新世纪大学英语-综合教程4-课文翻译

Nature nurtures mankind unselfishly with its rich resources. Yet, man is so carried away in his transformation of nature that he is unaware that it also has limitations and needs constant care. Now worn by the excessive demands of mankind, nature is unable to maintain the ecological balance needed. Humanity is faced with the problem of how to stop, or at least to moderate, the destruction of Mother Nature.

T Man in the Realm of Nature

Alexander Spirkin

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1RT Human beings live in the realm of nature. They are constantly

surrounded by it and interact with it. Man is constantly aware of the

influence of nature in the form of the air he breathes, the water he

drinks, and the food he eats. We are connected with nature by "blood"

ties and we cannot live outside nature.

人在自然界

亚历山大·斯伯金

人类生活在大自然的王国里。他们时刻被大自然所包围并与之相互影响。人类呼吸的空气、喝下的水和摄入的食物，无一不令人类时刻感知到大自然的影响。我们与大自然血肉相连，离开大自然，我们将无法生存。close

2RT Man is not only a dweller in nature, he also transforms it.

Humanity converts nature's wealth into the means of the cultural,

historical life of society. Man has subdued and disciplined electricity and

compelled it to serve the interests of society. Not only has man

transferred various species of plants and animals to different climatic

conditions, he has also changed the shape and climate of his

environment and transformed plants and animals.

人类不仅生活在大自然之中，同时也在改变着大自然。人类把自然资源转变为各种文化，社会历史的财富。人类降服并控制了电，迫使它为人类社会的利益服务。人类不仅把各种各样的动植物转移到不同的气候环境，也改变了他生活环境的地貌和气候并使动植物因之而发生转变。close

3RT As society develops, man tends to become less dependent on

nature directly, while indirectly his dependence grows. Our distant

ancestors lived in fear of nature's destructive forces. Very often they

were unable to obtain the merest daily necessities. However, despite

their imperfect tools, they worked together stubbornly, collectively,

and were able to attain results. Nature was also changed through

interaction with man. Forests were destroyed and the area of farmland

increased. Nature with its elemental forces was regarded as something

hostile to man. The forest, for example, was something wild and

frightening and people tried to force it to retreat. This was all done in

the name of civilisation, which meant the places where man had made

his home, where the earth was cultivated, where the forest had been

cut down.随着社会的发展，人类对大自然的直接依赖越来越少，而间接的依赖

却越来越多。我们远古的祖先生活在大自然的威胁及破坏力的恐惧之中，他们常

常连基本的生活物资都无法获取。然而，尽管工具不甚完备，他们却能同心协力，

顽强工作，并总是有所收获。在与人类的相互作用中，大自然也发生了改变。森

林被破坏了，耕地面积增加了。大自然及其威力被看成是和人类敌对的东西。譬

如，森林被认为是野性的和令人恐惧的，因此人类便想方设法使其面积缩小。这

一切都是打着“文明”的旗号进行的，所谓“文明”，就是人类在哪里建立家园，耕

耘土地，哪里的森林就被砍伐。

close4RT But as time goes on mankind becomes increasingly concerned with the question of where and how to obtain irreplaceable natural

resources for the needs of production. Science and man's practical

transforming activities have made humanity aware of the enormous

geological role played by the industrial transformation of the earth.

然而，随着岁月的流逝，人类越来越关注的是在何处得到和如何得到生产所需的不可替代的自然资源的问题。科学与人类改变大自然的实践活动已经使人类意识到了工业在改变地球的进程中对地质产生的重大影响。close

5RT At present the previous dynamic balance between man and

nature and between nature and society as a whole, has shown ominous

signs of breaking down. The problem of the so-called replaceable

resources of the biosphere has become particularly acute. It is getting

more and more difficult to satisfy the needs of human beings and

society even for such a substance, for example, as fresh water. The

problem of eliminating industrial waste is also becoming increasingly

complex.

目前，人与自然以及自然与社会整体之间过去存在的动态平衡，已呈现崩溃的迹象。生物圈中所谓可替代资源的问题变得极为尖锐。人类和社会的需求，即便是简单得像淡水一样的物质，也变得越来越难以满足。清除工业废物的问题也变得日益复杂。close

6RT Modern technology is distinguished by an ever increasing

abundance of produced and used synthetic goods. Hundreds of

thousands of synthetic materials are being made. People increasingly

cover their bodies from head to foot in nylon and other synthetic,

glittering fabrics that are obviously not good for them. Young people

may hardly feel this, and they pay more attention to appearance than to health. But they become more aware of this harmful influence as

they grow older.

