美国国家公共电台 NPR No More Neverland: A Senator's Guide To Raising American Adults

 

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse shares something in common with President Trump¹. Both are serving in elected office for the very first time, but the similarities pretty much end there. Before his election in 2014, Sasse was a federal health official and president of Midland University which is linked with the Evangelical Lutheran Church. He earned a doctorate² in history. And he's a conservative Republican who refused to back Trump for president.

Last week, he questioned Trump's firing of the director of the FBI. Sasse also addressed what he considers bigger questions in American life. His book, "The Vanishing American Adult" grows out of his experience as a parent, and he talked about it with our co-host Steve Inskeep.

STEVE INSKEEP, BYLINE³: Where are you from?

BEN SASSE: I'm from a farm town that when I was a kid was about an hour outside of Omaha. Now it's about 20 minutes outside of Omaha. We haven't moved. Omaha is growing toward us. But we have three kids, and they have an idyllic⁴ experience growing up. And we force...

INSKEEP: In the same town where you grew up.

SASSE: ...Just outside this town - yep - where I grew up. And we ship our kids out to the farms and ranches⁵ in the area to suffer. We want them to have dirt under their fingernails, and we want them to have to get up at 4:30 a.m. when they don't want to.

INSKEEP: Did you get sent out into the fields when you were a kid?

SASSE: Oh, yeah. My buddies⁶ and I would tackle each other into the mud when the irrigation pivot⁷ had stalk. I mean, it was - it was boring, but you knew you were building scar tissue for the soul.

INSKEEP: Scar tissue for the soul - what do you mean by that?

SASSE: I think we - we are doing a bad job of helping⁸ our kids understand that they have huge resiliency. Persevering⁹ and getting through hardship makes you tough, and at our house we celebrate stitches. As long as we didn't do permanent damage to their spine¹⁰ that's going to have lasting¹¹ effect, we applaud and celebrate stitches at our house.

INSKEEP: I think we are sneaking¹² up on a critique that you may have of parenting in general or the way that young people are growing up today so to speak. What is it?

SASSE: I do worry that we're failing in a whole bunch of fundamental ways to distinguish for our kids between needs and wants. And we're failing to distinguish between production and consumption. So to be clear, this book is not an old man screaming get off my lawn. It is a question of how do we do better...

INSKEEP: It's please leave my lawn.

SASSE: (Laughter) No, it's please work in my lawn.

INSKEEP: (Laughter).

SASSE: I think that this category of perpetual adolescence¹³ - it's a new thing, and it's a dangerous thing. So it's come back to...

INSKEEP: What is perpetual adolescence?

SASSE: Yeah, so adolescence is a pretty glorious concept. It's about intentionally¹⁴ transitioning from childhood to adulthood¹⁵. Being stuck in adolescence - that's a hell. "Peter Pan" is a dystopia, and we forget that. Neverland is a bad place to be. It is good for kids to learn how to work. Right now we're acting¹⁶ like keeping our kids free from work is a way to treat them really nicely, when in reality thoughtful parenting wants to help free our kids to find meaning in work.

INSKEEP: You have a chapter here called, "Embrace Work Pain."

SASSE: Yeah.

INSKEEP: What do you mean by that?

SASSE: It's not natural to have to suffer when we work. We're made to be productive. And yet, the world we live in, there's a whole bunch of suffering. And what they need to understand as 10 year olds, so that when they're 15 and slightly less protected and when they're 20 and they're moving into a truly semi-independent state, they need to have experienced that memory of persevering and having gotten through hardship.

INSKEEP: How do you embrace work pain when your work is as a United States senator?

SASSE: Oh, come on, that's dirty pool right there. Work pain for me in this job means trying to be a happy warrior¹⁷ in an institution that's not nearly urgent enough. This city is filled with people who are addicted¹⁸ to their own incumbency¹⁹. The longest-term thought many people have in D.C. is how can I be sure I don't do anything that so annoys either my base or my general electorate²⁰ that I might not be able to get my job back? I don't think that's the right way to think about it.

