【正文】 第一篇：新視界大學(xué)英語(yǔ)綜合教程第三冊(cè)Unit 5 Active reading課文及翻譯Unit 5 Active readingThe lonely AmericanAmericans in the 21st century devote more technology to staying connected than any society in history, yet somehow the devices fail us: Studies show that we feel increasingly lives are spent in a tugofwar between conflicting desires – we want to stay connected, and we want to be lurch back and forth, reaching for much of one should we give up in order to have more of the other? How do we know when we’ve got it right?Yet people in this country continue to drift need to know , let’s look at the frenetic busyness of our may be the only people in the world who believe that each individual has the right and the capacity to fit whatever he or she wants into one small is the original “You can be anything you want if you really try, and it’s never too late to start trying!” good friend described the impact of busyness on our neighborhoods brilliantly: “Being neighborly used to mean visiting being nice to your neighbors means not bothering them.” People’s lives are shaped by how busy they also are shaped by the respect and deference that is given to busyness – especially when it is valued above connection and people are considerate, they assume that their neighbors are very busy and so try not to intrude on by is no longer is simply treat socializing as if it’s a frivolous diversion from the tasks at hand rather than an activity that is essential to our wellbeing as individuals and as a our not bothering to call people(or even them)gets read by others as a sign that we are too caught up in the busy sweep of our own lives to have time for friends are not relatives may be indignant, but even they know how hard it unspoken understanding ’s too bad that we’ve lost touch, but that’s just the way it pace of everyday life may push us toward isolation, but there is a pull, as well: a very seductive picture of standing apart as a victory, not a since Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote his famous essay and Henry David Thoreau set out to embody the concept in his cabin on Walden Pond, a long series of American icons have idealized the concept of when we do find ourselves isolated, by standing tall in our own minds, side by side with selfreliant heroes, each of us is suddenly no longeralone but part of a group – a great American tradition of lonesome cowboys and goitalone psychological magic bees the spoonful of sugar that makes painful experiences of finding ourselves left out easier to may have isolated ourselves without entirely meaning to, but we also have ended up in a place that looks a lot like where we always knew that we were supposed to the outside, proud to be is also the last place on earth that a person would want to consequences of social disconnection are both extensive and remarkably begin with, social support is an important determinant of overall has significant effects on longevity, on an individual’s response to stress, on immune functions, and on the incidence of a variety of specific diseases as varied as heart attacks and dementia, medical research repeatedly has found that social networks and social activity have a protective isolation damages ecological health as rising tide of singleperson households strains the earth’s , in our consumeroriented culture, a mon solution to not having enough people in one’s life is to turn to things, objects that will define one’s identity through possessions rather than through one’s place in a social world.