现代技术的特征是生产和使用日益丰富的人工合成产品。人们生产成千上万的人工合成材料。人们越来越多地用尼龙和其他人造纤维把自己从头到脚地包裹起来，这些绚丽的织物显然对他们无益。年轻人或许很少注意到这一点，他们更关注的是外表，而不是健康。但是上了年岁之后，他们就会感受到这种有害的影响。close

7RT As time goes on the synthetic output of production turns into

waste, and then substances that in their original form were not very

toxic are transformed in the cycle of natural processes into aggressive agents. Today both natural scientists and philosophers are asking

themselves the question: Is man's destruction of the biosphere

inevitable?

久而久之，这些合成物质转变成废弃物，那些原本毒性不大的物质在自然循环中变为极其有害的物质。自然科学家和哲学家如今都在问自己这样一个问题：人类对生物圈的破坏难道是无法避免的吗？close

8RT The man-nature relation — the crisis of the ecological situation —

is a global problem. Its solution lies in rational and wise organization of both production itself and care for Mother Nature, not just by

individuals, enterprises or countries, but by all humanity. One of the

ways to deal with the crisis situation in the "man-nature" system is to use such resources as solar energy, the power of winds, the riches of

the seas and oceans and other, as yet unknown natural forces of the

universe.

人与大自然的关系——生态环境的危机——已经成为一个全球性问题。这一问题的解决之道在于理性而明智地协调生产和对大自然的关爱之间的关系，这不仅要依靠个人、企业或者某些国家的力量，而且要依靠全人类的力量。解决人与大自然关系危机的方法之一，就是使用太阳能、风能、海洋能等资源，以及其他尚不为人所知的宇宙中的自然能。close

9RT But to return to our theme, the bitter truth is that those human

actions which violate the laws of nature, the harmony of the biosphere, threaten to bring disaster and this disaster may turn out to be universal.

How apt then are the words of ancient Oriental wisdom: live closer to

nature, my friends, and its eternal laws will protect you!

但是，回到我们原先的主题上，令人难以接受的事实是那些违背了自然规律、破坏了生物圈和谐的人类行为将会带来灾难，而这种灾难也许是全球性的。古代东方智者的话讲得真是恰如其分：朋友们，你要是亲近大自然，大自然就会用那永恒不变的规律永远呵护你！close

Technology and Happiness

技术与幸福

In the 20th century, Americans, Europeans, and East Asians enjoyed material and technological advances that were unimaginable in previous eras.

=20世纪的美国人、欧洲人和东亚人都享受到了过去历代人都无法想象的物质和技术进步所带来的乐趣。

2. In the United States, for instance, gross domestic product per capita tripled from 1950 to 2000.

=譬如，在美国，从1950年到2000年，人均国民生产总值翻了3倍。

3. Life expectancy soared.

=人的寿命大幅度提高。

4. The boom in productivity after World War II made goods better and cheaper at the same time.

=二战后生产力的迅速发展使商品物美价廉。

5. Things that were once luxuries, such as jet travel and long-distance phone calls, became necessities.

=诸如乘飞机旅行和打长途电话等曾经是奢侈的事情成了生活中不可或缺的一部分。

6. And even though Americans seemed to work extraordinarily hard, their pursuit of entertainment turned media and leisure into multibillion-dollar industries.

=即使美国人工作时似乎是格外勤奋努力的，可他们对娱乐的追求却使得他们将媒体和闲暇转变成了盈利数十亿美元的产业。

Para. 2

1. By most standards, then, you would have to say that Americans are better off now than they were in the middle of the last century.

=那么，根据大多数标准衡量，你会说，现在的美国人比上个世纪中叶富裕得多。

2. Oddly, though, if you ask Americans how happy they are, you find that they are no happier than they were in 1946 (which is when formal surveys of happiness started).

=然而，奇怪的是，如果你问美国人有多幸福，你会发现，他们并不比1946年时幸福（1946年正式开始对幸福状况进行调查）。

3. In fact, the percentage of people who say they are “very happy” has fallen slightly since the early 1970s ----- even though the income of people born in 1940 has, on average, increased by 116 percent over the course of their working lives.

=事实上，那些说自己“非常幸福”的人所占的比例自20世纪70年代早期以来一直稳中有降——尽管20世纪40年代出生的人的收入在他们的工作生涯中平均增长了116%。

4.You can find similar data for most developed countries.

=你可以在大多数发达国家找到相似的数据。

Para. 3

1. The relationship between happiness and technology has been an eternal subject for social critics and philosophers since the advent of the Industrial Revolution.

=自工业革命出现以来，幸福与技术之间的关系一直是社会批评家和哲学家们长期研究的课题。

2. But it’s been left largely unexamined by economists and social scientists.

=然而，这个课题基本上还没有受到经济学家和社会科学家们的关注。

3. The truly groundbreaking work on the relationship between prosperity and well-being was done by the economist Richard Easterlin, who in 1974 wrote a famous paper entitled “Does Economic Growth Improve the Human Lot?”

