[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
[05:03.88]Eighty-one languages,few of them European,are spoken in the elementary school system of the city of Los Angeles.
[05:12.42]This transformation of American culture anticipates the general trend in the composition of mandind.
[05:20.37]Ninety percent of the immigrants to this city are from the Third World.At the beginning of the twenty-first century
[05:29.33]90percent of the world's population will be dark-skinned;
[05:34.42]the white race will be no more than 11percent of all human beings living on our planet.
[05:40.98]Something that can only be seen in America:In the landscaped,
[05:46.46]ultraclean high-technology parks of northern Orange County there is a personal computer company
[05:54.35]that seven years ago did not exist.There were only strawberry fields wheere the plantis.
[06:02.03]Now,there is a $500million company with factories in Hong Kong and Taiwan as well.
[06:09.79]The company was founded by three young immigrants -a Pakistani Muslim and two Chinese from Hong Kong
[06:18.20]They only became citizens in1984.Each individual is now probably worth $30 million
[06:26.30]Walking through this company we see only young,dark faces-Vietnamese,Cambodians,Laotians,Mexicans
[06:36.02]-and the most advanced technology.The culture of the work force
[06:42.21]is a mix of Hispanic-Catholic family values and Asian-Confucian group loyalty.Employment notices are never posted
[06:53.62]hiring is done through the network of families that live in southern California.Not infrequently,
[07:01.41]employees ask to work an extra twenty hours a week to earn enough money
[07:07.28]to help members of their extended family buy their first home.
[07:12.38]In LosAngeles,traditional Third World cultures are, for the first time,fusing with the most modern mentalities and technologies
[07:22.20]Usually,the contact between developed and underdeveloped worlds has the character of exploitation
[07:29.85]-just takingpeople's labor and resources and giving them nothing.And the border between races
[07:38.08]has usually been a border of tension,of crists.Here we see a revolution that is constructive.
[07:46.76]This Pacific Rim civilization being created is a new reolationship between development and underdevelopment
[07:54.96]Here,there is openness.There is hope.And a future.There is a multicultural crowd.
[08:03.03]But it is not fighting.It is cooperating,peacefully competing,building.
[08:10.14]For the first time in four hundred years of relations between the nonwhite Western world
[08:16.69]and white Westernworld,the general character of the relationship is cooperationand construction,notexploitation not destruction
[08:27.17]Unlike any other place on the planet,Los Angeles shows us the potential of development once the Third World mentality
[08:36.49]merges with an open sense of possibility,a culture of organization,a Western conception of time.
[08:45.04]For the destructive,paralyzed world where I have spent most of my life,it is importants,simply,
[08:52.87]that such a possibilty as Los Angeles exists.
[08:57.36]To adjust the concept of time is the most difficult thing.It is a key revolution of development.
[09:05.65]Western culture is a culture of arithmetical time.Time is organized by the clock.In non-Western culture
[09:16.07]time is a measure between events.We arrange a meeting at nine o'clock but the man doesn't show up
[09:23.83]We become anxious,offended.He doesn't unerstand our anxiety because for him,
[09:31.27]the moment he arrives is the measure of time.He is on time when he arrives.
[09:37.91]In 1924,the Mexican philosopher Jose Vasconcelos wrote a book dreaming of the possibility that,
[09:48.02]in the future,all races on the planet would merge into one type of man.
[09:54.52]This type of man is being borne in Los Angeles,in the culturalsense if not the anthropological sense
[10:03.06]A vast mosaic of different races,cutures,religions,and moral habits are working toward one common aim.
[10:11.32]From the perspective of a world submerged in religious,ethnic,and racial conflict,
[10:18.45]this harmonious cooperation is something unbelieveable.It istruly striking.
[10:25.48]What is the common aim tht harmonizes competing cultures in one place?
[10:31.35]It is not only the better living standardWhat attracts immigrants toAmerica is the essential characteristic ofAmerican culture
[10:41.62]the chance to try.There is a combination of two things that are important:culture and space.
[10:50.61]The culture allows you to try to be somebody-to find yourself,your place,yourstatus.
[10:58.36]And there is space not only in a geographical sense,but in the sense of opportunity,of social mobility
[11:06.62]In societies that are in crisis and in societies which are stagnant-or even in those
[11:13.91]which are stable-there is no chance to try.You are defined in advance.Destiny has already sentenced you.
[11:23.34]This is what unites the diverse races and cultures in America.If the immigrant to America at first fails,
[11:31.28]he always thinks, "I will try again."If he had failed in the old society,
[11:38.72]he would be discouraged and pessimistec,accepting the place that was given to him.In America,he's thinking
[11:47.50]I will have another chance,I will try again."That keeps him going.He's full of hope.
