2012
Text 1
peerCome on –Everybody’s doing it. That whispered message, half invitation and half forcing, is what most of us think of when we hear the words peer pressure. It usually leads to no good-drinking, drugs and casual sex. But in her new book Join the Club, Tina Rosenberg contends that peer pressure can also be a positive force through what she calls the social cure, in which organizations and officials use the power of group dynamics to help individuals improve their lives and possibly the word.
得了吧, 每个人都这样啊. 这种说法一半是邀请，一半是强制。当我们听到“同辈（趋同）压力”这个词组的时候我们想到的就是这种说法。这种信息一般让人想到不好的事情，比如喝酒，，。但是，在她的新书《参加这个俱乐部》, Tina Rosenberg认为，纯粹压力也是一种积极的力量，通过她所说的社会，公司和官方人员可以使用体力量去帮助个人提高他们的生活，而且也有可能提高整个人类世界的生活。
Rosenberg, the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize, offers a host of example of the social cure in action: In South Carolina, a state-sponsored antismoking program called Rage Against the Haze sets out to make cigarettes uncool. In South Africa, an HIV-prevention initiative known as LoveLife recruits young people to promote safe sex among their peers.
Rosenberg是普利策奖获得者，他提供了许多社会的例子：在南卡罗莱纳州，一个州资助的反对抽烟的项目叫做“向烟雾宣战”就旨在控制好烟草销售。在南非，预防HIV，即众所周知的“热爱生命”活动要求年轻人要安全性生活。
  The idea seems promising，and Rosenberg is a perceptive observer. Her critique of the lameness of many pubic-health campaigns is spot-on: they fail to mobilize peer pressure for healthy habits, and they demonstrate a seriously flawed understanding of psychology.” Dare to be different, please don’t smoke!” pleads one billboard campaign aimed at reducing smoking among teenagers-teenagers, who desire nothing more than fitting in. Rosenberg argues convincingly that public-health advocates ought to take a page from advertisers, so skilled at applying peer pressure.
这个观点似乎很有希望，而且Rosenberg是个敏锐的观察家。她对于许多公共健康活动缺点的批评是中肯的：他们没能动员同辈压力来建立健康的习惯，他们展示的是对心理学的严重误解。一个旨在在青少年中禁烟的广告牌写着：“就敢与众不同，请勿吸烟！” 青少年最渴望的是融入体。Rosenberg认为，公共健康建议应该效仿广告商，广告商懂得如何应用同辈压力。
But on the general effectiveness of the social cure, Rosenberg is less persuasive. Join the Club is filled with too much irrelevant detail and not enough exploration of the social and biological factors that make peer pressure so powerful. The most glaring flaw of the social cure as it’s presented here is that it doesn’t work very well for very long. Rage Against the Haze failed once state funding was cut. Evidence that the LoveLife program produces lasting changes is limited and mixed.
但对于社会的广泛效果，Rosenberg就没有那么有说服力了。《加入俱乐部》一书写了太多无关细节，没有认真探讨社会和生物因素，这些因素能使同辈压力变得很有影响力。这里说的社会的明显缺点是它有效期不长。一旦资金来源消失，那么“向烟雾宣战”的活动就会失败。“热爱生命”活动能产生持久的影响这种说法的证据不足。
There’s no doubt that our peer groups exert enormous influence on our behavior. An emerging body of research shows that positive health habits-as well as negative ones-spread through networks of friends via social communication. This is a subtle form of peer pressure: we unconsciously imitate the behavior we see every day.
毫无疑问，我们的同龄人会对我们的行为产生巨大影响。研究显示，积极的健康习惯，以及负面的习惯，会通过社会交流在朋友之间传播。这是同辈压力的一种微妙的形式：我们会无意识模仿我们每天看到的行为。
Far less certain, however, is how successfully experts and bureaucrats can select our peer groups and steer their activities in virtuous directions. It’s like the teacher who breaks up the troublemakers in the back row by pairing them with better-behaved classmates. The tactic never really works. And that’s the problem with a social cure engineered from the outside: in the real world, as in school, we insist on choosing our own friends.
但是，很难确定的是，专家和官员能否成功选择我们的同辈，控制好他们的行为能在道德
的道路上发展。这就像老师，通过让问题学生和好学生坐在一起的方法，让后排学生不要凑在一起胡闹。这种方法从来就没有什么收效。这就是从外界设计出的社会会产生问题所在：在真实的社会里，正如在学校，我们坚持会选择自己的朋友。
 
Text 2
A deal is a deal-except, apparently, when Entergy is involved. The company, a major energy supplier in New England, provoked justified outrage in Vermont last week when it announced it was reneging on a longstanding commitment to abide by the strict nuclear regulations.
说好的是不能改变的! 除非Entergy进行的交易。这个公司是新英格兰地区主要的能源提供商，该公司引起了佛蒙特州人们的义愤，因为上周它宣称它不想遵守严格的核能规定。
Instead, the company has done precisely what it had long promised it would not challenge the constitutionality of Vermont’s rules in the federal court, as part of a desperat
e effort to keep its Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant running. It’s a stunning move.
相反，该公司一直履行了它早先的承诺过不做的事情：即它不会因为想保持其Vermont Yankee核电站持续经营，而要在联邦法院挑战该州相关规定的合法性（宪法）。现在这个做法让人震惊。
The conflict has been surfacing since 2002, when the corporation bought Vermont’s only nuclear power plant, an aging reactor in Vernon. As a condition of receiving state approval for the sale, the company agreed to seek permission from state regulators to operate past 2012. In 2006, the state went a step further, requiring that any extension of the plant’s license be subject to Vermont legislature’s approval. Then, too, the company went along.

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