=经济学家理查德?伊斯特林在经济繁荣和幸福的关系方面进行了具有开拓性的研究，并于1974年发表了一篇题为“经济增长改变人类命运吗？”的著名论文。

4. Easterlin showed that when it came to developed countries, there was no real correlation between a nation’s income level and its citizens’ happiness.

=伊斯特林表明，就发达国家而言，一个国家的收入和国民的幸福之间并没有真正的相互关系。

5. Money, Easterlin argued, could not buy happiness ----- at least not after

a certain point.

=伊斯特林认为，金钱买不到幸福——至少金钱达到了一定程度以后是如此。

6. Easterlin showed that though poverty was strongly correlated with misery, once a country was solidly middle-class, getting wealthier did not seem to make its citizens any happier.

=伊斯特林表明，尽管贫穷与苦难密不可分，但是，一个国家一旦达到稳定的中产阶级水平，更富有一些似乎就不会使其国民感到更多的幸福了。

Para. 4

1. This seems to be close to a universal phenomenon.

=这近乎是一种普遍现象。

2. In fact, one of happiness scholars’ most important insights is that people adapt very quickly to good news.

=事实上，研究幸福的学者们最重要的观点之一是：人们对好消息很快便习以为常。

3. Take lottery winners for example. One famous study showed that although winners were very, very happy when they won, their extreme excitement quickly evaporated, and after a while their moods and sense of well-being were indistinguishable from what they had been before the victory.

=拿彩票中奖者为例吧。一项重要的研究表明，尽管彩票中奖者中奖时会感到非常非常幸福，可这类兴奋很快就消逝了。一段时间之后，他们的心情和幸福感与中奖之前并没什么区别。

Para. 5

1. So, too, with technology: no matter how dramatic a new innovation is, no matter how much easier it makes our lives, it is very easy to take it for granted.

=人们对待技术的态度也是一样的：无论一种新事物多么引人注目，也无论它使我们的生活变得多么舒适，人们很快就会认为这是理所当然的事情。

2. You can see this principle at work in the world of technology every day, as things that once seemed miraculous soon become common and, worse, frustrating when they don’t work perfectly.

=在技术世界里，你每天都会看到这一原则在发挥作用。曾经一度被视为非常神奇的东西很快就变的习以为常，更糟的是，当这些东西运转不正常时，还会令人沮丧。

3. It’s hard, it turns out, to keep in mind what thi ngs were like before the new technology came along.

=事实表明，要把新技术问世之前的情形牢记在心原来是如此困难！

Para. 6

1. Does our fast assimilation of technological progress mean, then, that technology makes no difference?

=那么，我们对新技术的快速吸收是否意味着技术没有发挥什么作用呢？

2. No. It just makes the q uestion of technology’s impact, for good or ill, more complicated.

=不，决非如此。不论好坏，这只是把技术对人类的影响的问题变得更复杂而已。

3. Let’s start with the downside.

=让我们先从负面影响谈起吧。

4. There are certain ways in which technology makes life obviously worse.

=在某些方面，技术显然使得生活更加糟糕了。

5. Telemarketing, traffic jams, and identity theft all come to mind.

=譬如，我们马上会想到电话推销、交通阻塞以及身份资料失窃等情况。

6. These are all phenomena that make people consciously unhappy.

=这些都是让人们明显意识到不幸福的现象。

7. But for the most part, modern critiques of technology have focused not so much on specific, bad technologies as the impact of technology on our human relationships.

=可是，现代的技术评论文章多半都没有把焦点集中在具体的、有害的技术本身上，而是集中在技术对人际关系的影响上。

Para. 7

1. Privacy has become increasingly fragile in a world of linked databases. =在数据库联网的世界里，隐私变得越来越脆弱。

2. In many workplaces, technologies like keystroke monitoring and full recordings of phone calls make it easier to watch workers.

=在许多工作场所，诸如按键监控和电话全程录音之类的技术使得对员工的监视变得更加容易了。

3. The notion that technology disrupts relationships and fractures community gained mainstream prominence as an attack on television.

=技术扰乱了人际关系，破坏了社区交往——这样的观念成为人们攻击电视时的主要焦点。

4. Some even say that TV is chiefly responsible for the gradual isolation of Americans from each other.

=有些人甚至说，电视是美国人逐渐相互疏远的罪魁祸首。

5. Similarly, the harmful effects of the Internet, which supposedly further isolates people from what is often called “the real world”.

=同样也有人认为，互联网的负面影响进一步使人们远离了我们常说的“真实世界”。

Para. 8

1. This broad criticism of technology’s impact on relationships is an interesting one and is especially relevant to the question of happiness, because one of the few things we can say for certain is that the more friends and the closer relationships people have, the happier they tend to be.