INSKEEP: I feel there's a connection between your discussion of parenting and your discussion of your political job because there's a quote in the book that I'll paraphrase²¹ here. I think it is, luxury is perilous²² to a republic. Do you mean that our interest in wealth, our comfort with wealth is actually making us soft in some way - we'll lose our freedom some way?

SASSE: I worry about that. I worry that we're not having conversations about virtue²³. When you hear the word virtue it echoes in our ear now as a highly moral or even moralistic term. And there's of course a piece of it that's that. But virtue comes from the Latin root that is about strength. And we're not having a conversation of what it means to create strong people that can navigate²⁴ all these disruptions that are coming.

And if we fail to distinguish between production and consumption, we will become weaker because work makes you strong. Work gives you meaning. Work turns you into a servant to your family and to your neighbors and to your local community. Consumption, consumption, consumption creates a kind of cotton candy effect that's not really good or any of us. And I worry that we're creating a cotton candy experience for our teens in particular where we've so insulated them from work that I think we are making them soft.

INSKEEP: Maybe in some way you agree with President Trump then, because during the campaign he talked a lot about America getting soft and we got to get tougher and football players shouldn't wear so many pads and things like that.

SASSE: Yeah, I don't...

INSKEEP: You're smiling as I say that.

SASSE: ...The president has, you know, has a rhetorical flourish that has him cover lots and lots of topics inside of a single sentence at times. I would say that an example of a place where I would pretty strongly disagree with the president when he would use that rhetoric²⁵ of toughness is he would look at a lot of what's happening in deindustrializing communities and pretend that somehow if we became protectionist, if we sort of told falsehoods about what trade has actually done in the world, we can go back to a world with lots and lots of our workforce²⁶ involved in industrial jobs. That's not going to happen.

The high watermark of American industrial employment in all of our history was in 1955, '56, where almost 31 percent of the workforce was involved in big tool industrial jobs. Today, it's about 7 percent. The main reason for that change is not trade. It's technology. And what's going to need to happen next is a lot more honesty about America and Americans getting tougher. And that involves telling the truth about the reality of how technology is going to more rapidly transform people's experiences in a midlife and a mid-career way. We've not had to grapple with that before. We need more honest leadership.

INSKEEP: Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse is the author of "The Vanishing American Adult." Thanks for coming by.

SASSE: Thanks for having me.

1 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

2 doctorate   

n.(大学授予的)博士学位

参考例句：

• He hasn't enough credits to get his doctorate.他的学分不够取得博士学位。
• Where did she do her doctorate?她在哪里攻读博士？

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 idyllic   

adj.质朴宜人的，田园风光的

参考例句：

• These scenes had an idyllic air.这种情景多少有点田园气氛。
• Many people living in big cities yearn for an idyllic country life.现在的很多都市人向往那种田园化的生活。

5 ranches   

大农场， （兼种果树，养鸡等的）大牧场( ranch的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• They hauled feedlot manure from the ranches to fertilize their fields. 他们从牧场的饲养场拖走肥料去肥田。
• Many abandoned ranches are purchased or leased by other poultrymen. 许多被放弃的牧场会由其他家禽监主收买或租用。

6 buddies   

n.密友( buddy的名词复数 )；同伴；弟兄；（用于称呼男子，常带怒气）家伙v.（如密友、战友、伙伴、弟兄般）交往( buddy的第三人称单数 )；做朋友；亲近（…）；伴护艾滋病人

参考例句：

• We became great buddies. 我们成了非常好的朋友。 来自辞典例句
• The two of them have become great buddies. 他们俩成了要好的朋友。 来自辞典例句

7 pivot   

v.在枢轴上转动；装枢轴，枢轴；adj.枢轴的

参考例句：

• She is the central pivot of creation and represents the feminine aspect in all things.她是创造的中心枢轴，表现出万物的女性面貌。
• If a spring is present,the hand wheel will pivot on the spring.如果有弹簧，手轮的枢轴会装在弹簧上。

8 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

9 persevering   

a.坚忍不拔的

参考例句：

• They will only triumph by persevering in their struggle against natural calamities. 他们只有坚持与自然灾害搏斗，才能取得胜利。
• Success belongs to the persevering. 胜利属于不屈不挠的人。

