What do Bosnia, Israel, Rwanda, Zaire have in common? People are killing each other or driving others out of their homes. Why is this happening? Very simple, really: in each of these places, and elsewhere in the world, one group of people believes that another group is different from them and threatens them. It has been thus throughout history. How different are humans from each other?

We come in different colors: red, black, white, yellow and brown, have a variety of political systems, social systems, religious views or none at all; we are different intellectually, have different educational systems, different socio-economic classes; psychologically we are normal, abnormal, neurotic, psychotic, we speak different languages, and have different customs and costumes.

(1) If we were to break each of these categories down into their components, we would have quite a long list of qualities and characteristics that make humans appear to be different from each other. (2) I say appear to be different, because most of what I have listed represents what we see or hear, not what is true of human biology and physiology.

Studying human beings biologically and physiologically leads us to very different conclusions about how alike or different we are from each other. Very different indeed. Every human being on the planet, all 5.3 billion of us, has the same number of bones, of the same type, serving the same purposes; each of us has 46 chromosomes, 23 from each parent, and these chromosomes (染色体), genes, and the DNA and RNA of which they are integral parts, are in every single human being; every cell, every membrane, every tissue, and every organ is the same everywhere. We all have a heart, a circulatory system, 2 lungs, a liver, 2 kidneys, a brain and nervous system, a reproductive system, digestive and excretory systems, musculature, in short, we are the same biologically and our bodies perform the same functions everywhere on the planet. And as we learned in Shakespeare's, The Merchant of Venice, if you prick us, any of us, "do we not bleed"? (3) Of course we do, and we bleed red blood no matter what the color of our skin, or the language we speak, the clothing we wear, the gods we worship, or our geographical home. Man is a piece of biologically; all equally effective organisms whether Amazon Indian, Australian aborigine, Parisian artist, Greek sailor, Chinese student, American astronaut, Russian soldier, or Palestinian citizen.

Well then, you ask, how is that so many groups of people disparage (轻视) other groups, persecute them, and claim superiority over them? (4) Why is it that some groups of people still hunt animals, wear little or no clothing, have little or no technology, while others are very sophisticated in their technology, industry, transportation, communication, food gathering and storage? (5) It is of course, a matter of culture and the civilization that emerges and evolves from it. Though man is man everywhere, where he lives, when he lives there, with whom he lives there, all affect how he lives: that is, what he believes, what he wears, his customs, his gods, his rituals, his myths and literature, his language and his institutions. These are man-made artifacts(人工制品)that each group develops over time, living together, facing the same problems, needing and desiring the same things. They are his culture, his identity.

参考答案

1.如果我们将以上各项逐一进一步细分，那么我们会找出一大堆使人与人之间，从表面上看似乎千差万别的气质与特点来。
2.我们之所以说表面上的差别，是因为我所罗列的仅代表了我们看到的以及听到的，并不是人类真正的生物或生理上的差别。
3.当然会的，我们都会流出殷红的鲜血，不管我们肤色如何，操何种语言，装束如何，信仰哪些神灵，亦不管我们家在何方。
4.为什么有些群体的人仍然衣不蔽体，文化科技低下，过着原始的狩猎生活，而另一些群体的人却拥有尖端的科学技术、先进的工业、交通运输、通讯、先进的食品加工与储藏技术呢?
5.当然这是一个与文化以及它产生的与文明有关的问题。

下一篇：英语四级翻译练习题第002组