考研英语阅读3(有详细翻译)Putting in a good word for guilt.doc

Putting in a good word for guiltThere are two attitudes toward the sense of guilt: one is to eliminate it in order to live comfortably, which is usually advocated by most psychologists to maintain so-called mental health; 对于“内疚”感，人们有两种不同的态度。一种就是减少“内疚”感，为的是活得舒服。这是心理学家提倡的做法，用来维持所谓的心理健康。The other is to keep it, so that our behavior can be modified under the influence of conscience. 另一种态度是保持“内疚”感，以便我们的行为在道德良心的驱使下能有所改良。The author analyzes the nature and function of guilt in the deepest level and thinks that this worst emotion actually helps bring out the best in us, while, on the contrary, the lack of guilt is to be questioned. 作者鞭辟入里地分析了“内疚”感的本质及作用，她认为这种让人感到最不舒服的情感实际上能使人向善。而相反，理应受到质疑的应该是这种“内疚”感的缺失。1 Feeling guilty is nothing to feel guilty about. 不必因为有“内疚”感而感到“内疚”。Yes, guilt can be the excess baggage that keeps us paralyzed unless we dump it. 是的，“内疚”感会使我们背负过多的包袱。除非我们摔掉包袱，否则我们难以前行。But it can also be the engine that fuels us. 但它也能成为我们动力的来源。 Yes, it can be a self-punishing activity, but it can also be conscience that keeps us civilized. 没错，它会成为一种自我谴责行为，但它也能变成一种道德良心，使我们不再野蛮愚昧。2 Not too long ago I wrote a story about that amusing couple Guilt and the Working Mother.就在前不久，我写过一篇故事，讲的是内疚和工作型母亲这对搭档的事。Ill tell you more about that later. 我下面还会补充一些。Through the mail someone sent me a gift coffee mug carrying the message I gave up guilt for Lent. 有人寄给我一个礼品咖啡杯，杯上写着：因为大斋节，我放弃了内疚感。3 My first reaction was to giggle. (看到这些字)我的第一反应就是觉得好笑。But then it occurred to me that this particular Lent has been too lengthy. 但随后我又意识到眼下这个斋节持续时间太长了。 For the past decade or more, the pop psychologists who use book jackets rather than couches all were busy telling us that I am okay, you are okay and whatever we do is okay. 在过去十年或更长的时间里，大众心理学工作者都忙着通过书籍的封面套纸广告语，而非心理诊所的谈话，告诉大家说：我好，你好，大家做什么都好。4 In most of their books, guilt was given a bad name - or rather, an assortment of bad names. 在心理学工作者所出的大多数书中，内疚感被冠以恶名-甚至就是恶名的总称。 It was a (1) Puritan, (2) Jewish or (3) Catholic hangover from our (1) parents, (2) culture or (3) religion. 它是清教，犹太教或者天主教的遗物，经由我们的父母，文化或宗教传给我们。To be truly liberated was to be free of guilt about being rich, powerful, number one, bad to your mother, thoughtless, late, a smoker, or about cheating on your spouse. 要想真正洒脱，就得消除内疚感，无论是有钱、有势、有名，或是对母亲不敬、不体谅别人，还是迟到、吸烟、有婚外情。5 There was a popular notion, in fact, that self-love began by slaying ones guilt. 事实上，以前就有个流行的看法，认为爱自己就得先消除内疚感。People all around us spent a great portion of the last decade trying to tune out guilt instead of decoding its message and learning what it was trying to tell us. 在过去十年的大部分时间中，我们周围的人们一直在遮蔽内疚感，而不是去理解内疚的含义并领悟内疚感正设法提醒我们什么。 6 With that sort of success, guilt was ripe for revival. 有了那种(消除内疚感的)成功后，内疚感复活的机会也就成熟了。Somewhere along the Im-okay-youre-okay way, many of us realized that, in fact, I am not always okay and neither are you. 沿着我好你好的路走着，但在某种程度上我们许多人都意识到，事实上，我并非一直都好，你也一样。 Furthermore, we did not want to join the legions who conquered their guilt en route to new depths of narcissistic rottenness. 此外，我们也不想加入到这样一大批人中去：他们通过更深层次的自恋式堕落克服了自己的内疚感。 7 At the deepest, most devastating level, guilt is the criminal in us that longs to be caught. 从最深远、最彻底的层面上来说，内疚感是我们内心中一个一直期望被抓获的罪犯。It is the horrible, pit-of-the-stomach sense of having done wrong. 这是那种可怕的、堵在胸口、做了错事的感觉。It is, as Lady Macbeth obsessively knew, the spot that no one else may see.and we cant see around. 正如麦克白夫人心头萦绕不去的感受，内疚感就是那个别人看不到的污渍而且我们还不能引颈四顾。 8 To be without guilt is to be without a conscience. 没有内疚感就等于没有良知。 Guilt-free people dont feel bad when they cause pain to others, and so they go on guilt-freely causing more pain. 没有内疚感的人给他人带来痛苦时不会感到难受，因此他们就心安理得地继续给别人添加更多的痛苦。The last thing we need more of is less conscience. 我们最不能多要的东西就是良知的缺失。 