综英-Unit-12-The-New-Immorality.docx

Unit 12 The New Immorality The provost of one of our largest and honored institutions told me not long ago that a questionnaire was distributed to his undergraduates and 40 percent refused to acknowledge that they believed cheating on examinations to be reprehensible. 不久前，美国一所规模宏大、声名显赫的大学的教务长告诉我说，他们学校对本科生作了一次问卷调查，结果百分之四十的人并不认为考试作弊有什么可非议的。 Recently a reporter for a New York newspaper stopped 6 people on the street and asked them if they would consent to take part in a rigged television quiz for money. He reported that 5 of the 6 said yes. Yet most of these 5, like most of the college cheaters, would probably profess a strong social consciousness. They may cheat, but they vote for foreign aid and for enlightened social measures. 最近，纽约一家报纸的记者在大街上采访了六个人，问他们如果给予报酬，愿不愿意参加弄虚作假的电视知识竞赛。这位记者报道说，六个人中有五个人回答说愿意。然而，这五人中的大多数，就像大多数考试作弊的大学生一样，很可能会声称自己有着强烈的社会意识。他们尽管会作弊，但是又会支持对外援助，支持开明的社会举措。 These two examples exhibit a paradox of our age. It is often said, and my observation leads me to believe it is true, that our seemingly great growth in social morality has oddly enough taken place in a world where private morality- a sense of the supreme importance of purely personal honor, honesty, and integrity- seems to be declining. Beneficent and benevolent social institutions are administered by men who all too frequently turn out to be accepting “gifts”. The world of popular entertainment is rocked by scandal. College students, put on their honor, cheat on examination. Candidates for the Ph. D. hire ghostwriters to prepare their theses. 这两个事例揭示了我们时代的一个怪诞现象。人们常说，而我的所见所闻使我也对此深信不疑：我们的社会道德似乎有了长足的进步，而令人奇怪的是，就在我们这个社会里，个人道德观念-即把个人荣誉、正直和诚实视为至高无上的观念-却似乎正在沉沦。慈善机构的管理者往往是些收受“礼物”的人。大众娱乐界经常被丑闻搅得惊魂不定。大学生表面上很体面，考试却要作弊。博士生雇人代写论文。 But, one may object, havent all these things always been true? Is there really any evidence that personal dishonesty is more prevalent than it always was? 然而，有人会提出异议：这些现象难道不是由来已久吗？难道真有什么证据，证明个人的舞弊行为比以往更加盛行吗？ I have no way of making a historical measurement. Perhaps these things are not actually more prevalent. What I do know is that there is an interesting tendency to accept and take for granted such personal dishonesty. The bureaucrat and disk jockey say, “Well, yes, I took presents, but I assure you that I made just decision anyway.” The college student caught cheating does not even blush. He shrugs his shoulders and comments:” Everybody does it, and besides, I cant see that it really hurts anybody.” 我无法作出今昔对比。也许，这些现象目前其实并非更加普遍。可我确实知道，如今人们越来越趋向于接受这种个人舞弊行为，甚至认为是理所当然的事。官员和节目主持人会说：“不错，我是接受礼物了，不过我可以向你们担保，我所做的决定怎么说也是公正的。”大学生考试作弊被发现，连脸都不红，而只是耸耸肩，振振有词地说：“大家都是这么干的。再说，我看这实在不会损害任何人。” Jonathan Swift once said: “I have never been surprised to find men wicked, but I have often been surprised to find them not ashamed.” It is my conviction that though men may be no more wicked than they always have been, they seem less likely to be ashamed. if everybody does it, it must be right. Honest, moral, decent mean only what is usual. This is not really a wicked world, because morality means mores or manners and usual conduct is the only standard. Jonathan Swift曾说过：“我从未因为发现人们不讲道德而感到惊讶，但我常常因为发现人们不知羞耻而感到惊愕。”我相信，人们虽然未必比以前还要不讲道德，但似乎要比以前更加不知羞耻。只要人人这么做，这事就一定是正当的。所谓的诚实、道德、体面，只要随波逐流就行。