Commencement Address by Hilary Clinton at New York University

希拉里在纽约大学毕业典礼的演讲

As Secretary of State, I am well aware of the challenges that we face, You, as new graduates, and your generation will be up against those challenges: climate change and hunger, extreme poverty and extreme ideologies, new diseases and nuclear proliferation, But I am absolutely convinced that you and we are up to the task There is no problem we face here in America or around the world that will not yield to human effort, to cooperation, to positive interdependence that makes clear humanity is going on, our challenges are ones that summon the best of us, and we will make the world better tomorrow than it is today.

作为国务卿，我十分清楚我们面临的各项挑战。作为新的毕业生，你们和你们这一代人将面对这样的挑战：气候变化和饥饿、赤贫和极端主义的意识形态、新的疾病和核扩散。但我深信，你们和我们能够胜任这样的任务。我们在美国和整个世界所面临的各种问题，都能够通过人们的努力、合作和积极的相互依赖得到解决，而这种相互依赖表明，人类社会正在继续前进。挑战将激发我们最好的一面，我们将把明天的世界变得比今天更加美好。

Now, I know that it is fashionable in commencement speeches to be idealistic, and that may sound so, but at the root of my conviction is a strong sense of reality. Because you see, I don't think we have a choice. We can sit on the sidelines, we can wring our hands, we can retreat intocynicism, and we know what the results will be: We will cede the field to those whose ideologies are absolutely anathema to people of conscience and faith all over the world. So our positive interdependence, which is a fact will prepare us to meet these challenges. But they can no longer be seen just as government-to-government. There is a time and an opportunity, and with the new technologies available, for us to be citizen diplomats, citizen activists, to solve problems one by one that will give in to hard work, patience, and persistence, and will then aggregate to the solutions we seek.

我知道，在毕业典礼上作理想化的演说是当前的时尚，听起来也许很理想化，但我的信念深处有一种强烈的现实感。因为你们知道，我认为我们别无选择。我们可以袖手旁观，我们可以束手无策，我们可以采取悲观怀疑的态度，但我们知道这样做会产生什么样的结采:我们会把阵地拱手让给那些其意识形态为世界上所有有良知和信仰者所不齿的人。因此，我们之间积极的相互依赖——这是一个事实——将使我们为应对这些挑战做好准备、但这不能再被仅仅视作政府与政府之间的事情。随着新技术的不断涌现，我们有时间和机会成为公民外交家、公民活动家，通过辛勤工作、耐心和毅力一个一个地解决问题，逐步积累成我们所寻求的解决方案。

Now, I know we cannot send a special envoy to negotiate with a pandemic, or call a summit with carbon dioxide, or sever relations with the global financial crisis. To confront these threats and to seize the opportunities that they also present, we need to build new partnerships from the bottom up, and to use every tool at our disposal. That is the heart of smart power. But smart power requires smart people, people who have gone the distance for their education, who have opened themselves up to this increasingly complex and interconnected world, and this changing global landscape requires us to expand our concept of diplomacy.

我知道我们不能派特使与大规模流行的疾病进行谈判，不能与二氧化碳召开高峰会，也不能与全球金融危机断绝关系。妥抗击这些威胁并抓住这些威胁提供的机遇，我们需要自下而上地建立新的伙伴关系，利用手中可以利用的一切手段。这就是巧实力的实质。但巧实力来自精明的人，接受过良好教育的人，向日益复杂、相互关联的世界开放的人，而不断变化的全球场景妥求我们必须扩大我们的外交概念。