高英下13 Selected Snobberies中英对照

Lesson Thirteen Selected Snobberies 1 Lesson Thirteen Selected Snobberies 13 1 All men are snobs about something One is almost tempted to add There is nothing about which men cannot feel snobbish But this would doubtless be an exaggeration There are certain disfiguring and mortal diseases about which there has probably never been any snobbery I cannot imagine for exam4ple that there are any leprosy snobs More picturesque diseases even when they are dangerous and less dangerous diseases particularly when they are the diseases of the rich can be and very frequently are a source of snobbish self importance I have met several adolescent consumption snobs who thought that it would be romantic to fade away in the flower of youth like Keats or Marie Bashkirtseff Alas the final stages of the consumptive fading are generally a good deal less romantic than these ingenuous young tubercle snobs seem to imagine To anyone who has actually witnessed these final stages the complacent poeticizings of these adolescents must seem as exasperating as they are profoundly pathetic In the case of those commoner disease snobs whose claim to distinction is that they suffer from one of the maladies of the rich exasperation is not tempered by very much sympathy 势利种种势利种种 所有的人都有势利之处 甚至想再补充一句 世界上没有不让人有势 利之感的事物 但这毫无疑问是个夸张 因为没有人对那些损坏人的容颜或致命的疾 病怀有势利之感 例如 我无法想象会有人对麻风病产生势利 一些较引人注目的疾病 特别是那些富人常 得的病 无论危险还是不太危险 都有可能成为 而且通常成为那些具有势利心态的人自以为高贵 的根源 我遇到过几个年轻的肺病势利者 他们认为 如果能像济慈和玛丽巴什基尔采夫那样在青年时 代的大好时期逐渐死亡是无比浪漫的 唉 结核病的晚期通常远不像这些单纯的年 轻的肺病势利者所想象的那样浪漫 面对这些自以为是的青年人给予肺病的这种 诗意 对于任何一个亲眼目睹肺病末期的人 这 些青年人的自满诗情必定会显得令人恼恨又令人 可怜 至于那些常见的疾病势利者 他们因患了夫 人易得的病便自称与众不同 对他们更没有多少 同情来减少对他们的恼恨了 Lesson Thirteen Selected Snobberies 2 People who possess sufficient leisure sufficient wealth not to mention sufficient health to go travelling from spa to spa from doctor to fashionable doctor in search of cures from problematical diseases which in so far as they exist at all probably have their source in overeating cannot expect us to be very lavish in our solicitude and pity 13 2 Disease snobbery is only one out of a great multitude of snobberies of which now some now others take pride of place in general esteem For snobberies ebb and flow their empire rises declines and falls in the most approved historical manner What were good snobberies a hundred years ago are now out of fashion Thus the snobbery of family is everywhere on the decline The snobbery of culture still strong has now to wrestle with an organized and active low browism with a snobbery of ignorance and stupidity unique so far as I know in the whole of history Hardly less characteristic of our age is that repulsive booze snobbery born of American Prohibition The malefic influences of this snobbery are rapidly spreading all over the world Even in France where the existence of so many varieties of delicious wine had hitherto imposed a judicious connoisseurship and has led to the branding of mere drinking as a brutish solecism even in France the American booze snobbery with its odious accompaniments a taste for hard drinks in general and for cocktails in particular is making headway among the rich 那些拥有充足的闲暇时间 充足的金钱 更 不用说充沛的精力的人 为了治疗他们的疾病 如果确实有病的话 很可能是过食所致 他们 不停地从一个矿泉疗养地到另一个矿泉疗养地 从一个医生到另一个时髦医生 这些人是不可能 得到我们充分的关切和同情的 疾病势利使众多势利中的一种 在这众多的 势利中 此时是这种疾病 而过了一些时间却又 是另一种疾病赢得人们的仰慕 由于各种势利的消长 他们各自的帝国也以 最为公认的历史性方式兴起 衰落 消亡 仍然 强盛的文化势利感 现在必须和有组织 有活力 的粗俗之流拼搏 以及和我所知的整个历史上独 一无二的愚昧与愚蠢势利去拼搏 令人厌倦的纵酒势利使我们这个时代的另一 个同等特点 这种势利的不良影响正很快地波及 整个世界 在法国 由于这里长期以来盛产多种美酒 法国人因此对酒很有鉴赏力 在那里 饮烈性酒被看作是一种粗野的失礼 行为 即使在法国 美国的狂饮势利及其可憎的附 属品 对烈性酒的普遍喜好 尤其是对鸡尾酒 的嗜好 正是法国富人中日渐兴盛起来 由于 对烈酒的势利感 有教养的男子和葱 15 岁到 70 岁之间一切年龄有教养的妇女 这一点很新奇 Lesson Thirteen Selected Snobberies 3 Booze snobbery has now made it socially permissible and in some circles even rather creditable for well brought up men and this is the novelty well brought up women of all ages from fifteen to seventy to be seen drunk if not in public at least in the very much tempered privacy of a party 13 3 Modernity snobbery though not exclusive to our age has come to assume an unprecedented importance The reasons for this are simple and of a strictly economic character Thanks to modern machinery production is outrunning consumption Organized waste among consumers is the first condition of our industrial prosperity The sooner a consumer throws away the object he has bought and buys another the better for the producer At the same time of course the producer must do his bit by