9 Freud once said, As regards conscience, God has done an uneven and careless piece of work, for a large majority of men have brought along with them only a modest amount of it, or scarcely enough to be worth mentioning. 弗洛伊德曾说过：就良知的分配而言，上帝做的既不公平也不认真。因为大多数人生来良知就不算多，甚至简直少的不值一提。 10 Now, I am not suggesting that we all sign up for a new guilt trip. 此刻，我并不是在建议我们大家都去报名参加新一轮的内疚感知之旅。But there has to be some line between the accusation that we all should feel guilty for, say, poverty or racism and the assertion that the oppressed have chosen their lot in life. 然而，下面两种论断还是有些差别的：其中一种认为我们所有人都该为诸如贫困或种族主义感到内疚；另一种则断言受压迫者都是命中注定。 11 There has to be something between Puritanism and hedonism.在清教徒主义和享乐主义这两个极端之间肯定还有一个更好的主义。There has to be something between the parents who guilt-trip their children across every stage of life and those who offer no guidance, no-gulp-moral or ethical point of view.同样，有的父母在孩子各个成长阶段都教导他们时刻要感到内疚，而另一个极端是，有的父母压根就不给孩子一丁点道德伦理指导，在这两者之间肯定还有更适当的做法。 12 At quite regular intervals, for example, my daughter looks up at me in the midst of a discussion (she would call it a lecture) and says: Youre making me feel guilty.比方说，我跟女儿谈心时(她称之为训话)，她过一会儿就会抬起头来说：你让我心里不好受。 For a long time this made me, in turn, feel guilty.她这话反过来弄得我心里好长时间颇为不好受。But now I realize that I am doing precisely what I am supposed to be doing: instilling in her a sense of right and wrong so that she will feel uncomfortable if she behaves in hurtful ways.然而如今我意识到我的做法没有错：那就是给她灌输一种是非观，这样万一她以后伤害了谁就会良心不安。 13 This is, of course, a very tricky business.当然，这事说起来容易做起来难。Guilt is ultimately the way we judge ourselves.内疚是评价自我的终极方式。It is the part of us that says, I deserve to be punished.它是我们心中的声音，对自己说：我应受罚。 But we all know people who feel guilty just for being alive.不过我们也知道有些人单单因为活着就感觉自己犯了罪似的。We know people who are paralyzed by irrational guilt.还有些人因不着边际的内疚感而惶惶不可终日。And we certainly dont want to be among them, or to shepherd our children into their flock.我们肯定不愿意成为他们中的一员，也不愿自己的后代步他们的后尘。 14 But it seems to me that the trick isnt to become flaccidly nonjudgemental, but to figure out whether we are being fair judges of ourselves.然而我又感到解决问题的诀窍并不是要懦弱地对任何事都不敢评判，而是要看看我们评价自我时是否公正。Karl Menninger once wrote that one aim of psychiatric treatment isnt to get rid of guilt but to get peoples guilt feelings attached to the right things.卡尔门宁格曾写过，心理治疗的目的不在于清除内疚感，而是要把人们的内疚感和正确的事情联系在一起。 15 In his book Feelings, Willard Gaylin quotes a Reverend Tillotsons definition of guilt as nothing else but trouble arising in our mind from our consciousness of having done contrary to what we are verily persuaded was our Duty.威拉德盖林在情感一书中引用了牧师蒂洛森对内疚感的定义：意识到做了有悖于我们职责的事后内心产生的不安。 16 We may, however, have wildly different senses of duty.当然，人们对职责可以有五花八门的认识。I had lunch with two friends a month ago when they both started talking about feeling guilty for neglecting their mothers.我一个月前和两个朋友共进午餐，她们俩谈起自己对母亲关心不够，于心不安。One, it turned out, worried that she didnt call home every day; the other hadnt even chatted with her mother since Christmas.结果，一个担心的是没能天天给家里打电话，另一个自打圣诞节就不曾跟她母亲聊过天。 17 We are also particularly vulnerable to feelings of duty in a time of change. 在这个瞬息万变的时代，我们特别容易体会到各种责任感。Today an older and ingrained sense of what we should do may conflict with a new one.该做什么、不该做什么，今天根深蒂固的老观念就可能和一个新观念相冲突。In the gaps that open between what we once were taught, and what we now believe, grows a rich crop of guilt.过去所受的教育和今天的认识之间有很大差距，由此也生出各种内疚感。 18 Mothers now often tell me that they feel guilty if they are working and guilty if they arent.有的母亲时常对我说，她们工作心里过意不去，不工作心里照样过意不去。One set of older expectations, to be a perfect milk-and-cookies supermom, conflicts with another, to be an independent woman or an economic helpmate.过去人们认为完美的超级母亲就是要给孩子喂好奶，会做可口的饼干;而相反，现在的标准则是要做独立的女性或者经济上的好帮手。 19 But duty has its uses.