A Generation in Too Safe a Place

這一代年輕人：習於安穩，逃避風險！

By Roger Cohen

London

Pity the young. There are 5.5 million 15- to 24-year-olds without a job in the European Union, a rate of 22.4 percent, up from 15 percent in early 2008. In Spain and Greece, about half of young people are out of work. The jobs they can find are often short-term contracts.
年輕人真慘啊！在整個歐盟地區，共有550萬名15到24歲的年輕人找不到工作，失業率高達22.4%，遠高於2008年年初的15%。在西班牙與希臘，更有約半數的年輕人失業。就算能找到工作，也多半是短期工作。

College education, once free in Europe, can now cost a lot, though still less than in the United States. Housing is expensive enough to have created a “boomerang generation” – kids obliged to return home because they can’t afford to live anywhere else. Work, if it is ever found, will have to be pursued longer as retirement ages recede. No wonder another phrase – “the jinxed generation” – is doing the rounds.
在歐洲，讀大學一度完全免費，現在則要花不少錢，雖然仍然比美國便宜。而房價之高，已締造出「倦飛世代（亦稱回力棒世代或回巢族 ）」 － 孩子不得不搬回家住，因為除此以外他們哪兒也住不起。由於退休年齡延後，一旦找到工作，就必須有長期抗戰的打算。也難怪另一種稱呼 －「歹命世代」會甚囂塵上。

I confess: my baby-boomer generation had it pretty good, spared the wars of our forebears, born in the midst of the 30-year postwar economic miracle, enjoying the sweet spot between the arrival of the pill in the early 1960s and the onset of AIDS. We grew up without the relentless competitiveness and e-mail addictions of a connected world. Ours were the blessings of late birth – after Europe’s trench warfare – and of early birth – before the decline of the West.
我承認：我所屬的嬰兒潮世代非常幸運；上一輩人替我們打完了仗，又出生在戰後30年經濟奇蹟時期的中段班；享受到1960年代初期避孕藥問世與愛滋病出現之前的這段甜美時光。我們在一個既沒有殘酷競爭，也沒有電子郵件讓我們沉溺於網路世界的環境下長大。

It’s tougher today even if the plight of modern youth tends to get overstated. The problem, after all, is principally the West’s: Indian, Indonesian and Brazilian kids have plenty of cause for rational exuberance. Everywhere the young can look forward to longer lives in a richer world of more open societies less inclined to go to war – unless the trends of recent decades are somehow reversed.
我們幸好生得夠晚 － 能躲過歐洲的兵連禍結；也幸好生得夠早 － 能趕在西方世界衰落之前。儘管當代年輕人所處的困境往往言過其實，但眼前的情況的確較為嚴峻。畢竟，這基本上是西方世界的問題：印度、印尼與巴西的孩童們，則有充分的理由享有合理的繁榮。世界各地的年輕人都能夠憧憬在一個更富裕，更開放，且較不可能發生戰爭的社會與世界裡活得更久 － 除非數十年來的勢頭發生逆轉。

What they cannot look forward to, and what my generation was just in time to know, is something whose emotional impact is hard to measure: a world unmapped. There is a lot to be said for mystery. It’s receding apace now that satellites can track your every move and apps satisfy your every curiosity. The worst recession may be that of the mysterious because when it goes so does the appetite for risk. Safety often seems to be a limiting obsession these days.
他們所無法期望的，也是我這一代人才還來得及體會到的，是個對情感的衝擊難以衡量的東西：一個「不測」的世界。神祕難測的世界為用者大矣。然而目前它正迅速 縮小，衛星能夠追蹤你的一舉一動，行動應用程式能夠滿足你所有的好奇心。最可怕的衰退可能就是神祕難測世界的衰退，因為人們承擔風險的胃口也隨之大為縮小。這些年來，人們往往執迷於安全而自我侷限。

I said the world has grown more open. By almost all measures that is true: the Soviet Union and its empire are gone and the free flow of information continues to topple dictators. On the other hand, when I was 17 I drove with two friends (but without guidebooks) from London to Kabul, across Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan – a journey now impossible because the Islamic Republic is off limits to Western travelers and Afghanistan is at war.
我前面說過，當今世界日益開放。幾乎所有的衡量標準皆能證明此點：蘇聯及其帝國已成過去，而資訊的自由流通正繼續扳倒其他的獨裁者。但在另一方面，我17歲時就曾經跟兩個朋友一起從倫敦開車（沒有旅行指南）橫越土耳其、伊朗及阿富汗，到達喀布爾   － 現在要再走這段路程已經不可能，因為西方國家的觀光客禁止前往伊朗，而阿富汗還在打仗。

By that personal measure the world has grown more closed. And perhaps the minds of young people are at risk of becoming more closed – saturated with information from screens but blind to what is in front of their eyes. Aversion to risk and attraction to the blame game appear to be two of the unhappier fruits of technology’s advance.
從這種個人化的標準來看，世界已變得更加緊密。而年輕人的思想也可能變得更加封閉－ 被來自螢幕的各種資訊塞爆，對眼前的事物卻視若無睹。規避風險及相互指責，顯然是科技進步帶來的兩大不愉快結果。

A report just published by the National Trust in Britain found that fewer than one in 10 kids regularly play in wild places, compared with almost half a generation ago, and that while 9 out of 10 could recognize the science fiction robot known as a Dalek, half could not tell the difference between a bee and a wasp. A phrase coined by the author Richard Louv – “nature deficit disorder” – is also making the rounds.
英國國民信託組織剛發表的一份報告發現，在10個兒童裡，常到野外玩耍的還不到1個，上一代則為數近半；儘管十有八九的孩童都認得科幻小說中的獨眼機器人達雷克，卻有一半不知蜜蜂和黃蜂有何差別。由作家理查．勞夫所創造的一個新名詞 － 「自然常識不足失調症」，可謂雖不中、亦不遠矣！

Perhaps it’s a stretch to link youthful moroseness with screen addiction, declining appetite for risk and alienation from the natural world. Baby boomers are now well-known curmudgeons, overprotective of their children and over-inclined to ascribe every ill to computer games. Often defeated by technology we tend to blame technology.
硬把當代年輕人的鬱悶與沉溺於電腦螢幕、更不願冒險及與自然界疏離扯在一起，或許有些過了頭。眾所周知，嬰兒潮世代相當吝嗇，過度保護子女，而且動輒把一切問題推給電腦遊戲。我們因為經常被科技打敗，所以習慣把一切都歸咎於科技。

Still, I sense that the young could risk more rather than wallow. There is a huge disparity between youth unemployment in Southern and Northern Europe. The European Union is a single market so you’d think a lot of the jobless young in Greece and Spain would head north in search of employment. Apparently not: it’s too much of a risk and too unmapped a journey for the “jinxed generation.”
我仍然認為年輕人可以承擔更多風險，而非只是縱情玩樂。南歐與北歐年輕人失業率相差極大。歐盟是一個單一市場，因此你會認為許多失業的希臘與西班牙年輕人會到北邊去找工作。實情顯然並非如此：對「歹命世代」而言，這段旅程風險太高，也太難測了。

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2012-04-24聯合報/G5版/UNITEDDAILYNEWS 任中原譯 原文參見紐時週報二版上