美国抗议冲突危及学界，困境中哥大校长致信全校师生

亲爱的哥大诸君：

Dear fellow members of the Columbia community:

今天，我代表我个人，也代表哥伦比亚大学，向你们致信。我和大家一样，在回顾上周发生的一系列事件时，对我们正在目睹的人类苦难感到愈发痛苦，也对我们的政治制度所面临的全国危机感到震惊。

I am writing in both a personal and an institutional capacity. Like everyone, I have been reflecting on the events of the last week with an increasing sense of anguish at the human suffering we are witnessing and of alarm at the national crisis we are facing in our political system.

我认为我一刻也不会忘记我们正处于一场历史性的大流行之中。这场疫情造成了难以计数的人员伤亡，具体数字令人震惊。但上周五，在本应保护所有公民的正义体系下，George Floyd的生命终结连同近期其他悲剧性事件扯下了美国几个世纪以来的“遮羞布”——对非裔美国人等群体令人憎恶的歧视。

Until last Friday, I did not think it was possible for me to forget even for a moment that we are in the midst of an historic pandemic, bringing untold human loss and crossing a numerical threshold of unimaginable proportions. But the horrifying ending of the life of George Floyd, a citizen in the very system of justice intended to protect him, and us, which then, along with other recent tragic deaths, drew back the curtains on centuries of invidious discrimination against African Americans, and others, did that.

我曾燃起希望——相信经过几代人的英勇努力，我们能够重新树立民族使命感，一劳永逸地改变历史进程。但如今这一希望破灭了。

My hopes for a renewed sense of national purpose to continue the heroic efforts of so many, over so many generations, to change once and for all that terrible course of history have been raised, and then deflated.

我们正处于这样一个历史节点——政治领导力不仅缺位，更在令人不安地混淆那些我们年复一年努力所建立起的基本准则和价值观。而和人性最恶的本能相比时，这些基本准则和价值观却又是如此脆弱且不堪一击。我所担忧的不是党派之争，而是我们文化的根本。

We are at a point in our history where political leadership is not only absent but also disturbingly confounding of the fundamental norms and values that take years and years of hard and determined work to develop—and yet are always so fragile when pitted against the worst instincts of human nature. My concerns here are not partisan, but basic to our culture.

和哥伦比亚大学里的许多人一样，我选择将我的一生奉献给维护和建立学术机构，特别是我深爱的哥伦比亚大学。毫无疑问，大众对学术界知识分子的期待和定位近乎苛刻，但我们也不能理所应当地认为学界能因此免于政治审查和干扰。正如我们现在所看到的一样，在上周我们的科学研究、科研人员和我们的大学就不幸遭受了无端指责，这一切本不应该发生。如果这只是一个个例，那另当别论；但按照目前的情形看，这些行为变成了恐吓和对专业知识的危险误解，是陷入独裁主义的标志之一。

Like so many others here, I have chosen to dedicate my life to sustaining and building academic institutions, and my beloved Columbia, specifically. There is no question that the expectations of intellectual character we choose to live by in the academic world are extreme, and we cannot reasonably expect them to set the bar for ordinary political deliberations and interactions. But what we are seeing today—which unfortunately included just in the last week an unfounded attack on our research and researchers, as well as on the University itself—is at the opposite end of the spectrum. If this were a single incident, that would be one thing, but in the current way of behaving, these become acts of intimidation and dangerous mischaracterization of expertise, one of the hallmarks of a descent into authoritarianism.

面对所有这一切，向哥大社群中所有遭受苦楚和忧虑的成员表示同情和支持仅仅是个开始。毋须讳言，大学是不完美的，我们必须为今天的状况承担一份责任。但我们决心改变，变得更好，现在更是如此。更重要的是，我们将继续向社会和世界提供我们能够保存和创造的所有知识，并培育新一代公民和领导人，使他们以尊重理性、热爱思想的价值观为生活准则并为之奋斗，同时以这些价值观来关爱他人。

In the face of all this, it is only a start to express empathy and solidarity with those in our community who are experiencing loss and apprehension. But I certainly do so here, on behalf of all of us. Universities are not perfect and we have to accept our share of responsibility for the state of affairs we have today. But we are determined, even more so now, to change and to be better. More than anything we will continue to provide the society and the world with all the knowledge we can preserve and create and with a new generation of citizens and leaders who are prepared to live by, and fight for, the values of respect for reason, the love of ideas, and the wish to use these to care for others.

真诚地

Sincerely,

李·布林格

Lee C. Bollinger