随着八月底全新美校开学季的到来，一封来自26位常春藤大学教授联名撰写的建议书也一并交到了新生们的手中。在这份发布于普利斯顿大学官网的建议书中，教授们对即将前来就读的新生们致以了最诚挚的祝贺，并告诫大家要时刻保持独立思考和不盲从的求是精神。那么今天，我们就一起来看看这份由哈佛、耶鲁和普利斯顿教授们写就的新生建议书到底内容几何吧。
Some Thoughts and Advice
for Our Students and All Students
We are scholars and teachers at Princeton, Harvard, and Yale who have some thoughts to share and advice to offer students who are headed off to colleges around the country. Our advice can be distilled to three words:
Think for yourself.
作为来自普林斯顿、哈佛和耶鲁的学者和教师，我们希望在这里分享一些建议给到目前正奔赴大学报到的学子们。我们的建议可以精炼为三个英文单词：
Think for yourself.（你需要独立思考。）
Now, that might sound easy. But you will find—as you may have discovered already in high school—that thinking for yourself can be a challenge. It always demands self-discipline and these days can require courage.
现在听起来也许很简单，但你将发现——就如同你已在高中阶段就知道的——独立思考也许会是一个挑战。它需要你的自我约束力，而现如今更需要你的勇气。
In today’s climate, it’s all-too-easy to allow your views and outlook to be shaped by dominant opinion on your campus or in the broader academic culture. The danger any student—or faculty member—faces today is falling into the vice of conformism, yielding to groupthink.
在当今环境下，你的观点和想象力很容易被校园里的那些主流观点或是学术文化中的大多数“定形”。因此目前学生或教职工人员所面临的危险便是掉入因循守旧和随大流思考的陷阱。
At many colleges and universities what John Stuart Mill called “the tyranny of public opinion” does more than merely discourage students from dissenting from prevailing views on moral, political, and other types of questions. It leads them to suppose that dominant views are so obviously correct that only a bigot or a crank could question them.
许多院校就如同John Stuart（1806-1873，英国著名哲学家、心理学家和经济学家）所说的那样：“对于民众表达观点的意愿态度专横”。它们不仅阻挠学生对涉及道德、政治和其他各类的问题提出异议，还要求学生仅接受主流观点并假设它们肯定是正确无误或是毋庸置疑的，而这更会让大家误以为提出异议者就是偏执或是古怪的人。
Since no one wants to be, or be thought of as, a bigot or a crank, the easy, lazy way to proceed is simply by falling into line with campus orthodoxies.
也正因为没人想要成为大家所说的偏执或古怪的人，选择和校园里的主流观点站在同一队变成了一种最为容易和轻松的选择。
Don’t do that. Think for yourself.
但是不要那样做。你需要的是独立思考。
Thinking for yourself means questioning dominant ideas even when others insist on their being treated as unquestionable. It means deciding what one believes not by conforming to fashionable opinions, but by taking the trouble to learn and honestly consider the strongest arguments to be advanced on both or all sides of questions—including arguments for positions that others revile and want to stigmatize and against positions others seek to immunize from critical scrutiny.
独立思考意味着向主流观点发出质疑，即算是其他人都将自己的想法当做毋庸置疑。这其实将决定一个人的认知事务本真的过程，它并该是盲从于时下最为流行的观点，而是通过克服困难、不断学习和真实地考量各方质询的优劣合理性而得出。当然，这过程也将不乏其他人的诋毁、污蔑甚至是对异见均持拒绝态度的蛮横无理。
The love of truth and the desire to attain it should motivate you to think for yourself. The central point of a college education is to seek truth and to learn the skills and acquire the virtues necessary to be a lifelong truth-seeker. Open-mindedness, critical thinking, and debate are essential to discovering the truth. Moreover, they are our best antidotes to bigotry.
对于真理的热爱以及渴望将促使你学会独立思考。高等教育的核心是探索真知并习得技能，同时收获德行成为一个终身受益的追求真理者。开放的胸怀、批判性的思维以及辩论技巧是探索真知所必需的要素。同时，它也是我们面对偏执最好的一剂良药。
Merriam-Webster’s first definition of the word “bigot” is a person “who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices.” The only people who need fear open-minded inquiry and robust debate are the actual bigots, including those on campuses or in the broader society who seek to protect the hegemony of their opinions by claiming that to question those opinions is itself bigotry.
在韦氏词典中，“偏执”的第一个解释是“倔强或执迷于自己观点和偏见”的人。而面对开放调查和充分辩论产生恐惧的正是偏执者本人，其中包括那些在校园里或是社会中试图维护自身霸权的人，为此他们甚至会反诬质询者“偏执”。
So don’t be tyrannized by public opinion. Don’t get trapped in an echo chamber. Whether you in the end reject or embrace a view, make sure you decide where you stand by critically assessing the arguments for the competing positions.
所以不要受制于主流观点。更不要掉进回音壁的陷阱。不论最后你将接受或是否认一个观点，别忘了你的抉择来自于理性的判断和充分的批判性思考。
Think for yourself.
去做一个独立思考的人吧。
Good luck to you in college!
祝你们校园生活好运！
不难看出，常春藤名校的教授们无不希望前来报的新生在接下来的四年期间务实求真，保持自己对于真理的那份热爱与渴求。美国大学向来尊重学生个性，强调培养学生独立思考的习惯，而这在主流思潮当道的现今社会环境中显得尤为可贵。在这里，我们也祝愿开始新旅程的2021er们不忘初心，真理至上！
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