[11:55.65]multicultural author collage in decline/on the decline
[12:01.53]多种文化的 作家 大杂烩 衰落中
[12:07.41]debt dropout characteristic dynamism
[12:11.45]欠款 中途退学者 特点 活力
[12:15.50]aggressiveness paralyze thesis historical
[12:20.34]积极进取 使失去 论题 以历史观点
[12:25.17]precedent have a/the sense that Euro-centered Hispanic
[12:30.08]先例 感到 以欧州为中心的 西班牙文化的
[12:34.99]for the first time unprecedented openness pluralism
[12:40.62]第一次 空前的 开放 多元文化
[12:46.25]polycentric leave behind ethnocentric tribal
[12:51.34]多中心的 留下 种族中心主义的 部落的
[12:56.44]mentality premonition multiracial plural
[13:01.56]思想方法 预感 多民族的 多元的
[13:06.68]immigrant Korean Laotian Vietnamese
[13:11.43]移民 朝鲜的 老挝人 越南人
[13:16.19]Cambodian Mexican Salvadoran Guatemalan
[13:20.95]柬埔寨 西班牙语 萨尔瓦多的 危地马拉人
[13:25.72]Iranian Mexican-American dark-skinned landscape
[13:31.26]伊朗人 墨西哥裔美国人 深色皮肤的 对（士地）作景观美化
[13:36.80]high-technology Pakistani Muslim Catholic
[13:41.58]高科技的 巴基斯坦的 穆斯林的 天主教的
[13:46.36]Asian-Confucian network underdeveloped exploitation
[13:51.35]亚洲儒教的 网络 不发达的
[13:56.34]constructive underdevelopment nonwhite cooperation
[14:01.10]建设性的 不发达 非白种人 合作
[14:05.87]conception destructive arithmetical non-Western
[14:10.12]观念 破坏的 算术的 非西方的
[14:14.36]show up offend philosopher in the...sense
[14:19.99]出现 得罪 哲学家 在…意义上
[14:25.62]anthropological mosaic religion submerge
[14:30.45]人类学的 镶嵌画 宗教 淹没
[14:35.28]from the perspective of ethnic harmonious harmonize
[14:40.48]从…的观点看 人种的 和谐的 使和谐
[14:45.68]essential combination geographical mobility
[14:50.29]基本的 地理的 静止的 流动性
[14:57.95]静止的 命运 使沮丧
[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
[05:03.88]Eighty-one languages,few of them European,are spoken in the elementary school system of the city of Los Angeles.
[05:12.42]This transformation of American culture anticipates the general trend in the composition of mandind.
[05:20.37]Ninety percent of the immigrants to this city are from the Third World.At the beginning of the twenty-first century
[05:29.33]90percent of the world's population will be dark-skinned;
[05:34.42]the white race will be no more than 11percent of all human beings living on our planet.
[05:40.98]Something that can only be seen in America:In the landscaped,
[05:46.46]ultraclean high-technology parks of northern Orange County there is a personal computer company
[05:54.35]that seven years ago did not exist.There were only strawberry fields wheere the plantis.
[06:02.03]Now,there is a $500million company with factories in Hong Kong and Taiwan as well.
[06:09.79]The company was founded by three young immigrants -a Pakistani Muslim and two Chinese from Hong Kong
[06:18.20]They only became citizens in1984.Each individual is now probably worth $30 million
[06:26.30]Walking through this company we see only young,dark faces-Vietnamese,Cambodians,Laotians,Mexicans
[06:36.02]-and the most advanced technology.The culture of the work force
[06:42.21]is a mix of Hispanic-Catholic family values and Asian-Confucian group loyalty.Employment notices are never posted
[06:53.62]hiring is done through the network of families that live in southern California.Not infrequently,
[07:01.41]employees ask to work an extra twenty hours a week to earn enough money
[07:07.28]to help members of their extended family buy their first home.
[07:12.38]In LosAngeles,traditional Third World cultures are, for the first time,fusing with the most modern mentalities and technologies
[07:22.20]Usually,the contact between developed and underdeveloped worlds has the character of exploitation
[07:29.85]-just takingpeople's labor and resources and giving them nothing.And the border between races
[07:38.08]has usually been a border of tension,of crists.Here we see a revolution that is constructive.
[07:46.76]This Pacific Rim civilization being created is a new reolationship between development and underdevelopment
[07:54.96]Here,there is openness.There is hope.And a future.There is a multicultural crowd.
[08:03.03]But it is not fighting.It is cooperating,peacefully competing,building.
[08:10.14]For the first time in four hundred years of relations between the nonwhite Western world
[08:16.69]and white Westernworld,the general character of the relationship is cooperationand construction,notexploitation not destruction
[08:27.17]Unlike any other place on the planet,Los Angeles shows us the potential of development once the Third World mentality
[08:36.49]merges with an open sense of possibility,a culture of organization,a Western conception of time.
