Sept.11 delivered both a shock and a surprise---the attack, and our response to it----and we can argue forever over which mattered more. There has been so much talk of the goodness that erupted that day that we forget how unprepared we were for it. We did not expect much from a generation that had spent its middle age examining all the ways it failed to measure up to the one that had come before—all fat, no muscle, less a beacon to the world than a bully, drunk on blessings taken for granted.

9"11事件带给世人的不只有震撼，还有惊讶（无论是对袭击本身，还是我们对袭击事件的反应），至于这两种感受哪种更强烈，人们可能会永远争论下去。人们都在谈论那一天涌现出的种种义举，但却忘记了我们当时对袭击毫无防备。我们对这一代人本没有太多期许，因为他们把自己的中年时代全都花费在检讨自己为何不如上一代人的原因上，最终却只落得脑满肠肥，毫无力量和生气。对这个世界来说，他们非但无以作为表率，反倒更像是一个恃强凌弱的恶棍，将自己所获得的一切全部视为理所应当。

It was tempting to say that Sept. 11 changed all that, just as it is tempting to say that every hero needs a villain, and goodness needs evil as its grinding stone. But try looking a widow in the eye and talking about all the good that has come of this. It may not be a coincidence, but neither is it a partnership: good does not need evil, we owe no debt to demons, and the attack did not make us better.

我们也许很容易的就说9""11事件改变了这一切，就像我们会说每个英雄都需要一个坏人来反衬，善良需要邪恶来砥砺一样。但让我们反观9"11罹难者遗孀的眼神，再来谈谈人们在这一事件中所彰显出的美德，我们可能会看到这也许并非是一个巧合。善良并不需要邪恶相伴，我们也并不亏欠这些魔鬼一丝一毫，而这次袭击也没有使我们变得更好。

It was an occasion to discover what we already were. “Maybe the purpose of all this,” New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said at a funeral for a friend, “is to find out if America today is as strong as when we fought for our independence or when we fought for ourselves as a Union to end slavery or as strong as our fathers and grandfathers who fought to rid the world of Nazism.” The terrorists, he argues, were counting on our cowardice. They’ve learned a lot about us since then. And so have we.

这次袭击给了我们一个重新认识自己的机会。在参加一个朋友的葬礼时，纽约市市长鲁迪""朱利亚尼这样说道：“也许这一切的目的就是要考验我们，看看今天的美国是否仍像我们当年为独立而战时那样强大；今天的美国是否仍像我们当年团结一致，为废止奴隶制而战时那样强大；今天的美国是否仍像我们的父辈当年为摧毁纳粹而战时那样强大。”他有力地说道：“恐怖分子们希望我们胆小怯懦。但从此以后他们会对我们更加了解，当然我们也更深刻的认识了我们自己。

For leading that lesson, for having more faith in us than we had in ourselves, for being brave when required and rude where appropriate and tender without being trite, for not sleeping and not quitting and not shrinking from the pain all around him, Rudy Giuliani, Mayor of the World, is TIME’s 2001 Person of the Year.   (From Time, December 31, 2001)

他领导有方，比我们自己更信任我们，必须时临危不惧，必要时态度强硬、温文尔雅，却又绝不迂腐；他废寝忘食，虽身处危局却决不退缩放弃。他，就是鲁迪"朱利亚尼，当今世界最出色的市长，2001《时代》周刊年度人物。（摘自2001年12月31日《时代》周刊）