=这种广义上关于技术影响人际关系的批评颇有趣味，尤其与幸福的问题密切相关，因为我们真正有把握说清楚的事情没有几件，但其中之一是：人们的朋友越多，关系越密切，就越幸福。

Para. 9

1. Today, technological change is so rappid that when you buy something, you do so knowing that in a few months there’s going to be a better,

faster version of the product, and that you’re going to be stuck with the old one.

=今天的技术变化异常神速，购买某种产品时你就知道，在过几个月，比这个产品性能更好、运作更快捷的款式就会问世，而你却不得不继续使用旧款式的产品。

2. Someone else, in other words, has it better.

=换句话说，别人买到的产品要比你的好。

3. It’s as if disappointment were built into acquisition from the very beginning.

=这种失望感仿佛从你开始购买这件产品时就已经深深植入你的认知系统中了。

Para. 10

1. Daily stress, an annoying sense of disappointment, fear that the government knows a lot more about you than you would like it to ----- these are obviously some of the ways in which technology reduces people’s sense of well-being.

=日常生活的压力、一种令人烦恼的失望感、对政府知晓你的情况超出你所希望的程度而造成的恐惧感——这些显然都是技术降低了人

们幸福感的几个方面。

2. But the most important impact of technology on people’s sense of

well-being is in the field of health care.

=然而，技术对人们的幸福感的最重要的影响体现在医疗保健方面。

3. Before the Industrial Revolution, two out of every three Europeans died before the age of 30.

=工业革命以前，每三个欧洲人中就有两个的寿命不足30岁。

4. Today, life expectancy for women in Western Europe is almost 80 years, and it continues to increase.

=而今天，西欧妇女的寿命差不多是80岁，而且还会继续提高。

5. The point is obvious: the vast majority of people are happy to be alive, and the more time they get on earth, the better off they feel they’ll be.

=道理很明了：绝大多数人很乐意活下去，他们在地球上生活的时间越长感觉就越好。

6. But until very recently, life for the vast majority of people was nasty, rough, and short.

=但是，就在不久前，绝大多数人还过着龌龊不堪、牲口不如的生活，而且寿命非常短暂。

7. Technology has changed that, at least for people in the rich world.

=技术改变了这一状况，至少对于富裕国家的人们来说情况是如此。

8. As much as we should worry about the rising cost of health care and the problem of the uninsured, it’s also worth remembering how valuable for our spirits as well as our bodies are the benefits that medical technology has brought us.

=我们在为医疗保健费用的提高和没有参加保险的人们的问题担忧的同时，同样也应该记住，医疗技术所带给我们的身体和精神上的好处是多么有价值。

Para. 11

1. On a deeper level, what the technological improvement of our health and our longevity emphasizes is a paradox of any discussion of happiness on a national or a global level: even though people may not be happier, even though they are wealthier and possess more technology, they’re still as hungry as ever for more time.

=从更深层次上来说，我们在健康和长寿方面所取得的进步却强调了在国家和全球层面讨论幸福问题的一个自相矛盾的说法：即使人们不会更幸福，即使他们更加富裕并拥有更多技术，他们还会像以前那样渴望长寿。

2. It’s like that old joke: the food may not be so great, but we want the portions to be as big as possible.

=这就像那个古老的笑话一样：食品也许并不好，可我们都想让自己得到的那一份尽量大一些。

Fame

Fame is very much like an animal chasing its own tail who, when he captures it, does not know what else to do but to continue chasing it. Fame and the exhilarating celebrity that accompanies it, force the famous person to participate in his or her own destruction. Ironic isn’t it?

声誉就像一直不断追逐自己尾巴的动物,当抓住自己的尾巴时,它也不知道除了继续追逐之外他还能做什么. 声誉和令人兴奋的名望相伴,促使着名人们走向毁灭.很讽刺,不是么?

Those who gain fame most often gain it as a result of possessing a single talent or skill: singing, dancing, painting, or writing, etc. The successful performer develops a style that is marketed aggressively and gains some popularity, and it is this popularity that usually convinces the performer to continue performing in the same style, since that is what the public seems to want and to enjoy. But in time, the performer becomes bored singing the same songs in the same way year after year, or the painter becomes bored painting similar scenes or portraits, or the actor is tired of playing the same character repeatedly. The demand of the public holds the artist hostage to his or her own success, fame. If the artist attempts to change his or her style of writing or dancing or singing, etc., the audience may turn away and look to confer fleeting fickle fame on another and then, in time, on another, and so on and so on.