[08:45.04]For the destructive,paralyzed world where I have spent most of my life,it is importants,simply,
[08:52.87]that such a possibilty as Los Angeles exists.
[08:57.36]To adjust the concept of time is the most difficult thing.It is a key revolution of development.
[09:05.65]Western culture is a culture of arithmetical time.Time is organized by the clock.In non-Western culture
[09:16.07]time is a measure between events.We arrange a meeting at nine o'clock but the man doesn't show up
[09:23.83]We become anxious,offended.He doesn't unerstand our anxiety because for him,
[09:31.27]the moment he arrives is the measure of time.He is on time when he arrives.
[09:37.91]In 1924,the Mexican philosopher Jose Vasconcelos wrote a book dreaming of the possibility that,
[09:48.02]in the future,all races on the planet would merge into one type of man.
[09:54.52]This type of man is being borne in Los Angeles,in the culturalsense if not the anthropological sense
[10:03.06]A vast mosaic of different races,cutures,religions,and moral habits are working toward one common aim.
[10:11.32]From the perspective of a world submerged in religious,ethnic,and racial conflict,
[10:18.45]this harmonious cooperation is something unbelieveable.It istruly striking.
[10:25.48]What is the common aim tht harmonizes competing cultures in one place?
[10:31.35]It is not only the better living standardWhat attracts immigrants toAmerica is the essential characteristic ofAmerican culture
[10:41.62]the chance to try.There is a combination of two things that are important:culture and space.
[10:50.61]The culture allows you to try to be somebody-to find yourself,your place,yourstatus.
[10:58.36]And there is space not only in a geographical sense,but in the sense of opportunity,of social mobility
[11:06.62]In societies that are in crisis and in societies which are stagnant-or even in those
[11:13.91]which are stable-there is no chance to try.You are defined in advance.Destiny has already sentenced you.
[11:23.34]This is what unites the diverse races and cultures in America.If the immigrant to America at first fails,
[11:31.28]he always thinks, "I will try again."If he had failed in the old society,
[11:38.72]he would be discouraged and pessimistec,accepting the place that was given to him.In America,he's thinking
[11:47.50]I will have another chance,I will try again."That keeps him going.He's full of hope.
[11:55.65]multicultural author collage in decline/on the decline
[12:01.53]多种文化的 作家 大杂烩 衰落中
[12:07.41]debt dropout characteristic dynamism
[12:11.45]欠款 中途退学者 特点 活力
[12:15.50]aggressiveness paralyze thesis historical
[12:20.34]积极进取 使失去 论题 以历史观点
[12:25.17]precedent have a/the sense that Euro-centered Hispanic
[12:30.08]先例 感到 以欧州为中心的 西班牙文化的
[12:34.99]for the first time unprecedented openness pluralism
[12:40.62]第一次 空前的 开放 多元文化
[12:46.25]polycentric leave behind ethnocentric tribal
[12:51.34]多中心的 留下 种族中心主义的 部落的
[12:56.44]mentality premonition multiracial plural
[13:01.56]思想方法 预感 多民族的 多元的
[13:06.68]immigrant Korean Laotian Vietnamese
[13:11.43]移民 朝鲜的 老挝人 越南人
[13:16.19]Cambodian Mexican Salvadoran Guatemalan
[13:20.95]柬埔寨 西班牙语 萨尔瓦多的 危地马拉人
[13:25.72]Iranian Mexican-American dark-skinned landscape
[13:31.26]伊朗人 墨西哥裔美国人 深色皮肤的 对（士地）作景观美化
[13:36.80]high-technology Pakistani Muslim Catholic
[13:41.58]高科技的 巴基斯坦的 穆斯林的 天主教的
[13:46.36]Asian-Confucian network underdeveloped exploitation
[13:51.35]亚洲儒教的 网络 不发达的
[13:56.34]constructive underdevelopment nonwhite cooperation
[14:01.10]建设性的 不发达 非白种人 合作
[14:05.87]conception destructive arithmetical non-Western
[14:10.12]观念 破坏的 算术的 非西方的
[14:14.36]show up offend philosopher in the...sense
[14:19.99]出现 得罪 哲学家 在…意义上
[14:25.62]anthropological mosaic religion submerge
[14:30.45]人类学的 镶嵌画 宗教 淹没
[14:35.28]from the perspective of ethnic harmonious harmonize
[14:40.48]从…的观点看 人种的 和谐的 使和谐
[14:45.68]essential combination geographical mobility
[14:50.29]基本的 地理的 静止的 流动性
[14:57.95]静止的 命运 使沮丧
