大学英语自考教程 上册 A课文 中英对照25.doc

25-A. American Men Dont CryAmerican men dont cry because it is considered not characteristic of men to do so. Only women cry. Cry is a weakness characteristic of the female, and no American male wants to be identified with any-thing in the least weak or feminine. Crying, in our culture, is identified with childishness, with weakness and dependence. No one likes a crybaby, and we disapprove of crying even in children, discouraging it in them as early as possible. In a land so devoted to the pursuit of happiness as ours, crying really is rather un-American. Adults must learn not to cry in situations in which it is permissible for a child to cry. Women being the weaker and dependent” sex, it is only natural that they should cry in certain emotional situations. In women, crying is excusable. But in men, crying is a mark of weakness. So goes the American belief with regard to crying.A little man, we impress on our male children, never cries. Only girls and crybabies do. And so we condition males in America not to cry whenever they feel like doing so. It is not that American males are unable to cry because of some biological time clock within them which causes them to run down in that capacity as they grow older, but that they are trained not to cry. And so the little man controls his desire to cry and goes on doing so until he is unable to cry even when he wants to. Thus do we produce a trained incapacity in the American male to cry. And this is bad. Why is it bad? Because crying is a natural function of the human organism which is designed to restore the emotionally disequilibrated person to a state of equilibrium. The return of the disequilibrated organ systems of the body to steady states or dynamic stability is known as homeostasis. Crying serves a homeostatic function for the organism as a whole. Any interference with homeostasis is likely to be damaging to the organism. And there is good reason to believe that the American male‘s trained incapacity to cry is se