10 spine   

n.脊柱，脊椎；(动植物的)刺；书脊

参考例句：

• He broke his spine in a fall from a horse.他从马上跌下摔断了脊梁骨。
• His spine developed a slight curve.他的脊柱有点弯曲。

11 lasting   

adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持

参考例句：

• The lasting war debased the value of the dollar.持久的战争使美元贬值。
• We hope for a lasting settlement of all these troubles.我们希望这些纠纷能获得永久的解决。

12 sneaking   

a.秘密的，不公开的

参考例句：

• She had always had a sneaking affection for him. 以前她一直暗暗倾心于他。
• She ducked the interviewers by sneaking out the back door. 她从后门偷偷溜走，躲开采访者。

13 adolescence   

n.青春期，青少年

参考例句：

• Adolescence is the process of going from childhood to maturity.青春期是从少年到成年的过渡期。
• The film is about the trials and tribulations of adolescence.这部电影讲述了青春期的麻烦和苦恼。

14 intentionally   

ad.故意地，有意地

参考例句：

• I didn't say it intentionally. 我是无心说的。
• The local authority ruled that he had made himself intentionally homeless and was therefore not entitled to be rehoused. 当地政府裁定他是有意居无定所，因此没有资格再获得提供住房。

15 adulthood   

n.成年，成人期

参考例句：

• Some infantile actions survive into adulthood.某些婴儿期的行为一直保持到成年期。
• Few people nowadays are able to maintain friendships into adulthood.如今很少有人能将友谊维持到成年。

16 acting   

n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的

参考例句：

• Ignore her,she's just acting.别理她，她只是假装的。
• During the seventies,her acting career was in eclipse.在七十年代，她的表演生涯黯然失色。

17 warrior   

n.勇士，武士，斗士

参考例句：

• The young man is a bold warrior.这个年轻人是个很英勇的武士。
• A true warrior values glory and honor above life.一个真正的勇士珍视荣誉胜过生命。

18 addicted   

adj.沉溺于....的，对...上瘾的

参考例句：

• He was addicted to heroin at the age of 17.他17岁的时候对海洛因上了瘾。
• She's become addicted to love stories.她迷上了爱情小说。

19 incumbency   

n.职责，义务

参考例句：

• Every incumbency employee has his year-end bonus.所有的在职员工都可以领到年终奖金。
• Administrator ethic includes administrative incumbency and administrative conscience.行政人员伦理包括行政义务和行政良知。

20 electorate   

n.全体选民；选区

参考例句：

• The government was responsible to the electorate.政府对全体选民负责。
• He has the backing of almost a quarter of the electorate.他得到了几乎1/4选民的支持。

21 paraphrase   

vt.将…释义，改写；n.释义，意义

参考例句：

• You may read the prose paraphrase of this poem.你可以看一下这首诗的散文释义。
• Paraphrase the following sentences or parts of sentences using your own words.用你自己的话解释下面的句子或句子的一部分。

22 perilous   

adj.危险的，冒险的

参考例句：

• The journey through the jungle was perilous.穿过丛林的旅行充满了危险。
• We have been carried in safety through a perilous crisis.历经一连串危机，我们如今已安然无恙。

23 virtue   

n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力

参考例句：

• He was considered to be a paragon of virtue.他被认为是品德尽善尽美的典范。
• You need to decorate your mind with virtue.你应该用德行美化心灵。

24 navigate   

v.航行，飞行；导航，领航

参考例句：

• He was the first man to navigate the Atlantic by air.他是第一个飞越大西洋的人。
• Such boats can navigate on the Nile.这种船可以在尼罗河上航行。

25 rhetoric   

n.修辞学，浮夸之言语

参考例句：

• Do you know something about rhetoric?你懂点修辞学吗？
• Behind all the rhetoric,his relations with the army are dangerously poised.在冠冕堂皇的言辞背后，他和军队的关系岌岌可危。

26 workforce   

n.劳动大军，劳动力

参考例句：

• A large part of the workforce is employed in agriculture.劳动人口中一大部分受雇于农业。
• A quarter of the local workforce is unemployed.本地劳动力中有四分之一失业。