那些声名鹊起的人通常是因为他们具有某项天赋或者掌握了某样技能:唱歌,跳舞,绘画或者写作等.一个成功的表演者因为发展了一种激进的市场表演风格而倍受欢迎.也正是这种名气促使他保持着这种表演艺术.因为这是观众想要的和喜欢的.但是到最后,歌手会因为年复一年的唱着同样的歌而感到厌烦.画家会因为一直画着同样的风景和肖像而感到无趣.演员会因为长期表演同样的角色而感到厌倦.公众的需求掌握着艺术家们的获得声誉与否的关键.如果艺术家们想要去改变他们书法风格,唱腔或者舞步等的时候,观众们就有可能离开,把那些转瞬即逝的名誉授予他人.然后接着,给另一个再另一个再另一个…….

Who cannot recognize a Tennessee Williams play or a novel by John Updike or Ernest Hemingway or a poem by Robert Frost or W.H. Auden or T.S. Eliot? The same is true of painters like Monet, Renoir, Dali or Picasso and it is true of movie makers like Hitchcock, Fellini, Spielberg, Chen Kai-ge or Zhang Yimou. Their distinctive styles marked a significant change in the tradition forms and granted them fame and fortune, but they were not free to develop other styles or forms because their audience demanded of each of them what they originally presented. Hemingway cannot even now be confused with Henry James or anyone else, nor can Frost be confused with Yeats, etc. The unique forms each of them created, created them. No artist or performer can entirely escape the lure of fame and its promise of endless admiration and respect, but there is a heavy price one must pay for it.

谁不认识田纳西.威廉斯的戏剧/约翰?厄普代克和欧纳斯特.海明威的小说/罗伯特.弗罗斯特/W.H.奥登和托.史.艾略特的诗歌?同样的还有画家莫奈,雷诺阿,达利或者毕加索,还有电影制作节家希契科克, 费里尼,斯皮尔伯格,陈凯歌或者张艺谋.他们与众不同的风格标志着传统形式的重大变革,从而授予他们声望和财富.但是他们没有发展其他风格或模式的自由,因为他们的观众需要的是他们最先呈现的形式.即使现在,海明威还被混淆为亨利?詹姆斯或者其他的什么人;弗洛斯特也没有被混淆为耶茨.他们创造的独一无二的风格成就了他们.没有任何一个艺术家或表演者能够完全逃脱声誉的诱惑,因为声誉能给他们带来无止境的赞美和尊重.但是想要获得声誉就一定要付出沉重的代价.

Fame brings celebrity and high regard from adoring and loyal fans in each field of endeavor and it is heady stuff. A performer can easily come to believe that he or she is as good as his or her press. But most people, most artists do not fain fame and fortune. What about those performers who fail, or anyone who fails? Curiously enough, failure often severs as its own reward for many people! It brings sympathy from others who are delighted not to be you, and it allows family and friends to lower their expectations of you so that you need not compete with those who have more talent and who succeed. And they find excused and explanations for your inability to succeed and become famous: you are too sensitive, you are not interested in money, you are not interested in the power

that fame brings and you are not interested in the loss of privacy it demands, etc.—all excused, but comforting to those who fail and those who pretend not to notice the failure.

在每个领域里, 声望都能够带来名气, 能够在那些满怀崇敬之心的忠实的粉丝里受到高度关注.但是它是是个容易使人沉醉的东西. 一个表演者很容易相信自己的成就与舆论者称赞一样.但是很多人,很多艺术家并没有获得声誉和财富.那些失败者的表演者,或者其他失败了的人呢?说来也奇怪,对于很多人来说,失败却常常是对他们的失败的补偿.它招来那些庆幸自己不是你的人的怜悯; 它使得你的家人,朋友降低对你的期望,从而你不必再与那些比你有天赋,比你成功的人攀比.他们为你不能成功成名的无能寻找各种各样的借口和解释: 你太容易受伤,你对金钱不感兴趣,你不屑于那些伴随名誉而来的权利,你也不喜欢因为出名而使隐私受

到侵犯,等等. 所有的借口,只是为了安慰是那些失败了的人,或者那些假装不在意失败的人罢了.

History has amply proven that some failure for some people at certain times in their lives does indeed motivate them to strive even harder to succeed and to continue believing in themselves. Thomas Wolfe, the American novelist, had his first novel Look Homeward, Angel rejected 39 times before it was finally published and launched his career and created his fame. Beethoven overcame his tyrannical father and grudging acceptance as a musician to become the greatest, most famous musician in the world, and Pestalozzi, the famous Italian educator in the 19th century, failed at every job he ever had until he came upon the idea if teaching children and developing the fundamental theories to produce a new form of education. Thomas Edison was thrown out of school in fourth grade, at about age 10, because he seemed to the teacher to be quite dull and unruly. Many other cases may be found of people who failed and used the failure to motivate them to achieve, to succeed, and to become famous. But, unfortunately, for most people failure is the end of their struggle, not the beginning. There are few, if any, famous failures.

