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The rate of progress in American society has been fairly uneven throughout our history.
在历史上的各个阶段，美国社会的进步速度都参差不齐。
Every now and then, there's a truly enormous breakthrough in human history.
每隔一段时间，人类历史上就会出现真正意义上的巨大突破。
Much earlier, it might have been fire, language, the invention of settled agriculture, the printing press.
最初的时候，可能是火、语言、定居农业的发明、印刷机。
You get a breakthrough and then many particular advances follow.
人类取得了突破，然后许多具体的发展随之而来。
So in the mid to late-19th century, the big advance was combining fossil fuels with powerful machines.
因此，在19世纪中后期，最大的进步就是将化石燃料与强大的机器相结合。
From that, we did locomotives. Later, cars.
从那以后，我们造出了火车头。然后，汽车出现了。
Later, airplanes, electrification.
再然后是飞机、电气化。
The period of greatest material progress was probably the early to mid-20th century.
物质进步最快的时期可能是20世纪初到20世纪中期。
In those years, it would be common for American living standards to rise by 3 or 4% a year.
那些年，美国人的生活水平以每年3%或4%的速度增长是很常见的。
That was a fantastic pace.
那样的增长速度令人惊叹。
It made America world leader, world's richest nation for a while.
它一度让美国成为了世界领袖，成为了世界上最富有的国家。
But along the way, something happened: something went wrong.
但在此过程中，发生了一些事情：问题出现了。
Starting in about 1973, our rate of progress fell.
大约从1973年开始，我们的发展速度下降了。
A lot of the easier tasks, we had already accomplished.
很多比较容易的任务，我们已经完成了。
So bringing electricity to most parts of America- that was transformational-wonderful that we did it.
让美国的大部分地区都用上电力，这是一种极棒的变革，我们做到了。
That's a hard first act to top.
这是到达巅峰非常艰巨的第一步。
I think another factor is we started regulating a lot of our economy, more than we had before: sometimes for good reasons, sometimes for bad reasons.
我认为另一个因素是，与以往相比， 我们开始对经济进行大量监管：有时合情合理，有时却师出无名。
But those regulations slowed down growth.
但这些监管减缓了增速。
Also, energy prices, for a while, become higher.
此外，能源价格在一段时间内涨得更高。
For many classes of Americans, income growth slows.
对美国许多阶层的人来说，收入增长有所放缓。
Parts of the 1990s, you have rapid growth again, but for the most part, we have not matched our earlier performance.
在20世纪90年代的部分时间里，人们再次实现了快速增长，但在很大程度上，我们的表现远不如从前。
My earlier book, "The Complacent Class" argued that Americans had become too risk-averse and not sufficiently entrepreneurial.
我之前出的书《自满的阶层》认为，美国人已经变得过于厌恶风险，缺乏足够的创业精神。
Politically, we are more sorted into states, into cities, into countryside towns by Democrat, Republican, Liberal, Conservative, however you want to talk about different categories.
在政治上，我们更多地通过民主党人、共和党人、自由党人、保守党人这些标签被区分成州、城市、乡村城镇，你怎么分类都行。
We are more sorted.
我们变得整齐划一了。
There are many parts of our nation where segregation by race has been increasing rather than decreasing.
在我们国家的许多地区，种族隔离一直在增加，而不是减少。
This, I also find a worrisome trend.
我发现这也是一个令人担忧的趋势。
I think we have been in moments of true political chaos.
我认为我们已经进入了真正的政治混乱时刻。
We've definitely been in moments of pandemic chaos: a lot of school closures, just much harder to travel around, less convenient.
我们绝对是处于疫情混乱时刻：很多学校关闭，出行极其困难，生活缺乏便利性。
And we are in some kind of serious crisis of human capital.
我们正处于某种严重的人力资本危机之中。
Too many people staying at home, not getting the stimulation of differently minded others.
太多人待在家里，无法接触到不同思想的人的刺激。
But there's a sense of crisis or needing a change today that we did not have in the 1980s or 1990s.
但今天有一种危机感或需要改变的欲望，是我们在20世纪八九十年代所没有的。
And you're seeing many of the most vulnerable people in American society doing worse.
你会发现美国社会中许多最脆弱的人群的处境每况愈下。
And that's a kind of 'canary in the coal mine,' that, "Hey, something isn't working here."
这就像是“煤矿里的金丝雀”，“嘿，有点不对劲。”
But maybe we're entering this new phase of American existence becoming fundamentally different in a way it had not been doing for several decades.
但也许美国人正在进入一个新的阶段，它与以往的几十年彻底不同。
And I tend to think that crux moment of emergency, in some degree of chaos, has been upon us for the last few years.
我倾向于认为，在某种程度的混乱中，这个关键的紧急时刻已经在过去几年里降临到了我们身上。
And we're gonna see how well we respond. It is up to us.
我们对它作何反应，还拭目以待。这取决于我们。
I am hopeful, but I'm also sure the final answer is by no means assured.
我对此满怀希望，但我也确信，最终的答案绝不是板上钉钉的。
So I recall reading a symposium in the New York Times: April of 2020, they asked a group of experts, "When are we gonna get the vaccines?"
我记得在《纽约时报》上看到过一次研讨会：2020年4月，他们问一群专家：“我们什么时候能拿到疫苗？”
The most optimistic one said, "In four years."
最乐观的一位专家回答，“四年后。”
Of course we had a working vaccine in less than one year.
当然，我们在不到一年的时间里就研制出了有效的疫苗。
So people had not understood that when there's true urgency, our societies are capable of becoming more heroic, of truly prioritizing some projects over others, and getting some very important things done.
所以人们没有意识到，当出现真正的紧迫感时，我们的社会有能力变得更加英勇，将某些项目作为优先项，并完成一些非常重要的事情。
I see the major advances we're making with computing power, the internet, in biomedicine.
我看到了我们在计算能力、互联网和生物医学方面取得的重大进步。
I see the greater political chaos.
我看到了更严重的政治混乱。
And often, when new technologies come, it disrupts your politics as well.
通常，当新技术出现时，它也会扰乱你的政治。
It changes who wins, who loses.
它会改变输赢局面。
Changes what the coalitions are, which parts of the country are more influential, and why?
改变联盟组合，改变某些地区的影响力，为什么呢？
So all of that we're remixing right now, but we're doing it at a faster pace than what we're comfortable with.
这些东西现在都在重组，但它发展的速度超出了我们的舒适区。
And for American progress to resume at a higher rate, the number one factor is we need to stop taking our prosperity for granted.
要让美国以更快的速度恢复进步，首要因素是我们不应该把自己的繁荣当作理所应当。
We need to stop telling ourselves we are always Number One.
我们不能再自以为我们永远是第一。
We need to get our act together, understand the urgency of our situation, and take on more of the attitudes that a lot of immigrants coming to this nation come with almost automatically- because they, very often, grow up in settings where prosperity simply cannot be taken for granted.
我们需要齐心协力，了解我们处境的紧迫性，并多向进入美国的移民自然而然所拥有的那种态度学习，因为他们通常生长在繁荣不能被视为理所当然的环境中。