producing nothing but the most perishable articles The man who builds a skyscraper to last more than forty years is a traitor to the building trade The words are those of a great American contractor Substitute motor car boot suit of clothes etc for skyscraper and one year three months six months and so on for forty years and you have the gospel of any leader of any modern industry The modernity snob it is obvious is this industrialist s best friend For modernity snobs naturally tend to throw away their old possessions and buy new ones at a greater rate than those who are not modernity snobs 如果不能在公众场合喝醉 在有多人参加的 私人宴会上是允许喝醉的 在某些圈子里喝醉还 被赞赏 新潮势利虽然不是我们这个时代的特有产物 但却有着空前的重要性 原因很简单 完全是经济上的 由于现代机器生产大于消费 消费者有组织的浪费是我们的工业得以繁荣 的首要条件 消费者弃旧购新的速度越快 对生产商就越 有利 当然 与此同时 制造商要尽自己的努力 只生产最不耐用的产品 建造一座寿命超过 40 年的大楼的人 就是建筑业的叛徒 这是美国的一个大包工商所说的话 如果用汽车 靴子 套服等等代替摩天大楼 用一年 三个月 六个月等等代替 40 年 你就会 得出现代工业界领导人的信条 很显然 新潮势利感是工业家最好的朋友 Lesson Thirteen Selected Snobberies 4 Therefore it is in the producer s interest to encourage modernity snobbery Which in fact he does do on an enormous scale and to the tune of millions and millions a year by means of advertising The newspapers do their best to help those who help them and to the flood of advertisement is added a flood of less directly paid for propaganda in favour of modernity snobbery The public is taught that up to dateness is one of the first duties of man Docile it accepts the reiterated suggestion We are all modernity snobs now 13 4 Most of us are also art snobs There are two varieties of art snobbery the platonic and the unplatonic Platonic art snobs merely take an interest in art Unplatonic art snobs go further and actually buy art Unplatonic art snobbery is a hybrid or mule for it is simultaneously a sub species of culture snobbery and of possession snobbery A collection of works of art is a collection of culture symbols and culture symbols still carry social prestige It is also a collection of wealth symbols for an art collection can represent money more effectively than a whole fleet of motor cars 13 5 The value of art snobbery to living artists is considerable True most art snobs collect only the works of the dead for an Old Master is both a safer investment and a holier culture symbol than a living master 因为与非新潮势利符合生产商的利益 他也确实这样做了 每年以成百上千万元的 巨大规模 借助广告宣传 一些报纸竭力为给帮助过报纸的人提供帮助 除了这些到处泛滥的广告宣传 还有大量的 不那么直接花钱去做的而又有利于新潮势利的宣 传 公众被告知说跟上时代是人的首要责任之一 温顺的公众就这样接受了这个反复被强调的建议 他们通过广告 大力宣传其商品 费用高达多少 个百万 我们现在全成了新潮势利者 我们中的大部分人也是艺术势利者 艺术势利者分为两种 柏拉图式 纯精神 和非柏拉图式 柏拉图式的艺术势利者仅对艺术 感兴趣 而非柏拉图式势利者将更进一步 他们购买 艺术品 这种势利感是一种杂交品种或骡子 因为它 们既是文化势利的亚种又是财产势利的亚种 收集艺术作品也是收集文化象征 而文化象 征代表着社会声望 它也是财富的象征收集 因为艺术品的收集要比一长队的汽车能更有 效地代表金钱 艺术势利者对活着的艺术家有很大价值 Lesson Thirteen Selected Snobberies 5 的确 大部分艺术势利者只收集过世艺术家 的作品 因为相对于在世的大师 过世的大师是 一个更为安全的投资和更为神圣的文化象征 But some art snobs are also modernity snobs There are enough of them with the few eccentrics who like works of art for their own sake to provide living artists with the means of subsistence 13 6 The value of snobbery in general its humanistic point consists in its power to stimulate activity A society with plenty of snobberies is like a dog with plenty of fleas it is not likely to become comatose Every snobbery demands of its devotees unceasing efforts a succession of sacrifices The society snob must be perpetually lion hunting the modernity snob can never rest from trying to be up to date Swiss doctors and the Best that has been thought or said must be the daily and nightly preoccupation of all the snobs respectively of disease and culture 13 7 If we regard activity as being in itself a good then we must count all snobberies as good for all provoke activity If with the Buddhists we regard all activity in this world of illusion as bad then we shall condemn all snobberies out of hand Most of us I suppose take up our position somewhere between the two extremes We regard some activities as good others as indifferent or downright bad Our approval will be given only to such snobberies as excite what we regard as the better activities the others we shall either tolerate or detest 但某些文化势利者同时也是新潮势利者 他们这些人 再加上少数几个为喜欢艺术而 购买艺术作品的怪人 就足以为活着的艺术家提 供生活资料了 总的来说 势利的价值 即它与相关的 重 要性 在于它有刺激行动的能力 一个拥有各种各样势利追求的社会就像一只 全身长满跳蚤的狗 它不会变得麻木而没有生气 每一种势利都要求它的朝拜者不断地努力 做出 一系列牺牲 对社会地位势利者一定会不停地巴结社会名 流 新潮势利者从不会停止他们赶时髦的努力 瑞士的医生和那种被人为或被称为最好的艺 术一定分别是疾病势利和文化势利者日夜所关注 的对象 如果我们把活动本身视为好事 那么我们就 会把所有的势利当作是好的 因为它们全能引发 行动 如果从佛教徒的观点出发 认为这个万事皆 空的世界的一切活动都是坏的 那么我们就会立 刻谴责所有的势利行为 我想 我们中的大部分人的立场是介于这两 种极端之间 我们认为一些活动是好的 而另一些活动时 无所谓好