河海大学研究生英语一Unit2IndividualsandMasses

1、Unit 2 Individuals and MassesA man or woman makes direct contact with society in two ways: as a member of some familial, professional or religious group, or as a member of a crowd. Groups are capable of being as moral and intelligent as the individuals who form them; a crowd is chaotic, has no purpo

2、se of its own and is capable of anything except intelligent action and realistic thinking. Assembled in a crowd, people lose their powers of reasoni ng and their capacity for moral choice. Their suggestibility is increased to the point w here they cease to have any judgement or will of their own. Th

3、ey become very excitab le, they lose all sense of individual or collective responsibility, they are subject to sud den excesses of rage, enthusiasm and panic. In a word, a man in a crowd behaves as though he had swallowed a large dose of some powerful intoxicant. He is a victim of what I have called

4、' herd-poisoning'. Like alcohol, herd- poison is an active, extrava gant drug. The crowd-intoxicated individual escapes from responsibility, intelligence and morality into a kind of frantic, animal mindlessness.人们通过两种方式与社会直接联系：作为家庭、职业或者宗教组织的成员， 或者是某个群体的成员。组织与组成他们的个体有一样的道德和智慧，群体是混乱的，没有自己的目的而且

5、只能做除了明智行动和理性思考之外的事。组成群体的人们，失去了他们推理的力量和道德选择的能力，他们的暗示感受性提高到了停止有任何判断或有自己的意志的地步，变得极易兴奋，丢掉了所有的个人 感受和集体责任，易于突然的暴怒、狂热和极度恐惧。J 总之，身处群体的人 表现得就好像吞了大剂量的烈性麻醉品，成了被称之为群体中毒的受害者。和酒精一样，群体毒药是一种极度兴奋的药物。被这种群体药物麻醉的人逃避责任， 不愿动脑子，失去道德感，变得和疯狂的动物一样盲目。Reading is a private, not a collective activity. The writer speaks only to i

6、ndividu als, sitting by themselves in a state of normal sobriety. The orator speaks to masses of individuals, already well-primed with herd-poison. They are at his mercy and, if he kn ows his business, he can do what he likes with them.阅读是一种个人而非集体的思维活动，作者仅对身处一种普遍冷静状态的人 叙述。而演讲者对大量已经被群体毒药灌满的人演说，如果演讲者知

7、道这个群体 在他的控制下，他就可以利用他们做事。Unlike the masses, intellectuals have a taste for rationality and an interest in facts .Their critical habit of mind makes them resistant to the kind of propaganda that work s so well on the majority. Intellectuals are the kind of people who demand evidenc e and are shocked b

8、y logical inconsistencies and fallacies. They regard over-simplific ation as the original sin of the mind and have no use for the slogans, the unqualified as sertions and sweeping generalizations which are the propagandist's stock-in- trade.和大多数人不一样，智识分子崇尚理性，讲究事实。他们批判性的思维习惯 使得他们抵抗住这种对大多数人有效的宣传。智

9、识分子就是这种讲求证据以及对逻辑的不一致与谬论感到震惊的人。他们认为过于简单化是思想的原罪，他 们不喜欢标语、绝对的断言和全面的概论等煽动者的惯用手法。Philosophy teaches us to feel uncertain about the things that seem to us self-evid ent. Propaganda, on the other hand, teaches us to accept as self-evident matters about which it would be reasonable to suspend our judgement

10、or to feel doubt. The propagandist must therefore be consistently dogmatic. All his statements are made without qualifications. There are no greys in his picture of the world; everything is either diabolically black or celestially white. He must never admit that he might be w rong or that people wit

11、h a different point of view might be even partially right. Oppon ents should not be argued with; they should be attacked, shouted down, or if they beco me too much of a nuisance, liquidated.哲学告诉我们要对那些似乎不证自明的事物进行怀疑。相反，煽动者教我们接受那些本应该推迟我们的判断或觉得疑惑的不言而喻的事物。因而他一定是一贯地教条主义的，所有他的陈述都是无条件成立的。在他描绘的世界里没有灰色，所有事物要么

12、是凶暴地黑要么是崇高地白。他决不承认自己可能会错，也决不承认持不同意见的人可能局部是对的。他们不会跟反对者理论，他们会攻击，咆哮，如果反对者太过讨厌，就会被除掉。Virtue and intelligence belong to human beings as individuals freely associating with other individuals in small groups. So do sin and stupidity. But the subhuman min dlessness to which the demagogue makes his appeal, t

13、he moral imbecility on which he relies when he goads his victims into action, are characteristic not of men and women as individuals, but of men and women in masses. Mindlessness and moral idiocy are not characteristically human attributes; they are symptoms of herd-poisoning. In al l the world'

14、s higher religions, salvation and enlightenment are for individuals. The kin gdom of heaven is within the mind of a person, not within the collective mindlessness of a crowd.美德与智慧是人类作为个体在小组织里与其他个体自由交往的特点，罪恶与愚钝也是。但是煽动者鼓吹的次人类的盲目和唆使受害者行动所依靠的道德低能 并不是人作为个体的特点而是人在群体中的特点。盲目和道德障碍不是人的特性，而是群体中毒后的症状。在全世界更高级的宗教

15、里，拯救和启蒙的对象都 是个人。大国在个人的心里，而不是在群体的集体盲目中。In an age of accelerating over-population, of accelerating over-organization and e ver more efficient means of mass communication, how can we preserve the integrity and reassert the value of the human individual? This is a question that can still be aske d and perhaps effectively answered. A generation from now it may be too late to f