但是责任感也有其用处。It sets us down at the typewriter, hustles us to the job on a morning when everything has gone wrong, pushes us toward the crying baby at 3 A.M.是责任感逼迫我们坐到打字机前，是责任感催促我们在一个诸事不顺的早上去工作，临晨3点孩子哭了也是责任感让我们起床看孩子。 20 If guilt is a struggle between our acceptance of shoulds and should-nots, it is a powerful and intensely human one.如果说责任感是我们的内心斗争，在什么该做、什么不该做之间进行艰难选择，那么这个斗争是强大的、充满人性的。Gaylin writes, Guilt represents the noblest and most painful of struggles. It is between us and ourselves. 盖林写道：内疚感代表最崇高、最痛苦的斗争。这是我们与自我的斗争。 It is better to struggle with ourselves than give up on ourselves.与自我斗争总比放弃自我好。 21 This worst emotion, in a sense, helps bring out the best in us.从某种意义上讲，这种最糟糕的情感有助于引发人性最美好的一面。The desire to avoid feeling guilty makes us avoid the worst sort of behavior.为避免内疚于心，我们就不去做最差劲的事。The early guilt of a child, who has hurt a younger sister or brother, even when no one else knows, is a message.如果一个孩子伤害了妹妹或弟弟，哪怕没人知道，他幼小的心灵也会滋生内疚，这就是一个很好的例子。The adult who has inflicted pain on an innocent, who has cheated, lied, stolen, to get ahead of another - each of us has a list -wakes up in the middle of the night and remembers it.有的成年人给无辜的人造成痛苦，他们为了超过别人而行骗、撒谎、偷窃（我们每个人心里都有一笔自己的帐），可半夜醒来这些还历历在目。 22 In that sense guilt is the great civilizer, the internal commandment that helps us choose to be kind to each other rather than to join in a stampede of me-firsts.从这个意义上说，内疚感是人类文明的伟大促进者，它是人类内心的戒律，促使我们选择与人为善，而不去与那些老子先来的自私自利者挤成一团你争我抢。If guilt is coming back, said Harvard Professor David Riesman, who wrote The Lonely Crowd, one reason is that a tremendous surge of young people overpowered the adults in the sixties.如果说人们心中的内疚感复苏了，曾著孤独的人群哈佛大学教授戴维里斯曼说，原因之一是60年代猛增的年轻人势头压过了成年人。You might say the barbarians took Rome.你可以说成野蛮人占领了罗马。Now there are more adults around who are trying to restore some stability.而如今成年人更多了，他们正试图恢复稳定的局面。 23 Guilt is the adult in each of us, the parent, the one who upholds the standards.内疚感是我们心中的成年人，是父母，是坚持标准的人。It is the internal guide against which we argue in vain that everybody else is doing it.它是我们内心的向导，虽然我们常常跟它争辩其他人都这么干，但是结果总是徒劳的。 24 We even wrestle with ethical dilemmas and conflicts of conscience so that we can live with ourselves more comfortably.我们甚至与伦理困境和内心冲突做斗争，为求个心安理得。I know two people who were faced with a crisis about their infidelities.我认识两个女人，她们因不忠于婚姻而面临危机。One woman resolved the triangle she was in by ending her marriage.其中一个离了婚，结束了三角关系。The other ended her affair.另外一个终止了婚外恋。In both cases, it was the pain that had motivated them to change.两种情况下都是痛苦促成她们改变。 25 It is not easy to attach our guilt to the right things.把内疚感和正确的事联系在一起并非易事。It is never easy to separate right from wrong, rational guilt from neurotic guilt.明辨是非，分清理智的和神经质的内疚感向来很难。We may resolve one by changing our view of it and another by changing our behavior.要想解决问题我们要么改换看法，要么改变行动。 26 In my own life as a working mother, I have done both half a dozen times.我曾是个上班的母亲，两种解决问题的方法我都试过好几次。When my daughter was small and I was working, I worried that I was not following the pattern of the good mother, my mother.女儿年纪小，然而我又要上班，我就担心自己没有像我妈妈那样当个合格的母亲。Only through time and perspective and reality did I change that view; I realized that my daughter clearly did not feel neglected and I clearly was not uncaring.时间一久，视野开阔了，通过现实我这才改变观点；我意识到女儿显然没有遭遇冷落的感觉，我也绝非漠不关心的妈妈。Good child care, love, luck and support helped me to resolve my early guilt feelings.悉心照料、爱意、机会和支持帮助我化解了早些时候的内疚之情。 27 Then again, last winter I found myself out of town more than I was comfortable with.去年冬天有一阵，我到外地的次数比往日多了，心里有些不安。This time I changed my schedule instead of my mind.这次我没有改变看法，而是改变了行程。 28 For all of us, in the dozens of daily decisions we make, guilt is one of the many proper motivations.就我们大多数人而言，每天要面临十几个决定。而内疚感是众多端正动机之一。I am not saying our lives are ru