(We once passed an elegant store in New York City whose name summed up the problem: More and watched the shop from across the street, keeping a safe distance.)The truth is that if one can bring oneself to acknowledge loneliness, half the battle is is not an easy half of a battle, we began to talk about these ideas with friends, their first response was to passionately defend their styles of staying chosen, like so many Americans, to step back, they explained how right the choice has been for daily choices – whether to go to a local store or order off the Internet, whether to pick up a ringing telephone or let it go to voic, whether to get together with a friend or pop in a DVD – end up defining one’s social little decisions are step back a little from step back a little from feel a little left left out, unexamined, leads you to step back feeling left out, when it’s examined,can lead people to work a little harder to was never the ’s just the spot where too many people wind get stuck because the world we have wandered away from is so frantic and get stuck because we have dreamed about lonesome heroes who stand defiantly get stuck because we feel left out and stop looking for ways back should remember that the outside was not meant to be our final ，21世紀(jì)的美國(guó)人投入了比歷史上任何一個(gè)社會(huì)都要多的技術(shù)手段。然而這些手段卻辜負(fù)了我們：研究表明我們感覺(jué)越來(lái)越孤單。我們的生命花在了兩種相互矛盾的欲望之間的拉鋸戰(zhàn)上：我們想保持聯(lián)系，但我們也想自由。我們?cè)趦烧咧g徘徊，兩種狀態(tài)都想達(dá)到。如果我們想在一方面得到，那我們需要在另一方面犧牲多少呢？我們?cè)趺粗雷约菏裁磿r(shí)候達(dá)到兩者間的平衡呢？但是這個(gè)國(guó)家的人們還在疏遠(yuǎn)彼此。我們需要知道為什么。首先，讓我們來(lái)看看我們生活中的瘋狂忙碌狀態(tài)。美國(guó)人可能是世界上唯一抱有這樣一種理念的民族：每個(gè)人都有權(quán)利和能力在自己短暫的一生實(shí)現(xiàn)任何夢(mèng)想?！叭绻阏娴呐Γ憔湍艹蔀槟阆胍蔀榈娜?。只要開(kāi)始嘗試，什么時(shí)候都不晚?！泵绹?guó)就是這種思想的發(fā)源地。有個(gè)好友恰如其分地描繪了忙碌對(duì)我們鄰里生活的影響：“過(guò)去表示鄰里友好就是要相互拜訪。但現(xiàn)在，對(duì)鄰居友好就意味著不要打擾他們”。人們的生活受他們忙碌程度的影響，同時(shí)也受給予這種忙碌狀態(tài)的尊重及敬意程度的影響——特別是當(dāng)忙碌被視為比相互聯(lián)系及集體生活更重要時(shí)。如果人們考慮周到的話，他們會(huì)猜想他們的鄰居非常忙所以盡量不去打擾。順便拜訪不再是親近鄰居的表現(xiàn)，那只會(huì)顯得很沒(méi)禮貌。我們把交際當(dāng)做了手頭諸多任務(wù)中一個(gè)不起眼的小插曲，而不是一項(xiàng)對(duì)于我們個(gè)人或集體的利益都很重要的活動(dòng)。很快，我們不愿意打電話給別人（甚至也不發(fā)電郵），這種行為讓別人以為我們太忙于我們自己的生活以至無(wú)暇顧及他們。我們的朋友并不覺(jué)得奇怪。我們的親戚可能會(huì)生氣，但即使是他們也知道其中的艱辛。于是大家達(dá)成了一種默契：失去聯(lián)系是很糟糕的，但事情就是這樣。日常生活的節(jié)奏可能會(huì)把我們推向孤獨(dú)，但也有一種拉力將我們拉向孤獨(dú)：獨(dú)自一人是個(gè)誘人的畫(huà)面，這是一種勝利，而不是一種逃避。自拉爾夫沃爾多愛(ài)默生為此寫(xiě)下著名的篇章，亨利大衛(wèi)梭羅開(kāi)始在他的瓦爾登湖湖畔的小屋中身體力行后，很多美國(guó)大人物都把自立這種概念理想化了。當(dāng)我們發(fā)現(xiàn)我們確實(shí)被孤立，并與自立自強(qiáng)的英雄一起孤芳自賞時(shí)，我們每個(gè)人卻突然變得不再是獨(dú)自一人，而是一個(gè)群體中的一部分——一個(gè)偉大的美國(guó)傳統(tǒng)群體，其中有孤獨(dú)的牛仔及單打獨(dú)斗的企業(yè)家。這個(gè)心理魔術(shù)變成了一種安慰，讓我們發(fā)現(xiàn)自己被孤立不那么痛苦。也許我們孤立自己并非完全出于本意，但是我們最后所處的處境，和我們一直的預(yù)期非常相近。表面看來(lái)，我們引以為榮。這也是一個(gè)人在地球上最不愿意呆的地方。與社會(huì)脫節(jié)的后果深遠(yuǎn)而且復(fù)雜。首先，社會(huì)支持是決定全身健康的重要因素。它對(duì)于人的壽命、個(gè)體的抗壓能力、免疫功能及許多特定疾病的發(fā)作都有深遠(yuǎn)的影響。醫(yī)學(xué)研究不斷發(fā)現(xiàn)社交網(wǎng)絡(luò)及社會(huì)活動(dòng)對(duì)很多疾病，比如心臟病和癡呆癥，起著預(yù)防作用。與社會(huì)脫節(jié)同時(shí)也會(huì)影響生態(tài)健康。單人家庭的數(shù)量的增加造成了地球資源的緊張。此外，在我們以消費(fèi)者為導(dǎo)向的文化中，對(duì)于生活中沒(méi)有足夠的朋友這個(gè)問(wèn)題，一個(gè)普遍的解決