You the sort of educational experience at a place, the pre Stanford educational experience.
你们在来斯坦福之前接受的教育
There's always sort of a non-competitive characterization,
基本都没有什么竞争
where I think most of the people in this room had machine guns,
坐在这件屋子里的人都是天之骄子
that were competing with people with bows and arrows.
与平凡的人进行竞争
So it wasn't exactly a parallel competition when you were in junior high school and high school.
你在初高中时期与他人进行的不是平等的竞争
There's always a question, does the tournament make sense as you keep going?
那么问题来了,这样不断竞争有意义吗
And there is always this question if people go on to grad school, or post doctoral educations,
当人们进入研究生院或者去读博后时
does the intensity of the competition really make sense?
这样的竞争有意义吗?
There's the classic Henry Kissinger line describing his fellow faculty at Harvard.
亨利·基辛格有句名言描述了哈佛大学的教授
That the battles were so ferocious, because the stakes were so small. Describing sort of academia.
职位很稀少,竞争很残酷。这描述了学术界的景象
And you start to think on one level this is a description of insanity.
你可以想象那种疯狂的样子
Why would people fight like crazy when the stakes are so small?
为什么职位很少时人们还如此的疯狂?
But it's also,I think simply a function of the logic of the situation.
但我想,其实这里面的逻辑很简单
When it's really hard to differentiate yourself from other people.
当你和其他人差不多时
When the differences are, when the objective differences really are small.
当你和其他人的客观差异非常小的时候
Then you have to compete ferociously to maintain a difference of one sort or another,
就必须通过残酷的竞争来维持你的优势
that's often more imaginary than real.
通常虚构要比实际的成分多