历史已经充分证明了有些人在他们生命的某些时间里遭遇的失败确实会激励他们为取得成功而更加努力奋斗并且继续相信自己. 美国小说家托马斯沃.尔夫的第一篇小说<向家乡看吧,安琪儿>被拒绝了39次才最终得以发表,从而开启了他的事业,为他创造了名誉.贝多芬不向他专横的父亲低头,也忍气吞声的做过乐师,但他最终还是成为了举世闻名的音乐家. 十九世纪意大利著名的教育家裴斯塔洛齐在他决定从事儿童教育事业并且为之建立起一套新的基本教育体系之前, 在各行各业一无所成. 托马斯.爱迪生在十岁读四年级的时候因为被老

师认为愚笨任性而逐出学校. 另外,也有很多最初失败的人以失败为动力,发愤图强,最终取得成功. 但是, 很不幸, 对于很多人来说失败就是他们奋斗的终点,而不是起点.成功的失败者

即使有,也很少.

Well then, why does anyone want fame? Do you? Do you want to be known to many people and admired by them? Do you want the money that usually comes with fame? Do you want the media to notice everything you do or say both in public and in private? Do you want them hounding you, questioning you and trying to undo you? In American politics it is very obvious that to be famous is to be the target of everyone who disagrees with you as well as of the media. Fame turns all the lights on and while it gives power and prestige, it takes the you out of you: you must be what the public thinks you are, not what you really are or could be. The politician, like the performer, must please his or her audiences and that often means saying things he does not mean or does not believe in fully. No wonder so few people trust politicians. But we have not answered the question at the beginning of this paragraph: why does anyone want fame? Several reasons come to mind: to demonstrate excellence in some field; to gain the admiration and love of many others; to be the

one everyone talks about; to show family and friends you are more than they thought you were. Probably you can list some other reasons, but I think these are reasonably common.

那么为什么每个人都渴望拥有名誉呢?你渴望么?你渴望许多人都知道你,赞赏你么?你渴望

那些伴随名誉而来的金钱么?你希望被媒体关注你做的每一件事么?不论是公共场合或者是私底下.你希望被他们不停地跟踪,不停地询问不停地骚扰么?很明显, 在美国政坛, 出名就会成为那些反对你人的目标,也会成为媒体的目标. 声誉给你带来所有的光环,同时赋予你权利和威望,也让你变得不像原来的自己.你必须成为公众心目中的你,而不是真实的你和可能的你.政治家也像表演者一样, 必须讨好自己的观众.这就意味着他们只能说一些不是他们本意或者他们也不完全相信的话. 所以相信政治家的人很少也就不足为奇了. 但是我们还没有回答本段开始提出的问题:为什么每个人都渴望名誉呢? 我突然想到几个原因: 为了在某些领域彰显卓越; 为了赢得别人的赞美和喜爱; 为了成为每个人谈到的话题; 又或者为了向亲人和朋友证明自己能够超乎他们的想象. 或许你也可列举其他的原因,但是我认为通常都是这些原因.

Is it possible to be famous and to remain true to yourself, the real you? Perhaps, but one is hard pressed to come up with the names of those who have done their thing their way and succeed in the fame game. Many political dissident around the world, in particular, Dawn Aung Suu Kyi of Burma, is a rare exception to the rule that says maintaining unpopular views or unpopular attitudes or approaches in any field will destroy you. The famous Irish writer Oscar Wilde, a very successful writer of stories, poems and plays, was known for his most unusual clothing and eccentric behavior, social and sexual. This behavior him to the attention of the mother of a young man Oscar was intimate with and she accused him. He was furious about this and sued the young man’s mother which led to a trial and imprisonment for two years. He remained true to himself and paid a heavy price for it by being ostracized and defamed.

如果成名,是否还有可能保持最真实的自己呢? 也许可能, 但是一个人很难即能够以自己的方式做自己喜欢做的事,又在名利场上取得成功. 对于世界上很多持不同政见的的政界人员来说, 一直说一些在任何领域都不受欢迎的观点或者态度是一件违反政界规则的事情. 但是缅甸的黎明翁山苏姬是个罕见的例外. 著名的爱尔兰作家奥斯卡.王德尔是一个很成功的小说家/诗人和剧作家. 他因他最与众不同的服装/古怪的行为/反常的社会观和性观念而闻名. 但是他的举止让他好朋友的母亲感到反感,从而被告上了法庭. 他为此感到怒不可歇,并控告这位母亲. 如此一来,他也因此遭受了两年的审讯和关押. 他保持了最真实的自己,但是却为此付出了沉重的代价,受到社会排斥,声名尽毁.

