大学英语综合教程 第四册 Unit4A

[00:00.00]Is America going to decline like other great nations have before?The author thinks not,arguing that.
[00:09.80]The type of society being created in America is quite unlike any that has gone before it.
[00:17.11]Read what he has to say and see whether you agree.
[00:22.07]AMERICA AS A COLLAGE                                         by Ryzsard Kapuscinski
[00:27.69]The mere fact that America still attracts millions of people is evidence that it is not in decline.
[00:35.32]People aren't attracted to a pace of decline.Signs of decline are sure to be found in a place as comples as America
[00:44.75]debt,crime,the homeless,drugs,dropouts.But the main characteristic of America,the first and mostenduring impression,
[00:55.95]is dynamism,energy,aggressivenness,forward movement.
[01:01.91]It is so hard to think of this nation in decline when you know
[01:07.29]that there are vast regions of the planet which are absolutely paralyzed,incapable of any improvement at all.
[01:16.07]It is difficult for me to agree with Paul Kennedy's thesis in The Rise and Fall of Great Powers
[01:24.19]thatAmerica must inevitably follow historical precedent.That'sthe way history used to be-all powerful nations declined
[01:35.19]and gave eay to other empires.But maybe there is another way to look at what is happening,
[01:42.61]I have a sense that what is going on here comcerns much more than the fate of a nation.
[01:49.66]It may be that the Euro-centered American nationis declining as itgives way to a new Pacific civilization
[01:59.09]that will include,but not be limited to,America.Historically speaking,America may not decline,
[02:09.10]but instead fuse with the Pacific culture to create a kind of vast Pacific collage,
[02:16.78]a mix of Hispanic and Asian cultures linked through the most modern communication technologies.
[02:25.11]Thraditional history has been a history of nations.But here,for the first time since the RomanEmpire,
[02:33.78]there is the possibility of creating the history of a civilization.Now is the first chance on a new basis
[02:42.87]with new technologies to create a civilization of uNPRecedented openness and pluralismA civilization of the polycentric mind.
[02:53.53]A civilization that leaves behind forever the ethnocentric,tribal mentality.The mentality of destruction
[03:04.19]Los Angeles is a premonition of this new civilization.
[03:08.89]Linked more to the Third Would and Asia than to the Europe of America's racial and cultural roots,
[03:16.86]Los Angeles and southern California will enter the twenty-first century as a multiracial and multicultural society
[03:26.18]This is absolutely new.There is no previous example of a civilization that is being simulatneously created by so many races
[03:36.24]nationalities,and cultures.This new type of cultural pluralism is completely unkown in the history of mankind.
[03:45.93]America is becoming more plural every day because of the unbelievable facility of the new Third World
[03:54.40]immigrants to put a piece of their original culture inside of American culture.
[04:00.88]The notion of a "dominant"American culture is changing every monment.It is incredible
[04:07.98]coming to America to find you are somewhere else-in Seoul, in Taipei,in Mexico City.
[04:15.63]You can travel inside this Korean culture right on the streets of Los Angeles.
[04:21.98]Inhabitants of this vast city become internal tourists in the place of their own residence.
[04:29.19]There are large communities of Laotians,Vietnamese,Cambodians,Mexicans,Salvadorans,Guatemalans,I ranians,Japanese,Koreans
[04:40.97]Armenians,Chines.We find here Little Taipei,Little Saigon,Little Tokyo,Koreatown,Little Central America
[04:52.75]the Iranian neighborhod in Weswood,theArmenian cimmunity in Hollywood,and the vast Mexican-American areas of East Los Angeles