是時候對“按部就班”說再見了

It’s Time to Say Goodbye to the Step-by-step Life

I went to college early in this century， when the drug of choice on campus was sleep deprivation①. Students trying to do more than the day allowed would run their work into the night and brave the bleary②consequences. I partook. Often， after classes， I’d rehearse with the campus orchestra I played in. Later， I’d go to the offices of the school newspaper， where it might be my turn to proofread the next morning’s edition. By the time the pages closed， it would be 3 or 4 A.M. I’d walk home， perch at my desk， and finish writing a course paper. A new day， somehow， had already begun.

Most students at élite schools knew what they were getting into long before they actually got in.

L ike many wit h an upward approach， I aspired to take school seriously. Early in my freshman year， I’d had a vision of myself as a much older man， a professor， gray-haired and bespectacled③ and maybe a little fat， trundling④ home from a campus music recital in a long blue coat. This older self would brew tea， switch on his desk lamp， and spend a few hours pecking away at a subdued⑤ but brilliant study of American modernism before collapsing into an armchair with a book. It seemed great. But it didn’t seem the life for which I was being trained. Instead， there was the breakneck schedule and the projects reaching for a world beyond the university gates.

L earning is supposed t o be about falling down and getting up again until you do it right. But， in an academic culture that demands constant achievement， failures seem so perilous⑥ that the best and the brightest often spend their young years in terrariums⑦ of excellence. The result is what Deresiewicz calls \"a violent aversion to risk.\" Even after graduation， élite students show a taste for track-based， well-paid industries like finance and consulting.

T he net ef f ect， Deresiewicz believes， is the smothering of students’\"souls\"：

\"The job of college is to assist you， or force you， to start on your way through the vale of soul-m aking. Books， ideas， works of art and thought， the pressure of the minds around you that are looking for their own answers in their own ways： all of these are incitements， disruptions， violations. They m ake you question everything you thought you knew about yourself.\"

\"I used to think that we needed to create a world where every child had an equal chance to get to the Ivy League，\" he writes. \"I’ve come to see that what we really need is to create one where you don’t have to go to the Ivy League， or any private college， to get a firstrate education.\"

我是本世紀初上的大學。當時，睡眠不足是校園生活的毒品。大學生們試圖擠出更多白天時間多做事，然后常常工作至深夜，再鎮定自若地直面惺忪的睡眼。我亦然。課后，身為校管弦樂隊的一員，我經常和他們一起排練。然后，我會去校刊辦公室，因為可能會輪到我校對第二天早上的那一版校刊。到我校對完畢合上書頁，也許就到凌晨三、四點了。我走回家，坐到書桌前，還得寫完一篇課程論文。不知不覺中，新的一天又開始了。

大多數精英學校學生在正式入學之前很久，就知道自己未來的路該怎么走。這樣按部就班地按著時間表生活，造就了我大學生涯的習慣和對大學生涯的期望。偶爾，我們中的一兩個人會感覺和許多奮發向上的人一樣，我立志不要辜負我的大學時光。在大一入學后不久，我曾把自己想象成是個上了年紀的人，想象成一名教授，灰發蒼蒼，戴著眼鏡，可能還有點胖，穿著藍色長大衣在校園音樂演奏會結束后踱步回家。這個上了年紀的我會泡上一杯茶，打開桌上的臺燈，花上幾個小時埋頭于雖已每況愈下但仍燦爛奪目的美國現代主義文學研究，然后捧著書倒在扶手椅里沉沉睡去。這樣的生活雖然看起來完美無缺，但并不是我上了這么多年學所追求的生活。相反，在大學的大門敞開之后，緊張忙碌的課程安排和項目研究構成的完全是另一個大相徑庭的世界。

學習應該是不斷地失敗、跌倒，然后重新站起來，直到做得正確為止。但是，在苛求不斷成功的學術環境下，失敗看起來如臨深淵，所以使得最優秀和最聰明的學者在年輕時都只會把時間消磨在玻璃容器里拌拌酒。其結果就是德雷謝維奇所說的“對風險深惡痛絕”。即使在畢業后，精英大學學生也只對像金融、咨詢等這樣中規中矩的高收入行業感興趣。

德萊塞維茨認為，這最終將會影響到大學生的“心靈”：

大學的工作就是幫助你或者強迫你培養心靈，走上自己的旅程。書本、觀點、藝術和思想作品、思想壓力環繞于你四周，以它們別具一格的方式尋找自身的答案：所有這些會蠱惑你、干擾你、妨礙你。它們使你質疑每一件你以為了如指掌的自己的事情。”

“我過去認為，我們需要創造一個所有學生都有同等機會進入常青藤的美好世界。”他寫道，“我現在意識到，我們真正需要創造的世界，是你根本不需要進入常青藤或任何私立大學，就能得到第一等的教育。”