Time magazine of June 17, 1996 devoted a good deal of its issue to discussing people(25 in America) who are the most influential in the country in their opinion. They added a short essay on who are the most powerful people in America and no one on the first list appeared on the second list, and strangely enough, none of the people on either list was described as famous, although I think several surely are. Can we really distinguish influential people and powerful people from those who are famous? Maybe, but their list of influence people included Jerry Seinfeld the comedian and TV star, Courtney Love the singer and drug addict whose fame has come largely through her husband Kurt Cobain, the guitarist who committed suicide, and the list includes Oprah Winfrey the talk show host and Calvin Klein the clothing designer. All of these people are famous, but I believe, not very influential in the same that they change the way most of us think or act. In Time magazine’s list we find a Supreme Court justice, Sandra Day O’Connor, who is no more influential or powerful than any of the other 8justices. President Clinton is not considered

influential (?) but is considered powerful! You decide if you think famous and influential and powerful are closely related, or different.

.1996年6月17日, <时代>杂志投入了大量的版面来讨论谁是民众心里对美国最具影响力的人. 他们对那位美国最有影响力的人物补充了一篇小传记. 但是那些在第一份名单中出现的人没有一个出现在第二份名单里面. 不可思议的是出现在两份名单中的人没有一个可以称得上出名,尽管我认为其中有些人确有声誉. 但是我们真的能够区别出那些著名的人物谁是有影响力的人谁是有权力的人吗？也许,但他们那份有影响力的人的名单中包括喜剧演员和电视明星杰瑞?桑菲尔德以及科特尼．洛芙,她是一名歌手,也是一个吸毒者,并且她是因为她的丈夫而出名的.她的丈夫科特.柯本是一名吉他手, 死于自杀. 除此以外,这份名单也包括脱口秀节目的主持人奥普拉?温弗瑞,和服装设计师卡尔文.克莱恩. 所有的这些人物都是有名的,但是我相信,他们对改变我们的思维方式和行为习惯并没有多大影响力. 在<时代>杂志名单里面我们还发现一位高级法院的法官桑德拉.奥康纳. 他比不比其他法官影响力大,也并不比其他法官权力大. 别人并不认为克林顿总统有影响力,但是他们认为他有权力. 知名度/影响力和权力是联系紧密还是根本就不同,是由你来决定的.

I believe that fame and celebrity, influence and power, success and failure, reality and illusion are all somehow neatly woven into a seamless fabric we laughingly call reality. I say to those who desperately seek fame and fortune, celebrity: good luck. But what will you do when you have caught your tail, your success, your fame? Keep chasing it? If you do catch it, hang on for dear life because falling is not as painful as landing. See you soon famous and almost famous, wayfarers on this unbright, nonlinear planet.

我相信声誉和名望, 影响和权力,成功与失败,真实和虚幻都以某种方式灵活的编织成一张细密的绸布, 我们笑称为”现实”的那张布. 我对那些拼命地寻求声誉/名望与财富的人说: 祝你好运. 但是当你抓住了你的尾巴,也就是你的成功和声望的时候,你将要怎么做? 如果你真的抓住了它, 就拼命地抓住吧,因为掉落并不像攀登一样痛苦. 希望很快看见你成名,或者是快要成名, 在这颗光明的行星上成句辉煌的旅程.

T Work, Labor, and Play

Wystan H. Auden

This text is taken from The Little, Brown Reader (Third Edition), edited by Marcia

Stubbs and Sylvan Barnet. Little, Brown and Company. 1983.

close

1RT So far as I know, Miss Hannah Arendt was the first person to

define the essential difference between work and labor. To be happy, a

man must feel, firstly, free and, secondly, important. He cannot be

really happy if he is compelled by society to do what he does not enjoy

doing, or if what he enjoys doing is ignored by society as of no value or

importance. In a society where slavery in the strict sense has been

abolished, whether what a man does has social value depends on

whether he is paid money to do it, but a laborer today can rightly be

called a wage slave. A man is a laborer if the job society offers him is of

no interest to himself but he is compelled to take it by the necessity of

earning a living and supporting his family.

工作、劳动和玩耍

威斯坦·H·奥登

就我所知，汉娜·阿伦特小姐是界定工作和劳动之间本质区别的第一人。一个人要想快乐，第一要有自由感，第二要确信自己有价值。如果社会迫使一个人去做他自己不喜欢的事，或者说，他所喜欢做的事被社会忽视，看作没有价值或不重要，那他就不会真正快乐。在一个严格意义上已废除奴隶制的社会里，一个人做的事情是否具有社会价值取决于他是否为完成此项工作得到了报酬。然而，今天的劳动者可以被称为名副其实的工资奴隶。如果社会给一个人提供一份他本人不感兴趣的工作，他出于养家糊口的需要不得已才从事这项工作，那这个人就是一个劳动者。close

2RT The opposite to labor is play. When we play a game, we enjoy

what we are doing, otherwise we should not play it, but it is a purely

private activity; society could not care less whether we play it or not.

