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Of course, in the end a sense of mutual understanding isn't enough. After all, talk is cheap; like any value, empathy must be acted upon. When was a community organizer back in the eighties, I would often challenge neighborhood leaders by asking them where they put their time, energy, and money. Those are the true tests of what we value, I'd tell them, regardless of what we like to tell ourselves. If we aren't willing to pay a price for our values, if we aren't willing to make some sacrifices in order to realize them, then we should ask ourselves whether we truly believe in them at all.
当然，最后仅有相互理解的观念是不够的。毕竟，言说容易，而同情心和一切价值观一样必须付诸行动。我在20世纪80年代组织社区工作时经常质问邻区的领导，把时间、精力和金钱都花到哪里了。我告诉他们，不管我们要给自己找什么借口，这些是对我们的价值观的真正考验。如果我们不愿意为我们的价值观付出任何代价，如果我们不愿意做出牺牲来实现它们，那么我们应该问自己到底信不信它们。
By these standards at least, it sometimes appears that Americans today value nothing so much as being rich, thin, young, famous, safe, and entertained. We say we value the legacy we leave the next generation and then saddle that generation with mountains of debt. We say we believe in equal opportunity but then stand idle while millions of American children languish in poverty. We insist that we value family, but then structure our economy and organize our lives so as to ensure that our families get less and less of our time.
至少根据这些标准，美国人如今看起来最看重的标准是富有、简朴、年轻、知名、安全，还有享乐。我们说我们重视留给下一代遗产，却让这一代背上如山的债务。我们说坚信机会平等，而数百万美国儿童在贫困中呻吟时，我们却袖手旁观。我们坚持认为我们珍惜家庭，而在构建我们的经济和组织我们的生活时，又为了让自己不为家庭所累，花在家庭的时间越来越少。
And yet, part of us knows better. We hang on to our values, even if they seem at times tarnished and worn; even if as a nation and in our own lives, we have betrayed them more often than we care to remember. What else is there to guide us? Those values are our inheritance, what makes us who we are as a people. And although we recognize that they are subject to challenge, can be poked and prodded and debunked and turned inside out by intellectuals and cultural critics, they have proven to be both surprisingly durable and surprisingly constant across classes, and races, and faiths, and generations. We can make claims on their behalf, so long as we understand that our values must be tested against fact and experience, so long as we recall that they demand deeds and not just words.
不过，我们仍然心如明镜。我们不放弃自己的价值观，即使它们有时黯淡无光、陈旧破碎；我们不放弃自己的价值观，即使作为一个国家和在我们自己的生命中，我们经常心不在焉地背叛它们。除了它们还有什么指导我们？这些价值观是我们的传承，是我们作为一个民族的特征。即使我们意识到它们面临挑战，知识分子和文化批评者可以对它们指指戳戳，对它们进行批判，把它们弄个底儿朝天，它们到头来还是出奇地持久，出奇地永恒，及阶级、种族、信念之中，代代相传。只要我们懂得我们的价值观必须经得起事实和经验的考验，只要我们记得它们需要的是行胜于言，我们就能以它们的名义进行诉求。
To do otherwise would be to relinquish our best selves.
如果不这样做，我们将放弃最好的自我。
