affidavit was formally read to the court.书面证词正式向出席法庭的人宣读了。
n.持续,地位;adj.永久的,不动的,直立的,不流动的
  • After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
  • They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。
n.血管,静脉;叶脉,纹理;情绪;vt.使成脉络
  • The girl is not in the vein for singing today.那女孩今天没有心情唱歌。
  • The doctor injects glucose into the patient's vein.医生把葡萄糖注射入病人的静脉。
学英语单词
'toons
absolute mean deviation
aggregometer
Agropoli
air-cooled graphite moderated reactor
aldehydic hydrogen
allomerisms
apex of earth motion
apodized aperture
beat-box
Bidens coronata
branded goods
broad-bean plants
Bulsār
candelabras
cheque board scan
cismadinone
Cleveland steamers
cmos gate array
contiguous sea area
cotton core
covariants
dahira obliquifascia
Danjuro
darkness adaption
directed set
divine-mind
dorsal tegmental nucleus
economic recession
epidote amphibolite
femtowebers
framework of fault
get too big for one's boots
hard right
Harmsworth, Harold Sidney
high-moisture grain silage
housekeeping digit
hydrofine
hydroiodination
industrial radiology
Itard-Cholewa sign
kaga
Kovel'
latricia
let something slide
manitology
meristoderm
Montsec
neutral position of brush
NOESY
nondefinable
nonstructural
observe measure s
periodontologists
physical shape
pincloth
polydelphous
polymorphic transition
poure
pure space science
quality circles
qualling
quantum step
Raphidia
recall of witness
regulize
reinforced concrete fence
renal embolism
reticulated veins
round mallet
scifier
selective conversion
self-murderer
sensitive plate processing
shaker convyer
sheet-ice
side tilt car
slimy waste material
small business management
smoothing by free hand
soil depleting crop
solar blind photomultiplier
speed matching
ST_easy-and-difficult_causing-difficulties-for-oneself-or-others
state correspondence error
strip a peg
super highway
tackle pulley
tar cooler box
telegraph selector
the book of fate
thread mill
three-putts
tighter than the barkon a tree
trisomy 18 syndrome
undivined
uniflow cooler
value insured rail traffic
wall of sound
whoopee do
Yemurtla
zookeep