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Our individualism has always been bound by set of communal values, the glue upon which every healthy society depends. We value the imperatives of family and the cross-generational obligations that family implies. We value community, the neighborliness that expresses itself through raising the barn or coaching the soccer team. We value patriotism and the obligations of citizenship, a sense of duty and sacrifice on be half of our nation. We value a faith in something bigger than ourselves, whether that something expresses itself in formal religion or ethical precepts. And we value the constellation of behaviors that express our mutual regard for one another: honesty, fairness, humility, kindness, courtesy, and compassion.
我们的个人主义始终和一套共有的价值观黏在一起，这种黏合剂每个健康的社会都会需要。我们重视家族规则和家族默契的代与代之间的责任。我们珍视社区，这种邻里关系体现在帮邻舍建谷仓和为足球队当教练。我们珍重爱国主义和国民责任，一种为国家的责任感和奉献精神。我们珍视超乎我们自己的信仰，不管它是以正式宗教还是以道德规范的形式表现出来。我们也珍视我们表达互相关注的一些行为表现：诚实、公正、谦虚、和善、礼貌和同情。
In every society (and in every individual), these twin strands-the individualistic and the communal, autonomy and solidarity-are in tension, and it has been one of the blessings of America that the circumstanc of our nation's birth allowed us to negotiate these tensions better than most. We did not have to go through any of the violent upheavals that Europe was forced to endure as it shed its feudal past. Our passage from an agricultural to an industrial society was eased by the sheer size of the continent, vast tracts of land and abundant resources that allowed new immigrants to continually remake themselves.
每个社会里（和每个人身上），这些成对的方面个人主义和集体主义，意志自由和团结都关系紧张。还好天佑美国，我们民族诞生的境遇使得我们能够更好地调解这种紧张关系。欧洲在破除封建历史的时候被迫经历激烈的动荡，我们连一个这样的动荡都不必经历。北美大陆广袤无垠，广阔的土地和丰富的资源使得新移民可以不断改造自己，我们得以从农业社会轻易地过渡到工业社会。
But we cannot avoid these tensions entirely. At times our values collide because in the hands of men each one is subject to distortion and excess. Self-reliance and independence can transform into selfishness and license, ambition into greed and a frantic desire to succeed at any cost. More than once in our history we've seen patriotism slide into jingoism, xenophobia, the stifling of dissent; we've seen faith calcify into self-righteousness, closed-mindedness, and cruelty toward others. Even the impulse toward charity can drift into a stifling paternalism, an unwillingness to acknowledge the ability of others to do for themselves.
但是我们无法完全避免这种紧张关系。我们的价值观经常发生碰撞，因为在人们手里每种价值观都容易被扭曲和膨胀。自力更生和独立自主会变成自私自利和无法无天，雄心抱负会变成贪婪和一种不惜一切代价获取成功的狂热欲望。在我们的历史上我们不止一次地看到爱国主义渐渐变为侵略主义、恐外症、扼杀异见；我们看到信念僵化为自以为是、闭关排外和施暴于人。甚至做善事的冲动变成一种令人窒息的家长作风，不愿意承认别人自力更生的能力。
When this happens-when liberty is cited in the defense of a company's decision to dump toxins in our rivers, or when our collective interest in building an upscale new mall is used to justify the destruction of somebody's home—we depend on the strength of countervailing values to temper our judgment and hold such excesses in check.
当这种情况发生时一当自由权被援引来为决定向我们的河道里倾倒有毒物质的公司进行辩护时，或者当我们建造一栋高品质的新购物中心这一共同利益被用来当作摧毁某人的房屋的理由时，我们靠的是与这种价值观相对的力量来调和我们的判断和抑制这种无度。