与劳动相对的是玩耍。玩游戏时，我们能从中得到乐趣，否则就不会玩这个游戏。但这完全是一种私人的活动，我们玩不玩这个游戏社会是不会关注的。close

3RT Between labor and play stands work. A man is a worker if he is

personally interested in the job which society pays him to do; what

from the point of view of society is necessary labor is from his own point

of view voluntary play. Whether a job is to be classified as labor or work

depends, not on the job itself, but on the tastes of the individual who

undertakes it. The difference does not, for example, coincide with the

difference between a manual and a mental job; a gardener or a cobbler

may be a worker, a bank clerk a laborer. Which a man is can be seen

from his attitude toward leisure. To a worker, leisure means simply the

hours he needs to relax and rest in order to work efficiently. He is

therefore more likely to take too little leisure than too much; workers

die of heart attacks and forget their wives' birthdays. To the laborer, on

the other hand, leisure means freedom from compulsion, so that it is

natural for him to imagine that the fewer hours he has to spend

laboring, and the more hours he is free to play, the better.

处在劳动和玩耍之间的是工作。如果一个人对社会为他支付报酬的工作感兴趣，他就是一个工作者。从社会角度看是必需的劳动在他自己看来却是自愿的玩耍。一个职位是劳动还是工作，并不取决于这个职位本身，而是取决于占据这个职位的个人自己的情趣。这种差异与体力劳动和脑力劳动之间的差异并不吻合。

譬如，一个园丁或者鞋匠也许就是一个工作者，而一个银行职员则可能是一个劳动者。一个人是工作者还是劳动者可以从他对闲暇的态度上看出来。对于一个工作者来说，闲暇不过是他需要放松、休息从而进行有效工作的几个小时，所以，他可能只有少量的闲暇，而不会有大量的空闲。工作者可能会死于心脏病，并会忘记自己妻子的生日。而对于劳动者来说，闲暇就意味着摆脱强制，所以，他自然会想象：他不得不花费在劳动上的时间越少，而自由自在地玩耍的时间越多，那才越好。close

4RT What percentage of the population in a modern technological

society are, like myself, in the fortunate position of being workers? At a

guess I would say sixteen per cent, and I do not think that figure is

likely to get bigger in the future.

在一个现代化的技术社会里，总人口中有多大比例的人能够像我一样有幸成为工作者呢？我估计大概有16％，而且，我认为这个数字将来也不会增加。close

5RT Technology and the division of labor have done two things: by

eliminating in many fields the need for special strength or skill, they

have made a very large number of paid occupations which formerly

were enjoyable work into boring labor, and by increasing productivity

they have reduced the number of necessary laboring hours. It is

already possible to imagine a society in which the majority of the

population, that is to say, its laborers, will have almost as much leisure

as in earlier times was enjoyed by the aristocracy. When one recalls

how aristocracies in the past actually behaved, the prospect is not

cheerful. Indeed, the problem of dealing with boredom may be even

more difficult for such a future mass society than it was for

aristocracies. The latter, for example, ritualized their time; there was a

season to shoot gro use, a season to spend in town, etc. The masses are

more likely to replace an unchanging ritual by fashion which changes as

often as possible in the economic interest of certain people. Again, the

masses cannot go in for hunting, for very soon there would be no

animals left to hunt. For other aristocratic amusements like gambling,

dueling, and warfare, it may be only too easy to find equivalents in

dangerous driving, drug-taking, and senseless acts of violence.

Workers seldom commit acts of violence, because they can put their

aggression into their work, be it physical like the work of a smith, or

mental like the work of a scientist or an artist. The role of aggression in

mental work is aptly expressed by the phrase "getting one's teeth into

a problem".

技术和劳动的分工成就了两件事：通过在许多领域取消了特别才能和技术的需要，把过去本来令人愉快的大量受雇职业的工作变成了令人厌倦的劳动；通过提高生产力，缩短了劳动所需的时间。已经可以想象出这样一个社会：其人口的大多数，也就是其中的劳动者们，将会享受到早期贵族们才能享受到的几乎同样多的休闲。当人们回想起过去贵族们的举止行为时，前景并非乐观。的确，在未来这样一个大众社会里，人们要解决“无聊”这个问题，也许比过去的贵族们要困难得多。后者（贵族们）把他们的时间都仪式化了，譬如，有打松鸡的季节，有在城镇消磨的季节等等。广大民众更有可能以时尚来取代一成不变的仪式，而时尚将会为了某些人的经济利益频繁地变化。再者，广大民众也不会再去狩猎，因为，要不了多久可供猎