其实，这还算不上是一个道德沦丧的世界，因为道德就意味着习俗和常规，行为是否合乎常规，这是惟一的标准。 The second part of the defense, “it really doesnt hurt anybody,” is equally revealing. “It doesnt hurt anybody” means it doesnt do that abstraction called society any harm. The harm it did to the bribe-taker and the cheater isnt important; it is purely personal, And persona, as opposed to social decency, doesnt count for much. Sometimes I am inclined to blame sociology for part of this paradox. Sociology has tended to lay exclusive stress upon social morality, and tended too often to define good and evil as merely the “socially useful or its reverse. 那个辩解的后半部分所说的“实在不会损害任何人”，同样发人深思。“不会损害任何人”，意思是说不会对社会这个抽象概念带来损害。对受贿者和舞弊者的危害是无关紧要的，那纯属个人的事。与社会文明相比，个人的德行是无足轻重的。有时候，我觉得社会学应对这一怪诞现象承担部分责任。社会学往往只注重社会道德，并往往只根据是否“对社会有益”，来界定善与恶。 What social morality and social conscience leave out is the narrower but very significant concept of honor-as opposed to what is sometimes called merely “socially desirable conduct”. The man of honor is not content to ask merely whether this or that will hurt society, or whether it is what most people would permit themselves to do. He asks, and he asks first of all, would it hurt him and his self-respect? Would it dishonor him personally? 社会道德和社会良知忽略了那个比较狭隘而又十分重要的荣誉观念-这是与有时被简单称作“为社会所认同的行为”相对而言的。讲究体面的人不会只扪心自问如此这般是否危害社会，或者大多数人是否肯这样做。他会问，而且首先会问：这样做是否会损害他自己，损害他的自尊？这样做是否会使他个人为之丢脸？ It was a favorite and no doubt sound argument among early twentieth-century reformers that “playing the game” as the gentleman was supposed to play it was not enough to make a decent society. They were right, it is not enough. But the time has come to add that it is indeed inevitable that the so-called social conscience unsupported by the concept of personal honor will create a corrupt society. But suppose that it doesnt? Suppose that no one except the individual suffers from the fact that he sees nothing wrong in doing what everybody else does? Even so, I still insist that for the individual himself nothing is more important than this personal, interior sense of right and wrong and his determination to follow that rather than to be guided by what everybody does or merely the criterion of “social usefulness”. It is impossible for me to imagine a good society composed of men without honor. 20世纪初的改革家们特别喜欢一个无疑很有力的论点：像绅士那样“规规矩矩地做人”，还不足以造就一个文明的社会。他们说得对：那的确还不够。不过，现在还应该补充一句：所谓的社会良知，如果没有个人的荣誉感作支撑，势必会引起社会的堕落。但是，假如没有造成这种局面呢？假如有人认为随波逐流没有什么不妥，结果受损害的只是他本人而不是别人呢？即便如此，我仍然坚持认为，对个人而言，最重要的莫过于这种植根于个人心灵深处的是非感，以及坚决按这种是非感行事的决心，而不是随波逐流，或仅仅以是否“对社会有益”为准则。我无法想象，丧失体面的人怎么能组成一个文明的社会。 We hear it said frequently that what present-day men most desire is security. If that is so, then they have a wrong notion of what the real, the ultimate, security is. No one who is dependent on anything outside himself, upon money, power, fame, or whatnot, is or ever can be secure. Only he who possesses himself and is content with himself is actually secure. Too much is being said about the importance of adjustment and “participation in the group”. Even cooperation, to give this thing its most favorable designation, is no more important than the ability to stand alone when the choice must be made between the sacrifice of ones own integrity and adjustment to or participation in group activity. 我们听人常说，当代人最渴望的是安全感。如果真是这样，那他们就不懂得什么是真正的、最大限度的安全。